Today

I woke up to the smell of Keith making one of his breakfast egg and potato and whatever else combinations of whatever is in the refrigerator breakfasts. He always uses seasoning salt that just reeks of spices and permeates the entire house.

He forgot that we were going to go out for breakfast this morning as part of our anniversary/birthday festivities.

So, I made him clean out the cat boxes as punishment for forgetting.

And, then I got to clean up his breakfast mess.

Tomorrow

Is my birthday. I will be turning 53. Eek! 53 is 371 in dog years.

It is also our wedding anniversary. I think it's been 5 years, but I can't even remember what year we got married in. I'm 371 after all and my memory is not what it used to be.

When we got married, I picked the same day as my birthday because it was a Saturday (convenient and a day off) and I thought it would make the date easier for Keith to remember. No, he gets the date sort of right ( 30th...31st?) but he always gets the month wrong and thinks it's in October.

I was trying to think of something fun to do tomorrow and have come up with nothing so far other than going out to dinner, which isn't that exciting since we do that a lot anyway. It's too hot to go on a day trip and we spent all of our money on fixing the car, so I think we'll just hang out at home until it's time to go out to dinner. I can't think of anything that I really need or want except for the 4th season of The Office on dvd, which comes out on Tuesday, so that will be my birthday present to myself.

When I think of birthday songs, the traditional 'happy birthday to you' song doesn't pop up in my head, but rather the old do-wop 'happy happy birthday bay-beee!'. Can't remember anything but that line though, so it just goes around and around in my head...'happy happy birthday bay-beee!'

So, I'll try and have a pleasant birthday and anniversary even though I am so very very old.

Sounds Like

We just got back from Tortilla Soup night at Spencers Restaurant. Good soup and free cookies!

They have 2 big TV's on the wall that are always on with the closed captioning thing going. Now, I don't know if a human sits there and types or it's some kind of computer program, but tonight it was telling me about Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Drink" speech.

Bored Much?

Come on up to Kern County this weekend for the Gun Show!! Only $8.00 admission and THE KIDS GET IN FREE!!

I was messing around with google last night, typing in my name, my maiden name, my first married name, etc. and came up with all sorts of people with the same name, especially my maiden name, Elizabeth Stapleton, which apparently was quite popular in the middle ages in England. It's kind of weird seeing your name and then date of death right after it. I typed in my sons full name and only found one person with the same name and middle initial and it was a gravestone. Not just kind of creepy but VERY creepy.

Especially since it was a little baby.

Okay, enough morbidity. I was messing around on ebay, looking at salt and pepper shakers and found these. Folks, just because something is OLD doesn't mean that it's VALUABLE!


Really goofy looking owls-at least I think these are owls, the one on the left appears to have been born with a deformed beak.

And these dog and cat salt and peppers look obscene to me, especially that 'come hither' look in the doggie's eyes, sending those 'hey baby' looks over to the cat, who appears to be oblivious to the dog's advances. The cat looks like it is doing the limbo or some yoga, and only has 2 legs and a stump.

Clean Kitchen

Yesterday we went grocery shopping and had to take the Big Dog aka Big Blue aka Keith's big ass truck, (which has no air conditioning) since my car is in the shop because the new timing belt broke. So, a hot un-air conditioned ride to the store and then even with some meal planning and a list a huge amount of money was spent. It helps if Keith comes with me because then he can get what he wants for his lunches, but at the same time it is similar to taking a small child with you to the store. They want everything. Everything that doesn't fit into the meal plan and usually ends up rotting in the fridge or on a shelf in the pantry.

But, anyway, we got all the stuff home and I was worn out from the ordeal, so I just stuffed everything in the general direction of where it belongs and said 'I'll clean the kitchen tomorrow.'

And, son of a gun, I did clean the kitchen this morning! High five! And I even put all the stove parts in the sink to soak and halfheartedly clean later.

I even cleaned out under the sink, which should be called the lost land of cleaning products that you buy, use once, and shove under the sink and forget about. Oven cleaner? When's the last time I used oven cleaner? Our oven is 'self cleaning' not that I even bother to do that. And four different kinds of all purpose spray cleaner, each with that last inch or so in the bottom that won't spray out? And some of those little scrubby pads with the soapy stuff in them that I bought to use when I clean all the stove parts and forgot were in there. And a bonus- a half full bottle of liquid soap that I emptied into the soap dispenser on the counter.

I'm glad the Olympics is finally over, now maybe I won't park myself on the couch until midnight each night. The closing ceremonies were very odd and kind of boring, I thought. I wasn't too impressed with the double decker bus nonsense, and what was the point of having David Beckham come all the way to Beijing to stand there like an idiot and throw the soccer ball? Did they have to pay him hundreds of thousands of dollars for that 2 second appearance? I hope not.

Another reason I'm glad the Olympics is over is that now I can finish watching season one of Heroes, get season two when it comes out tomorrow, and watch that really quick so that when season three starts I know what the heck is going on. I'm not that much of a TV watcher, but this show has managed to get me hooked. I think Hiro is the main reason, without him the show just wouldn't be as interesting.

So, now I have to go wash the stove parts and put them back on the stove.

Vacuuming in Your Underwear

It's been hot here. Really hot. But my house still needs cleaning at least once in a while, and cleaning makes me hot and sweaty, especially when it's really hot here.

So, my solution this morning was to clean in my underwear.

Our house is laid out so that there are no windows that face the street except for the front bedroom. The living room/great room, which as I've said before is not so great, has the sliding door onto the backyard and a side window that faces a fence, so there is not much of a chance of anyone seeing me cleaning in my underwear, and if they did happen to climb up onto the six foot fence to see anything, it's not a pretty sight anyway and I'm sure they would be very disappointed. So, cleaning in my underwear is a good solution to the getting hot and sweaty while cleaning issue. And I was even organized about it, leaving the bathroom for last, so that I could just get in the shower and clean that while taking my shower and getting un-hot and un-sweaty.

Sorry, no pictures.

Oh, and I finally hit 2500 sales in my original etsy shop:
http://geelizzie.etsy.com
(shameless plug there)
I actually would have hit that number before now but I moved all of my non-glass jewelry over to my collage shop:
http://geelizziecollage.etsy.com
another shameless plug
so the sales on the jewelry in that shop would have counted in the first shop and helped to reach that particular goal
Now on to 3000 sales!

Well Feck!

Keith has been driving my car to work to try and save money on gas, since his car is a big blue monster truck and his commute is about 30 miles or so up to the big city of Wasco. Wasco is famous for the Rose Festival each Labor Day weekend-they grow a lot of roses in Wasco.

Last December we had to put a new timing belt on my car after we were left stranded in Castaic. See here:
http://geelizzie.blogspot.com/2007/12/really-bad-horrible-weekend.html
I don't know how to make those highlighted words that take you right to a post and I've looked in the help section on blogger to try and figure it out, so for now I just have to do the link thing, which took me long enough to figure out how to do the first time I tried to put a link in something. Sorry, I'm just a little computer challenged-remember I grew up when transistor radios were the big thing, so cut me some slack.

Anyway, so Keith just called on his way home from work and said the car broke down on him a few blocks from home, just plain old died in the street, and he was waiting for the tow truck. He took a look under the hood, and guess what? It's the timing belt. That is only 9 months old. The timing belt that should last for another 50000 miles, and I KNOW we haven't driven any 50000 miles in 9 months. What the hell?

It figures, it's payday today so the car must have known that our checking account just got a fresh transfusion of money in it today.

Feck!!

Back To School

All the kids here in Bakersfield went back to school this week. School seems to start earlier and earlier each year, none of this waiting until after Labor Day like when I was a kid.

I see them on their way to school each morning, walking down the street to either catch the bus on the corner or walk up to the elementary school about 1/2 mile away. And then, again on their way home each afternoon.

It makes me so very glad that my kids are all grown up and I don't have to do the getting the kids to school in the morning always in a big rush because I've got to get to work too thing anymore. Not to mention the PTA meetings and back to school nights and selling candy and checking homework and yelling at the kids to get to bed because they have to get up for school in the morning.

No, don't miss that too much, I'm content to just watch the fresh faced kids with their new shoes and backpacks walking down the street each morning knowing that I'm not the one who has to get them up out of bed, washed, dressed, fed, and teeth brushed, lunch packed, homework in the backpack, and off to school.

From The Streets of Bakersfield

Here's a bizarre story that was in the news last night:

Some Bakersfield residents were cleaning out a storage locker on Tuesday and had brought a bunch of containers home and saw a decomposed hand while going through a trash can that didn't belong to them. Apparently they share the space with other people and why they brought the trash can home that doesn't belong to them I don't know. So, homicide detectives went through the rest of the trash can and found an entire decomposed body attached to the hand.

And, then they find a whole other decomposed body in another trash can at the storage facility. The news story doesn't say if the second body was in the same storage locker as the first, and they are trying to determine how many people have access to the storage locker. The two bodies have been decomposing for several years.

Quoted from the story in the newspaper: The Sheriff's Commander doesn't believe that there was a serial killer at work or anything else to cause alarm.

Here's my theory.

It costs a lot to bury your dead up here in Bakersfield and almost every weekend there is a car wash or two or three somewhere in town trying to earn money to put on a funeral for a loved one. I'm thinking that they didn't earn quite enough money at the car wash to bury Grandma and Grandpa so they just stuffed them in trash cans and stored them away. And then just kinda forgot about them.

Randomness

The weather has finally broken here. I woke up yesterday morning and went outside to an actual coolness in the air. The weatherman said we could finally open our windows at night instead of having the air conditioner on, but it was still kind of hot in here, and this morning the dog behind us is barking away so I don't know about having the window open after all. That dog hasn't been doing too much barking lately because it was just too hot, but apparently he is enjoying the cooler morning too.

We've been watching the Olympics here and there, not that we are really into sports that much, but since it only happens once every four years, you kind of feel like you should pay attention. We were watching the womens marathon and wondering why people would even want to run for over two hours in the first place. At least with the 100 meter runs or whatever lengths they are, it's over with in just a few seconds, not two and a half hours. The marathon runners did NOT look like they were having fun, and then the woman who won still had to run around the stadium. I'm sure she got an extra burst of adrenaline at winning, but good lord, you'd think all she'd want to do is sit down, not run around the stadium some more.

Since about all they've shown on the Olympics in the evenings has been swimming, running, and gymnastics, that's what I've watched. The poor girl last night who was a sure thing to win the hurdles and then tripped over one and there went her gold. When they showed it in slow motion, it was pretty easy to read her lips: OH F**K!!!.

Then there was the little Chinese gymnast who messed up on whatever it was she was doing and was just crying her little eyes out...awwww.

We were watching one of our local TV channels the other day, the one that plays all the commercials for local businesses, most of which are really low budget and show it, when a commercial came on for Liberty Bail Bonds. They even have a PLAY AREA FOR THE KIDS at Liberty Bail Bonds! How handy!!

We went down to BJ's last night for dinner since neither one of us felt like cooking (what else is new?) and there were some young couples and a baby having dinner. Apparently it was the baby's first birthday since he was wearing a first birthday crown. He was tired of being there and was getting cranky and didn't want to eat his pizzookie. And then when the baby's parents were trying to pay for dinner, not one, but two of their credit cards were declined. Then all of them had to start digging in their wallets for some real money. How embarrassing! Not a memory I'd want to have of baby's first birthday-sorry, honey, we're way over extended and can't even cover dinner with our credit cards!

For those 'not in the know' a pizzookie is a wonderful concoction of a warm cookie-your choice of flavors-with ice cream and chocolate syrup on top. A pizza cookie-how clever and delicious!

Oh, and Keith did get all of the gravel to the back yard last weekend. He made like a little gravel corral out there and rounded it all up.

This is what he's doing with all of the gravel. He's been building planter boxes and then putting these pavers in between. The little square is for a future plant. And the black thing behind the broken fence post is:

Our friend, the barking dog Cujo. I don't know what his real name is but we call him Cujo. This poor dog is stuck in the back yard all day with a very uninvolved owner. He gets really bored and barks. A lot.

The Most Exciting Part of Our Weekend

So far.
Was when this big dump truck backed into our driveway.
And started dumping.
And dumping some more.
And then left this big pile of expensive gravel on the driveway.

Why do we have a big pile of expensive gravel on our driveway? So that Keith can wheelbarrow loads of it to the back yard and dump it there.

He is working on planter boxes and paving stones to fill in our yes, hillbillies live here and our back yard is full of junk back yard. The gravel goes under the paving stones.

So, yesterday he spent all day hauling and working in the 105 degree heat fortified with many many coronas. (if he gets to drink beer while he's working he gets a lot more done). Why didn't he wait until the fall when the weather is cooler? Because when Keith gets a bug up his ass about something there is no waiting until fall when the weather is cooler. I just hope he finishes this before fall....but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Weird Dream

Keith has been working on the back yard for months now, totally neglecting all the unfinished business inside the house-still no kitchen or hallway flooring. So yesterday he orders a whole bunch of gravel to be dumped onto our driveway on Saturday morning. To put in the back yard. The back yard that really isn't ready yet for gravel to be put down. The back yard that will be 105 in the shade this weekend.

$260.00 worth of gravel. To go in the back yard.

So, early this morning I woke up really really angry because I had this dream that the gravel was delivered and it was four very small piles of rocks. Very small, like a bag of gravel that you would buy at Home Depot for $4.99. Four very small piles of gravel. That cost $260.00.

Photos of our gravel pile to come after it's dumped in the driveway. I just hope it doesn't sit in the driveway for the next few months.

We Should Just Eat Out Every Night

So, I went up to the store to get ingredients for a nice cool summery green salad for dinner tonight. Lettuce, carrots, red pepper, radishes, tomatoes, bacon bits, dressing, and a bag of those crunchy tortilla strips-oops, forgot shredded cheese-and some frozen texas toast (no, I'm NOT going to make my own Texas Toast) and it came to $17.00 and some change.

We could go out and get salads for about $25.00 for the entire meal (with free cookies at Spencers).

Hmmmm.....make it myself, or eat out, make it myself, or eat out?

But, we will probably get two actual salad dinners out of all the ingredients provided we still feel like eating salad tomorrow night and all the leftovers don't just get thrown out at the end of the week.

I really hate figuring out what to eat sometimes. If I didn't get excruciatingly hungry and could find a magic pill that would fill me up and give me all my nutritional needs I'd be happy. Eating is just getting kind of boring and a chore, especially the cooking and cleaning and shopping parts. Much easier to just go to a restaurant where you don't have to do anything but sit there, order, eat, and then pay for it and leave. And somebody else has to do the cooking and cleaning part.

Another 'Duh' Moment

We stayed up until midnight Friday night watching the opening ceremonies of the Olympics and realized that we are pretty dumb when it comes to world geography. There were so many countries that we had never heard of and had no idea where they were and we were looking at each other with what I am sure were very dumb looks on our faces when after about 10 countries we noticed the little globe on the screen that showed us where these countries were located. Duh...

What amazed me were the little tiny countries, like some of the islands in the South Pacific where the total population of the entire country is like 12,000 people. Can you imagine coming from a country where everybody knows everybody else? Not just small town living but small country living!

And, speaking of the Olympics, our own local Olympian, Larsen Jensen, took the Bronze in the 400 meter freestyle. Yay!!

This morning we made our own Rootie Tootie Fresh and Fruity breakfast instead of going out to eat.

We had some fresh peaches and pluots-a new fruit that is 3/4 plum and 1/4 apricot. The ones we had were kind of blah but the peaches were good.

Keith's big hairy arm cooked the scrambled eggs.

I Really Have Nothing Much To Say

So I'll just talk miscellaneous again.

Keith got home safe and sound from his trip late Wednesday night. His training class was over in the early afternoon but his flight didn't leave until late evening so he had to sit in the hotel lobby for about 4 hours waiting for his ride to the airport and then sit at the airport for another few hours. Boooorrrrinnngg!!

Yesterday I had no packages to ship out. A day with no packages to ship is scary, I always think that it's the end and nobody will ever buy anything again.

Keith woke me up at 6am today calling me from work to tell me that he heard on the radio that Playgirl magazine is shutting down. I was still sleeping. Why he felt that I needed to hear this news at 6 am I just don't know. It was exciting having my necklace featured in Playgirl but there has been not one sale that I can directly connect to that feature. I think Playgirls readership is mostly gay men who don't buy women's necklaces too often.

There is a seller on Etsy who has some very nice pottery dishware. Except every dish has the word 'vegan' on it. What is it with vegans and their need to let everyone else in the world know that they are better than the rest of us because they are vegan? Is it like religious zealots who think that all the rest of us are headed for eternal damnation because we don't go to their church?

I started watching the first season of Heroes on dvd last night. Weird wonderful show!

That's all I can think of to write about today. As you can see there is not much that goes on around here.

More Random Junk

I'm actually going to clean the house this morning so that when Keith gets home tonight it doesn't look like I didn't do much of anything while he was gone-which I didn't.

We have one of those bagless vacuums where you can see all the stuff that gets sucked up off the floor. Ours is always full with a huge clump of grey kitty hair. Like a HUGE clump. Grey. We have 2 cats who are grey, Bear and Pepper, and right now Bear is leaving little wads of shedded hair everywhere she goes and if you just barely touch Pepper hair flies all over the place, accelerated by the ceiling and floor fans that are helping to keep our house cool and helping to get that hair on as many surfaces as possible.

I got some movies to watch while Keith was gone, ones that I know he would never be interested in. Juno-pretty good, Waitress-pretty good, Dreamgirls-got bored after a while, and Enchanted, which I haven't watched yet.

We had real live clouds in the sky yesterday-real clouds, not smog! But no rain of course.
I know it's weird to get excited by clouds in the sky, but summers here are really boring weather-wise. Hot, sunny, hot, sunny, hot, sunny, hot, sunny. With maybe a hot, sunny, smoggy thrown in there too.

Random Stuff

I finally arranged for my gum surgery which I was supposed to have early this year, but with Keith changing jobs last December we had no dental insurance for a while and then it took months to get our new cards. I had my every 3 month periodontal cleaning yesterday morning and they said 'yes, we still recommend the surgery', so I stopped by the surgery dentist (which I had of course been putting off and putting off) and gave them my new card and made the appointment. They said they would call me later and let me know what the insurance would cover.

Well, the insurance will cover $1500.00 out of almost $8000.00 worth of surgery, so we found out that I qualify for the 'platinum' payment plan, with a credit line of $10,500 and either 12 payments at no interest of $326.00 or 24 payments at 12% interest of $186.00. The $186.00 sounds a little more affordable and I don't really care about whether or not I pay interest, so for the next 2 years I will be paying $186.00 a month for the privilege of having my gums opened up by laser, cleaned out and some fake bone put in, and then sewn back up again. Can't wait.

On the medical form that the dentist gives you to fill out is one question that got me wondering.

Do you have to urinate (pass water) more than six (6) times a day?

First, do some people really not know what 'urinate' means and second do some people really urinate (pass water) LESS than six (6) times a day? I urinate (pass water) at LEAST six (6) times a day-usually before it's even lunch time!

I got a new bike seat the other day. It looks almost like a tractor seat-no thing that sticks out in the middle, whatever that part of a bike seat is called, but a lot smaller and is supposed to be more comfortable. Well, it's going right back to Target, I tried it out last night and every time you pedal it feels like you are sliding closer and closer to the front edge of the seat where eventually you will slide off and really hurt your crotch on the crossbar of the bike. Sorry, don't think I can enjoy my bike ride if I am worrying about sliding off and hurting my very private very tender area.

Why do I wake up at 6:30 am every single day despite the fact that I go to bed at 11 pm and it takes me at least 30 minutes to an hour to get to sleep, so I'm really going to bed around midnight? Is it just an sign that I am old and am going to be one of those people that are up with the chickens every day and then maybe have to start taking an afternoon nap because I'm not getting enough sleep at night because I wake up at 6:30 every day? Or do I just need less sleep because I am old?

Christians

Invaded Bakersfield yesterday.

We went across town last night to go have dinner at Mimi's Cafe which is conveniently located next to Barnes and Noble-makes for a nice dinner out when you can stop in at the bookstore after your meal. Well, the line at Mimi's was out the door with all kinds of well dressed churchy looking people waiting for a table, all wearing some sort of name tags. I didn't want to stare directly at people's chests trying to figure out what the name tags said, so I used my peripheral vision to try and make them out, and it was something about Church and Jesus. I guess there was a Christian convention going on somewhere nearby.

We didn't want to wait for a table at Mimi's, being the impatient people that we are, so we walked over to Marie Callenders which is conveniently located on the other side of Barnes and Noble, and it was the same thing-well dressed Christians waiting for a table. We didn't want to wait there either.

So, we went into Barnes and Noble for a few minutes, then down the street to El Torito, where the Christian invasion hadn't happened yet, and were able to get a table. As we ate, Christians began to fill up the nearby tables.

Seated nearby was a very large very well endowed young woman in a spaghetti strap dress with a Superman tattoo on her left breast-something about her told me that she was not with the rest of the Christians.

Dinner tasted funny to me and so did the iced tea-I think it was mango iced tea or something, and I prefer my iced tea to be just plain iced tea. I think El Torito is trying to be more continental or upscale because they are just getting a little too fancy with their food and sorry, it just all tasted odd. Even the fried ice cream had chipotle chocolate sauce on it-which tasted funny. Don't mess with chocolate sauce, it's fine just as it is!

And now, Keith has just left for his trip to Salt Lake, so I'm home alone until Wednesday night. Feels strange to be here by myself. He almost took a cat or two with him, they were trying to stow away in his luggage.


I wanna go too, Dad!!

Leaving On A Jet Plane

Don't know when I'll be back again....

No, I'm not going anywhere, but Keith is getting ready to fly out of Bakersfield International Airport tomorrow to go to Salt Lake City for a safety specialist training seminar at his company's headquarters. We went over to the airport yesterday to check out the lay of the land so to speak-neither of us have flown anywhere in a long long time.

Well, Bakersfield airport or BAX or whatever it's called is nothing like the airports in the big city, let me tell you. It was just a small town airport for small planes until just recently, so there is a now a brand new terminal with maybe four airlines that fly out of there.

The parking lot was relatively empty and so was the terminal, with just a few people sitting around, one employee at the Delta counter, and three employees looking kind of bored at some airline I've never heard of's counter. There is a little coffee/convenience store with one employee sitting behind the counter reading a magazine. The baggage claim is one carousel. I guess you wouldn't get lost looking for your gate in this airport.

It would be so easy to fly somewhere from here!

We were surprised that they actually have a direct flight from here to Salt Lake, one of the guys at his work had to first fly to LA-opposite direction of Salt Lake-and then sit at LAX for 2 hours waiting for his flight to Salt Lake-he could have just driven down to LAX in the same amount of time.

So, when Keith gets back on Wednesday night, really late, he will be a bona fide safety specialist but of course will not be monetarily compensated for the extra work he will have to do as said safety specialist.