Rejection

I cleaned out some file cabinets this afternoon. One folder contained rejection letters for various jobs I'd applied for in the early to mid 90's. I have no idea why I wanted kept them. To tell you the truth, I only remember applying for one of the jobs.

It was a memorable application and interview. The owner/HR director/smooth operator was favorably impressed because of many the resumes he'd received in the mail, mine was the only one mailed flat in a large envelope.

I was unfavorably impressed by the fact that the operational headquarters was in the basement of his house and involved typing up invoices and mailing them out. HELLO -- it was 19 frigging 95 and I did not type any more, I word processed on a computer and printed on an ultra modern dot matrix printer. Upstairs. With daylight streaming in.

I was not disappointed to be rejected for the job. I would have been laughing hysterically when the owner/HR director/smooth operator got convicted for various felonious activities regarding his so called business had he not taken huge amounts of money from sweet people from his church.

I really, really reject that.

Bob's Back

Hey Bob is home, as in "in the house". Snotty Pants is outside again, on the concrete stoop that faces west, rolling in the rays of sunset.

Did I tell you that it was a BEAUTIFUL DAY?? I want to live in a place where the weather is like this all of the time. My BFF tells me that place is San Diego.

Now an update on my update: All creatures great, small, old and fat, are in the house. Now if only someone would cook supper for this great, old, fat creature.

Bad Parenting / Snatched From the Jaws of Death

A week ago tonight, Captain Crab let Hey Bob and Skittles (aka Snotty Pants) out to frolic in the yard. Snotty Pants came back in and Hey Bob did not. I went to bed with SP and after we were settled, Crab came and took SP to send her outside to bring Bob back in. It did not work.

I woke up at 2:30, had to pee and, what the heck, look for cats. I went outside in my underwear and over sized "Howard Dean Precinct Captain" T shirt to look for them. SP came right away and I put her in the house before wandering around barefooted on grass and gravel with a flashlight.

I saw the reflection of animal eyes on the road. I hoped it was Hey Bob and not a possum or coon because I was NOT in the mood to go back for the .22. I approached the animal and it was ..... a large, strange cat. I was dumbfounded since it has been a while since I've randomly fed anything that moves I've seen a stray cat on the property.

I circled it and it ran into the yard towards the house. I walked to the the front porch and saw reflected eyes again. It was Hey Bob! Home from his adventure! Unscathed by the rabid, blood thirsty tiger that was prowling!

The next morning Captain Crab was relieved of his duties of indulging Hey Bob's wanderlust whims. And he was very, very good. Crab, I mean. He took Bob out only while holding him. Which is kind of cruel.

It was a glorious day today. Weather we deserve! Windows open! Birds singing! Cats going bonkers! I let them out. They frolicked under the beautiful, fragile willows and long grass. It was easy to get Snotty Pants back to the house.

The Willows

Jail Break

Taste of Freedom

And …. Gone…

I will get him back. He's been snatched from the jaws of death before.

Good Grief

To all the citizens worrying about the resources getting sucked away by illegal immigrants: look in your own neighborhood.

I have witnessed, over and over, young women (white citizens) taking advantage of government programs and complaining about them!! And it's pissing me off.

What's pissing me off even more is someone (The Incredible Mind Suck) now gloating that a state program HAS to pay $150 a month for a year PLUS the normal food package for her 2nd (out of 3 illegitimate kids) to get proper nutrition.

TIMS is someone who used college loan money to buy herself a red sofa and a video camera when she only had one child. Because you never know when free money is going to land in your lap again.

Unless you keep having babies.

It's About Time

It's about time. Time that has passed. Time in which I haven't posted. So now I am playing catch up. Maybe the title should have been Heinz.

Get it? Catch up? Ketchup? I think I am channeling Hulles, whose warped sense of humor can take a metaphor and wring it like a farm wife on the first step of preparing a chicken dinner. Let's get back on track now...

On March 18 we still had tons of snow to melt.

The Snow on March 18

Goblinbox was posting pictures of flowers in bloom in Walla Walla, Washington while we were waiting for the other shoe (blizzard) to fall. As late as April 4th (Easter), there was still snow lingering in ditches, fencerows and groves. H, coming home from what we presume to be the frozen tundra of Minnesota could not believe how much snow was in Iowa.

Oh, Spring! I welcomed it with open arms. Winter was brutal. We lived buried in snow for months on end. But Spring is finally here! I love it and want to live with it forever!

Sweet, Sweet Baby Iris

In between the snow melt and spring's arrival I waited for action at the bird feeder. There was a very squirrelly squirrel. Do squirrels molt? This one did. Crab thought I was seeing things but here's the evidence.

Molting Rodent

On the cat front: Skittles loves to sit in my lap and chew on stuff I'm wearing. Her favorite is my gold necklace (a gift from Crab for my 40th birthday). Sometimes, though, the necklace is hidden under layers of clothing. If Skittles is lucky, I will wear something with buttons. She tries her best to chew the buttons off my clothing. I find this very strange.

Button Eater

Last Saturday I went to a baby shower. I hate baby showers, wedding showers and all showers that do not require you to get wet, lather and rinse. I went and survived all the sugar that was fed to the guests. I am surprised the guests who ate from the sugar buffet did not bounce off the walls and punch holes in them. I went because I just had to see for myself it the honored infant was as cute in real life. He was.

Cute Baby

And now, just for K8, updates on Hey Bob:

• He can be a total terror
• He can be very sweet
• He is probably a she
• It will still be Hey Bob regardless of its (future neutered) gender

Hey Bob

Your Eyes Would Bleed

--if I had posted my thoughts since I last time I ventured into the blogosphere. I considered turning on the recorder on my MP3 player and capturing ramblings for posting. But I haven't. And you're welcome.

Upcoming posts will be about:

• Thank God Spring is here, complete with photos
  
• Hey Bob is growing up, but also getting annoying
• If you smoke, DO NOT GET THE PRESCRIPTION FOR CHANTIX if you want to quit
  
• Forming vigilante forces for lynching physicians who prescribe Chantix
• And my favorite: Economics don't trickle down, but crazy sure does

March

March came in like a lamb. Like a little bunny gently hopping -- over the giant drifts and shoveled piles of snow that look like they will never melt. The snow on Columbus Day, so long ago, was a portent of the endless crap to follow. It has been a long winter.

January was an endless stream of snowstorms, sub-zero temperatures, ice storms and funerals. Friends and relatives died one after the other. Then I had poor, old, sick Mouse (the cat) put to sleep.

Mouse's funeral is pending. If I die in the winter you can put my funeral on hold, too. And like I told H while sitting next to her at Lutheran funerals, if organ music is played and you force the handful of "mourners" (celebrants?) to sing (mumble/mouth) hymns I will haunt you forever.

My computer died, too. It succumbed to the viruses and trojans that had plagued it for months and were exacerbated by the ministrations of "Secure IT". I have been back-peddling trying to get stuff back to normal in computerland and it is a bumpy road.

A bright spot, or maybe it's a stupid spot, is the new addition to the family. I was making an effort to stay away from the Humane Society after losing Mouse and then...a friend had seen a kitten in the parking lot at work. When she got home heard mewing. She found the kitten under her hood. I went to just look at him and that is how Hey Bob came to live with us. Hey Bob does not give me the time of day. He is Crab's cat through and through.

News Flash

We are under a winter storm watch. I've lost count the watches, warnings, days of blizzard conditions, snowfall totals, how many times we've had freezing rain and the number of days school has been canceled. I think last week was the first full week of school since some time in November. They had an early dismissal on Friday, though, because it was snowing.

At least there are breaks between bouts of weather we do not want, giving one a chance to run to town for milk and cat food. When thousands sat in the dark for days we lost our electricity only for a few minutes. I am most grateful for having electricity when the weather is so bad. This is me, counting my blessings.

A few weeks ago the road grader got a little too close to the ditch. It's understandable since it is really hard to tell what is ditch and what is road.

Stuck

This is how a road grader gets unstuck.

How to Get Unstuck

Sorry, it was a cold day and I took pictures from inside the house. I didn't want to alienate the county workers by photographing from the road or the yard. I'm sure gawking and photographing them from my window did not bother them at all.

Winter has been tough on everyone. Here's a squirrel eating peanut butter and cornmeal out of a feeder I made for woodpeckers.

Rascal

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yesterday was a nice day. It was warm by winter standards and very still. I tried going for a walk down the back lane but gave up. I needed snowshoes. So I took a stroll down the road.

The Lane

RR Xing

Tracks to Whiteness

Building

Building Blocks

Doorways

It's snowing now. If the thought of what's to follow weren't so darn depressing it would be a very pretty snowfall.

It Just Gets Better And Better

Yesterday the light, fluffy snow fell and fell. My car looked like this:

Today that fluffy snow is flying about with wild abandon. It is not very pleasant. My dog (the only one who has actually been outside today) has to step into the unknown, since we can't see the step.

I cleaned that off yesterday!

Out the kitchen window:

Captain Crab is losing his truck:

And I am hoping to hear that Hannita decided NOT to make a road trip from Chicago to Iowa today.

Changes

I'm listening to "The Human Spark" on PBS right now. Alan Alda is exploring primitive man. He keeps saying "Neandertal". I studied this stuff years and years ago in grade or high school, and back in those neolithic times, we called early man "Neanderthal". Every time Alan says "Neandertal", I get a tic.

Maybe he's right. I don't know. I do remember suffering great confusion when out of the blue the capital of China quit being Peking and started being Beijing. I'm guessing the people of China got ticked that the Westerners started calling Beijing something else because it was easier for them.

But I really, really doubt that there's a coalition of pissed off Neanderthals demanding political correctness.

Or everything I ever learned in school was wrong, wrong, wrong.

Santa's Last Legs

Every year my mother in law gives me (us) a Santa. This year through stupid luck I ended up not with the Santa that was handed me, but with a Santa I really liked. This morning I woke up and found his feet. After looking around, I found the rest of him.

Double Amputee

Although it may look simple to glue him back together, it is not. I have devised a repair plan and by the time I am done implementing it, I will have invested enough time and materials to make it one very expensive Santa.

And how did Santa end up dismembered? I wasn't a witness but my number one suspect is the plant killing Skittles.

My Yoville House

Welcome to my cozy Yoville house! When you first walk in the door you are right smack dab in my living room. It is decorated for the holidays. I don't have a real tree because I'm cheap and haven't worked in a long time.

Living Room

When I visited Yoville to take these pictures, my parrot, Polly, had X's for eyes. Evidently I needed to feed her. She's fine now.

The door behind me on the right leads to my kitchen.

Kitchen

Another door leads into my bedroom. Be quiet! I am taking a nap!

Bedroom

My bathroom is off my bedroom. I love how they pixelated my lower half when I sat on the pot. This is the first time I sat on my Yoville pot. It's a wonder I'm still alive!

Don't Look!

Look at my bedroom again. See that book case? It is really a secret door that leads to my library. The room is a reward I won for doing Yovillian things.

My Secret Library

Back through the secret bookcase door, through the bedroom, back to the living room and into the hallway.

Hall

The room off the hallway was another reward for doing Yovillian things. It is supposed to be a bathroom but since I had so much furniture and way too many fireplaces, I turned it into a sitting room.

Sitting Room

Ahh.... I love my Yoville house. Actually, it's an apartment. Houses cost REAL MONEY. Forget that noise. One of my FB & Yoville friends has a modern beach house with every one of the many rooms stuffed to the gills with expensive furniture. I'm thinking she is giving virtual blow jobs to live like that.

Not me! I don't even go to work anymore since they turned the furniture factory into a bakery. I have to pay to buy ingredients and mix them up and stick them in the oven. If I don't visit Yoville in a timely manner, my baked goods burn and I am screwed. Plus I have to PAY to CLEAN THE FRIGGIN OVENS whether I burn something or not.

I get enough of that in real life, thank you very much. They had better start making virtual life fun. I guess I can always visit my apartment and hide out in my secret library.

Catching Up

I have been lax in posting. Here is a short version of the last few months.

October

It sucked. It was cold and wet. On Columbus Day we had this:

Happy Columbus Day

October continued its cold wetness and brought us to --

November

November was warm, dry and sunny. Farmers finished what they couldn't do in October. Plants were confused.

Bloom in November

We survived stuffing ourselves on Thanksgiving and the next night was the party H had planned and for which I was struggling to finish altering the vintage dress.

Vintage Dress

That photo does not do the dress justice. It looked fabulous hung on the frame of lovely H. I did not get any pictures of H in her great aunt's dress. We got to the party, she was busy, the food got laid out, we ate and then ...

~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ - ~ -

ER

Let's just say Crab and I missed the rest of the party, the cake, and the photo ops. Crab is still alive, none the worse for the wear.

November also brought many frustrations (see previous posts). Through the help of my personal hero, I finally came through those. It was a long, tough haul for someone not as bright as the most awesome guru of geekness. The trojan is vanquished! The queen reigns! I so ♥ you Mush!

My Hero

My hero will get a present in the mail as soon as I get around to it, which may not be real soon because now we are in

December

December has brought us snow, blizzards, fog, arctic temps and crap since it began. My mother called today to tell me Christmas at her house is CANCELED. H told me that, barring a Christmas miracle, she is not going to make the journey down. I am sad that my H won't be here, yet grateful she will not be on the interstate with the idiots.

Next year: Nothing but greatness! After the spring thaw, that is.

Every Thing I Touch

Every thing turns to S&%# pretty fast. Just a warning. Do not come near me and get the S&%# cooties!!

I'm trying, I really am. But it's a baby step forward and two giant steps back.

On the other hand, I am reading (mostly when I wake up in the middle of the night and cannot get back to sleep) Barbara Kingsolver's latest novel and am loving it to death. I want to swim in her brain until I drown. I want to own this book so I can highlight it, underline passages and write in the margins.

But mostly I want to sleep straight through for at least 7 hours. And own this novel. And The Poisonwood Bible. Best. Book. Ever. But then, I'm not finished with The Lacuna.

Trouble

This is probably the least troubling thing that happened to me today.

Add to that the fact I cut my finger picking up pottery shards and it is still the least troubling thing that happened today. So Snotty Pants dodged a bullet of retribution there.

Needle In A Haystack

All that glitters is not gold, I discovered as the teeny tiny screw from the bobbin casing fell with an audible plink onto my sewing room floor. Glittery things included sewing pins, bent sewing machine needles and actual glitter off of fabric from an old project. Even dead asian lady beetle parts sparkle when you shine a flashlight on them.

The haystack consisted of piles of thread snippets, fabric scraps and long tails of fabric cut off by the serger.

See the screw? That tiny thing?

Teeny Tiny Screw

There It Is!

Two bright sides to this -- I found the screw and got the floor swept. Now to finish altering that vintage dress for H. She will look stunning.