Keeping busy-ish.

We went to Eastern Oregon last weekend (July 27-29) for a surprise birthday party for my mom.

Zipped out of town on Friday morning and came home Sunday afternoon.

Lots of fires in Oregon right now. Our usual route (through Service Creek) was blocked for a time by a fire that burned along the highway for about six miles. Up the rock escarpments and across high desert grasslands. They had reopened the highway about a half hour before we drove through.

It was rreeallly smoky, so much so that I need to replace the cabin air filter in my car, even though I had put it on recirc as we drove through.

It's a long drive. Took us almost six hours to get there.
We had to go slow in some places. We also stopped a couple times.
Food for Eric, little girl's room for me in Hood River, then a 2nd pee stop at Shelton County Park outside Fossil.

Great place to pee.
Photo was not taken during the smoke pee stop.
Isn't even my photo.

This is I-84 on our way home. Mosier, near The Dalles.
If you zoom in, you'll see the freeway goes right through the fire.
Which we did.

This is Cathedral Rock, John Day Fossil Beds national monument.
It was a clear day, the sky was that color from the smoke.

I've been making some tie dyed stuff. I made some pajama shirts for Mom, it was the only thing she asked for. She's been asking for awhile... it's just one of those labor-intensive things I don't do very often. I can always find something else to be doing.

Just so we're clear, the pictures are of some baby clothes I did at the same time for a friend who's about to have a little girl. They're not Mom's pajama shirts.

Mom and her mother in law had birthdays three days apart.
No one said anything when it was decided early on that they'd just share their birthdays.

They always had whatever cake Grandma wanted. And went to Grandma's house  or to a location of Grandma's choosing to celebrate 'their' birthday. It never occurred to any of us that Mom would have liked to have her own birthday. She wasn't very good at standing up for herself.

She planned parties for Dad every year in June.

She never said a word about her own birthday.

So she was surprised last weekend. She didn't know anything about it. My aunt and uncle (Mom's sister) drove up from California, although they didn't tell her why, just that it was time for the annual visit.

So we all went to the venue (local senior center, closed on Saturdays but opened for the family and 200 bucks) and set everything up. The guests were all in place when my aunt and uncle brought her in. At first she had no idea what was going on, we were blowing party noisemakers and yelling happy birthday. She said, "It's not my birthday yet." Which it wasn't, but a couple weeks early was the only time we could all do it.

Cake and pizza and assorted food and gifts.

She was touched by it and told Steve that she had not had a birthday party since she was a child.
So I guess the event was successful. I know it was important to Mom.

It took me a couple days to rest up afterward. Long drive, and I usually drive. I slept a lot on Monday.

And now I'm at the end of summer, or almost. Next week I start planning-at-home hours, meaning if I don't get shit cleaned up and things organized this week, I am going to be running behind the whole school year. And none of us want that.

What are you up to?
Hot enough for ya?

Picnic Day

We drove up to a little-known campground/picnic area today.

Quiet up there, until about 3 we were the only people there.

I took a few photos.
I had planned to bring my good camera and we left without it.
So these are phone pics.

The first one is of the elusive Forest Camel.
You don't see many of those in the wild anymore.

Camel Toe not pictured

The next one I took because the way the sun was coming through the trees made some of the green sort of glowy. I see that spell check has queried that word, so now I have to teach my spell checker that glowy is absolutely a word.

This picture just was sort of cool. Sitting in my big assed camp chair, head back watching for a bird that we kept hearing but never did see.

Then when we got back in cell phone range, I had a text/photo message from our son. He works for the state and was on assignment in Eastern Oregon when this happened.

The tire apparently just...disintegrated. He said the tread was fine this morning, that it was not a retread and he had no idea what happened. I'm just grateful it wasn't a front tire (he was on the freeway) and that he and his co-worker are both fine.

Beachy!

We have been going every year for a long time.
I don't usually say anything about it on social media until we're home.

We're home.

I brought the real camera. It's an old camera, I'm doing some mental math trying to remember when I bought it. Gave up and looked up an excursion we took after I bought it. 2008. So it's been with me for awhile.

I found a telephoto lens when Circuit City was closing down. I think it cost me about 40 bucks. It's great for getting closer to places I either can't get to or in the case of the geese down below, I can get close without scaring anything.

Like the cliff across the little cove from our room.


I liked the way the sun was hitting the waves near sunset. It made them glow.

I work with a guy. Let's call him Dave. He's our IT guy. In charge of the warehouse and ordering various things as well. I really love him. He's a guy with a sense of humor and is one of the nicest big kids (he's Matt's age) I know.

I messaged him on Wednesday because my assistant let me know that we needed some more food service gloves and our delivery is scheduled for Thursday.

So I sent Dave a text.
Dave is a smarty pants, but he's funny. We laugh often. So when he responded that he would take care of it and told me he hoped I would have a great time and come back all relaxed. We have a running joke about customer service and the typo I made once (ordered 2500 pieces of cheese for snacks instead of 25) and he mentioned that. Haha.

I responded by letting him know I'd name a seagull after him.
There was one who kept coming up to our back patio door and looking in our window. So I named him Dave and sent a couple photos to the other Dave. Wish I'd thought to grab a feather, there are usually a few blowing around the lawn at the resort.

There was a family of Canada geese wandering around the grounds.
Five babies and a couple proud parents.

I can hear a couple of you going, 

Uh, CANADIAN geese... but no. It's Canada goose. I looked it up.
Doesn't matter what you call them anyway, they're not going to come when you call them. Haha.

So now we're home.
I managed to do some laundry. The dishwasher is running as we speak.
I'm tired, didn't get a lot of rest last night. As much as I like getting away, I love being back home, too.

I've heard from Jim a couple times over the last 10 days. He doesn't like being in charge and is looking forward to my return on Monday.

Okay, that's the excitement for the last 10 days in my life.
How are things where you are?

A week in the life... (dipshits and donorcycles)

We've all had one of those weeks, right?.

Nothing completely horrible happens, but it's just one pain in the ass after another?

Or is that just me?

I woke up with a headache every damn morning this week. This is probably because I haven't slept right for a couple weeks now.

I have awakened every couple of hours to pee. Or Eric wakes up to pee, I  wake up enough to realize he is up, figure I may as well get up and do the same thing or I'll have to in another hour or so anyway. Then I'm awake and my brain climbs aboard the crazy train and starts zooming around the track.

If the pee parade happens after it starts to get light outside, then I start obsessing about what time is it? and how much more sleep can I get before it's officially time to get up? And then I start thinking about what has to happen on that particular day. I look at my phone every 10 minutes or so to see what time it is and then I end up fumbling for my reading glasses and checking the weather or my email or FB.

Yes, I know those are all terrible ideas, as is having my phone next to the bed in the first place. Not the first or the worst terrible idea I've had, but I'll be picking up a little battery operated alarm clock next time I'm out. Phone needs to be in another room, I think.

Then I usually doze off and get the best damn sleep of the night about 45 minutes before I have to get out of bed. Shit.

It was the last week of school for me. Most of the other schools in the area were out last week or even the week before, but the district where I work had school until June 21st.

So there was no school on Monday because of the holiday.
Business as usual on Tuesday and Wednesday, except of course our entire program had to be removed from the building, so we were trying to pack around the edges while running regular programming. Not an easy task even with a group that doesn't climb walls.

Things were marginally easier because Dave's college classes are over for the summer so he was able to come to program to help those last two days. He's a nice kid and the children like him, so they're not constantly seeking assistance from me.

I am there to help, and I love them, but sometimes they're more needy than I'd like. My assistant is terrific, but she's overwhelmed at times with the kid stuff, too. So having an extra person is great.

Last kids were picked up at 5:55 on Wednesday. We put out some boxes and tape and kind of left things in a mess because Thursday was move out day.

I got about 4 hours of sleep on Wednesday night, I went to bed around midnight, got up every couple hours to pee, checked my alarm to make sure I wasn't going to oversleep, obsessed about where I was going to put things that I was bringing home, worried about dumb stuff and had fitful dreams when I did manage to doze off.

Even though I ended up getting out of bed an hour early, I was running behind by the time I got out the door.

It was dumbass day on the freeway.
I had thought Sunday was designated this week, so had planned to stay home. Ha, joke's on me, I guess.

It was a little congested and only going 50 to 55 when I merged into the river of traffic, but at least it was moving along.

I hadn't been on the freeway more than two minutes and here comes some guy on a donorcycle, cruising in the goddamn breakdown lane!! on the left of all the traffic. He suddenly decided to cut across a couple lanes to exit the freeway and almost got taken out by a semi who changed from the center to the right lane after signaling.

The semi driver never even saw the motorcyclist, and the fact they avoided colliding was a miracle.

It would have been 100% the fault of the dipshit on the donorcycle, but even if it's not their fault, most humans behind the wheel of a vehicle that permanently removes someone from life are probably haunted by it all the same.

I know I would be.

Personally, I'm getting tired of the people on motorcycles playing games. They are lane splitting, changing lanes unexpectedly, taking huge chances with their safety and the safety of everyone else on the road. And someone is spending a lot of money on advertising campaigns, exhorting people who aren't stupid (or at least not in the same way they are...) to SHARE THE ROAD or SEE MOTORCYCLES .

Oh I see you, Asshole.
You're the fuckwit zipping in and out of traffic.
Even when everyone is going 70 or even 80, you're still passing people between lanes or in the breakdown lane.

It's not an exaggeration to say I see at least two near misses every single week during my commute. The vast majority of those deathtime-for-badass-biker-boy moments are caused by the idiot on the bike.

Yeah, I know there are responsible riders out there.
I see them, too.

But most of the time, it's someone who thinks they're invincible and doesn't care if they hurt someone else on their way to wherever they're headed after they die.

And think about this.
When you get out on the road, you're trusting everyone else out there to not be stupid behind the wheel. You're trusting an enormous, varied population of random strangers not to kill you.

I'd think if a person were on a motorcycle, they'd be a little more cautious, considering that whole random stranger thing.

Speaking of trusting the random strangers on the freeways...

I got on the freeway to come home on Tuesday. Not much traffic when I merged, the lanes behind me were mostly clear for about a half mile, an advantage of leaving my school after 6 PM. I did see one car in the left lane a little closer. I was in the far right travel lane coming up to an exit, a little behind and to the right of a small pickup when I caught motion in my peripheral vision on the left. By instinct I just pulled the wheel to the right, making room for the idiot who'd been behind everyone in the far left lane to swoop across every other lane of traffic to take the off ramp. I have NO idea how there was enough room between the right rear of the car in front of me and my left front bumper for him to squeak through, but he took the off ramp and no one died.

Another reason it wouldn't be a good idea for me to drive while armed, I guess. Most of the time driver errors are just a brain fart. People mess up. That's why they call them accidents.

This was on purpose. Oh, I doubt he was trying to take me out, but the complete dick move of crossing all four lanes to hit the off ramp without having to slow down was 100% deliberate.

It would have left me and possibly the driver in the car ahead of me AND the idiot all smeared across the pavement if any one of us had reacted too slowly/quickly or incorrectly.

And yeah, I know, even if I'd been armed, I wouldn't have had time to shoot one of his tires or blast out his rear window and cover his stupid self with broken glass. But it would have been incredibly satisfying to do so. I can't lie about that.

Still a little pissed off over that one. Seriously came within a breath of being gone. Poof.

Thursday was tear down and remove absolutely everything from my
program/school.

Which I guess is no longer my school since I officially asked to be moved to a different, smaller program this fall. I've started stockpiling stuff already, books and fidgets and art supplies. This morning I was doing the usual internet thing and found a couple terrific game ideas that can be played with a marker and piece of paper. The kids will love it.

Do you ever get tired of my digressions?
ADHD is the gift that keeps on giving.
Forever and ever, amen.

::making note to self to find my Randy Travis CD before the next trip across town:::

Considering what I know about children and how well I know ME, you'd think that even though no one figured it out when I was a kid, I'd have caught on long before three or four years ago when I finally had that light bulb moment.

Had I known I had ADHD as a kid, I wonder if my life would have been different, though. Probably would never have been diagnosed anyway, everyone 'knew' back then that it was a boy problem and the best solution was to put the kid on speed.

I don't know if my adult life would have been helped or hindered by that bit of knowledge, either.

I do know finally figuring it out has helped my self esteem. When the pinball machine that is my brain is shooting that big ball bearing around, all BING and BONG and dingdingding and sirens and lights, I allow myself to see the humor and just accept who I am.

In the past, I wasn't able to do that.

So tear down went well. We'd been doing a bit in advance (I was told by our manager to pack up the things I'd contributed to the program and take them with me, that it was not reasonable for me to stock every program I work in) so I'd been gradually bringing a few things home here and there. You should see my bedroom. Well, no, you shouldn't. It's a mess, compounded by a bunch of boxes all stacked up and taking up space. I need to go through them and consolidate and organize and based on my past record, that probably won't happen in a timely fashion.

We were done in about three hours. Our manager stopped by and cleaned out the fridge and helped move boxes down to the other end of the room. We loaded up my car with the remainder of things that are mine, our IT/does everything guy showed up with a U Haul and we were out of there before noon.

Okay, so on Friday I was supposed to show up for a meeting about our 'specialty camp'. I'm working part time this summer and running the afternoons at a smallish camp in an unfamiliar location.

So I got up and dragged my tired ass out of bed in order to get there by 10.
I'd have been in plenty of time, except there'd been a rather large and gory accident on I-5. A semi carrying chickens had been in a rollover crash, and chickens and other vehicles were smashed and splashed and spread over all but one lane. It was in the opposite direction I was traveling, but all the lookie loos had to slow down and check out the situation. There were a few feathers wafting around still, even though the accident was about six hours old by the time I passed the site.

I made it to the school by 10 minutes after 10, so only a little late. I'd messaged my manager to let him know and to have him pass on the information that I was going to be late.

I drove around the back of the building and found no one. Of course.
A flurry of text messages ensued, and I was finally directed to our HQ, but of course by then I was almost an hour late. The stuff we went over could have been done via Zoom. Or been put in an email. A total waste of my time and energy, if you really wanted to know.

So it's noon. I can head home. I went to the bathroom just before I left the office. Locked my rolling backpack in the trunk as I always do. That thing contains my whole home away from home... wallet and house keys and company laptop and paperwork and prescriptions. Etc. If I have to stop somewhere, I like having it already in the trunk, too. It's a little obvious to get out, open the trunk, put your backpack in and walk away. That's one of the situational awareness things I *finally* taught my mom. She wasn't used to thinking that way when she came over here to the city and I lectured her more than once.

My GPS told me that traffic was still backed up at the chicken crash, and suggested a different/not familiar to me route. So I was in the wrong lane when I was supposed to turn onto the freeway and passed the entrance.

I figured I'd stay on the main arterial street I was already on and find a spot to turn around or that I'd intersect with a different on ramp to the freeway.

Haha, no to both.

Instead, I ended up in a big mess of surface street construction. Angry and impatient motorists, waiting and waiting and waiting. Finally traffic started to move. Probably 50 cars or so went past the guy holding the SLOW sign. As I approached him, he turned it to STOP. Of course. I wasn't pissed off yet, I had a bottle of water, my stereo, half a tank of gas.

I waited, watching the construction vehicles, listening to Johnny Cash, sipping water, and appreciating my AC.

The flagger finally turned his sign back to SLOW. The traffic halt was right in front of an apartment complex and a car was waiting to turn into my lane from the driveway. The elderly lady behind the wheel smiled and waved at me appreciatively when I opened up my window, stuck my arm up above my car and motioned to her to go in front of me.

Mr. Imperious Beamerman, who was directly behind me, was a little pissed off, though. He beeped his horn impatiently and flipped me off.
Huh.
Guess he was in a hurry.

So my GPS took me on a circuitous route, but I eventually found myself on the freeway. Zipping right along... until.

SHIT SHIT SHIT.

I was still a half hour from home and traffic was just suddenly poking along. I have a physical disability and I could have walked faster than traffic was moving. My car was in the center lane. Traffic stopped and I was sitting next to a law enforcement vehicle in the left lane.

Dead stop for a minute or so, not sure why.

Then, still another dipshit on a donorcycle came zooming up in the left breakdown lane. He waved at the police officer and continued down the road. Not a thing the cop could do.

Traffic was seriously just inching along when I realized I needed to pee. I looked at my phone, GPS said that due to higher than normal traffic volume I was still about 35 minutes from home. Okay. Guess I need to get off the freeway.

Turned on my signal with plenty of time to get over, but the people in the right lane didn't like me. So I missed the exit I wanted. Next exit wasn't one I wanted, kind of a sketchy area of town, so I resolved to take the one coming up in a mile or so.

I finally got over (am I the only person who either reaches their hand over the shoulder into the back seat or cracks the window and waves to the person who let me in and says, "THANK YOU" even though I know they can't hear me?) and managed to get off the freeway. The exit sign told me there was a Burger King a mile up the street. Most places no longer allow access to their restrooms unless you buy something, but I stash a 20 in my car for emergencies. So I could leave the backpack in the trunk and grab a bite to eat and pee. Which by now was sounding like heaven.

I passed the BK. Was it next to the road? Oh hell no. It was in some damn strip mall, waaaay toward the back and I didn't even SEE it until I'd passed the whole block and caught a glimpse of the place as I was crossing into the next block.

By this time I was in actual physical pain, I had to pee SOOOO bad.
I was not familiar with the area, although I knew I was in still another sort of sketchy area of town. Finally spotted a Chevron station with an inconvenience store.

A quick glance at the gas gauge told me I had a little less than a half tank of gas, so I pulled in, gave the guy my debit card, asked him to fill it up, waited for him to hand the card back to me, and asked him where the restroom was.

At that point I would not have been surprised to be told that there either wasn't one or that it was closed, but he said, "Go inside and get the key," and started putting gas in my car.

I went in, got the key (which was attached to an empty plastic soda bottle with a ring), struggled with the restroom door and couldn't get it open. Went BACK inside where the clerk, who did not speak English as his first language, tried to tell me how to open the door. I was ready to just pee on the floor. Right there, next to the counter. I tried to look like I understood him when inside my head I was going yeah, yeah, shut up, I will just go try again because you're not helping me at all.

Went back out in the heat (I had been wearing my sweatshirt in the car because of the AC on my arms) and stood in the sun, struggling with that damn door.

FINALLY got it open.

Someone had considerately sprayed liquid shit all over the back of the inside of the toilet bowl, so I hovered.
That was fun, my knees were already killing me.

While hovering/getting rid of used water, I recalled a joke my grandmother had liked, some people returned from a long car vacation and looked more exhausted than they did when they left. When they were asked why they looked so tired, the woman responded, "You know those signs that say Clean Restroom? Well, we cleaned 38 on the way there and 26 on the way home."

Then I flushed and washed, argued with the door in reverse, returned the key and headed back to my car.

A woman who appeared to be, um, missing a chunk of attic insulation approached the gas station, waving her arms and yelling.

The pump attendant yelled, pointing and telling her, "Boundary! You on boundary! You not come here!"

She stopped.

I got into my car and got the hell out of there.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and was only about 20 minutes, but I had to pee again when I got home.
Because of course I did.

I forgot to put my work hours in the system for that day, too. So now I have to email my manager to let him know.

Ha, I should send him a link to this post.

Picnic

 In a reluctant farewell to vacation/Spring break, Eric and I packed a picnic yesterday and drove out to what passes for the wilderness around here.

The weather was perfect. No wind, it was warm but not anywhere near hot, we had the place to ourselves, and it was only about an hour away.

We sat by the campfire, roasted hot dogs, talked about a million different things and came home about 9.

I like to take photos of the things I see when we're out and about like that, and most of the time I don't post them.

But it was a pretty cool spot, so I have a few to share this time around. I swear I saw a watchful cat in picture 1 and 3... trying to upload a close up didn't work. Of course.

But Eric said he didn't see it at all.
Hmph.

It was just a stump, but using my imagination is something I'm required to do... working with kids and all.

I like to show the kids photos that display pareidolia, I have several examples.

Do you see the cat?

And the tree in #2... I'm not sure what I saw. When I look at it, it's either a graceful sculpture of a dancer or a tortured soul.

What do you see?

Good evening and what can I tell ya...

Always makes me think of Dennis Miller and that sardonic voice/face turned toward the camera. A cynical raise of the eyebrow is happening as we speak, if you could see me you'd laugh.

Since I last wrote something here, I have managed to do a few things.

Packed up and headed off to the Oregon coast for our annual vacation.
When my dad told me many many years ago that he was going to purchase a timeshare that we could all use, I tried to talk him out of it.

I'm sure we've all heard the stories, and of course one can look at the local classifieds and see how many people are trying to unload their timeshares. I told him he should buy a big camper or trailer and then he could go wherever he wanted to go.

He went ahead and purchased the timeshare.

If he hadn't, we wouldn't have been able to zip off to the coast once a year and be very comfortable in a nice apartment for a week at a time.

We bring our groceries and/or shop while we are there and make most of our own meals.

Upside(s)... well, quite a few. We usually stay in Depoe Bay, supposedly the whale watching capital of the world. I did see a spout. Once. We go when it is NOT peak tourist season, although this time it is a little close to Spring Break. When I made the reservation a year ago, I figured that I would take off the week before the break and then run break camp from my current school. Hahahaha... yes, I thought we'd be having normal lives by now, so I planned accordingly.

So I had my 2nd dose of the vaccine on the 4th. I think. Let me go check, gotta remain factual here, okay yeah, the 4th.

I wrote about the way it hit me about 12 hours post-injection (very common). It wasn't fun the way feeling like crap usually ISN'T fun, but if it means I can go back to work and not have to be afraid I will die from Covid, I am willing to deal with a little bad stuff. I know most of the people reading here feel more or less the same way.

By the time we started packing on the 12th, I was feeling more or less okay, although still a little run down. There was also some swelling on my upper gums, left and right. I looked it up, apparently there are sometimes reactions from a person's lymph system
and I didn't give it a lot of thought.

On Saturday it was worse. A lot worse. Swallowing and talking and eating and drinking were all activities that weren't much fun. I'll spare you the finer details and not talk about the gigantic open blisters on the roof of my mouth and the two inch layer of fuzz on my tongue. Blech. I did not take photographs, either. You're welcome.

I called my dentist's office on Monday morning.
The person who's been answering the phone for the last 20 years up there answered this time, too.

"Julie! Help me!!"

It wasn't even an hour before she called me back to let me know the prescription had been sent to Walgreen's in Lincoln City.

That place was a clusterfuck (they're supposed to take a half hour lunch from 1:30 to 2:00 but it was 2:45 when they meandered back to work and got me my damn antibiotics) but I got my stuff.

Until it started getting better (less than six hours after I started the medication, thank goodness) I had no idea how bad it had gotten. I was just sort of numbly wandering around saying nothing much and not eating very much and not drinking enough.

Eric noticed that the palms of my hands were sort of wrinkly-looking and that the skin on the back of them wasn't looking great, either. Got a little dehydrated.

I spent yesterday drinking extra water. I think I caught up a little. I'm definitely feeling better.

But apparently Thrush is one of the possible side-effects from the vaccine.
Lots of info out there.  Still would rather have that than die all alone in a hospital.

So we packed up a bunch of stuff that we don't need in order to have a good time, but stuff that makes our little budget vacay a little more relaxing.  For example, the condo furnishes those little hotel bars of soap. You know the kind I mean, you can't rinse it off. For the rest of your life.

The shampoo and dish soap and laundry soaps are all annoying, too. They don't smell right and they offer substandard results. We bought our own trash bags, the ones that are furnished are very flimsy and who wants to pick up garbage from the floor of the elevator as they leave?

I do appreciate the washer/dryer in our unit but in the words of my Grandma Fern, they're no bigger than a fart bucket. So small loads.

We are officially old curmudgeons, stopping just short of bringing our own mattress when we travel. So, clear soap in the pump dispensers. Our own dish soap/laundry soap/shampoo. I have a big clear plastic box that we keep travel containers of soap and toothpaste in all year. Bust 'em out annually except of course we didn't get to last year, the world closed about two weeks before our trip had been scheduled. No one said anything to us, they just deposited my fee back into my checking account without comment.
::sigh::

We were really glad that Mason and Lyssa could join us for a couple days, too. He needed to go back to work, but they were able to hang out a bit.

We brought half the house with us. Ha.

Certain kitchen utensils and a couple pans. Eric has to have his egg pan. It's sort of funny, but it's not a big deal to me. I'm not much on eggs.

Eric brings his whole computer. I bring my laptop, this year I have added a tablet but it has a little keyboard, too. I got a Kindle Fire tablet from Amazon while they were cheap during the holidaze. I have really enjoyed having it, although I wasn't sure if I'd really use it.

I read all kinds of stuff... the library will let me check out ebooks for six weeks because I have an educator card. It's free to download and then read whenever.

This week I've read two titles from Carl Hiaasen, two from Stephen King and Where the Crawfish Sings. I'm partway through Dragonsdawn, I've always wanted to live on Pern, and although it's years between readings, those stories always draw me right back in.

So we are, right now, at the beach.
I don't usually say anything about us being gone while we are gone, but the house isn't sitting there empty... we have two other people living there now. Oh, and Pixel.

So we're here until Friday.

We have been sleeping in a little, going out every day to buy at least one thing we forgot or decided we need. Today it was some beef ribs for Eric, he loves to bbq. I ate leftovers 'cause I do that a lot.

We went and had some clam chowder at world-famous Mo's, but we were disappointed at the quality this time. Eric's fish platter was cold. He likes food to be hot enough to sear your mouth, but I tasted a clam strip and it was ice cold. My chowder wasn't the same as it has been and it wasn't hot, either.

I know they've had to change things due to the virus, fewer seats, smaller menu, the entrance and exit are switched... but it was a disappointing experience all the same. We go every year. I was waiting for my mouth to feel better so I could enjoy it and it wasn't worth the trip to Lincoln City, dammit.

Since  this is a time share, they're really pushy about wanting people to sit through a presentation. I understand that it's their job to try and sell me something, but once I have said no, it  aggravates me when they keep bothering me. I always unplug the phones in our unit as soon as we are in.

Things aren't as... polished here as they were last time we visited, either. I don't know if it's because of the plague or because the ownership has changed (again) or some combination of the two.

But our dishwasher is sitting on the floor in the little alcove that was made for it under the counter. The mounting screws or whatever weren't put in, so there's a large gap between the top of the machine and the bottom of the counter.

The oven doesn't close properly. There are skid marks on all the doors and door frames. (Luggage cart). Parking is a goddamn nightmare. The light above our table seems to flicker a little when people are walking by above us, so I think there may be a loose connection.

I haven't told them about any of it, I will do that when we leave because I don't want someone in here making repairs or for them to move us elsewhere.

I *am* glad we're down near the end of the units again, overlooking the small cove. We see seals and sea lions on the rocks, there are birds living on the giant rock out there and it's fun to watch the tide go in and out.

We go home in about 40 hours.
Dammit.

I'll have some photos for you, but not until I get home, I don't think.

The weather has been decent, although we've had a little rain it wasn't bad.

I forgot my pajama shirt (I sleep in gigantic t shirts) and had to go buy one. It's not long enough and I hate it, but I'll just donate it when I get home.

Meanwhile, there are some more pictures to draw. I've been doodling. Since I started the whole painting thing I haven't drawn much, but it's been nice to have the time to do that now.

::whew::

And what are you up to?

I am about to go read blogs here in a few....

The Dregs

Lyssa and I went out and wandered through some Goodwill stores today.

We'd planned to go yesterday, but I got smacked with a gigantic migraine.
First one I've had in six weeks!

Except for about three hours (15 minutes here, 20 there) I slept ALL DAY.
And all night, too.

Did all that sleeping work?
Sort of.

I still ended up having to take some migraine medicine, something I've tried to avoid since the whole exploding BP game.

Sumatriptan does tend to raise BP, but I just checked mine a little bit ago and it was 112/79.
 
I'll take it.


I've also had more than one Excedrin.
Ibuprofen may have made an appearance in the drug cocktail, too.
Oh, and I took a Vicodin.

I did not take all of those things at once.

No word on which thing actually worked, but I can report that I saw an aura with this one. And that I dug out a barf bag (unused) from the last hospital visit 'cause I thought for sure I was going to need it.

I ended up not using it in case you're curious.

So our expedition was postponed a day.

Lately I've been looking for a few very specific things when I go, along with the usual browsing.

I hit the movie section first. I have a smallish collection of movies that I've been known to watch more than once. If I see one I loved in the past, I usually grab it to add to the rotation. We were at the Goodwill Outlet ('the bins') last week and I found the first season of True Blood on DVD. I've had it recommended to me by more than one friend, so I grabbed it.

I found that I enjoyed it, so now I'm on the hunt for other seasons. While I'm waiting, one of my friends told me the books were better (aren't they always?) so I asked my librarian (aka Tami) if she had them.

She had quite a few of them, we picked up the bag when we delivered some brownies to them last week.
Turns out she didn't have the first four.
Dammit.

So I did what I usually do.
I turned to Goodwill.
For about 20 bucks I got five books so I could read all of them in order.

I had to order them from Goodwillbooks.com, but it only took a couple days for them to get here.

I'm on #2 right now, but I didn't read yesterday for most of the day.
It made my head hurt more.

After the movie section, I look at the toy aisle, the crafty stuff aisle (paper goods, beads and stamps and little bits of this and that) to bring home.

Although I've been leaving toys on the shelves due to the no job for the foreseeable future thing. :::sigh:::

I look at cookware.
Trying to find a specific mixing bowl and Eric has this weird obsession with cast iron lately, too so I see if there's anything I think he'd like.

I check out the furniture, cruise through towels and sheets, glance at men's shirts (Eric) and women's clothing although I don't really need any of that, and I'm out the door.

I noticed some interesting things today, though.
We went to three Goodwill stores.

At all three they had many of the same movies, in the same positions on the shelves.

Two copies of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban were on the shelf with one copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. At all three stores! There were two copies of The Patriot and a copy of Master and Commander (which I found to be one of the more stupid movies EVER) next to Ocean's Eleven. Also at all three stores.

Multiple copies of The Pursuit of Happyness scattered throughout the movie section, a movie we watched once while we were visiting the time share at the beach. That movie pissed me off when I saw it and I'm still pissed off now when I remember the basic premise, which is 'selfish asshole works as an unpaid intern, loses wife, home. Takes kid and sleeps in public restrooms and shelters and is rewarded with multi-millions for being a negligent husband and father.'

Something we can all aspire to, I guess.

I found a package of plastic page protectors at every stop today, too.

Every store had multiple owls. One of them was a good three feet long, a metal sculpture that is meant to hang on a wall. Lyssa said she could just see the lacerations she'd get after hanging that thing up. Owl sculptures, stuffed animal owls, pictures of owls. A really swell owl made from pine cone pieces and some acorns.

Hey, I didn't say they were all works of art.

I saw the same blue-with-silver-stamped-on-seahorses shirt in two of the three stores, but one was XL and one XXL.

I came home with a drawer organizer for some of my art supplies (Ikea) and a flannel shirt. Yeah, winter's coming faster than you'd think. Oh, and I picked up a dvd copy of the Lion King. The cashier asked me if I checked it, as movies are not returnable. I confidently told her I had checked and that I've been really lucky with movies, only had one in ten years that wasn't okay.

Today we made that TWO in ten years.
That damn movie didn't work.
:::sigh:::

Goodwill is interesting to me. Each time I visit, I see at least three things that I'd definitely have donated, too. Ugly sweaters or stupid pointy-toed bitch shoes, various home decor, glassware. Once in awhile I find something that surprises me.

"Huh. I would never have donated that if I had one."
Not that I buy whatever it is. Or not usually.

The clothing is getting more difficult for me. I have to wear cotton. It's not just a preference, I get a fine little rash from things that contain more than 10% polyester.

So many manufacturers are adding a large percentage of poly or rayon or some other ugly/sweaty/itchy stuff to the fabric. I can't figure out how anyone could sleep in something made of polyester. Or sleep on poly sheets, either. UGHHHHH.

So many of the shirts I might have been interested in if they were cotton just stay hanging there, lonely. They'll show up at the bins, and probably sooner rather than later.

So tomorrow is Friday. Eric works 4 day work weeks most weeks, with Friday, Saturday and Sunday off. We're going to get up and go to some of the outlet stores, starting in SW Washington. We will wear gloves and masks and I'll still feel dirty until I get back home and wash/scrub/wash some more.

But maybe I'll find more movies.

IF the headache isn't back.
Right now I can feel the pressure lazily revolving behind my right eye.

And what exciting things are you up to?

I did nothing

In the parking spot next to mine at Goodwill on Monday was an older white van.

From the items visible up against the windows, I surmised this was a person who's probably living in her van. Some cat food, a blanket, two pillows, some fast food wrappers, newspaper.

The passenger side of the front seat was heaped with more of the same, mixed in with some shoes and what looked like a computer monitor.

As the store doors opened, the person in the van got out.
From her appearance, I figured my first opinion was correct, living in the van.

She had some unknown pieces of stuff in the side and back of her matted  and greasy hair and was wearing a torn and rumpled shirt and dirty pants.
She was gigantic.
At least six feet tall, and very heavy.
She went into the store while I was still getting out of my car. By the time I got inside, she was halfway across the store, leaning on a cart and scrolling through stuff on her phone.

During the 40 minutes or so I was in the store, that's what she was doing. Leaning and scrolling. She'd wander one or two aisles over and stop and scroll some more.

So I'd gone through the whole store and found nothing I needed.

I wanted to see what movies were on DVD. I came around the corner into that area, and she was standing in the middle of that aisle, scrolling through her phone. I got about 10 feet from her and was hit by this horrible wall of smell.

You know the sour smell a forgotten-next-to-the-sink washcloth gets after a couple days? That. And old sweat. Feces. Rotting fruit. Dead meat. Under that, the smell of illness.

It was so bad. I think that getting any closer would have caused me to throw up.
It's always important, but when you're a large person, it's especially important to keep clean.

A person can have skin breakdown in certain spots due to being unclean. It's not healthy. When someone has been unwashed for a long time, they sometimes are no longer even aware of how they look or smell. Or they've reached complete apathy. All of those things are sad.
I didn't say anything or react, I just turned away.
Ended up not looking at movies. I left the store.

I'm writing about this 'cause I don't know what to think.
I would not offer my own shower to this person, I have no idea what's going on. Is she psycho? Violent? Just someone who's had a run of bad luck? I don't invite most friends into my home, so I'm not inclined to invite strangers. And really, walking up to someone and asking if they need a shower? Or saying, "You need a shower." Neither one of those seems appropriate.

I wouldn't walk up to someone and offer to buy lunch or something, either.
Some feel threatened by that. Or insulted. I don't have a ton of extra to be offering right now. She had money, or at least I think so, she had several items in her cart.

I ended up doing nothing at all.
I felt bad for her, though.

Which is still doing exactly nothing, I know.

I wondered if there was something I should have said or done.
I know, just strangers passing in a store.
I pass a lot of people in a lot of stores without a second thought.

But I felt sad for her. Sorry that she's in the situation she's in. Curious as to how she got there.

I wanted to do... something.

Another One Rides the Bus

Please tell me you get the reference in the title?
Or don't.
I guess it really doesn't matter.

On Tuesday the 30th we went to John's Incredible Pizza in Beaverton.
I'm trying to think of even one thing about the trip that wasn't a huge pain in the ass, but I can't.

We went to the school to pick up the other group that we always share a bus with.
As we pulled up, my phone rang. It was the office, wanting to know how many passengers our bus would hold. Seems the other bus driver they'd asked to drive for the day couldn't make it and another program was going to need a ride.

A complicated proposal, even though we had a 78 passenger bus. We wouldn't have had enough room for all the adults to ride, too, but had to have enough adults to be in correct ratio with kids.

Several staff people had to ride in Clarion's car. I'm calling her Clarion because godDAMN that woman is loud.
Strident.
It's not that she isn't nice, but man, she rubs me the wrong way sometimes.

Four staff and Clarion took off in her vehicle and the rest of us stayed on the bus.

We went to the other school and picked up the kids there.
What followed was the NOISIEST bus ride I've ever been on. The kids yelled, sang the alphabet song loudly and off-key about six times until one of the adults in the back of the bus finally told them to stop. I was surprised that someone actually did something, really. The staff people who were on the bus were the same as most of the newer staff I've met this summer... they were clueless.

Also clueless? Our bus driver. She didn't know where we were going. We passed the pizza place three times. Well, a block away three times. Took a grand detour and waited in a construction zone, ended up going the wrong way so made a friggin' 3 point turn in the middle of the road. Twice. The second time I was focused on keeping the little boy in the seat ahead of mine from barfing. I'm still not sure if he really was going to throw up or was following the example of the kid in the back of the bus who actually DID toss his cookies somewhere along the way.

So I was busy with little upChuck and didn't see the signs in the median that the bus took out. I did hear a couple or ten kids and a couple adults in the back of the bus saying, "OH MY GOD she HIT THOSE SIGNS!"

I heard that last year she hit a truck and a car on one of the narrow streets the bus was forced to travel down, and didn't stop. Not sure what action, if any, was taken.

She's kind of a scary bus driver.

Here's an example.
You know how you're zoomin' down the street and about three blocks away, you see the stop light go yellow? You know it's going to be red when you get there, right? Cars ahead of you are slowing and stopping, so you take your foot off the gas and begin to slow down before you get there.

She just...  doesn't.
She must see the traffic ahead slowing down, but she doesn't slow down until she's almost on them, then she slams on the brakes. Kids have actually fallen off the seats!
It's not just once or twice, it's multiple times on each trip.

She also speeds. You know the little blinky signs that tell you the speed limit and in digital letters below, tell you how fast you're going? I saw those signs. She was always at least 5 and more often 10 mph too fast. What the hell?

So she drives too fast, slams on the brakes, gets lost.
On a personal level she was very nice to everyone.
But she did make me nervous. The good thing was that we were in a bus. So if she had ended up hitting a car or even a small truck most of us would probably have survived.

We were 40 minutes late to the pizza place. The game cards they gave to the kids were only good until 1, so when they got in line (and let me pause here to tell you that ANOTHER group from our company was told to 'hurry' and the adults with them figured that meant they could cut in front of MY group... and yes, I did say something. To MY kids. Loudly. "I'm sorry you guys, I don't know why this other group thinks it's okay to cut in line ahead of you. It really surprises me, actually, since that's not very nice, is it?")  to claim prizes, the cards shut down and most of my group didn't even get a prize. It doesn't matter that they were cheap and stupid little carnival crap, either. The kids were really disappointed.

Disappointed? Three of them were crying. Yeah, they're cheesy prizes and don't matter, would probably be broken and forgotten in a matter of days, but that wasn't the point, now was it?

So I assured them that, "I know we got ripped off you guys... I'll fix it, though. I will get you a prize myself."

And Amazon got another $20 from me, I ordered some little LEGO knockoff vehicles. They were here the next afternoon.  Those little cars brought my kids a lot of smiles. Well worth the small price.

When it was time to leave, Clarion decided to take charge. There were three buses of kids that day. Ours had three groups, the others, two.

We knew which driver was ours. So it was entirely unnecessary for Clarion to position herself in front of our little group in the lobby, point at the bus out front and inform me, "That's not your bus!" as it pulled up.

I smiled. Told her, "Why THANK YOU, Clarion! But you know, I looked in the bus and saw a complete stranger behind the wheel and said to myself, Self... that's not your bus. Thanks, but I think we have this handled."

She wandered off to tell the other groups whose bus it wasn't that it wasn't their bus, either. God.

It  didn't help my attitude when she got on our bus and confiscated the clipboards with the rosters from the other two groups so SHE could take roll.

This was a process that involved her standing next to MY seat and shouting out the names of 63 kids. My own group was small enough that I told her,  "They're accounted for, thank you."

I put my fingers in my ears and looked out the window as she bellowed. And bellowed. Some of the kids (okay, the older boys) think it's funny to say almost anything besides 'here' when their names are called. So we waited even longer while a couple or six of them shouted out phrases, made rude noises or screeeeeeched and all their little friends laughed so loud that Clarion had to bray over the top of it and get everyone to settle down again so she could scream out more names.

When she was finished howling, she said, "Sorry it was so loud." to me.

I told her I understood why she had to be loud. And I didn't even ask her why she had to do it next to my head.

Three and a half more weeks.

More Vacation

It seems that my new computer doesn't like my camera.
I know I still have the disc that came with the camera around here somewhere, so I'll have to see what I can do. I actually did get a couple of decent photos in between a bunch of out-of-focus-because-I-didn't-have-my-reading-glasses shots.

On Monday night we drove to an area just down the road and parked to watch the sunset. I got out and took a few photos. From what I can see of them on that little tiny camera screen, at least two of them turned out.

We stayed in Depoe Bay.
That link has the history of the area, if you're interested.
I had no idea the place was so fascinating.

It's a quirky wide spot in the road, but we like staying there as it's not really a destination-type place unless you want to buy kitschy little souvenirs.

It's more a place to sleep so you can wander up and down the coastline. We did a little wandering, but not as much as in the past. I think we were both really tired and ready to be lazy, if I had to tell the truth. Which I try to (mostly) do.

Swiped this photo from the website, but they must have used a hell of a lens, because it's not actually this big. But it is a nice place.

We packed up on Friday morning to get out of the house by noon (almost made it, too, it was 12:22 when we closed the front door behind us).

I was stopped in the middle of my packing when I realized I hadn't washed the load of light colored clothing I'd planned to wash the night before. This was important because I had some unwashed underwear (tie dyed, of course) and only one clean pair.
Which I was wearing.

A lesser woman would have been unsure of what to do.
Not this one, though. I grabbed a big ziploc bag and threw all my dirty underwear in it and tossed it in the suitcase along with 6 movies that we didn't watch, the mouse pad for my computer and some clean socks. (Yes, I sealed the ziploc bag, sheesh!!)

I have learned to pack a lot lighter than I used to.  Two extra shirts, one pair of jeans and a bunch of socks in case of wet feet, although I didn't walk on the beach this time, sometimes my knee is good enough that I can. A big t shirt to sleep in. Slippers.

I used to bring SO many clothes. A fresh set for every day we planned to be gone.
I eventually realized that I mostly didn't wear them, though, going for the same one or two shirts, topped with a zipped up hooded sweatshirt, a pair of jeans and the same pair of shoes the whole time and doing a load of laundry nightly.

Yes, that's right, I only own ONE pair of shoes. 
I have these giant orthotics that go into my shoes.
They're specifically designed to take pressure off my knees as well as taking care of the fact that my ankles are severely pronated and I have absolutely no arch. If you look at my feet from the back as I stand, my insteps touch the floor. These clunky objects also add about two inches to my height, so hey... bright side!!

On the not-so-bright side, they make it impossible for me to wear women's shoes. I buy men's shoes in WIDE width. I need the width and deeper footbed to accommodate the orthotics.  I can buy women's shoes that are specially made, but they run about $400.00. Yes, that's right. So I shop at Big 5 sporting goods and buy as many pairs as I can find in my size when I go in. Then I change the laces and wear the hell out of them until I have to get out a new pair.

WHY doesn't this computer understand 'orthotics'? I get that red squiggly line every time I type it. Half a second while I fix that.

So I dye shoelaces. The ones I have now may be my favorite ones ever, shades of blue and purple and teal.

We crammed a lot of stuff into our little car.

The condominiums where we stay (my parents have a time share, otherwise we'd never go anywhere, I don't think) have a full kitchens and a (stacked and small) washer/dryer etc. Two bedrooms, two bathrooms. A bbq grill out on the balcony. It's a nice place. I think it cost us about a hundred dollars for our stay this time.

We hauled along my old laptop and my new laptop. I was hoping to get the new one up and running, which *did* happen, I am using it now, as a matter of fact.
Eric's big-assed PC came with us.
I brought a bin full of different art supplies, experimented with some watercolor, some paper art, drew a few pictures. I still don't consider myself an artist, more of a crafty-type person. But I do enjoy creating my little things.

Ice chest for the groceries we brought with us so they don't get warm on the two hour voyage. Not an issue this time, it's been rather unseasonably chilly. And yes, we do most of our shopping after we get there,  but we bring stuff, too. Seems stupid to go buy doubles of things like ketchup or milk when it's cheaper and makes more sense just to bring them along. Ditto the things like garlic powder and teabags.

I have an electric blanket for the car, Eric ("I'm an outdoor dog") likes to have a window cracked and I'd prefer not to complain (much) so I plug it in, toss my smaller afghan over the top of it and stay toasty.

Books to read. Movies to watch.

Turns out we didn't watch any movies.

Didn't play cribbage either, although I'd remembered the board and a deck of cards. I only wore two shirts, the third one just hung in the closet, looking lonely.

So next time we go, I won't bring as much to wear.
We'll skip the cribbage.
Hopefully I'll only have one laptop.

By the time our trip to the coast is in honor of our 50th anniversary (only eleven years from now, omg) we should have the packing down to an art form.

Infidel asked why people blog the other day. I'd link you directly to that post, but it doesn't appear to be an option. ANYWAY... I said that it's more of a personal journal for me. Which it is. Meaning it won't always be exciting to read. But lookie there... I wrote about our little trip in a way that will jog my memory for a long time to come.

And I may even find some photos to post.

I took the day off today and tomorrow even though we're back, I have a couple important errands to deal with.

And some dishes and laundry to do.
:::sigh::

Whale Spouts and Stompy Bitches

So we spent the last week or so at the beach on our annual get away from everything vacation.

I don't announce the fact that we won't be home. I just wait to say something until we're back and I don't have to worry about leaving the house for so long.

Mostly we relaxed, which is the point of the whole thing, or so they tell me.

Sunsets, bird watching, seeing the Harbor Seals and California Sea Lions come into the cove as the tide is going out and decorate the rocks until the next tide comes in and washes them off.

Grocery shopping and driving up and down the coast from Lincoln City to Newport multiple times, stopping at the Goodwill in Lincoln City... just two old people doing their thing.

We had a second floor end unit overlooking our favorite little cove with a view of the ocean, too.

I can't complain about the room's location.

But we had this crazy woman above us (tread was too light to be a guy) who paced the floor from 7 AM to 11 PM EVERY fucking day. Holy crap. Back and forth from kitchen to bedroom to kitchen to other bedroom to kitchen and back again. She also ran the bathroom exhaust fan for hours at a time.

Now you can't make a noise complaint about someone just walking around. I mean I suppose you can but no one is going to do anything about it.

We had a couple theories, one was that she is a slave to a FitBit or something along those lines and has to get in those steps.

The other is that she is just an inconsiderate asshole.

We christened her Stompy and spent a lot of time rolling our eyes.

I was looking out the sliding glass door to the ocean on Tuesday morning when I saw a whale spout. I was unreasonably excited by this... we've been staying for years in Depoe Bay, 'The Whale Watching Capital of the World' if you believe the signs all over town, but never even seen anything resembling a whale. At least not in the water, there are billboards and motels and shops everywhere with big carved/painted/sculpted whales.

I continued to observe. There were two whale-watching boats out there, both were stopped. I grabbed the binoculars and saw people lining the railings of the boats, watching with binoculars over the sides and looking excited.
Saw another spout.
Nothing dramatic, like a whale breaching, but I'll take it.

This didn't happen while I was watching...

The weather was perfect, sunny and very little wind from Saturday through Tuesday, only started to rain a bit Wednesday morning when it was time to pack up and go home.

I had time to get out my new-to-me laptop and do all the things one has to do to get it up and running. Passwords and accounts here and there. I like it, but I really hate Windows 10. Not that I have a choice.

I also completely HATE Internet Explorer. First thing I did was download Firefox, even though the popup kept insisting, 'You already have IE!! Are you sure you want to do this?'

To which I answer,

And now we're home.
I'll be around to catch up on blogs soon.
For now, heartburn subsided, back to sleep.
Zzzzzz

Can Do

We had our weekly date Saturday.

Nothing too glamorous, we went to McDonald's and the grocery store.
Oh and picked up the mail and stopped by the bottle drop and dropped off our bottles/cans. They're worth a dime each now when we turn them in. It's not really a money maker since we pay that dime every time we buy one, but we get it back. Or that's how it's supposed to work.

But every few months I scan my little key tag at the grocery store and get 30 to 40 dollars off our grocery tab for the week. So we bag them in their special green bags and drop them off occasionally.

While we were shopping, I picked up some canned mushrooms.
They were stacked three high on the very top shelf. And while I was trying to get some, the top one fell off the stack and landed on my head.

I have had experiences that were more fun/less painful.

Funny, that 'can do' attitude can cause me pain in other ways, too.
If I manage it, I'll tell you all about my latest work-go-round later today. Or tomorrow.

Ouch. Ouch. Damn! Stop!

Back in 1995, I took a creative writing class. It was once a week, Wednesday evenings.

On the last night of the last class I took, I got into a car accident. 
Two lanes of traffic, a center lane, then two more lanes. I was in the left lane, there was a big farm truck (dual wheels) in the right lane. He drifted into the left lane, then into the center lane. Turned on hazard lights. So I slowed down and got into the right lane to get around him. And that stupid fuck made a right hand turn across both lanes of traffic.

I was going 40 when I hit his right rear tire. Had I hit ahead of the tire or behind it, I'm sure the damages would have been much worse to me. As it was, I had some pretty amazing bruises across my front where the seat belt locked up, a humongous bruise on my right foot (we figured out that the fire extinguisher had rocketed out from under the driver's seat and slammed into my foot) and I smacked my face on the padded center of the steering wheel. Now since my seat belt had locked up, I didn't hit hard, but I had a little bruise on my forehead, too. That car was a 1987 model, no airbag.

The car was totaled.

This dipshit came over to my window as I sat, unable to get out of the car, and said, "Didn't you see my hazard lights?"

I still think my instant response was good. I was dazed and hurt and angry.
"A hazard light is not a fucking turn signal."

Now over the next few weeks I learned that this guy was such a shitty driver that he was in the state's risk pool insurance. I also learned that he was a liar, and the driveway he was turning into belonged to his grandfather, who was also a fucking liar.

They lied about how it happened, saying that he was turning from MY lane, signal on.

But I had four witnesses who had stopped at the scene. And every one of them told the same story. And that little asshole's insurance ended up paying for everything. Because he was a shitty driver.

I was very grateful that the witnesses had stopped, as otherwise it would have been my word against his. And his lying-ass grandfather.

Jerks.

So I was waiting to pull out of the driveway at Goodwill on Tuesday morning. There was an elderly gentleman ahead of me, turning left. Since I was turning right, I hung back, knowing he would not be able to see around my car if I pulled up on his right.

He waited and waited and waited to make that left turn.
Finally, an opening as soon as that white van gets past...

And what did he do? He misjudged the distance and gunned it, hitting the right rear of the van a glancing blow.

He immediately pulled over, so did she. I pulled up behind her and turned on my hazard lights. But it's a really busy street, so I was paying careful attention, not removing my seat belt until all the cars had gone by, then getting out and onto the grass on the other side of the curb.

She was out of the van, on the phone. When I asked her if she was okay, she yelled at me, "Why don't you watch where you're going?"

I said mildly, "I didn't hit you, I witnessed the accident. Are you okay?"

Then she said, "Oh. Sorry."

The gentleman had reached us by then, and I asked him if he was injured. He said he was just fine. But kept saying, "How did this happen? I didn't see this van. *I* hit it?"

I found paper and a pen in my backpack, scrawled my name and phone number on it twice, tore it in half and gave half to each driver.

I don't know if anyone will contact me or not.
But I've been grateful for about 22 years that people stopped and gave me their information when that moron who should not have been driving almost got me killed.

So I stop and leave my information if I need to.

Train station and TrainING. Repetition is key.

The economy sucks. Not sure if you've heard it. The politicians who've been in charge for the last 150 years keep saying 'things are great!!' But they're not. And people are being priced out of their substandard shit rentals here in the Portland area. I don't have a complete understanding of all the things happening, but it's bad. Bad bad.

And then there's the whole 'go to Portland if you're homeless' thing because Portland has provided some good services for them. Still very lacking, but services nonetheless.

There are homeless people everywhere downtown. Everywhere. Sleeping in the bushes and under the overpasses and in the alleys and in people's back yards. It's getting worse and worse. It's not just people who have substance abuse issues. Whole families are being tossed out of their homes because they simply can't afford to live there anymore and the waiting list for a place they *can* afford is over 400 people long. It's appalling. I read this week that there are THREE empty houses for every one homeless person in the US. It makes me sick. I can't understand why we don't do better.

So we saw a LOT of that this evening. I'm afraid that most of the ones we saw were less-than-sober based on the way they were either staggering around, shouting and/or peeing in the street. As we pulled into the parking lot at the train station, there were guys hiding in the bushes. Security was trying to get them to leave.

There was a guy in the train station who was very dirty and dragging around a backpack and other things. Yelling at the top of his lungs and making a scene. Security was escorting him out the door, he yelled all the way.

My parents arrived THREE HOURS late. Ugh.

I tried to take a nap this afternoon because it's hot and I knew my parents would be running late. But it didn't work. Which means a couple things. First, because it's hot and the air pressure is so high, I will end up with a migraine. And I'll be tired and crabby.

I have plans tomorrow (which is now today, and yep, I am up early...) that mean I have to get up early. I don't want to wake up and feel crappy. Er, didn't want to. Too late, though. Had another epic race between the migraine medicine and the barf machine. Medicine won. Double decker headache, meaning I needed two Excedrin to go with the migraine pill. Yum.

So my dad was in fine form last night. More than once, while I was talking, he interrupted me. I have learned to look at his face and say calmly, "I am still talking," ignore what he's saying and continue until I am finished.

He wants to rant about the US going to shit. He's right about it, although I don't know that we agree on the various things that have caused it. At any rate, he's not able to do a rational discussion. So I change the subject. Often. Sometimes, I have to get up and go to the bathroom. Or find some other thing I need to do. Since he's not able to stop talking, he keeps ranting to my mom while I am gone. Then, when I get back from whatever I'm doing, he is often on another subject.

It's like training a dog. It will take repetition. And since we see each other so rarely, I guess I won't ever get my dad trained. But he seemed to be catching on by about 10 when he and my mom left to go to their motel. It's not that I would not let them stay here, but I don't have a bed to accommodate them. Both of them have infirmities due to old age and other factors, and they need a large bed. They usually get a bedroom at the motel with two beds, they both sleep very well that way.

Okay, it's 7:30. I have to get going. I hate making early plans, but it's gonna get hot hot hot and I don't want to be out in it during the hottest part of the day.

Playing Catch up

I took Tami out to lunch on Saturday.
I don't even remember the last time we actually went somewhere together.

It's not that we don't want to hang out.
It's just hard because life. Happens. All. The. Time.

It was nice, though.
We had so many things to talk about. We sat in the restaurant for two hours and discussed, well, stuff.

Most of those things are things I can't write about here. :) And Tami and I will be best friends forever... we know too much.

It's a good thing to have a friend who understands, isn't it?

And I decided that life can wait occasionally. I think we need to do this every month. What do you think, Tami? :)

Over the river....

And through the woods... I'm sure your mind is already singing the rest of the song. Yes?

We packed up our little car and headed for John Day, Oregon on the evening of the 23rd. Lyssa and I had dental appointments in Sandy that afternoon, although in retrospect, once we'd decided to spend our Christmas away from home, (Eric's idea a couple weeks ago) we should have canceled the appointments.

Thing was, Lyssa was gone for almost a year and did not see a dentist in that time, so I wanted to make sure we kept her appointment.

I hadn't gone, either. I kept putting off the six month checkup until a whole year had passed for me, too.

It's about a four and a half hour drive to my parent's house from Sandy when the weather is good.

However, we were required to chain up the car to go up Mt. Hood. I say 'we', but it was my husband out there kneeling in the ice and snow, putting chains on our tires next to the road while the invincible people with 4wd and a deathwish whizzed by like fucking maniacs. At least he was on the passenger side of the car when the vehicle that sprayed our entire car with slush and ice passed. Assholes.

Eric never complains about the things he's forced to do to take care of his family, either. Just thought I'd add here that I married an amazing man.

When we got to the top, traffic was at a standstill. Apparently big trucks trying to come up the OTHER side could not get up the hill and they were towing them. One. At. A. Time. While traffic just sat. And sat. And sat. We ended up on the road for 9.5 hours. Possibly we were a little tired and more than a little crabby when we arrived at our destination at about 20 minutes past midnight. It was friggin' freezing, snow and ice and clear skies.

Checked in at our motel, then took Lyssa up to my mom and dad's house. She decided to take advantage of their guest room (she and my mom are particularly close) and we decided to sleep in a big bed in a quiet place.

Matt and Amy were able to come for Christmas, too, but we did not tell my parents they'd be there. They arrived about noon on Christmas Day. I was cooking in the kitchen and saw them approaching the door. I made them stand in the kitchen for a moment so I could go around the other way and see the look on my mom's face when they walked in. Her mouth fell open and stayed open for a good 30 seconds. A nice surprise.

There's more. We had a lovely time with family, sang some songs and opened presents and ate way more sugar than we should. More of everything else, too.

But those are things that are mostly interesting to me.
However, "they" say a picture is worth, well, a lot.
So here are a few.

Me with Mom and Dad. And Daisy. Who is not a dog, but a Tasmanian Devil.
My stupid brother thought it would be a good idea to get two elderly people who don't get around very well a Jack Russell Fucking Terrier about six years ago.

Alyssa, Matt, Amy, Me, My parents. And the Devil.

My son, his lovely wife, my parents and the devil's back.

My beautiful daughter

There was some snow.

The tie dyed pajama shirt I made for Mom. You can see my dad in the background, wearing one I made for him about a hundred years ago.