From The Streets of Bakersfield

Yesterday in the news was the story of an 82 year old woman who died after being hit by a car while crossing the street in the crosswalk at an intersection. Happens all the time up here in Bakersfield, I noticed when we first moved here that to make an attempt to cross the street was quite literally taking your life into your own hands.

I don't know if it's the long straight wide streets with 50mph speed limits or the general attitude of drivers in Bakersfield or if everyone is just incredibly impatient and in a huge hurry to get wherever it is that they are going to in such a huge hurry, but drivers in this town do not like to have to:
a/ stop
b/ slow down
c/ pull over to the right for ambulances
d/ put down that cell phone
e/ wait until someone finishes crossing the street

At the same time that this accident happened, the sheriff's department was doing a crackdown on drivers who failed to yield for pedestrians in the crosswalk. The news story showed a Sherrif's Deputy-in full uniform mind you-crossing a crosswalk while cars whizzed right by him. Not just one car, but cars on both sides of him as he was walking across the crosswalk. In broad daylight. In full uniform.

My jaw was hanging open in disbelief as I was watching this.

Then the girl doing the news story decided to walk across the crosswalk to see what would happen. She had to stop a couple of times because of cars going by her WHILE IN THE CROSSWALK as she was crossing the street. Again, cars whizzed right by on both sides of her as she was attempting to walk across the street IN THE FREAKING CROSSWALK!! They didn't even slow down.

My solution would be to put those flashing lights on every street corner in Bakersfield, along with huge signs that state the fines for failing to yield to a pedestrian, and also arm everyone who attempts to cross the street with one of those hand held stop signs.

Nah, probably wouldn't make any difference at all.

The War Continues

A while back I wrote a post about the scrabble tile pendant wars on Etsy. I'd do the linky thing to the post but I'm too lazy to figure out how to do that, so...

I was curious to see how many scrabble tile pendants are currently for sale on etsy (5964 as of this writing, and probably 100 more in the last five minutes) because it seems like everybody has jumped on the old scrabble tile pendant bandwagon thinking they are going to sell hundreds of pendants. Well, some sellers have sold hundreds if not thousands, but the price on the pendants, which were up around $12.00 have now dropped to an average of $5.00 and one seller has them for $3.00. Not to mention the buy 2 get 1 free offers in a lot of shops.

$3.00 for a scrabble tile pendant? Why would you even bother making them for a lousy $3.00?

I did find one seller who has a unique take on the scrabble tile mania with this brooch:

And there are a few scrabble tile pendants with images that are a little unusual:
I like the kitty one of course:
It just seems to me that if you have to price your pendants at $3.00 to sell them, then the scrabble tile mania is coming to an end. It's just way too overdone. Kind of sad, because the idea behind them is a good one.

Why Did I Buy A White Shirt?

So I could spill my dinner on it the first time I wore it.

When we were in Tehachapi on Sunday we went to the local K-Mart, partly to use the restroom, and partly to get some shoelaces for Keith's work boots. Tehachapi doesn't have a Wal-Mart-don't know if that's because they don't want a Wal-Mart or Wal-Mart doesn't think that such a small town could bring in enough business. Whichever, it's kind of refreshing to go to a town that does not have a Wal-Mart.

The K-Mart is fairly new and is actually pretty nice inside, everything looked clean and the restrooms weren't nasty. I don't shop at the K-Mart here mainly because it's way across town and it's the ghetto K-Mart, all junky and dirty.

Anyway, as we were looking for shoelaces I found some cotton camp shirts on clearance for $5.00 so I grabbed a white one and a pink one, and then over in the men's department they had 60% off on denim shorts, which came out to $5.95 for a pair of shorts for Keith. $5.95! So we grabbed two pairs for him. Bargain city!

I'm just hoping that I didn't totally ruin my new $5.00 white shirt with taco stains. Maybe I should wear a bib.

Being inside a K-Mart brought back memories of my high school days when I worked in the deli at K-Mart. Way back when, they had a little sandwich, popcorn, nuts, and icee counter at the front of the store and that's where I worked. On weekends we would sell hundreds and hundreds of ham and submarine sandwiches that we made up in huge batches before the store opened. Then there were the thousands of bags of popcorn and millions of icees that we would sell each day too. Ugh...I would go home reeking of popcorn each day and it was about ten years before I could even think of eating popcorn-it still isn't something that I eat very often-too many smelly memories of shoveling popcorn into bags for the hungry hordes at K-Mart. I think it was only about 10c a bag back then, too. The ham sandwiches were like 3 for $1.00 too. Of course, minimum wage was only like $1.45 or something like that.

So, anyway, don't think I'll be at that K-Mart too often, but the next time we're up in the mountains we'll definitely stop on in there and see what's on sale-and to use their restrooms!

Another Day Out

Yesterday looked like it would be another boring Sunday-not much to do here in the big old Bakersfield-and too hot to do anything anyway.

We were discussing what to do and Keith suggested driving up to Tehachapi for lunch so we got in the car, checked our wallets to make sure we could pay for lunch, and drove on up the mountain. Once you get out of Bakersfield, you start seeing some pretty scenery, orange groves off in the foothills and green fields of whatever it is they are growing. First stop was at the Murray Family Farms, mostly for a pee break since I usually have to go about five minutes after getting into the car. This is a family fruit stand with hayrides and you pick and a newly constructed barn like fruit and nut shop. The best part (besides the clean restroom) is the do it yourself petting zoo.
Trusting souls, aren't they? Yes, we paid.

Words to live by:


There was also a pig in a pen-how appropriate-with a big sign that said don't touch, pig will bite, and some chickens, a llama, a sheep badly in need of a shearing, a big billy goat, doves, and a huge pigeon coop.

So, on up the hill. A very pretty drive with actual trees and mountains.
And then to The Apple Shed restaurant which is located in an old packing shed and they do grow apples in Tehachapi.
Half of the restaurant is a gift shop with all kinds of gifty stuff, part of it is a bakery and fudge shop, and the rest is a nice casual little restaurant with really good food.
What is it with travelers and fudge anyway? Buying fudge on a long car trip sounds messy and melty to me, but it seems like all the rest stop/travel plaza type places are required to sell homemade fudge. They do have a huge selection of flavors here, though, the creamsicle one looked pretty good as did the chocolate caramel. We didn't buy fudge but did get a bag full of cookies to take home.

There's not a whole lot in downtown Tehachapi, but the next time we visit I'd be tempted to stay at this motel
and eat at this drive in
just because their signs are so cool.

Oops!

I scared the bejeesus out of Keith this morning by waking up at 6:30, rolling over and seeing him still in bed, shaking him awake while yelling KEITH! thinking it was a weekday and he was hours late for work.

oops...

I was having a very bizarre dream right before I woke up, too, something about brides and grooms in Bavaria being force fed pork products after the wedding ceremonies-some sort of bridal tradition in Bavaria apparently. I do have some really odd dreams which always make perfect sense as I am dreaming them, but them I wake up and only remember little snippets of weirdness. It's probably good that we don't remember all of our dreams or we'd check ourselves into the nearest loony bin.

Bonus Check!

Keith came home with his quarterly safety award bonus check yesterday. He had to sit through a very boring safety meeting after working and sweating in the 99 degree heat all day yesterday in order to get it though. They have some sort of sliding scale for these checks depending on your length of time working for the company but other than that who knows where they came up with the odd figure of 427.00 before taxes. Yes, they take taxes out of bonus checks. Sigh...

So, anyway, he comes home with this check which coincidentally came right after Mimi's vet visit that cost 217.00-see the kitties blog at http://festivalofelines.blogspot.com for all things kitty-and we were discussing what to do with it. Since it's his bonus I told him he could do whatever he wanted with it or we could just put it in the savings account for now.

His idea was to go get yet another kitty condo for our very spoiled cats who apparently don't have enough kitty condos yet.
As you can see here, we have two kitty condos already plus a kitty blanket in the corner for those who need cushiness for their naps. Keith's idea was to move the short condo and get another tall condo so that it's easier for the cats to run up the condo, run across the entertainment center and run back down the condo on the other end. Not that they don't do this already.

I reminded him that his truck is falling apart, more vet bills are coming up, I still need to go have gum surgery, and we have to send his daughter some promised money for a bed for her new apartment.

So, I think yet another kitty condo is low on the old priority list at this time.

The Oilfields of Bakersfield

Last Sunday when we went to the zoo, we passed through the lovely town of Oildale which got it's name from the-you guessed it-oilfields of Bakersfield. I forget how huge these oilfields are and how ugly ugly ugly they are.

Most of Bakersfield is flat as a pancake, but there is a part of town that is built on the bluffs overlooking the river. The street on top of the bluff is appropriately called Panorama Drive, and it's a nice street with houses and trees on one side and a strip of park and walkways on the bluff side. The view is spectacular, but it's mostly oilfields, which as I said are ugly ugly ugly unless of course you OWN those oilfields and then I guess you see lots of green when you look at them.
The pictures look way better than the actual scenery here-the thousands of oilwells are just little specks off in the distance here. You can see the river with actual water running in it in the foreground, plus a canal that diverts some of the water.
We were looking at this view and imagining the first settlers who came to Bakersfield looking at this same view back before all the oilwells went up. In the spring when the hills were green and the river was running wild it must have been really pretty.

More CALM

This is the new train ride at the California Living Museum-only $1.00 for a ride! So of course, we had to go on the train.
Not much in the way of scenery, but this is where I would like to live-a big ass house on the banks of the Kern River. I don't know where all this water goes, but by the time you get back into the city the river is just a big dry riverbed.
The mountains out here are really pretty but with no rain for months they are just brown as far as you can see.
A mule deer-they are native to just the coastal mountains in California. I guess they call them mule deers because of their very large ears?
A bobcat-just a little bigger than our house kitties. This one saw Keith further down the fence, ran down there and then turned around and tried to spray him!
Bear hugs.
The almost extinct parking meter species.
And the roadrunner-BEEP BEEP! There was one roadrunner inside the turtle exhibit (no turtles that we could see) and this roadrunner that was outside was kind of like taunting the inside roadrunner. The inside roadrunner was having a fit and jumping up against the cage.

There is an exhibit for coyotes but they must have been hiding from the heat (or maybe the roadrunners got them) because we couldn't see them.

So, the California Living Museum is a fun way to spend a few hours of what otherwise would have been a pretty dull Sunday.

Whew!

I'm almost finished.

I decided to do a revamp of my etsy supply shop with all new fresher looking pictures and a weeding out of old stuff that's just been sitting there. So, for the past few days I've been taking new pictures and editing all of my hundreds of listings. Now that I am almost done I'm really wondering why I decided to do this, it's a whole lot of boring work!

But, my shop might look a little nicer and maybe supply sales will start to pick up again. It's been kind of slow in both my shops for the past month or so. Guess I can't complain too much, though, at least I'm still getting sales on a regular basis.
Time for a beer!!

Part two of CALM Sunday tomorrow.

A CALM Sunday

I think we are a couple of the most boring people in the world. Our weekends are pretty darn dull, errands and grocery shopping and maybe cleaning something around the house or some yard work. Yesterday was even more boring than usual, we went to buy lunch stuff for the week then Keith was channel surfing on the TV and I was working on the computer and I got to thinking about how darn boring we are when I had an idea for something to do. The weather wasn't quite as hot as usual, only about 90 instead of 100 and there was a breeze in the air, so I remembered about CALM-the California Living Museum way on the other side of town. We had been there when we first moved here and had also gone at Christmas time for the light display that they have there at night during the holiday season-the entire zoo is lit up with holiday lights, many in the shape of zoo animals.

Now, this zoo is not your typical zoo with animals from all over the world. All of the animals here-and there aren't very many-are all native Californians, and most of them are rescue animals that were injured or orphaned.

The parking lot was almost empty, only about 10 cars there, half of which probably belonged to the employees, so we didn't have to deal with much in the way of crowds. We were told that there would be a mammal show at 2:00, so we went to the little outdoor theatre area but didn't see any activity, so we went to the reptile room and looked at some snakes-again, all California natives. Each exhibit has a map that shows what part of California the animals would be found in, which is kind of interesting. As we were looking at the snakes, a zoo employee came in to let us know that the show was starting.

I think all of the zoo employees were watching the show along with us and two other families-everyone had a front row seat!

Two girls had two orphaned raccoon babies on leashes and talked about raccoons with the raccoons climbing all over them the whole time. The raccoons were nervous because this was one of their first shows and they weren't used to the 'huge' crowds yet, so they kept climbing the girls and trying to get back into their carrier cage. Very cute watching them, I'd never seen a raccoon up close and personal like that before.

These little raccoons just climbed the girls like they were trees!

Coming tomorrow: the rest of our exciting zoo story!

Cheaper?

Is it about the same price for the two of us to go out to eat or fix something at home? I really don't like to cook anymore, it's boring and makes a big mess that you have to clean up, and I really don't like to shop for the food to cook with anymore, its boring and makes a big mess that you have to clean up when you bring all those grocery bags in.

So, yesterday I went to Vons for the ingredients for southwestern chicken salad, and yes, I know it would be cheaper if I cooked my own chicken and shredded my own cheese, and chopped up my own lettuce, and cooked my own beans from dried, and grew my own corn-BUT I don't WANT to!

So, by the time I bought packaged southwestern chicken strips, canned corn and black beans, shredded cheese, bagged salad, grape tomatoes, tortilla chips, some coffee creamer and a People magazine-my weekly addiction-it came out to $35.00.

And, instead of fixing the salad for last night's dinner, we went down the road to Spencers Restaurant and each had a big salad, Keith had 2 beers, I had iced tea, and Keith also had an appetizer of a cheese quesadilla, and it came to-you guessed it-$35.00. (plus a $5.00 tip)

So, for about the same price and no work, you get dinner for two complete with a free homemade cookie for dessert (or ice cream), and since this is a locally owned restaurant we are helping the local economy by patronizing them.
See, I can justify eating out EVERY DAY NOW!!

Tonight we will have the southwestern chicken salad, though. Even though I will not enjoy fixing it or cleaning up after it.

Getting Off My Lazy Ass

Seriously, something about the air in this town-the pollution maybe?-turns you into an incredibly lazy person who just wants to sit in front of the TV and watch Oprah or Montel.
I'm incredibly out of shape but getting myself up to do anything physical is just a huge struggle.

But, last night, we actually got our lazy asses onto our bikes and went for a ride around the neighborhood. It was still hot outside, but only about 95 instead of 195, so it actually felt good to get outside and do something.

I like bike riding because:
A-you create your own breeze as you are riding, and B-you get to SIT DOWN!

It was a very leisurely slow paced ride-we are incredibly out of shape after all-but hey, it counts, right?

We live in what is known as the lah-di-dah 'Riverlakes' neighborhood, complete with homeowners association fees, a golf course up the road and an actual man made lake that we've seen once or twice. Our fees buy us a key to the pool that we've never used, a rent a cop that drives by once in a while, and occasional nasty fix it letters if you don't mow your grass often enough.

We are in the ghetto part of this neighborhood-if there were railroad tracks we would be on the wrong side of them. Our street looks pretty good, most of the houses are owner occupied and everyone tries to keep things looking nice, but we always have the stray shopping cart on the street or graffiti on the mailboxes, and if you go over one street there are definite signs of ghettoness. Brown weedy lawns, a huge swingset in the front yard, Christmas lights that never get taken down, assorted junk on the side of the house, and maybe a broken down car or two in the driveway. I think these streets have seceded from the union of homeowners.

I do feel a little better this morning, so maybe we'll get ourselves back on the bikes again tonight.

An experiment

Because I used the words check into cash in my post about the TV commercials, the check into cash robot put a comment (commercial) on my blog. So, I'm going to conduct a little experiment here and see if I can get any other companies to come rushing to my blog to see what I am saying about them.

Today, after I went to Check into Cash and cashed a check that may or may not bounce higher than a super ball (do they still make those?) I went to Target and bought some Kleenex and some Scoop Away cat litter and some Charmin toilet paper and some Oreo cookies and some Coca-Cola and some Friskies cat food, and then I stopped at the Shell gas station to fill up my Ford Escort. I was craving coffee so I went to Starbucks and filled up there, too. Then I went to McDonald's for the french fries and Burger King for a hamburger and then to A&W for a root beer. Then I went shopping at Bed Bath and Beyond and Cost Plus and thought about getting a cell phone from Cingular or Sprint but decided to go to Best Buy instead and look at the cell phones there. I needed to get some office supplies so I went to Office Depot which is right next to Home Depot which is right next to Wal-Mart which is right next to Petco which is near Red Lobster and Arbys and Wendys and IHOP and Dennys.
Did I ever mention that we live behind a huge shopping center that spans two huge blocks? It's very handy for shopping, the only bad thing is the only grocery store is Foods Co which is like a warehouse store and makes me feel creeped out when I go in there. But besides all the stores I've already mentioned we also have a Kohls and Michaels and Jamba Juice and Babies R Us and Dress Barn and Pier One and whew, that's a lot of stores!
So, this evening after a dinner of Little Caesars and Pizza Hut and Jack in the Box and Carls Jr (not really) we went to Blockbuster and also got some movies from Netflix.
And in the news tonight, the announcement that Budweiser is selling to a company that is not American has greatly upset Keith, so he'll be switching to Coors since it's still made in America-at least I think it is.

Wanted

We went to see Wanted yesterday afternoon. Pretty good movie with lots of action and a fun time watching it. However, I really do need to think about those Depends again, I always have to go to the bathroom and miss part of the movie.

We were talking about all the special effects and how movies just keep having to get more and more out there with the car chases and the bullets smashing into each other and the train falling into the gorge-they didn't show how they got back out of the gorge and I kind of wondered about that. I know so much is all computer generated now, which kind of seems like cheating to me, but it's like the movie going public has seen it all and they have to wrack their brains to think of enough excitement to keep us in our seats and paying those high ticket prices.

Like the preview we saw for Jason Statham's new movie-Death Race or whatever. It looks like a remake of all the drive in type car chase movies from the sixties and seventies-in other words, totally stupid-but with much much better special effects and more bloodshed. Much as I like Jason Statham I don't think I'd pay to see this one.

The new mummy movie looks good, though, and again, they just have to keep adding more and more to these movies to get you to want to go see them. Thousands of skeleton warriors and arrows flying and big dragons coming to get you and low flying airplanes and huge battles between mummies and skeletons and real people in there somewhere too.

It takes a lot to get me to actually get out of the house and drive to the theatre and then fork over twenty bucks for us to see a movie when we could just wait a few months and rent it for 3.99, but with some movies you just have to see it on the big screen with that surround sound, although the big screen is more like the medium screen these days.

And Now It's Time For A Word From Our Sponsors

Commercials. Does anybody like watching them at any time other than Super Bowl Sunday? No? Well, me neither.

We were watching TV last night, Dateline Mystery or whatever it's called and were flabbergasted at a couple of the commercials that came on.

First, a woman who looks good on the outside but doesn't feel good on the inside. Vagisil-for that itch you just can't scratch. EEEEEWWWWWW!!

And then, a man shaving where he puts on the shaving cream and the camera goes deep down into his beard and you see all these scantily clad women with what looks like super soakers spraying white creamy stuff on his face. EEEEEEWWWWWW!! I know sex sells, but that was just gross!

And we've noticed that when you are watching the nightly news with Brian Williams all of the commercials are for drugs for things like restless leg syndrome or the once a year osteoporosis pill. But on daytime shows like Jerry Springer the commercials are for bail bondsmen and check into cash and turning your gold into cash. Interesting.

A Good Excuse

Not to do any housework.

We have had record breaking high temps this week, getting up to 109 here in town. So, the power companies have us on a 'flex alert' meaning to 'flex' your power by not using major appliances before 7 pm, keeping your thermostat at 78, turning out your lights, etc., etc.
While I don't think it's the average household using up all the energy since most people are at work using up all the energy in those big buildings, I'll do my part and not use my vacuum cleaner before OR after 7pm. How's that?

Also, this week is bike, carpool, or take the bus to work week. Why the city would pick what is traditionally a very hot week to advise people to ride their bike or sit at an unshaded bus stop is beyond me. You aren't even supposed to be outside if you can help it this week because of the extremely unhealthful air, much less ride that bike to work in the 100 degree plus temps. Why not have this public awareness week during the spring or fall when the temps are pleasant and the air might be just a little cleaner? Makes sense to me. Carpooling is a good idea, if you can find someone that lives close by that works in the same place as you. This is a very very large spread out city and driving around picking up all your co-workers would probably use just as much gas as everyone driving themselves to work.

There has already been one heat related death and two men went to the hospital yesterday for heatstroke, one so bad he had to be airlifted. I really feel for the farmworkers during the summer. It's harvest time for all the summer fruits but to have to be out there picking fruit to try and put a meal on your families table in this heat, not to mention that farmworkers housing is usually one step up from a cardboard box with maybe a swamp cooler if they're really lucky. They don't have the choice of staying inside and not breathing the toxic air.

And then, there is the water shortage that is affecting the summer crop. We saw on the news last night that farmers have already used up their allotment of water and will have to plow under unripened crops because they can't water them anymore.

But, if you are looking for a job, here's good news.

We were watching our local news and an ad came on for the town of Hobbs, New Mexico saying to come to New Mexico, we have 2600 jobs available! Keith and I looked at each other totally perplexed. Huh? I've never seen a town advertising for people to come fill jobs before, and why would they pick the city of Bakersfield to advertise in?
Well, after a little googling, we found that Hobbs, New Mexico is in the southeastern part of the state right on the border to Texas and is currently part of the new oil boom going on there. So, if you like desert-hot in summer, cold in winter, and no rain-go to sunny New Mexico! And Bakersfield is an oil town, so where better to advertise for roughnecks to go work in the oilfields of Texas and New Mexico?

A Live Update From the Streets of Bakersfield

Today the temps are going to get up into the 100's again, but here's the good news: It's going to 'feel like' it's 112 because of the humidity. Oh, and don't go outside because the air is filled with smoke from the fire up by Lake Isabella where small towns are being evacuated as we speak.

Poor old Cali Cat from next door is no longer with us. She had been a stray originally and was strictly an outdoor cat since neighbor man is allergic to cats and wouldn't let her inside. So, when the vet said the leg was so badly damaged that it would have to be amputated they decided it would be better to put her down, an outdoor cat wouldn't stand much of a chance with only three legs, plus trying to care for an outdoor amputee cat that can't come into the house would be difficult, plus the 1500.00 surgery fee was simply unaffordable, so Cali is now in the giant litter box in the sky, poor thing.

From The Streets of Bakersfield

Last night at 12:15 am the ringing of our doorbell woke us up out of a sound sleep. What the....?

Keith goes to the door in his skivvies to hear 'Police!!'

Aaackk! They found us! You'll never take us alive!

The officer said there was a cat stuck in our gate on the side of the house, and is it ours? Keith comes back in to put some clothes on and goes out to find poor little Cali Cat from next door hanging by one leg off of the gate. She was facing out so couldn't claw her way out of her predicament and was yowling away. He saw that her back leg was stuck in between the very narrow spaces between the fence pickets and didn't want to try to squeeze her leg back out, so he had the officer break the picket that was trapping her leg and got her down. Her leg was obviously broken and was just hanging by skin with the bone sticking out. I'm amazed that Cali wasn't biting and scratching him, she must have been in a lot of pain.

The other officer went to wake up Cali's owners, Keith telling them that her leg was broken and there is an emergency pet clinic downtown. Mr. Neighbor of course says 'Hell, no, I'm not spending any money on that cat!' So, Keith said for them to get a box to put her in and keep her comfortable until the morning when they could decide what to do with her.

The policemen said they had been cruising the neighborhood because they had gotten two complaints about loud music and heard poor Cali yowling away, none of us had heard a thing, loud music or cat yowling. If they hadn't been in the neighborhood, she would have hung there all night or until her leg actually ripped off.

Another good reason to keep your cats safe indoors.

And also in the news:

A man with a gun robbed a fireworks stand shortly before the holiday, then shot himself in the leg as he was fleeing. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Your criminal career got off to a great start, didn't it! Yes, we do have what seems to be an extraordinary amount of stupid people in this town.

Drunk in Public

At the end of a long quiet Sunday-me working on some soldering and Keith working on his never ending back yard projects, I had stepped out front just in time to hear the man across the street yelling 'get out of my house!' and coming out the front door with a girl hanging off him and another one still in the house screaming at him. He yelled at me to call 911 so I grabbed the phone and called, telling the operator that there was a domestic dispute going on across the street. I've seen fighting going on over there before, one night it went on for about an hour and gave us lots of entertainment.

They all went back in the house where we heard more yelling, him telling the girls that the police were on the way.

Well, no, the police were in no big hurry to get there, it was about 15 minutes before two police cars finally rolled up, by this time the drama was back out in the front yard. One of the girls punched the guy in the face and he was yelling at her about filing assault charges.

We were getting ready to go pop some popcorn and enjoy the rest of the show, our neighbors were all out in their front yard watching, too.

So, the police talked to everybody for a little while, the girls had some other friends come pick them up-guess everybody had been doing a little drinking and didn't want the police to see them driving themselves away-and then the police get ready to leave.
Keith was livid-'Hey, you're not going to do anything about this? This kind of stuff happens all the time over there!'
Nope, nobody wants to press charges, so not much we can do.

Okay, so you, Mr. Man with the whacked out girlfriend, don't be asking me to waste our police resources and call 911 the next time your drunk girlfriend comes over and wants to pick a fight with you. Keep it inside your house so we don't have to listen to it, please! Or start selling tickets!

Supposedly he is going to get a restraining order-yeah, right. I told him that Keith is about ready to call the owner of the house and tell him what a nuisance his tenant is becoming, and the guy got a little pissy about that, so I don't think we are his best friends anymore.

Sort of Quiet Fourth

Our 4th was not much to write home about. We decided to go see a movie, which we haven't done in I don't even remember the last time we were in a movie theatre. We decided on Hancock and went to the first showing of the day at 10 am thinking that it wouldn't be very crowded. HA! We had to sit in the very front where you end up with a crick in your neck and a feeling of nausea from being too close to the screen. There were a few seats up top but I refuse to try and crawl over people to get into a seat, mainly because I know I'll have to pee at least once during the movie and don't want to have to crawl back over said people. Hmm, maybe this is where those Depends might come in handy.

I couldn't believe the price of admission-it's up to $10.00 now for regular admission. No wonder we just wait until everything comes out on dvd!

The movie was entertaining and enjoyable even though I did have to get up to go pee and missed a few minutes. That's why I like watching them at home, you can pause for potty breaks.

So, after the movie we stopped for a sandwich and stopped at Target to get some bubble wrap and tape and stopped at Home Depot to get a shop vac for my studio so I'll quit sucking up things that should't be sucked up in the regular vacuum-like bits of metal and solder.

The rest of the day was uneventful-I messed around on the computer and packed some orders. Keith broke out the scotch and hacked up some trees in the back yard, then promptly fell asleep after dinner. The loud party and fireworks across the street didn't seem to bother his nap any. The cats were all like 'WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON OUT THERE!?!' Buddy hid in the garage a few times.

So, another 4th come and gone, now we've got the rest of the hot hot summer to look forward to.

Read This Book

For anyone who is a baby boomer, gave birth to a baby boomer, is the child of a baby boomer, or has even just heard of the term baby boomer-READ THIS BOOK!!

For all you young whippersnappers out there, after World War Two, all of America went crazy having babies in the newly prosperous post war days and the country was soon overtaken with children. Lots and lots of children. The term baby boomer covers anyone who is now slipping into middle age or even old age-we were all born in those years between 1945 and 1965 and there are a whole lot of us.

Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of The Thunderbolt Kid takes us back to those days of the fifties and early sixties when being a child in America was a wondrous thing. This book is a memoir written in a very very funny way and is wholly entertaining for anyone, not just us baby boomers. From Saturday afternoon matinees to ordering x-ray glasses from the back of a comic book, to learning how to 'duck and cover' in case of an atomic bomb explosion, this book will bring back memories of baby boomer childhood in a big way. And if you aren't a baby boomer kid, you'll enjoy reading about how much fun it was being kid in a much more innocent time was.
Keith enjoyed this book, too-he's not a big reader of anything remotely resembling a novel, preferring books about trains or war or bridges, but he read this in 2 evenings and didn't even fall asleep while reading, which is what usually happens. And he laughed the whole time.

Here's an excerpt from the book about Roy Rogers, who came into our homes on the little black and white screen of television on a weekly basis. Baby boomer kids loved anything western, and you could even order full on cowboy and cowgirl outfits from the Sears catalog.

'He lived in a western town, Mineral City, that seemed comfortably bedded in the nineteenth century. It had wooden sidewalks and hitching posts, the houses used oil lamps, everyone rode horses and carried six-shooters, the marshal dressed like a cowboy and wore a badge-but when people ordered coffee in Dale's cafe it was brought to them in a glass pot off an electric hob. From time to time modern policemen or FBI men would turn up in cars or even light airplanes looking for fugitive Communists, and when this happened I can clearly remember thinking, "What the f**k?" or whatever was the equivalent expression for a five-year-old.'

ME TOO!! Like every other kid in America in the fifties and early sixties, we all dreamed of being cowboys or cowgirls riding horses in The Wild West, but what the heck are cars and trucks doing in the romantic Wild West? I never could figure that one out, either, and would rather watch The Lone Ranger than Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, because you never saw a truck on The Lone Ranger. (hi-yo Silver!)

Anyway, read this book!!!

Lost In The Bowels of Home Depot

So, on Saturday Keith went to get blinds for our naked windows at Home Depot-see previous post about our windows having been naked for the last six months.

He asked me if I wanted to go with him, and having made previous pilgrimages to Home Depot aka the Altar of All Things For Men with him I politely declined with an emphatic HELL NO!
I told him to just buy the basic everyday vertical blinds and I'd be happy with those-nothing fancy, just basic everyday vertical blinds.

This is what he came home with TWO HOURS later:


It's hard to see what these look like with the light shining through them, but they are brown roll up blinds that filter the light but obviously you can still SEE through them, so people can probably still see IN FROM OUTSIDE WHEN HE IS WALKING AROUND WITH HIS JUNK HANGING OUT. But, I digress.
These are not basic everyday vertical blinds. And when you want to go out the slider to put the trash out, you have to roll up the blinds and then kind of duck under them to get out the door.

He spent those two hours at The Altar of All Things for Men going through every blind catalog they had looking for the perfect blinds, finally choosing some, only to find out that they were SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS!!! He knew I would kill him if he came home with SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLAR blinds, so he wisely decided to wait and get my opinion first. He was at Home Depot for so long that the sales person went on their lunch break and came back to find him still there.

So, he bought these $30.00 interim blinds until we can afford the SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLAR blinds. HAHAHAHAHAHA

We are living in an unfinished house with a $40.00 yard sale loveseat and chair, and you think that I would ever in a million years spend SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS on blinds because they, and I quote-'look nice and I want our blinds to look nice'. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA-keep dreaming!