Happy Halloween

     This is my 5 am freight crew minus the crew leader who was taking the photo and not wearing a costume.  Happy Halloween, Girls. I will miss you, Crystal, er Iron Man, you are the only one who really ever understood at all the load that is mine at work...and only because you were my fill in.  Much luck and better earnings than with this joke company.

My girl Jen got hurt.  I won't get into details because of possible corporate repercussions, but it was an accident and I'm very sorry it happened and I know our manager will take care of it because he helped out Michelle.

On a lighter note, Michelle ran around making TARDIS noises and singing "I'm a Tardis, I'm a Tardis."  And before Jen got hurt she breathed like Lord Vader and said things with her voice changing helmet.

I was the lamest with my Robin Hood mustache and jeans. But then I only own jeans and I never know when I have to unload something. If I actually wore tights, I'd have runs in them within the hour.

But we had fun.

Coffee Chaser

Ever see someone suddenly chug one of those small to-go coffee creamers like a shot of alcohol then chase it with a chug of coffee?

I hadn't until about 7 am this morning. 

The individual then proceeded to suck down a sugar packet and chase it with coffee.

This is of absolutely no importance.  But it was really, really funny.

All in Good Fun

This week, the girls at work and I decided to have a bit of fun on Friday, since it was payday, the day our store puts away the freight truck, and we all worked the same hours.  So, we planned an outing to Build A Bear, a place to which I had never been, but a place where the employees recognized my friend Jen on sight.

Jen, Michelle, and I left work, drove to Jen and Victoria's (Jen's significant other) apartment where we met up with Victoria.  Jen excitedly gave us the grand tour, including her closet of toys and the Halloween decorations.  Then Jen very happily made us some spaghetti (I didn't want to hurt her feelings by telling her I shouldn't eat it  because I am a glutard) so I ate it anyway.  To know Jen is to love Jen.  And her feelings are easily injured.  She is not always rational but is always genuine.

Then we went to Build a Bear.

Jen was purchasing Christmas gifts for a bear she had built previously.  (See, to know Jen is to love Jen.)  She was serious about this.  She bought a motorcycle, a motorcycle jacket, some Darth Vader slippers and tiny aviator sunglasses for her bear.  She, of course, told me his name, but me, being awful, can't remember it.  Jen is different in the best way possible. She makes me and most everyone who comes in contact with her, happy.

Michelle, the youngster among us, at nineteen, built a bear for her boyfriend. She also shopped for Dr Who wear at Hot Topic but was disappointed that the girl's costume for the tenth doctor was sold out in her size and, with my help, decided to become one very fetching TARDIS.  I think she just needs go go boots.  She didn't know what go go boots were. But, once I sent her a photo of go go boots, she says she NEEDSSSS them.
  
             I CONVINCED MICHELLE TO BUY THESE BECAUSE MY LEGS ARE TOO FAT.

Michelle, did however know what vajazzling (yeah I don't know how to spell it) is and helped me explain this strange phenomenon to Jen and Victoria.  I told them professor Google made me laugh a lot when I started looking at photos of it.


                                                 OBLIGATORY VAJAZZLING PHOTO

I built a dragon. I named him Lothar and got him a little suit top. 

He is soft micro suede and has small, textured scales, which is pretty neat.





Today, I spent quite a while deciding what outfit I could wear to work on Halloween (another freight day with my girls)  and decided the safest thing would be to wear Jon's Robin Hood hat.  I then contemplated becoming Errol Flynn.

 So I played around on the interwebs searching for mustaches, of all things.  And Jon and I went to a Halloween store!  I bought spirit gum, spirit gum remover, a mustache, and some Nightmare Before Christmas knee socks, because they were super awesome and I wanted them.

I decided to skip the goatee since the mustache is kind of distracting enough for me to wear on my face.  And, hell, the hair is purple right now, but it will wash out all too soon even though people really love it and I get compliments all the time....it is against the dress code at work, which I find ridiculous. Yeah, they own my time for 40 hours a week but they don't own me and I'm not flashing my boobs or letting my thong hang out to terrify children.


                                                         THE REAL ERROL FLYNN

I'm Ba---ACCKKK

I have been absent from this blog for quite some time.  Mostly because life has been particularly eventful and not always in a good way.

The first bit of September saw strong storms here in Michigan and a large tree limb fell on our house, pulling down the power line, nearly ripping it from our electric meter, ruining the chimney cap, tearing off some shingles, tearing down the cable line as well.  It took a month of fighting with the power company to finally get them to deal with cutting the dangling limb off the power line just so we could use the insurance money to repair the house.

There are still branches in the backyard due to us not having a chainsaw and we have friends who do but they are just as busy as we are and I am patient enough to wait until it suits them.

The house is fixed, the power line is fixed, we have installed a breaker box and gotten rid of the old fashioned screw in fuse box, the cable line is back up and we have internet again.  The contractor even fixed our broken hall light which hasn't lit up in years...no idea why other than he said whoever wired it buggered it all up.  Which was what he found with the fuse box as well.  Although, he said it had been purposefully buggered so as to bypass some of the meter sometime before we moved in.

Jon has been slowly working on fixing our broken gutters and missing downspouts.  They have been missing/broken since we moved in but we are trying to fix things the best we can. It has been slow going.

My car is back on the road. It needs new tires.  The year of sitting did them no good and they are kind of dry rotted and basically ruined, not that the tires were new or wonderful when the car was crashed. They were passable.  Before it snows much, I need new ones.  I've already had a flat in one of them and had to have it repaired because, of course, it happened when I was flat broke and couldn't have afforded a new tire even if I'd needed one.

I had to have one of my cats euthanized.  Not one of my best days.  She was old, suddenly ill, and one morning, we went to the emergency vet and they said she was too ill to test for things, and that was that. I decided and we buried her in the back yard.  Poor Zsa Zsa.  I couldn't watch her suffer anymore.

This morning I am skipping work due to being ill with some sort of cold or something. I don't know. I'm feverish and really didn't think I was up to my job.  I'll live. I was trying to nap but the dog decided to bark threateningly at the mailman she perceives as evil and then Jon called me to check up on me.  Sweet of him, but hard to sleep with all the noises.

Jon and I went to Ohio to visit my parents a couple weekends ago. Only for the weekend, which was too short, but it was a nice visit.  I hope there is not much snow this winter so I can go back to visit for a longer period without worries of driving in super dangerous conditions.

This weekend has been a good one. We picked up sticks in the front yard, went to lunch, made food, went shopping for groceries, looked in the antique shops, had some coffee, and basically hung out.  Sounds uneventful, but was pleasant and full of laughter.  I bought some goofy glow in the dark teeth that, once I get and carve a pumpkin, are meant to be jammed into it, lol.

Jon reformatted the computer. It had some virus on it that caused all sorts of things and we found the system disks and poof!  Virus no more.  Much better.  Weird, having to re-download Mozilla and get rid of Internet Explorer.  Also strange having no bookmarks.

My cat is sleeping so soundly on the couch next to me that she is snoring. Loudly. Silly Moose.

I guess that's all I can remember happening, though I am certain much more did happen.

Dreams

I have been having dreams lately. Good ones, mostly.

Things like: 

remembering how happy I was the first time I was big enough to jump the ditch at my parent's house without falling in.

ice "skating" on that ditch when it was frozen over.  We never had ice skates, we had boots and shoes, but we did have an imagination.  In fact, I never have worn ice skates in my life.

Waking up at Grandma's trailer.  Which is bittersweet. This November she will have been dead for seven years.  Seven!   I miss that woman. She got to meet Jon and then she died.  Doesn't seem fair. Not at all.

And the older I get the more I think, there is nothing like home folks.

I'm lucky and I have home folks far away. 

My friends Ruth and Joe are also home folks.  I'd feel lonely without them.

Yesterday was a Strange Day

It has been quite an eventful few days.

Firstly, Jon woke up having the most terrible asthma attack of his life, he says.  It was scary.  He has since seen a doctor and is on very strong steroids plus inhalers...and still his lungs are super inflamed and he's having a hard time at work.  It's a machine shop so there are a lot of yucky fumes to inhale...so he went home quite early today.  I hope he gets better.  On a positive note, he did clean the house while I was at work.

Secondly, here in the Metro Detroit area we have had some interesting flooding.  I personally had no issues with my commute but apparently I am one of the lucky few.  The golf course down the road from me is pretty much entirely submerged--or was still submerged at 4 30 which is when I drove past it on my way home.  The street behind us (we live on a hill, on some high ground)  was closed due to flooding...I saw the sign on my way home.  Sucks to be those people, I think.

Here are some photos:

Yeah. Those are our freeways. Not waterways, people.

And, lastly, there was this snippet of news that I found out about while listening to Dave and Chuck the Freak on my way to work this morning (our local morning show of choice in the Detroit area):  The Coshocton Tribune

Basically for YEARS and YEARS there has been a war between that church and that strip club.  It's in a tiny no-where place called Newcastle.  The church is a ten minute drive from the strip club...which makes this even more laughable.  I know I find this all the more ridiculous because I lived in that area of Ohio.  So I think this is hilarious.  Live and let live? Nah. The church says you can't shake your ass to feed your babies...even though...there is NOTHING in that town besides a really run down eatery of sorts.  How the hell else are they going to feed their babies? Magic?  Perhaps the church will provide food and clothes and paid bills? Nah. Let 'em starve.  And this is such a backwards way of thinking that just mentioning the word "abortion" will pretty much get you lynched.  Sure, have all the kids you want, just don't come running to us when you can't feed them?  What the hell?  Oh, and no ass shaking to provide for all those kids you squirted out.

I laughed about that article for a good ten minutes.  Oh, no, kids will be scandalized by NUDITY!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hahahahaha....kids love being naked.  Who taught them being naked was bad?  The CHURCH, that's who!

Yeah, yeah, Christians, go ahead put my head on a pike right now. I'm not anti church, I'm anti-idiot.

In which I try to work things out by typing...a lot

Anyone else get skeezed out about making appointments?

 I hate making appointments. I do not enjoy them.

Last time I was to a doctor: three years ago for a sinus infection.  Last time before that: 6 years for the same thing.  I believe that unless I need to go see a doctor, the evil white suited man or woman can just fuck the hell off.   And I rarely need to see a doctor.  And they always ask these idiotic questions (whether or not it has anything to do with what is wrong...and I don't know the last time a sinus infection was affected by the date of my last menstruation).  How the hell should I know the date of my last menstruation. Do YOU?  No.  It's not like I get all crap happy about it and mark the day down on the calendar. Because I don't. I'd rather NOT menstruate ever again, thanks. It's worthless. I don't want to make babies and I have no need to feel like shit one week out of every month.  Plus, its super irregular and who knows when and for how long it will strike.  When were you to a doctor last? (And they want you to list the dates.) I always write "I don't know."  Which is the answer I write on the blank next to the former question as well.  Sometimes, I write things like "the last time I was in need of a doctor, 6 years ago, give or take a few years."  Do you have insurance? "Of course not" is usually the answer I list. 

My husband went to the dentist today to potentially have a tooth pulled. It turned out not to be an infected wisdom tooth which is good news. But, then he had the GALL to include me in an appointment to have my teeth cleaned. No, thanks, I told him, I'm cancelling.  He got really mad about it. Something about it being luxurious. LUXURY is not having a dremel tool vibrating on the nerve endings in your mouth. It just isn't.  I said, well, I never just make appointments concerning you without your consent.  I know the dentist is going to say, oh that enamel is weak, oh there's a cavity, you need fillings....and I'll say, yeah, I know.  I'm planning on having them yanked once they bother me because its cheaper in the long run. I've had so many fillings in my life that the last dentist I went to told me the next step is having crowns and since I know exactly what one crown costs...um, no...I'll be needing a new car and not supporting a dentist so he can buy one.  My husband argues something or other about the pain of having teeth out (he's never had one out, I, on the other side, have had 8 baby teeth and 4 adult teeth removed all at once so my adult teeth would even fit in my tiny mouth and have had my wisdom teeth removed)  but as far as I know, the pain of the dremel tool bothers me wayyyy more than the pain of having teeth removed.  I don't know why. My pain killers never did anything except make me vomit so I never took them after that.  I equate having teeth pulled pain with the pain of menstruation.  Yep. Mine is that bad.

I even hate making appointments to get my hair done.  I used to have this lady who did my hair for 27 years or so...yep, the whole of my growing up. She is like family. But, I moved away, so I don't have her anymore and have found I really don't like strangers near me or touching me or fussing over me. So I have been cutting my own hair, bleaching my own hair and what not because 1. its cheaper and 2. no appointments and 3. no strangers.

My husband also gets really mad that I refuse to see a gynecologist. I'm not pregnant. If I'm going to die of cancer, I'd rather not know beforehand. And the last gyno I went to I told  off and just quit taking the birth control pills because I told him that yearly exam was just a money making scheme because I wasn't sexually active at the time and I was just there to see if it would make my periods liveable but I guessed I'd survived without them and could continue to survive without them if it meant I had to drag my ass into the gyno every year.  I also told the same gyno that I wanted a hysterectomy (I had health insurance once upon a time) and he refused based on some antiquated notion that a 22 year old has no idea what she wants for her own body. Umm...yeah...MAKE IT STOP!!!!  I don't want babies...DO YOU HEAR ME? No, of course, not.  By all means, you must want to procreate, you' re female. NO.  But someday? NO. I. DON'T. WANT. KIDS. EVER.

I found out that giving blood made my periods more liveable...but only because I was usually so close to anemic that I just wouldn't bleed very much at all.  Which was a great side effect, as far as I was concerned and kept trying to give blood for a long time. Sometimes I was refused because of the anemia, sometimes not.  Why was I anemic? Who knows.  That was ten or so years ago so it must not have been anything serious.  But I do know that iron supplements made me vomit so I gave up trying to fix it.

My husband says he just wants me to be happy. Am I?

I don't know. I haven't really drawn or painted much since we moved up here into all the people. It's probably been a year since I've even doodled, maybe more. I have no sex drive and that bothers me only because it bothers him.  I don't care to be around people and I don't like to do yard work when other people are outside. I don't like to walk the dog because I'm surrounded by strangers. 

Do I feel particularly unhappy? No.

I miss home and cornfields and acres of trees.  This is not home. We have been here since 2009 and this is not home. If I could transport this house anywhere in the middle of somewhere green where the people are outnumbered by farm animals, I would. That would be more like home.  I don't have the power to do that and I don't have the money to move.  So I guess maybe I feel resigned.

Perhaps I am mentally ill and have social phobia. Perhaps I am simply anti social.  Perhaps I am depressed. Perhaps many things.  I sure don't know.