Monday Blues

I’m having a very hard time concentrating today.  There are so many things to do and I just can’t seem to get my butt in gear.  Must be the Monday blues.  I can see why women used to call it Blue Monday when they had to hand wash clothes and hang them up to dry.

For some insane reason, my ex-mother-in-law didn’t like to put her clothes in the dryer.  During the winter (in Wabash, Indiana) she’d hang them in the basement because she thought they smelled better.  If the weather wasn’t 0 degrees and snow up to her short ass, she’d even take them outside.  I can understand hanging them outside in the summer, but the basement in the winter?  Nope, no way!

We got a day’s worth of rain starting on Friday and almost all day Saturday.  I had to be out in it, but I didn’t care.  It was just so nice to have rain…finally.  I’m waiting for everything to start blooming.  Spring and fall are my favorite time of year.

And my mind rattles around in its cage as usual.

I’m trying to put the finishing touches on a not-so-short story to submit in a writing contest, but every time I read it, I make a few more changes.  I sent it in to Glimmer Train last year and it was a runner-up, but no big…  How does that saying go?  Anyway, here are a few paragraphs for your reading pleasure (?).


G MEN


     I was the Great Gordo Gibbons until the summer of 1960 when Gary Reddick, his three sisters, and his parents moved in next door.  That’s when Gary and I became the G Men.  I won’t say it was love at first sight because like most males of the human species, we had to do our strutting and roaring to establish the pecking order.  Besides, I was an only child and used to being the center of attention.
Fortunately, we were only five, so there wasn’t a whole lot of pecking to establish.  As soon as I saw his brand new, two-wheeler, decked with playing cards attached to the spokes with clothespins, training wheels, and plastic streamers flying from the handlebars, I decided that any differences we had were unimportant.

GREMLINS

GREMLINS?

Maybe it’s just gremlins at work, or maybe a computer virus, (I won’t say the “C” word.) but sometimes things don’t go the way you want.

I was sick all last weekend and Monday.  I did some editing on my book and when I was done, I put my memory thingamajig in my pocket to return it to my purse on my next trip in that direction.  Of course I never got there and when I went to bed I couldn’t find it anywhere.

Tuesday morning I still couldn’t find it so went to work worrying about where it could be.  You see, it has ALL of my writing on it.  The first thing I did at work was spill a full cup of hot water on the floor.  Of course I had to listen to stupid jokes all day about peeing on the floor.  And all day long I’m thinking, No, I couldn’t have lost that thingamajig.  All my work lost!

At home that evening I went through my pockets on everything I wore the day before and still couldn’t find it.  So I made dinner and kept telling myself not to panic.  I didn’t go out of the house all weekend.

After dinner I retraced all my steps, dug in all my pockets again…and again…and again.  On the forth forage through the house I felt a touch of something hard in my fleece jacket among all the used tissues.  Oh thank heaven for small favors.

Wednesday, I started to log on to make a post only to find out ACCESS DENIED.  I guess the politically correct police caught up with us.  I’m waiting for them to find out I can post directly from Word.  But now I can’t preview what I’ve written, add pictures or read anyone else’s site.

CONSPIRACY

Okay, yesterday I mentioned that I had poured various liquids into my keyboard at one time or another. So guess what I did this morning?

Yup, a brand new, piping hot cup of tea. Thank goodness that it was straight up, no sugar or lemon and I had one of those funky plastic lids that you open the little tab to drink from.

I also keep a supply of napkins at my desk for just such emergencies. Now at least the top of my desk around the keyboard is clean.

I heard on the radio once that the average business desk has more germs per square inch than a toilet seat. It was on the radio, so it had to be true.

Oh, by the way, I said I thought the cleaning people were fooling around with my water bottle, and you were sitting there saying, "Yeah right"? Well a friend came over from the other side of the fence and asked if someone had messed around with my chair. He said all of the chairs in his row were lowered as far as they would go.

This AM my chair was lowered and the armrests had been moved. Supposedly it had something to do with cleaning the carpets. Don't ask me. I have no idea how the two are related. Wait... the devil made them do it.

Happy Valentine's Day

May all your dreams and hopes be fulfilled. But…maybe I should qualify that. There are some people out there with evil little minds who might hope to wish some poor unsuspecting soul harm (don't forget, there’s always voodoo). I don’t want those guys to have their wild aspirations come true. So…if you are having nice, lovely thoughts, and wish everyone you know something good, then I hope your dreams come true.

Okay, that out of the way, I have a dilemma. This may sound trivial to some, but as I stated before, there are people out there with evil little minds who might hope to do some innocent, unsuspecting soul harm.

What am I blathering about, you may ask? (Or maybe not.) I always keep a water bottle on my desk. AND I always keep the top on while not actively engaged in sucking the cool contents of said water bottle into my parched throat. I have poured a cup of water/hot tea into my keyboard on more than one occasion so I always recap it when I’m done.

This AM I came into my 9x9 prison cell and found the bottle setting next to the keyboard sans the cap. The cap was placed neatly in the middle of the papers I was working on last night before I left.

Now you’re probably saying I simply forgot to return the cap to the proper screwed on position and you may very well be correct. But…every once in awhile, our cleaning crew decides to shove things around, or knock them into the floor, or whatever, so did they take the cap off in a tirade of previously undisclosed streak of malevolence?

And IF they took the cap off, where has it been in the interim? Perhaps the bottle itself was used in some pagan rights that I can’t even imagine. Have the contents been tampered with?

Should I drink from this bottle and risk the chance of falling to the dirty carpet, writhing in pain? If I were to bash my head on a kernel of popcorn, I could claim Workman’s comp. But then again, I might have to be rushed to the hospital to have my stomach pumped. Yuck!

Oh the uncertainty of it all. Perhaps, I should simply run about, scream and shout, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”

Happy Valentine's Day to all and to all a good night. Good night Gracie.

RAT RACE

I’ve been so busy this past week that I haven’t had time to visit with anyone, let alone doing a post. I have so little free time anymore that I have to ration it. When it comes to blogging or working on my book, well I’ve chosen my book. And damn little of that.

Payback for my Master Gardening class has started. Now I only have 57.5 hours community service before November instead of 65. Gardening is something I love to do, but when you hafta, it seems like a chore. But it was my choice to take the class knowing what I was getting into.

Last Saturday about 10 of us headed for the TAMU extension facility to do winter clean-up. And yes it really was fun in spite of a 30 MPH wind and temperatures in the 40’s. And wouldn’t you know it? I walked out to my car that morning at 8:15 to load all my stuff and the left rear tire was well on its way to being flat.

Right then and there I seriously considered, going back inside where it was WARM. My kids always tell me I’m a wimp because I hate the cold (and roller coasters). I don’t care if I did spend 18 years in Illinois, I’m still a Californian.

Now, what was I saying? Oh yeah, back to the errant tire. I loaded my wheelbarrow, pruning shears, lopping shears, hedge shears, rake and shovel and back brace into the Jeep and headed to the nearest Discount Tire store. I remembered the pain pills at the last minute, but forgot the PEPSI. Oh, no! Horror of horrors. NO PEPSI.

My kudos go to the men at Discount Tire in McKinney (the one @ 75 and Eldorado). They met me at the door, asked what the problem was and then got me back on the road as quickly as possible.

Mad Cow Disease

I'm having a real attitude problem today. I always thought it took too much energy to hate someone, but the stupid cow I was forced to train is making that thought obsolete. She's only been doing estimating four, five, maybe six months and she already knows everything.

What I don't understand is that the boss is sucking it up like a milk shake. She goes down to his office to expound on her latest revelation on how to change our job and chats for 20 or 30 minutes. I go down there with a problem and am allotted 2 minutes. And I'm not exaggerating. That's exactly what he told me yesterday when I pointed out a potential problem. Oh yeah, he said, "Fix it and let me know what you do".

This woman is too stupid to know what she doesn't know. How can you improve something when you don't even know what you're supposed to be doing? In addition she's flooding him with her achievements in revamping procedures. Unfortunately the "procedure" she is talking about is the project of someone else in a different department. This poor guy has been sweating over it for more than a year and the cow claims it as her own. GRRRRRRR!

There's a whole bunch of us waiting to see her crash and burn. I volunteered to bring the marshmallows to roast when it happens. And it will happen. She has yet to experience more than one project at a time while the rest of us poor schmucks are juggling 20 to 25 on a regular basis.

For once in my life I have decided not to step in and help when she comes whining about her workload. I've taken jobs from any number of people over the years, but I draw the line here. I made the mistake once of asking an ex-estimator for a couple of hours of her time and she said, "I'll have to check my calendar first". Even that didn't stop me. Yeah, I'm too stupid to say no.

Jimbob says I won't do it, but he's wrong. That's it, no more, go suck an, egg, go give the boss a b--w job, but get outta my face.