This scares to heck out of me.

Florida on Fire… and awfully close to the home Frank and Sarah just sold. We’re watching homes burn.

Don’t worry, the Daytona and Palm Bay fires are an hour away from us. The one I heard about on Kirkman is 14 miles away. But they’re not even reporting on that one, so it must be contained by now.

I’m thinking tons of happy thoughts for the fire fighters and the poor people who are displaced and have lost their homes today. How horrible.

Updated wow, Sarah, some of those are so very close. So close. If you still lived there, you’d be coming to stay with us tonight.

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Can someone please tell me what futures brokers are? I’ve seen the term on several websites in recent weeks, but my quick google search did not answer my question about what the heck they are.

Of course, I am also blissfully ignorant of how the stock market works, and do not have a stock portfolio. Or a retirement account, for that matter. Clearly I need to start thinking about how to plan for my financial future.

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We picked our scooters up from the repair shop Saturday night.
Sunday morning, my scooter was, once again, dead. We took her back to the repair shop. Nasty words were exchanged.

It has 513 miles on it and is six weeks old. Inexcusable.

Supposedly whatever is wrong with is is not covered under the warranty. We argued our way out of the $140 they wanted to charge us on Saturday night. I am certain we’re going to get the rape me fee whenever they fix my scooter this time. If they fix my scooter this time.

It’s very frustrating.

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I’m a chronic site meter checker. For the past two weeks, I have had a new reader showing up in the Orlando area. This reader is on quite a lot. I had been puzzled about who this new reader could be. And then, it dawned on me: my cousin has been in town for the past two weeks. She is my Orlando reader. Ah ha!

See I like to try to figure out who my readers are. Especially the ones who keep coming back for more of my inane dribble.

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I do not like waking at 2am.
I do not like remaining awake.
I do not like having to go to work after waking at 2am.

Yes, I drank a lot last night, but the reason I feel lousy is because I did not sleep.

Meanwhile, my super big meanie husband started his four day work week revised schedule today. He’ll be off on Mondays until they realize they need him. Seems the big wigs at super large conglomerate parent company suddenly noticed my husband’s time cards always have 50+ hours listed. And, legally, even salaried people should be paid overtime. He was called into a meeting and encouraged to cut back to forty hours. Well, since we carpool, he’s kinda stuck there until I retrieve him, so he works. And, even though I generally visit him at lunch, he works the entire lunch hour. Because he’s more important than they realize. So, he asked if he could go back to the 4-10 work week that he was on when we first met. We’ll see how long this lasts. He would, of course, prefer the 4-10 work week, but he will still have to accomplish everything he has been accomplishing in fifty hours.

But, off on Mondays. MEANIE!

We met at that place of employment. I was one of the few employees, at that time, on a five day work week. Many of them worked four day work weeks. Most were off on Fridays. He was the only one off on Mondays and then working Fridays. After we started not dating, I left that job and went back to my previous employer, where I worked a four day work week. But I worked M-Th, and he worked T-F, so our off days never coincided.

I miss a four day work week. Four ten hour days are so much better than five eight hour days.

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this has been a great evening. my cousin came over for dinner. and chocolate vodka martinis. mucho alcohol was consumed by lightweight me. I’m still quite tipsy. she just left. we had quality girl time. many tears were shed. it felt great. i love my cousin and miss her (since we no longer live near each other).

thanks for having girly cry night with me, cousin.

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I called my mom to wish her a happy mother’s day. She was in the middle of a movie and seemed reluctant to talk to me. She also left me with the impression that she is reluctant to spend time with Jason today. That’s fine. It’s her choice.

Sometimes it makes me sad that my mother and I have such a disconnect. But, it is what it is.

I truly believe my MIL loves (and likes) me more than my mother does.

But what bothered me about the call to my mother was that there was no reciprocal Happy Mother’s Day salutation. You know, because she has a history of pretending my step-daughter does not exist. Therefore, I guess I’m not a mother.

I console myself with a “whatever” and chalk it up to her devotion to a fictional god that clouds her brain.

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To all the moms and step-moms.

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What a pain in the tuckus. A very angry letter will be sent.

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So, we’re all showered after working hard in the yard all day. We’re all crashed out in the family room. Sherlock’s eyes are closed. RTY is reading a magazine. I’m playing that stupid game Amanda and Ingrid got me hooked on in Facebook. iTunes is playing via the Apple TV. It’s pretty loud.

All of a sudden, RTY and I are both paying attention to the music. It’s Disturbed’s Get Down With the Sickness. But it’s not the edited for radio version, as it’s off the CD we bought once upon a time.

why do you have to hit me like that, mommy? You stupid sadistic abusive phuqing whore

And I look over at RTY to see if she’s paying attention. She looks back at me.

Never stick your hand in my face again. PHUQ YOU!

She smirks.

“It’s a very angry song,” I say, deeply embarrassed that I wasn’t paying more attention, as I know that’s an inappropriate song and would have skipped over it.

“I guess so,” she laughs. “It sounds like my mother.”

Well. There it is.

I’m usually paying more attention as we have lots of not-RTY-appropriate music. But, we’re all zoning out from exhaustion. It’s just super hard to ignore someone screaming obscenities about how much he hates his mother. On Mother’s Day Eve!

The song ends. One Headlight by The Wallflowers starts. How’s that for contrast?

(I was aware of the profanity on the way, but it would have really drawn her attention to it if I had frantically rushed to find the remote to skip the song… and I would not have skipped it in time, making the profanity that much more profane, IMO.)

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Sherlock and I wanted to go check out the new Simpsons ride at Universal Studios with RTY today, but apparently RTY had other plans, since she got into trouble this week. So, as punishment, we made her do yard work with us. All day. In the Florida heat.

Two or three weeks ago, she planted spring peas and tomatillos in separate pots. Holy toledo did they take off. I didn’t realize she planted the entire packet of tomatillo seeds in a tiny pot, so they are especially crowded. But the peas… oh the peas! They took off and even though I know she only planted maybe a dozen peas, we easily have thirty or forty pea plants!

And now we have a garden. We three worked an area formerly occupied by an ugly hedge. We spread manure, and transplanted most of the peas. Some remain in pots, just in case the ground is the dead zone. She and I also planted carrot seeds in our little garden. I have always wanted to grow carrots.

So now, with that little garden area and our many pots of seeds we planted, we have the following baby plants:

peas
tomatillos
peppers (you should see my peppers!)
artichokes (I now have four sprouts!)
leeks (probably a dozen sprouts)
pomegranate (we put another into the ground today from the seeds I planted 2 years ago)
onion (not sprouting yet)
zucchini (four sprouts!)

The onion and zucchini were just planted last weekend, so I’m thrilled to already see sprouts in one of those pots.

RTY also planted flower seeds in a pot up front that has seven or eight sprouts in it.

I love growing things!

The year I planted peppers, we went months and months without having to buy peppers. I’m hoping to have that kind of success again.

I’m so excited about RTY’s peas! I hope they recover from the trauma of me separating them out of one small pot and relocating them to either other pots or the ground.

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The CPA from next door came over. Since he came from around the corner of the building, and didn’t drive into my lot, I didn’t see him until he encountered my locked door. He tried the door and then waited for me to open it for him.

Me: that’s exactly why we keep it locked!
CPA: it’s not that bad a neighborhood.
Me: you can never be too careful.
CPA: Well, I just came by to tell you guys we were robbed last night.
Me: Oh no! Really?
CPA: they stripped all the copper out of our a/c. We have no a/c today. I can feel yours is on, though, so they must not have noticed yours. Where is your a/c unit?
Me: Much more clearly visible from the road than yours.

Anyway… isn’t it a bit ironic, then, that he would chastise us for locking the door, take a breath, and announce they were robbed?

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My equilibrium is way off today. I hoped it would right itself by now, but I am still dizzy. It’s quite annoying.

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Wow, it’s been a while, hasn’t it? In honor of the money Uncle Sam gave us yesterday, the money we promptly pumped into the economy at our local Apple Store inside Florida Mall, I give you a poem about money.

Smart
~Shel Silverstein

My dad gave me one dollar bill
‘Cause I’m his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
‘Cause two is more than one!

And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes — I guess he don’t know
That three is more than two!

Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just ’cause he can’t see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!

And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!

And then I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head —
Too proud of me to speak!

I wasn’t quite that silly; I traded my money for a shiny new computer. Yay!

If you have a poem you’d like to submit, let me know. And I’ll try to post a new poem every Friday. It doesn’t have to be something you wrote, it can be your favorite poem.

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stimulated.

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