It's me again

I'm not even going to apologize for my delinquency, or promise to be more faithful. We all know that may never happen. But I will try.

I just got home from what could have been a delightful trip, but turned into a nightmare because of weather delays and so on. We headed out of here early one Friday morning with high hopes of arriving in NYC around 2 pm. It seemed like a simple thing. It WAS a nonstop after all. But it took us 14 hours before we got there. We couldn't take off and then we couldn't land and then we ran out of gas and had to turn back at which time we were threatened with the possibility of having to spend the night in the airport in Detroit. It was worse coming home. I have decided it's due to rising fuel prices. The airlines must cut costs somehow, so they don't replace planes as frequently as they used to, which means we are flying on planes that have been duct taped together and break down more often. Then they overbook because they make more money if the plane is full. So the poor schmucks who have cancelled or bumped flights don't have a prayer of getting on another plane. They are the ones sitting around at the gate with a glazed expression, mumbling incoherently. However, they try to placate the plebes by rolling out carts of snacks. You have cheesy crackers with peanut butter, little bags of peanuts, candy bars with peanuts, etc. I'm sure they are hoping someone will have an allergic reaction, which will leave a seat vacant on the next flight. But they have to delay the flights to give the baggage handlers plenty of time to mutilate your luggage and throw it on the wrong plane. This trip I had a relatively new suitcase, well made. One of the handlers must have taken a wrench to one of the wheels and yanked it off. There was a little bloody stump sticking out. Sad. Of course, wheels are not covered when you try to make a claim. Actually, whatever it is you want to make a claim on, is not covered today. Yes, I am jaded.

Now here's another story on an unrelated topic. I bought 2 pairs of jeans at the same store. They are a store brand, same size, same style, same color. I tried both pairs on before purchase. Both fit fine. I started wearing them. One pair I love. The other one, inexplicably falls down after a few hours. I find myself constantly yanking them up. I try to keep them separate in the closet but invariably I end up somewhere, other than home, wearing the bad ones. So this week, I carefully examined them to see what I had missed. I verified the size and style number again. However, one pair was made in China and the other one, Bangladesh. Aha! Yesterday I wore my Chinese pants, today the Bangladeshi pants. I think the Chinese pants are the bad ones. So, now do I go tell the clerks at the store, or keep this bit of information to myself? Bionic Man says he's not surprised. When he was working, he found the Chinese were willing to cut corners. The Bangladeshi's were more particular on specifications. I just have to make sure I always buy the Bangladeshi pants.

This afternoon I came out of my cocoon to fix dinner and the house was HOT. What is going on? I almost never have the thermostat set over 68 so it didn't occur to me to go look there. But it's unbearable. So, naturally I think I must be dying or something. Bionic Man checked the thermostat. It's 85! I guess earlier in the day when I was delirious, I dusted the house and must have bumped it. Good Grief! That just goes to show you, you should never dust your house.

I'm now signing off.

Scrunchy Hoses--as seen on TV

Have you seen those scrunchy hoses sold on TV? I'm sure they have another name, but the idea is that they scrunch up when not in use and look sort of like just washed pantyhose legs. Bionic Man decided that he would love to get a few of those and happened upon them in a local store. Be advised, they are not everything they claim to be. Oh, they do conserve space, and the theory is a good one. However, they tend to burst under pressure. They are only under pressure when water is coursing through them, so if you only want one to hang on the side of the house, you're good. If you want to actually use one, you aren't so lucky. I'm trying to be charitable here. After his second one burst, he decided to try to fix them. It has become a daily ritual now. Trouble is that every time they burst and get fixed they are a bit shorter. Undaunted, this activity continues. I am envisioning the day when he is standing with his 18 inch hose, next to the house, trying to water the lawn, or wash the car.

glow in the dark underwear

I didn't want anyone to think that I had a lack of things to keep me entertained. We have problems here that no one has ever thought of before. Here's the latest. Tag-less underwear is an issue for Bionic Man. When he gets dressed in the dark he can't tell the front from the back. Now, I did point out that it's more of a problem for me, as my underwear doesn't have a hole in the front like his does. But then you may ask, why are we getting dressed in the dark anyway? Why not turn on a light? This would be too easy. It could one day become a game show thing. We need to practice. So, I came up with a solution. Did you know you can buy glow in the dark fabric paint? So, all I need to do is get some of that, and paint in his underwear, back and front, or if I wanted to mess with him a little I could reverse it in one or two pairs. However, he pointed out that I would then need to lay them all out on the window sill so they could get 'charged up'. This will not be a project we undertake when company is coming. And I'm wondering what it will be like to wear charged up underwear. More to come on this.

Obsessions

Between my husband and my cat I am going to lose my mind. Lately my cat has started yowling continually all day long. It used to be an alert that she wanted a treat, or her litter box wasn't perfect, or some other strange manifestation was going on. Now it seems to be all the time, for no particular reason. I started yowling back at her and it worked for a while, but now she answers me. I wonder what I am saying. I also tried giving her a time out in the bathroom. That worked once or twice, but she's on to me. I took her to the vet today and he says she has kidney disease. He actually mentioned the possibility of a transplant. I am rolling my eyes at this point. He must have forgotten I was the lady who opted not to have her cat's teeth cleaned, at a small cost to me of $395 each time. Is it just me, or does that seem a bit out of line? He might tell me if I had had her teeth cleaned annually she might not have kidney disease now. But, I pointed out to him that I could have my own teeth cleaned for a mere $100, at the time. It somehow seemed silly to spend that much on my cat's teeth, and I also wasn't interested in braces, FYI. Kidney transplant?! You must be kidding. So, then perhaps dialysis? You have to seriously ask yourself how far you are willing to go.

Then there's my husband, of 42 years who has suddenly decided that he wants to train for a triathlon. The ONLY thing standing in his way is that he isn't an Olympic swimmer. He needs to learn the freestyle, which has always eluded him. So he signs up and prepays for lessons at the local gym. Now, I am thinking sure, that's the only thing standing in his way here. It would be as if I decided that I was going to be a prima ballerina and the only thing standing in my way was that I didn't have a tutu. I digress. After his first lesson he came home all discouraged because he just couldn't get the timing down. So, he decided that he would switch to the breast stroke. Picture this: He sits in the dining room with his iPad, watching videos of people doing the breast stroke, and tries to imitate them sitting on his chair. I do wish I had a video camera. But that wasn't efficient, so he tried laying on the floor. But the floor was hard and got in the way. So tonight he was laying across a chair counting and waving his arms and kicking his feet. He even bought these peculiar swim fins that are rounded and look like duck bills. He says they are trainers. But the last time at the pool, he says, that no matter how hard he kicked his feet and waved his arms, he didn't go anyplace. I said maybe he could patent it as a new way to tread water. He was not amused.

Neither of these things would be so bad if they weren't going on continually ALL THE TIME. You know, years ago I didn't understand when an older friend of mine went out and got a job when her husband retired. I'm beginning to see the wisdom in that.

The latst

We actually went 10 days without a sighting of ants. I was caught off guard this morning when I got out into the kitchen. Everything was going along swimmingly until I was almost done getting breakfast started. Then I saw a very large ant, just laying out int the middle of the floor in front of the stove. He was quite dead. I know he wasn't there all along. I surely would have seen him. I had no more than removed the carcass when I turned around and there were 2 more bodies. This was very odd because they must have been dragged and deposited, but it had to have happened quickly because I didn't see it happen. It's starting to creep me out. Finding the bodies all over.

On an unrelated topic, I doubt if any of you know that girls in college during the 40's were required to take a semester of training in working in a hospital, just in case they were needed to help in that way during the war. And that is how my mother learned to do hospital corners when making a bed. So now that's how I make a bed. But I have always had a problem folding fitted sheets. And I'm sure Mom never learned how to do that since fitted sheets were invented later. I did work in a laundry one summer during my college tenure, and learned how to fold flat sheets as they came out of the mangles. I think we laundered sheets for the hotels in town. And I could digress into just how the mangles got their name. But we didn't do fitted. There must be a way to do it neatly, but it eludes me. I even found a web site devoted to that sort of thing and the directions were impossible. Clearly, my sheets are prescient or something. It's like wrestling a 2 year old into the bathtub. These sheets have a mind of their own.

This is War!

Last week we had bodies littering the counter and floor. Bionic Man went to Menards to buy ant traps. Normally, for indoor use, you would buy those tiny little traps. But this called for more serious measures. He bought the big ones you are supposed to pound into the ground outside. He cut the stakes off so he could use them indoors. They were strategically placed. And we waited. We found a few ants the following day and then just random ones. I was not naive enough to believe that we had routed them or won. This morning I found 3 more, in the kitchen. Two were clearly staggering across the floor. They had eaten the poison. Shazam! The third one was larger and seemed fine. The big one must have come to investigate the untimely deaths of many of his friends, but had not, himself, imbibed. I remember the outcome of the poisoning in the other house. One morning I awoke to find several large ants dragging bodies into piles. I am not making this up! It was kind of like a scene from the Black Death in Europe. And 3 or 4 of the larger ants were really piling up their comrades. The piles were rather large too. I think I needed a tranquilizer that day. We vacuumed them up before we knew what they planned to do with the piles once they were done. Mind boggling. Maybe the next step was burning the piles so as not to spread the disease.

ants and tires

Yes, I'm back. It's been a crazy year and again, I am hoping to do better. But for those of you who may have read previous posts about the ants that live about me. I am referring to the large black ants, not the little grease ants. We could never rid the previous house of them. I enjoyed 11 years of respite from their harassment. They are back in full force. First, I would really really like to know where ants come from in the middle of sub zero weather in January?!? Shouldn't they all be dead, or hibernating or something? And why are they living with me? Why couldn't they go live with someone else? A friend of mine suggested that I was ant-free for 11 years because ants have really teeny legs and it took them this long to find me. I just killed 6 and 4 more got away. Now, seriously, shouldn't this be a July problem? We begin war games tomorrow. Meanwhile, Bionic Man is keeping the bodies in a jar to be an example to the rest.

Second, I know I have also mentioned the display on my car that notifies me of the obvious. You maybe slip a little on the ice and the display reads "Ice may be possible." So I drove my car for 3 months while it kept telling me the air pressure was low in my tires. Bionic Man said he checked the tires and everything was just fine. Something must be wrong with the sensor. I bought into that, until the usher at our church came and got him in the middle of the service one week. He said the tires were so low in back that he wasn't sure it was safe to drive and he would follow Bionic Man to the gas station to get air. I'm wondering what happened. It seems he was only checking the front tires. I suppose it's like the man who lost his wallet and never checked his dresser because he had looked everywhere else and if it wasn't on the dresser he didn't know what he'd do. So, I guess, if the display warns you that air pressure is low you have to check all 4 tires, not just 2 of them. Go figure.

Printers and Me

Due to some quirks of fate, we have 3 printers. Most normal people get along fine for years with one, but we have 3. It wouldn't be so bad except they have resided in the living room for several years, this phalanx of printers. My favorite one is the oldest one and it only prints. It's pretty archaic, and very slow, but it's faithful and dependable. The second one makes copies, and scans also, and the third one, well who knows. The first one almost always works for me, the second one is sporadic and the third one never works.

So this morning I happened to mention that I thought I would go shopping for a special unit that would hold all the printers on separate shelves, in another room. They sort of detract from the ambiance in here. Bionic Man was astounded. Apparently he had no idea I wanted them out of the living room. Thus followed some stomping around and muttering as he rearranged things. My favorite one is now disconnected and gone. I'm being punished. I will never be able to print again. I have been assured that printer #3 will work for me. But I think electronic things sense doubt.

Facebook frustrations, etc

There comes a time in the life of a person, such as myself, when you can no longer remain silent on some things. A couple things have been rolling around in my head so here goes. First, I believe I have communicated some of my displeasure with Facebook as an entity. I figured I could maintain my account and check it annually, and not miss too much, except perhaps, who is eating muffins for breakfast and whose toddler burped this morning. So, imagine my shock and dismay when I went to log in for my annual scan, and was told that my password no longer was valid. Believe me, I was dumbfounded. This is like adding insult to injury. I already consider it a supreme waste of time and effort and they have disabled my password?!?!  Apparently I missed the memo on how they were redoing things and I had to change things. rrrrrrrrrrrrr  This did not endear me further. But I now have a new password. I just hope I can remember it and they don't pull the rug out again before next October.

And now I can't remember the second thing. I was called away on a wooly worm emergency. Stevie was escaping soon if I didn't find new net to cover the opening in the cheese balls jar. And we had to go buy cheese balls to have a container suitable for Stevie's abode. Whatever will I do with a gallon and a half of cheese balls?

Maybe the other topic will spring to mind later.

Flame Throwers

I know it's been a while since my last post. I mean well, and I'm hoping some of you have been getting my mental blogs. But that's another subject. And I have no idea what possesses me today. I'm supposed to be packing a suitcase and getting ready to leave and here I am.

But this week was the week that Bionic Man bought his flame thrower. I had no idea an average citizen could just go out and buy one of those. And this was after he attempted to make one himself. ?! I guess he decided that making it himself was going to be more trouble than buying one. While he was at it I asked him to make me a rocket launcher. As long as we're building up our arsenal, why not? And all those ants won't know what hit them. Of course, it may be overkill, but sometimes you do what you have to do. It brings to mind the story of 'Henry's Awful Mistake', which is a story about a duck who destroys his entire house as he is trying to kill an ant, one ant! Unfortunately, the very same ant shows up in his new house. And this just points up how very intelligent ants are, and that I am not the only one to think this. I must never let my guard down!

But back to the flame thrower. Bionic Man is using it to kill weeds. Sure beats pulling them. Did you know you could just walk into Menards and buy one, no license, no certification of mental wellness, nothing?

Schlumpf and such

I was minding my own business today when Bionic man appeared in his bike gear. He was all dejected because his Schlumpf gears were broken. Seriously? There is really something out there with that name? To me that sounds like a sound you make when you sit down in a bean bag chair. Then I started thinking about other interesting product names. Smuckers always puzzled me. That should be the name of something you hit together in a game small children play. It does not make me think of something yummy to eat. Of course there are those who capitalize on their names, like Flatt Tire. But Schlumpf?! Really?

Circus insects

Insects and I do not dwell together harmoniously. I seem to be the only person in the world who gets ants in their hummingbird feeder. I have pondered this issue. They have to first leap across from the post to the feeder, which is hanging on a rope. Then they have to s-q-u-e-e-z-e through the teensy hole that the birds use to access the nectar. And then they have to crawl up a minute little tube to reach the nectar, where they drown and end up floating. These are not the tiny grease ants. These are the half inch long black ones. So, they must train at a camp for circus ants. They are taught to do acrobatics, and how to be contortionists.

But that being said, I apparently have attracted some circus spiders as well. I was washing my face in the bathroom one night when suddenly, (Drum roll here), a spider came sailing out of the air on a thread. I would have said he was rappelling but I think you do that against a wall. He dipped and wove around, all the while performing hair raising stunts, and then, as quickly as he appeared, he rose back into the air and crawled away on the ceiling. I was stunned. What's next? Clown grasshoppers?

Oil Life and mine

Good news, everyone. Bionic Man made the huge decision to get my oil changed. The fact that we were about to embark on an 800 mile roadtrip might have influenced him. The oil life had diminished to 1%. He was so excited.

And now I can relax.

Throw off the Mayonnaise Tyranny

I've been married for 41 years to someone I don't even know. Tonight we were driving along with my mother and discovered that he doesn't like mayonnaise!! He's been PRETENDING to like it all these years, even when I refuse to eat it, he pretends. And then he acts all self righteous when I say I don't like it. What is up with that?! And then, wonder of wonders, my Mother says she doesn't really like it that much either!! So it made me wonder, does anyone in the world really like it at all? Am I just the only one bold enough to admit it? It is the chic thing to eat on everything and everyone else is afraid to admit it? Is it like the Emperor's new clothes? I say let's throw off the tyranny of mayonnaise!! Let's substitute whipped cream.

Then there's the issue of potato salad. I feel like the only one in the state of Iowa who doesn't eat potato salad. There are several issues involved. First, there's just something wrong about eating a cold cooked potato. But raw onions give me the heebie jeebies, and mustard should be banned. And then you slop mayonnaise on top of everything. I suppose the theory is no one will notice the potatoes are cold, the onions are raw, and there's mustard in it if you put enough mayonnaise on it. They will be so grossed out by the mayonnaise, they won't notice the rest. But here's the weird part, neither my mother or my husband like potato salad very much either. They've been pretending!!

I say let's throw off the mayonnaise tyranny!! NOW!!

Pay Back

I am sure this is payback for the brow plucking. My instrument panel says CHANGE OIL SOON. Bionic Man insists that I have 4% of my 'oil value' left, whatever that means. He says he wants to wait until the bitter end, which may be truer than you think, before he changes the oil. He wants to see how many miles I can get. What he doesn't understand is the level of anxiety I have as I'm driving along on the freeway and these capital letters are staring at me. I try to not stare at them, and think about how I'm going to burn up the engine and the car will roll over and I'll perish in the ditch somewhere, and no one will find me for hours. I know this is something an engineer needs to do as some kind of benchmark. And people wonder how I developed ulcers. But I really think getting down to 4% should be good enough.

The eyebrow incident

We had another eyebrow incident the other day. There were a couple of recalcitrant brow hairs. One was poking him in the eye. How does this NOT bother him? He agreed to a thinning of the herd, so to speak. He said he would be calm. We had a 4 hair-ectomy. Bionic Man was near tears. He said it was torture. This led my imagination to prisoner of war movies. . .

The prisoner is strapped to a metal table under relentless bright lights. The enemy soldier is wielding a pair of tweezers. He says, "You vill talk. Ve need de names of all your conspirators. You vill tell me or I vill pluck your brows." The prisoner screams in agony, "No, no, I'll tell you anything. Just no more plucking." Maniacal laugh here. Great stuff.

The Hazards of Too Much Exercise

We were gone 17 days, and all time high for us. Almost everyday I heard Bionic Man bemoaning the fact that he couldn't get his exercise routine in and how out of shape he was getting and how his legs were sore from lack of exercise. I hated to gloat, but I had none of those problems because I rarely exercise. Tomorrow after he weighs himself I know he will have gained weight too. I probably won't have that issue either. So you see, there are positives to not exercising much. I know, I know, I must redeem myself and I shouldn't be proud of that. I'll work on it. I'm just trying to make lemonade from lemons.

Decoy Cards and Belly Buttons

I have figured it out! Whenever we stay at a hotel, my key card does not work. It doesn't matter whether we're at the Hyatt in New York City, or the Super 8 in London, Kentucky, Bionic Man has a card that works, and mine doesn't. Tonight I figured it out. He always uses a card and says, "See, it works fine. You take this one." Obviously, he has used it up before he gives it to me. I thought perhaps my magnetic personality was ruining the strip on the card, or mine was the decoy card, You know, like the decoy bag on the airport conveyor belt that keeps all the passengers hopeful. But, no, mine is simply used up.

Which brings me to subject #2, inexplicable teen girls. As we entered the elevator to go up to the third floor, 2 sweet young things, got off the elevator and apologized as they exited. They were wearing swimsuits, giggling, texting, and generally acting teen-like. We puzzled at what, exactly they were apologizing for. But we observed them later in the parking lot, in the lobby, all over, doing the same things, in the same attire. So, were they apologizing for their attire, their rudeness, or their general demeanor? Who can guess? I believe they were a part of a birthday party that was leaving about the time we returned from dinner. Everyone was wearing skinny, tight tops, and they were all about 30 pounds heavier than they should have been in those shirts. We wondered if it was a club for chubby teens, or a belly button organization of some kind.

Southern Speak

I am visiting in the South for 2 weeks. It's another country here, in case you have never been before. I feel like a foreigner. I am sure I stick out like a roll of fat under a belly shirt, by everything I do and say, but I suddenly realized this week that I have been pronouncing Greenville in a northern way. I must correct myself. We in the north would say Green-ville, long 'e', short 'i'. They say Green-vull, long 'e', short 'u', and sort of swallow the second syllable. I'm practicing. I doubt I'll ever fit in. (Hand to forehead here--'Oh, Rhett, whatever will I do?')

Pinky and the Brain

Does anyone remember Animaniacs and those characters, Pinky and the Brain? As we were traveling along today from Ohio to South Carolina, using a GPS, I thought of Pinky and the Brain. (As a little aside here, I remember when my daughter was in 5th grade the teacher gave them all pencils with their names on them for Christmas, and everyone thought it ever so humorous that the boy in the class named 'Brian', got pencils that said 'Brain' on them. But I digress.) We were both getting quite annoyed with the lady inside the box. She does not even allow you to stop for food or gas without getting verklempt and becoming very agitated. You start trying to do whatever she says just to keep her happy. So I decided that it would make a great story for Pinky and the Brain, who, if you remember, were always hatching plots to take over the world. In this episode they would take over everyone's GPS and direct people to obey them and go the same place. No one would be allowed to eat or go to the bathroom until they complied.