Friday, February 26, 2010

My Current State of Being

So. I don't know if it's that the winter is doing it's annual Drag-Out-Longer-Than-Desired performance or if it's just that I never exercise just for the sake of exercising and have a lousy diet and sleep schedule, but I'm absolutely shot.

I've even been having trouble staying awake on the drive back to Granite after Job2 to while on my way to Job1. (I realize that's a little confusing, but Job1 hired me a few months before the current position was accepted at Job2, and pays better...so it remains Job1 in my head even if I now work them in the opposite order.)

It's not so bad that I'm seeing 'The Red Semi That Isn't There' like happened a couple times during daylight hours over the last couple years...or maybe I am and I can't tell it's red because it's dark. At any rate, I have the last bag of Halloween candy in the car to make sure I don't actually fall asleep. (Warheads, LemonHeads, Atomic Fire Balls, and Sour Patch Kids are a good supplement to caffeine for overcoming drowsy driving.)

If it wasn't so damn cold I'd just find me a nice field approach and take a little snooze. But being overtired like I am, I'd probably zonk out something severe and succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning from the running car.

So anyway, as I was standing in WalMart after working Job2 this morning, the little jingle that alerts me to missed phone calls went off - and there was a message on there saying that the person who is now working my former position at Job1 was training at another center and that it was requested that I fill in for the night.

Mixed reactions to that.

Sure, this means I could get some more sleep time in before going to work again - but I was planning on attending a Pampered Chef party tonight. It was being hosted by a friend who's just getting started in the business and it was her first party. I wanted to go partly to help her out, and partly because I'm a little tired of cupboards full of plastic storage containers that say 'Schwan's' or 'Cool-Whip' on them.

Oh. And partly because I figured I'd be about the only guy at the party.

And here I was planning to get at least 3 more of their oven timers to use as alarm clocks in whichever car I was using...for severe cases when the sour candies possibly wouldn't do the trick and the chance of carbon monoxide poisoning is a better risk than the possibility of an accident.

I was a little surprised that none of the guys at Job2 questioned why I was sitting in the break room flipping through a 'The Pampered Chef' catalog a couple times this week. I suppose they no longer find it unexpected. After all, I've brought in several different flower and bulb catalogs ('Roots and Rhizomes' is probably my favorite. Lots of daylily and hosta pictures.) as well as catalogs such as 'The Pyramid Collection'. (Not sure how I got on that mailing list. I'd guess it's from buying the fairy garden statues through Design Toscano.)

But it just wasn't to be.

Oh well. It's Friday, and I haven't updated the blog for a while. Work is done for the week and now I've got the blog update covered, too. I've been toying with the idea of putting a post on here relating to church and God and the like, but have it from my own perspective...which means it would be slightly twisted like my take on things scientific in nature.

No...I'm not saying God is magnetic.
Although if I spent some time thinking about it, I'm sure I'd figure a way to argue the point.

Anyway, like I'd mentioned around 65 posts ago, I'm not a very good Catholic... if attending church is a defining criteria. Other than that, I feel I'm on pretty good ground with the higher power I believe in.

So sometime soon I'll get a post on here relative to this subject.

If lighting strikes me dead or I get hit by 'The Red Semi That Actually WAS There', then I guess that this particular post wasn't meant to be any more than me attending the cookware party tonight!

And Sheila, (sister. Google Lindemoenratrace for her blog) you're right. February sucks. They should shorten it up another 11 days.

On a final note... Hi, Heidi!
(One of the few people I considered a true friend in high school. She sent a message on Facebook saying she'd stopped by and read my blog and that she misses my humor.)

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Ack-O-Matic

My 46 year old Ack-O-Matic boiler had some issues this week.

I went to work early on Sunday morning and when I walked in at 5:30 pm I said, "It's cold in here!"

David said, "I noticed that when I got up this morning."

So after I checked to make sure the pilot light had indeed gone out, and relit said pilot light, I again explained to my kids about how there are certain things that they should really call me about right away.

So Monday comes along and I have a plumber guy come out who installs some new parts in my long-past-intended-useful-life boiler. Amid the noise he made and the noise made by 5 teenagers (no school - snow) who spent the day neutralizing each other on a video game, there wasn't much sleep...although Dangit (the cat) was even more snuggelly than usual and served as a decent source of heat while I was trying to sleep between all the banging and name-calling.

Then, while I was at work on Tuesday, the radio personalities said that some statistic shows that cat people tend to be smarter than dog people...by about 38% or something like that...when factoring in higher education and such.

And last night, while I was at the other job, a stray cat showed up at the building.
"Hmmmmm", I thought to myself. "I think I'll double the educational gap between myself and all of my dog-owning neighbors."

So I ignored the fact that half of my neighbors either currently are or are retired teachers and brought the stray cat home.

It's going to have to be an outside cat for now. It's full of cockle burrs and smells like a barn. Plus, she's not declawed and I'd hate to find that she'd used my dinner table for a scratching post.

I do hope she sticks around. I've decided to name her "Phukoff". That way, when my neighbors are back from Arizona (they go every winter) and the weather is nice, I can walk outside while they're camped out under the canopy of the camper they have (which fills a good portion of my little dead-end street) and say...

"Dangit! Phukoff!"

...and walk back in. :)