Lying trucks and plants !

Hey, Im getting better at this ! A Tues-wed-thurs-fri-sat-sun bloggie! That takes talent, or CRS [Can't Remember Shit]. I prefer to think of it as talent. No I did not fall off the face of the earth!

It's around 8 o'clock on tues. Hells Kitchen will come on in a few, and I am sitting here, just wondering if it's a full moon or not,.....I see a daily weather forecast, but not a mooncast. Oooooooooo, let me go look that up. The trivia was just too much to type, so I'm looking for something I'm interested in to end my bloggies. Full moons. They would explain a LOT.

Every time I think I want to quit my job, they up the ante. Usually its a raise. This week, it was a new area to work in. The info comes so fast and furious, and you are in so many "New to you" parts of the building, that the days fly by. The commute still sucks,.... But the job.

THIS is what I've been waiting for, it's the combination of everything I've been taught before, and then being given a world class account and told to "fly", with no directions on how one would do that. The go-to people, for me, are the BEST...the most considerate and understanding......this job had the propensity to be a bitch. Instead, it's an exhausting pleasure. A job that is a living crossword puzzle! HOW can I quit a job I have such an affinity for, to get some dreck closer to home? [oh, also.... 2 tanks of gas a week. That hurts. ESPECIALLY since I've been so good with the "Leadus Footus" aspect of the commute, you'd think tht damn onboard puter would stop lying, at least when Steve gets in and looka at it.It wouldn't be too hard for it to read 22,hell, even 20, when the Man takes it out to gas it up.My truck is bastard-filled bastard truck with bastard coating.

What I wanted to talk about was todays' commute. Almost all the way home, I had clear sailing, which totally put me off my guard for what I found less than 4 miles from home. I got up here into the city, and an Air Force base was having a disaster drill. While the county is TOTALLY redoing the main drag, which includes on and off points for ALL the major highways.So, while you have 7 planes flying over you, scaring the SHIT out of you,....... is it Armegeddon, or something Steve read about and told you about this very morning.......there are no lines painted in the new asphalt. You have 2 new lanes, plus road a crew from HELL.[or the local walmart.....this crew was so bad, I was Laughing while I wanted to cry. And I'm Sure the people around me felt the same way] Those road workers are waiving YOU on. You continue on, and to your HORROR you see that lil blonde bimbo waiving on the lanes next to you...they had a green LEFT HAND TURN sign, that's what their light said, but al of them were accustomed to going straight there. STRAIGHT into my lane. But Bimbo didn't look up at the new light configuration and is waving 3 lanes into my lane Those poor drivers in lanes 1 and 2 were as lost as the rest of us. So all 3 lanes met in MY lane. Oh, happy day. My heart hurts for the travelers...they don't know WTF lane to be in, they don't KNOW about local disaster drill and are probably scared shitless, and they are changing lanes with a vengeance.... I gotta tell you...I didn't blame them one bit.
I am 48, and that was the worst commute I've had in my whole life.
And the best, most challenging day at work.
What would the wise woman do?
I don't know, but I'll tell you what I did.
I loved on my family and waited for the weekend.

Saturday, Steve and the boys went to an auto swap meet . Since they are indulged a passion, I did too.Lots of practicing, and only a little cleaning, hehehe. But.....look at what I saw in the library. This is a Christmas cactus Stevie and Boo bought me 11 years ago. It was a wee little thing labeled as a Christmas cactus, but began to bloom at Thanksgiving, and then as early as Halloween. I give all the plants an up-close and personal each week, so I can nip any problems in the bud [bad pun, I know]. I looked at the cactus this morning:

and saw these,they are blooms :

The Christmas cactus is right on track for it's blooms to open....for Halloween.

And this,...from my friend Kathleen, I thought it was hysterical.
----
Pilot and Aircraft MechanicAfter every flight, UPS pilots fill out a form, called a "gripesheet," which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. Themechanics correct the problems; document their repairs on the form,and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight.Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humor. Here aresome actual maintenance complaints submitted by UPS ' pilots (markedwith a P) and the solutions recorded (marked with an S) by maintenanceengineers. By the way, UPS is the only major airline that has never,ever, had an accident.

P: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.

S: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

P: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.

S: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

P: Something loose in cockpit

S: Something tightened in cockpit

P: Dead bugs on windshield.

S: Live bugs on back-order.

P: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent

S: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

P: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.

S: Evidence removed.

P: DME volume unbelievably loud.

S: DME volume set to more believable level.

P: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.

S: That's what friction locks are for.

P: IFF inoperative in OFF mode.S: IFF always inoperative in OFF mode.

P: Suspected crack in windshield.

S: Suspect you're right

P: Number 3 engine missing.

S: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

P: Aircraft handles funny. (I love this one!)

S: Aircraft warned to: straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

P: Target radar hums.

S: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

P: Mouse in cockpit.

S: Cat installed.

P: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.

S: Took hammer away from midget.
----

September:
27th: Ask a Stupid Question Day
28th: Poisoned Blackberries Day
29th: National Mud Pack Day

Now, *I* knew that!

I had planned to blog to day, and still might get around to it.But this, this was SO delicious that I needed to blog it, all by its lonesome.

http://tinyurl.com/mmjv2v

I have said I live in NY. And that I have absolutely no respect for the hypocrite who is our governor. That would be Paterson.He got the job after our elected Governor, good ol' "Holier than thou" Married Governor Spitzer, was found to have used the services of a whore. Paterson is no more suited to running a state than I am to long commutes :X So, here is the tasty morsel......President Obama has asked Paterson NOT to run for governor in the next election.You see, Paterson is THAT bad,......anyone who runs against him will win by a landslide....and that means a republican.Obama wants the Governor to be a democrat. Delicious irony with a creamy center, and I could have told you that months ago.But what do *I* know??

Something old and something new

I guess it's no surprize that I love gardening. I really miss it, and have already decided where my garden will go next year, as well as the placement of the "living" fence, so we can have some privacy from putz naked ninja neighbor. I've been contenting myself with playing with my indoor garden,my plants.

In the old place, a garden was out of the question, when you live on the backside of a state park, there is simply no way to keep the critters out of a garden. And so I contented myself with growing flowers on my porch. The two flowers I return to time and time again are geraniums and petunias. The geraniums because they remind me of my Mom and Grandma, and the petunias for their vivid colors, graceful growing habits, and distinct scent.

Both of these plants are annuals....they die at the first hard frost.....but not before giving a LOT of seeds out into their environments. These plants shared a porch with my houseplants, I would let them summer outside. So, it's not unheard of for some geranium or petunia seed to make it's way into a houseplant, and come spring, I'd have aliens growing in the houseplant pots.

I guess with the stress of moving, I wasn't paying attention, at the time where I should have removed the "aliens" from the indoor pots, so that the plants weren't competing for nutrients and water. So, something old.....the petunia seeds. Something new, the petunia plants, growing in a [lemon or grapefruit, I can't remember which, just stuck a seed in a pot a few years ago for haha's and would up with this tree] citrus tree pot.

This is a pic of the tree, with the petunias at it's base:

Although a petunia is a annual, I don't know how long it will live inside, under houseplant conditions, and this might mean trouble for the citrus.To yank or not to yank? Do I leave the petunia in it's splendor, or rip it out by the roots? Why I'm ruminating over that, what do I see?

Last week, Boo brought her spider plant over. It had to be divided, it was as pot bound as they come.So we made 2 plants out of it. Boo couldn't take the plants home right away, so I volunteered to babysit them for her. She'd ask me this week every time we spoke, how her plants were doing, and I said, oh they're planning a take over with the maranta and the Thanksgiving cactus. Little did I know.
You've all seen spider plants, they throw out aerials, which produce babies complete with roots, and lil white flowers. Well, it appears that Boos spider plants want to get down with my plants. In both these pics, it is BOO's 2 spiders, not mine,hehehe, getting happy with a maranta as well as an immature palm plant.

The maranta and the spidie:

And the spidie makin luuuuuv to the palm:

I LOVE that! And what is funnier to me, is that the spider, palm and marantas in question all have similar water light and nutrient needs, so if I were to allow this, they might look very good together [I nixed allowing it to live with the maranta, the maranta grows so low to the soil the spider would die underneath it.] Can you see, a dark green upright palm with spider plants swirled all around at it's base? I'll report back when they get jiggy with it ;o)

This week marks the loss of Mary Travers, of Peter, Paul, and Mary fame:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/17/arts/music/17travers.html?_r=3&hp

I can't tell you how deeply that affected me. I have mentioned that I grew up in a patriarchal family of 8, where the sons were the important ones. It seemed like Every single thing I wanted was a struggle, because a girl didn't do that. Play the violin? Are you CRAZY? Switch to cello OMG, now I KNOW you're crazy.

Ah, though, to see Mary. And to think, if *I* had a hammer, no kidding that song was an anthem for me. As is most of their body of work. Of all of [their body of work] all the social implications it had, for all they did to raise social consciousness, my single favorite work is "Leaving on a Jet Plane". I went to YouTube to post it here for you, but I can't give it to you. I have the original, on every music playing device that I own. Simply because it is beautiful. The vocal harmonies are front and center, over the guitars and string base, and the song speaks of such longing, I can really relate to it. It was simply lovely. Not a societal commentary, not a peace commentary, it just stood on it's own. IMHO, it was a unique song performed by a unique group at a time in my life where I remember where I was and what I was doing the first time I heard it. It froze me in my tracks. I mentioned this specific work in a discussion about Peter Paul and Mary shortly after Mary died, and I was poo-pooed, oh, that was one of their songs that had no SOCIALLY RELEVANT MEANING. Who gives a fuck? I dont. I don't like hearing that a group has to stay pigeon-holed into anyones' definition of them. I don't believe that because a piece doesn't have SOCIAL RELEVANCE that it should not be part of a discssion about a groups body of work [I'm sorry, the poster spoke with such bombastic self-assurance I chose to bow out of the discussion. 3 coats of epoxy, opinion set now, no talking about it] Not every thing out of every SOCIALLY RELEVANT artists mouth has to drip with activism, or peace-seeking. Sometimes, they can just speak from the heart. Thanks, Mary, I appreciated you. Still do, and always will.

Bras and Escargot

This will be a Thurs-Fri-Sat-Sun bloggie, so you'd better get a drink and settle in.Every time I tried to blog something came up.

What a great day! I kicked ass and took names at work.
I work with such a great crew...there are certain things everyone excels at. For me, the booting of ignition wires, especially the ones with no "Test", it's all verified by your eyes and hands and experience. Some other people in my crew knew when I was leaving today. [Thursday] They also figured that, when I left, bitchzilla [the one person no one can get along with...I try, but I can't. She likes me, but she drives me absofrigginlutely nuts. She always wants to do what I do, even the jobs she can't do.] So...they rigged it so I got every one of my favorite jobs to do today, even the ones the owner will come grab a tool and go over your work, right in front of you, Trying to find fault. There was no fault to be found, I owned it. My co-workers also rigged it so that the first set after I left would be a K37....the dreaded, universally hated K37 boot. THey are difficult and tempermental to work with, plus, they wreck your hands. It's hard to turn the key in the ignition at the end of the day after completing a job that includes K37's. I got stuck with them yesterday and never said a word, so they made sure bitchzilla got everything that wasn't on deck yesterday. And she was stupid enough to have just enough balls to question why SHE should have to do K37's ,"They Hurt Her Hands". I hope the string mop was handy when I left.

This Saturday is Steves business dinner, and I wanted to buy a dress for that tonight. Simple enough, right? There are stores up the wazoo here. Except....all the dresses were orange and purple, or leopard print [not that there's anything wrong with leopard print, but since my favorite leopard print sandals were killed by teriyaki, my heart kinda went off it] they were, well, ugly. I looked all over, not one classic, clean, crisp feminine dress to be had. And the one skirt? Leopard print. And I tried it on and it was a FINE skirt, but not for a business dinner. Thank God for Old Navy,of all the stores, they were the only one who had a nice lil dress.

I guess every woman has their own method of buying bras. I got a few tonight, since we were in Kohls. I only get mine at Kohls or at a super online sale, I only buy on sale cause I cannot BELIEVE how much lace and a few hooks and eyes cost. If I thought I could I'd make my own, but then I probably couldn't go out in public.
My best friend slings bras OVER HER SHOULDER, while finishing her shopping, so the hooks don't snag anything else in the cart. I am in shock and awe of that. My family can tell you that I'm pretty out there, and I will discuss things with people that make my family cringe [but we are all on the planet together, and if I can hook you up I will] but to advertize the size? OH HELL to the no. I don't need to bury them in a cart, but I'm not swinging them around over my head like a lasso, either.
At checkout, I have them under a shirt on the counter.The cashier tried to pick the shirt up, and that sucker wouldn't Budge. It was just her, Steve, and I, so I explained, I put my bras under there, I didn't want everyone to see them, and they are snagged on something.They WANT to be mean. She laughed at that visual. Tried to bag them, and THEY WOULD NOT GO IN THE BAG, no matter what she did they kept getting snagged. On the sides. Of this big, Tall bag, so Everyone could see what the issue was.Oh, we were really laughing now, and I told her, those bras WANT to be mean. I sign on the dotted and grab the bag. The cashier is still laughing, and we head for the door....and the Door went the hell off on me. I turned to her and yelled "Hey, I TOLD you these bras want to be mean" and I thought she'd bust a gut. We swung just the bag thru the security device, and sure enough, those damn bras set the sucker off. Steve and I laughed all the way to the car, my Russian bras were causing trouble, hehehe :o)

And I have a pic for you. We live near a large park, and have to drive by it to get to the main drag,which is basically any time we go out, ya gotta drive by the lake.And there lives a Huge family of ducks, Steve says there were around 2 dozen lil baby ducks, I've never seen a family that large. Since school has started, I have had unexpected braking for both young humans and young ducks. But I digress...on the way home tonight, the duckie family had the right of way in front of us, and I thought to get a half assed picture of it, we enjoyed the hell out of it:

If I see a school bus stopped to my right at a 4 way, where I don't have a Stop sign and the bus does, I still stop. Yesterday, I stop,......because there is a school bus to my right, all lights flashing [in NY, a school bus flashes its lights and you stop,even if it's a 4 lane highway divided by a grass median, and you are going in the opposite direction] at an intersection. Right behind me, another school bus, and the bus driver is making shoo-ing motions to me, to continue on. *I * am a Mom, and I know better. And sure enough, here comes, from stage left, a boy running for all he was worth, never looked right or left he was running for the BUS, and he ran right in front of me. I felt like getting out of the truck and taking a bow at a the driver behind me :o) No matter what state you live in, please watch out for all the little ones, we adults are all they have.

Oh Yeah!! I wanted to tell you this too.
Yesterday, coming into work.
Driving thru a road repaving zone that extends for maybe 10 miles, every bit of it a PITA. At 6:55am, I am 2nd in line behind a town truck. It is going 10 miles an hour, and there are 3 gentlemen in the back of it. Their job is to place the orange traffic cones that will later on, change the lanes of traffic, to drink coffee, to laugh, and to take surreptitious glances at all the commotion they are causing. They won't pull over and let rush hour traffic pass, they will build it up behind them and then they will enjoy the power they feel.
One car in front of me. For MILES. I look behind me upon the flats, and see such a line of cars, I have NEVER seen that long a line of traffic in THAT area in my whole life. And I thought to get a pic to show Steve, this used to be HIS baby, and now this reverse commute is mine. I whip the cell phone out, set it up, stick it out the sunroof and without looking, take a backwards pic. Now I face it forward, just in time for Ed Norton in the back of the truck to see what I am doing. And He freeze like a deer in the the headlights. Taps the other 2 guys, who bang on the window behind the driver. Then.....why, Voila! They are miraculously able to pull over and allow traffic to pass! I didn't quite catch what happened, but when I told Steve what I'm tellin' you, he said Simple......they thought you were a reporter, or someone who would submit those pics to the [local paper] and get all their asses in trouble. Only prob is, to keep a pic in this cell, you HAVE to select "save" or it doesn't stay, unlike my last phone. So I don't have the pics that I took. But I DID learn a valuable lesson. I'l take a pic when I want to call Shenanigans, and make sure the people involved see me do it.

Oh. WOW.It's 11:00 Sat night, and we ust got back from Steves business dinner.WHAT A TREAT!!! We went to the Ship lantern Inn. I have to preface this by saying, I am reading "The making of a Chef: Mastering Heat at the Culinary Institute of America" by Michael Ruhlman.A writer who goes thru the Culinary Institute of America [CIA] as if we were a student.You get a real eye into what goes into running a top notch restaurant, and the life of a chef. With what I read in mind, I got to really watch the service. I had looked at the online menu, and posted to Facebook that I thought it was over wrought, that I was looking for seasonal well cooked food that wasn't drenched in something at which point *I*....yes, *I*..... got called a .........Weenie!! by my friends hehe. I hope they know I had the escargot as an appy, and I loved it :O)
I'm happy to report that the online menu did not do the real menu justice, and the service was Lovely! I told the kids where we'd be, and told them only to call if there was an emergency, so of course smart ass Stevie txt'ed me instead. His emergency? A pic of a 66 or 67 GTO, txted into a group of car people.Pretty witty, we all got a good laugh out of that.

Home Depot. Where Team Gail goes for amusement.

We have 2 bathrooms here at the Shack. One is a powder room. It had this large random piece of beadboard [like for wainscoting] nailed to the wall. I decided the game room, powder room, and library are all gonna be a light soft blue,with white ceiling and trim [but I am NOT NOT touching the woodwork, that is just gorgeous] We needed to know what, exactly, was being covered up by the board before we commence with the paintin'. So Steve pulled that sucker off. And we found...the original to the house, Exterior window for what appears to have been a den, you can see the original wood paneling framing out the rectangle in the wall. Also, you can look thru the window and see the insulation in the wall for the library [it really doesn't get enough direct sun to be a Sun room, and a "library " fits better with who and what we are about] VERY cool beans, we spent a lot of time looking it over. Now we need to decide, do we remove the window and make a rectangular niche in there, or cover it up, say with a huge mirror, to reflect the little light that's available in there. We decided,... too many rooms to paint to be makin' a niche, so right now we'll just cover it with a mirror and install some shelving,then paint. I LOVE the finding of the original stuff in the Shack! Oh, wait, let me go get a pic of that:

While we were at the Depot, my cart apparently yawed into the gardening area.I think they TRAIN all carts to do that, this was NOT my fault. Steve had something, humorous but pointed, to say about that. So I warned him if he negged me in the Depot I'd send him to Assholeville.This just struck him as the funniest thing, and we laughed right up to checkout. where it was determined that, aside from a ceiling light fixture for the powder room and some paint sample cards, everything in the cart [NOT A LOT...just necessities. And a Jade plant that put itself in my cart, *I* had nothing to do with it] was plant related. And not REALLY what we went in for. Whoopsie! Steve swiped his debit card, and at the juncture where it said " charge ok or Charged not ok" he asked the cashier, what if I said charge not ok, would this stuff march it's asses back to the shelves? And all *I* said was " I'll send your ass to Assholeville" and we got to laughing, the poor cashier must of thought we were her loonies for the night. Who knows, she may have been right. Oh, and when I buy a plant, I resolve it out to one plant a pot...a lot of times, the nurseries will cram a few plants in a pot so the plant looks more lush, but in the fullness of time that will kill the plants, and generally pisses me off. Here's a pic of the Jade, it resolved out to 5 plants:

They are the 5 pots in front. If you look right behind them, to the 3 large pots.......you may remember them from last year. Elephants Foot plants.I raised them from babies, and last October I poted them onto 6 inch pots. This is what they looked like last October:

Men just don't get necessary purchases. Like Jade plants that are crying out to be repotted...... or personal ringtones.
I use ringtones to let me know, without looking, who is calling me on my cell.

[I believe talking on the phone while driving is wrong. I see people every day, doing stupid shit behind the wheel, talking on the phone instead of watching that big rig trying to merge right along side them,... and I won't do it.The ringtone lets me know if I have to pull over, or if it can wait 'til I get where I'm goin'.]


Steve has his own, the 3 kids have one they share, my heart loop has yet another, [ oh wait,that was with sprint...I'd better go get another ring tone from Verizon, hehehe ] and there are other random ringtones I associate with certain people. I'll know who they are when I hear them, I don't have to look :O) Until today, I couldn't think of a ring tone, for when someone at home at the LOVE SHACK called my cell. DING DING DING !! WHAT an ass I am! So I downloaded that ringtone. This is the original video associated with the song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leohcvmf8kM

[Oh, You know what?? This song was popular when I was in college...heard it on the radio, and saw the live performance video at MTV and YouTube. NEVER saw the video associated with song before tonight, when I searched it up for you! Thank You!]

You know, from time to time I bloggie things that I'm unsure of. Whether it will hurt someone or not, and would it be worth the telling to upset someone. But I learned something about myself today, so bloggie I will. And I hope it won't upset him. I doubt it, he's cool like that.
At Facebook, I have a limited roster of friends....it is not a professional or a "public" arena, like a bloggie-type of place for me, personally. That is the application I chose to let Facebook have in my life. A lot of people have different apps...to each his own.
Today, a dear friend made a Facebook entry referring to an article in the NYTimes, about Obamas' speaking at a public school. Parents had a lot of concerns, not the least of which as they wanted to be reassured that Obamas' speech was not a Policy speech.....but a general one. Some parents BELIEVE:

Believe: [v]
-to have confidence in the truth, the existence, or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so.

that Obama will espouse a socialist type of government to their children. Some parents believe that is wrong, and they do not want their children exposed to Obamas speech.

Well a few people responded to what my friend posted to his wall. I agreed with my friend, and was about to say so, but one response in particular captured my interest. He appeared on the face of it to be a reasonably well informed, articulate person. He disagreed with the parents who questioned subjecting their children to Obama. But the WAY he did it.....he so severely insulted those parents, had so much vitreol and acid in his opinion of parents who disagreed with him. I could see people debating and having it devolve down into a shouting insult match, but this guy came right out swinging. Well, 3 times I tried to respond to that. It's one thing to have an opinion, but to be so insultingly derogatory, defensive and crude when presenting his opinion totally denigrated his argument for me. And I really understand a bit about how those parents feel. It made it impossible for me to have any form of discussion about it. I found no way I could present my opinion without him resorting to being insulting in responding to me, and I didn't want to do that on my friends Facebook.. This guy slapped 3 coats of epoxy over his opinion, which appears to be a sacred cow to him, and called it good. God help the person who wants to present a different opinion, they are morons who must need drool cups.[ *I* might have taken umbrage there, he mentions paragraph long sentences with multiple commas,..........hell, that's most of my bloggies. *I* prefer to think of it as train-of-thought,myself. So I guess I need a drool cup too :( ]
So, what I learned today:
-I will try to be careful to couch my opinions in a way that invites discussion. Without insulting people who may have a different value system than do I. I just might learn something. Or, if I am persuasive enough, I'll change Their minds.
-When I am faced with such an angry defensive person, I will not respond. Even if I basically agree with the salient points of his opinion, if he/she/it is so afraid of discussion that they will resort to anger, insults and retorts to avoid it, then I will not be the one to try and force it upon them. Their opinion is set in stone. I hope I'm not that rigid a person, I hope I can listen and sometimes learn. Or at least agree to disagree.

September:
4th: Newspaper Carrier Day
5th: Be Late for Something Day
6th: Fight Procrastination Day