HalfAsstic.com

Hello there peoples!  Peoples?  There is more than one of you… right?

Whatever.

As the common expression in my family goes, “Do you want the good news or the bad news”? Well, the good news is, there is no bad news.

John is still on vacation and we are, in general, having a really fairly good time of it.  We have now added to the list of things accomplished to include:

*Called Verizon to get them to set us up with land line service.

Hopefully it will be every bit as dynamite as the cell service.  It was awesome during the hurricane.  They never even lost a tower, I guess.  All the circuits were busy a few times, but we always had service.  They are supposed to call us back… sometime.  My guess is that they were inundated with calls for service after Ike, from Comcast customers that lost service before the hurricane ever got anywhere near us and didn’t get it back until at least 2 weeks later.  Oh hell, some still don’t have it.  One month later.

* I caulked the edge of the shingles on the back of the house and the garage Thursday.  I did the front of the house yesterday evening.  I rock.

Here you can see how the shingles don’t stick out far enough past the flashing in places and this is where we are having signs of water…well, not yet damage, but the paint is beginning to bubble so rot is not far way, under the eaves.  And this is happening only where we were “short shingled”.  Coincidence?  I think not!  I went ahead and caulked the entire house and garage anyway, just to make sure we got it all.

Now here’s my dilemma:

I want to paint our front door.   It is an oak door and it weighs a gazillion pounds.  Yeah, yeah, I know!  Every guy out there is going to try to die at the thought of painting it, but it needs refinishing or painting really badly and if I am going to go to that much trouble I want it to be a pretty color.

Ideally I would like red, HOWEVER, the damn neighbors across the street, (really very sweet people), beat me to it and their door is so pretty! Especially when her geraniums are in bloom.

See their pictures below?  Don’t they have a beautiful yard?  Even with the recycle bin still out?

So, I was wondering about, maybe, green?  I would really like to know what everyone thinks of this.  My house needs some color as it is shades of beige and brown with pasty white brick.

Oh, please note the attractive piece of cardboard in the lower right side of the window in the door.  Yeah, gotta get that fixed, too. And I don’t usually have a ladder in the front yard but I was doing the caulking when I stopped and took these pictures. Also, the shutter that is standing on the ground by the post with the house numbers has been replaced on the right side of the window.  It blew off during Ike and I ran out during the eye and retrieved before it blew away.

See how dark it is in the itty bitty porch?  I am thinking a sagey (this may not be an actual word, yet you know what I mean…), green.  So what do YOU think?

Hello!  Today, boys and girls, I have been busy talking to Henrietta’s P. A. (physician’s assistant), home health care nurse, and the x-ray technician who came out to snap some glamor shots of her.

She’s got a totally bizarre and perplexing problem residing in her… (are you ready for this… go ahead and take a wild guess…) ass.

To make a long story short, (Yes.  I am aware nobody thinks I can do this. *sigh* Now I am going to have to prove myself…) She broke her hip a couple of years ago and while she was still in the hospital recovering from the hip surgery, they called me and said it was dislocated.  Doc said her muscles “contracted” and pulled her leg out of socket.  She would need surgery again to fix it cause it would just pull out again if he manipulated it back in.  Strangely enough, the old woman that makes the princess and the pea gal look insensitive wasn’t in any pain so she elected not to have the surgery.  I believe it was one of her cuter moments, she looked at me when I explained her options and said, “I don’t want to have surgery again, Krissa.  I’m old, already!”.  She was 84 and I didn’t argue with her.  So all this time she’s had a dislocated hip.  Or, actually, I don’t know why it’s called that because really her femur is dislocated from her hip.  Well, all of the sudden her leg bone has started… migrating around in her, butt.  Her hip is all wonky crooked seeming and the head of the femur is poking out in the thickest part of her gluteus maximus.  This makes it very painful to sit on for any length of time.  Her butt is bruised from the inside.

At this point I would like to point out that this was promised to be a short story not a normal one.

Anyway, the P.A. and I sat there by her bed poking around and talking about what’s up with her bones and placing bets on what the x-ray will show and what we think the different odd bits poking out here and there are going to turn out to be.

I do know one thing.  I see an operation in her future.  Before long that bone is going to start a bedsore that I won’t be able to cure because anytime she is sitting or lying on her back she is pressing against it.  Constant pressure.

John called while I was in there talking to the P.A. and asked what I was doing.  I said, “Looking at your mom’s ass with Darnell.  Do you want me to tell you about it?”  “No!  I gotta go, they’re paging me.”

The pansy-ass.

9:45 Saturday evening.

Greetings, intertubes.  I am sitting here watching The Weather Channel and trying to out-predict the weather man.  This should not prove difficult, as he looks like he graduated from high school last year, or maybe the year before that.  God knows I have lived through many, many more hurricanes than he can remember.

It is going to Louisiana… poor bastards.

10:29 Sunday morning

It’s been a long time since I lived in Louisiana, but I swear I don’t remember them having presidents of parishes.  I couldn’t believe some guy on the news was referring to this guy as “Mr. President”.  Then there was a crawler across the bottom that said he was the president of the parish.  For those of you who don’t live in Louisiana, a parish is the same thing as a county.  Except, apparently, they have presidents.  Weird.

The stinking mold is back.  Except, really it doesn’t stink.  And it looks different.  Instead of a white powder it’s…fluffy.  No.  I have not been smoking anything or eating anything that lived down there with the mold.  There was no indication that we had any at all and I would have never known if I hadn’t just reached under there and wiped my hand to check for it.  John thinks that if we hadn’t found it maybe it would change into the powdery kind like we had before.  I don’t really know what to think.  AND I don’t know why it’s here.  STILL.

I have an awesome post waiting in my camera to be unleashed.  But, sadly, the camera card wasn’t in my camera when I took the awesome pictures and they are committed to internal memory so I have to have a cord to download to the pooter.  Guess what I can’t find?  I know.  Enough excuses already!  I will look for one on Tuesday when John is off and the sitter is here to take care of H.

12:35 pm Sunday  SIL just left.  She showed up and visited for about an hour with her mother and helped me change one diarrhea diaper.  I suppose she thinks she has contributed as much as necessary until next week.  She brought her 11 year old grandson with her and she just walked in where I was and said “I guess I’ll go.  He’s already ready!”  No shit?  An 11 year old boy isn’t having fun at my house with absolutely nothing to do except watch tv?  Shocking.  Wonder what she’ll do to break outa here in no time next week…

Greetings all!  You may, (or, may not), have noticed that I have a new site in the old blog roll.  A Piece of My Mind is a site inhabited by Maria, an uber cool environmental conservationist  I “met” on Plurk a while back.  It really is inspiring to read about her own exploits in the area of trying new things and new ideas about all areas of conservation.

Have any of you ladies ever heard of a Diva Cup?  Maria discusses the use of one and the benefits of it.  Well, that little gizmo may just be the best thing since sliced bread.  Here is her first post on the “non-absorbent menstrual cup”.  The Diva Cup is also environmentally friendly because it is reusable and not disposable.  Read about it and tell me what you think.  If I had any need for it whatsoever I would have one ordered right now.  I had a thermal ablation several years ago and am done with periods.  (Yet, I still have ovaries, uterus, tubes, all my bits and pieces, and there was NO cutting.  Quite possibly the best thing ever for people who don’t want any more children and have a healthy reproductive package. It was an outpatient procedure with minimal recovery time.)   I am going to show the info on the Diva Cup to Kes and Keelan and see if either one will consider it.  They are both on Depo Provera shots due to their intense dislike of periods, but neither one wants to continue since the injection of hormones into their little bodies causes weight gain and huger than normal boobs.  I am thinking this new cup method may be the way to go.

Now, watch out for whiplash while I attempt to segue into another conservation area.  Just a very slight change in subject…

My hot water heater is at one end of my house and my dishwasher at the other.  (Still with me?)  I use it only when it is full and don’t use the “pot scrubber” cycle, just the “regular” one or the “light”.  The dishwasher repair guy said to cut down on the electric bill make sure the hot water is flowing in the kitchen sink before turning on the dishwasher so it doesn’t have to use so much electricity to heat the water to the proper temp before filling.  HOWEVER, I have to run water through my tap for a good couple of minutes to get the hot water to that end of the house.  My environmental question is this: In this case is it better to save electricity or water?

I gotta go over to Maria’s site and alert her to my concerns and see what she thinks…

Hi all!

The other day, Monday in fact, John and I spent the better part of the day on a not so fun project.  For a while now every time I opened the flatware drawer there seemed to be a fine coating of flour or powdered sugar or Bisquick, something of that nature, on the utensils.  I just thought one of the girls spilled some in there and not much more of it.  After several times, though, I became suspicious.  I reached inside the drawer and wiped my fingers along the underside of the counter top.  Upon the removal of my hand I promptly threw up.   No, not really, but I wanted to.  White, powdery mold.  I grabbed a flashlight and looked in at the backs of the cabinets.  Nothing.  No water stains or mold or even cobwebs.  Very clean.  HOWEVER, when I shined my light up at the underside of the Formica it was all covered in the white mold.  So when John got home and after a little inter net research we went out and got some bleach a spray bottle and some sponges.  We removed the drawers and all of the contents of the cabinets before I spent about 5 minutes on my hands and knees with my head stuck in the cabinets spraying that bleach all over the underneath of the counter top.  Man!  That stuff burns the eyes!  We waited a while and repeated the process.  Or, I should say I repeated the process!  John has “bad knees” that bother him every time there is the need to crawl around on the tile floor.  Whatever.

The neat thing is that the mold had disappeared immediately after I sprayed the first time.  I mean not a trace of it anywhere.  Poof!  Disappeared in a cloud of… well, not mold.  Has anything like this happened to anyone else.  There was no moisture under there and never had been, and it was only on that side of the sink, not the other side.  Weird.

Last night I was lying in bed watching Craig Ferguson and Holly Hunter was his guest.  I have always liked her a good deal, but I really love her voice.  Very southern sounding, but aside from her accent even, her voice is really neat.  I digress.  I do that a lot.

I wasn’t paying full attention, I was reading a book also, but somehow she started talking about a duffel bag she found along with her boyfriend on a street with a bunch of car window glass all over it and inside were a bunch of things that belonged to some guy that was taking flying lessons and had his flight logs and books and technical stuff that was probably very valuable to him.  His name was all over the things.  He wouldn’t be very hard to find.  She and her beau started walking up and down the street looking at the car windows until they found the car that had been broken in to, and by doing so they were able to locate the man who owned it inside the resturant and give him his stuff back.  At least what was left of it.

This reminded me of a time just after John and I got married and were living in an apartment in a near by town.  We were walking through the grass going home and either he or I, (I can’t remember who), looked down and found a gold mens wedding ring.  It was very old and had an inscription on the inside.  I can’t remember what it said other than a date that was a looooong time ago and three initials with the last one being a “Z”.  So Immediately I begin trying to figure out how we are going to find this little old man to give him his ring back, or worse, little old widow who refused to remarry and wore it on a chain around her neck for the past 20 years as a token of her undying love and devotion.  Yep, we had to find the owner.

Did I ever mention that John was a UPS driver for close to 15 years?  He was and he delivered to that area where I was living.  As a matter of fact that’s how we met, but that’s another story.

Needless to say he knew who the guy was when he stopped and thought about it, as he had delivered a package to him once.  (He also has a brain like a damn computer and never forgets anything.)  So he told me which apartment and I trotted over there and knocked on the door.  This older than dirt guy opened the door and I said “Mr. Z______?”  And he said “Yeah?”  I said, “I think I found your wedding ring!”  And I swear, this is true, he held out his hand and took the ring and closed the door.  Dirty bastard didn’t even have the courtesy to smile or look the least bit happy that his reminder of being married 50+ years was returned to him.  I was fairly devestated that my good deed was so….not that wonderful for the receipent.

Can’t help but wonder if the little Mrs. was a real bitch and he threw that ring down on the way to the car.

The electricity went out for a bit tonight and we all found ourselves outside with the neighbors.  Everyone came over and re-introduced themselves to H.  The general attitude is that she is so incredibly old she MUST not remember who anyone is.  Sometimes she doesn’t.  They are all just being very nice, and I know it.  Anyway, she kept saying how hot it is and seemed amazed that you could “feel the heat rising up…”.  Keep in mind that she is extremely agoraphobic.  It is very hard to get her to go outside the door, either front or back.  I bet it has been three months since she has left the house.  But with no light or TV she really had very little choice.

Keelan was showing me a message she got from someone on her Myspace page and telling me what she was saying back to him.  She is kinda excited about this kid and hasn’t seen him since school was out.  So she is telling me what she is typing and she said, “…and a smiley face.  You know about that don’t you?  Smiley faces?  You know, semi-colon for a wink and then close parentheses?”  I thought I was being uber cool and said, “Smiley faces? Yeah…been around since the dawn of the typewriter.  Only you forgot the dash for a nose.”  She had the audacity to just bust out laughing hysterically and tell me that I am soooo old and ‘out of it’, “NOBODY puts a nose, Mom!”

WHATEVER!

How do they take the tiniest things and try to make you feel so stupid with them?  Lucky for me, I have rino-hide and it is impossible at this point.

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Henrietta did a poo in the bedpan earlier and I took it over to the cedar chest to set it down by the door to be taken out in a minute to dump in the potty, while I put the diaper on her.  However, this time when I set the bedpan down there was so much crap in the way on the cedar chest it didn’t get completely on there and fell off,  The poo is quite soft and a bit runny and it…splattered out and hit my thong clad foot.  Besides being extremely grossed out I was immediately furious with all of her relatives who keep bringing her STUFFED ANIMALS.  They are all over the place now and there is little room for anything else.  Her room has gone from being a lovely haven to looking like a nursery.  WHY do people think children’s toys are good to give to old people?  I mean when they clearly don’t have the minds of children.  They don’t play with dolls, don’t throw balls, don’t play make believe in any form, shape or manner.  She won’t let go of any of it, either, because it was given to her.  Spoken just like someone raised in the depression era.

Anyway, I did some rearranging and made enough room on the cedar chest to sit the bedpan while I finish up with the diaper and dressing and whatnot.  But, the next time the people in her family that show up, (about twice a year, they come to visit),  and bring something ridiculous to her I am seriously considering saying something like, “Oh!  A child’s bear?”  OH!, for Henrietta!  Well, I don’t know how much she’ll play with it, but it’s really cute….”  Would I be a horrible person?

Yes.  I would.

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I just saw a Twitter from Ree over at Hotfessional that reminded me of a conference call that I sat in on with John, Tuesday on his day off.  On of his buddies he used to work for called him and told him he might want to get in on it just because it was a pretty big deal.  The grocery store chain he works for was recalling ALL the ground meat that wasn’t sold in prepackaged tubes.  THREE DAYS BEFORE JULY 4th.

So I sat there and listened to all these different speakers talk about exactly what was being recalled and what wasn’t and how to handle it and sanitize the meat cases, coolers, floors, walls, ceilings, armpits, what have you.  These people aren’t fooling around.  Then there was endless questions from people that had to be the STUPIDEST people I can imagine knowing how to form a question.  “Err, yeah, this is Bob Schmob over at store 998.  When we sanitize the coolers and the knives, and the grinder and the blades and the prep tables and sink do we also clean the counter tops where the meat is cut up?”  Yes, you dumbass.  You clean everything the meat has ever touched in the history of the store.

I don’t know how many times this particular kind of question was asked and how many times the, either incredibly patient, or unbelievably stupid upper management people would once again tell them that, yes, they needed to clean and sanitize everything.

After the conference call had gone on for 65 minutes it ended and would you believe NO ONE EVER SAID WHAT THE PROBLEM WITH THE MEAT WAS.  I mean, you can guess it is probably e coli, but, for gawd’s sake, it seems like the managment yo-yo’s would have used the word ONCE.  Or someone would have asked.  No.  Of course it was on the recall site on the internet and it IS e coli, but I think it is PRETTY funny that the corporate big wigs can talk on and on for over an hour and not ever come out and say what the problem actually IS!  Typical. At least for this company.

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Earlier tonight I came in here and Keelan was on the computer doing, Gawd knows what.  I sat and waited for a bit and watched her and my eyes have gotten so bad that I could have sworn she typed “racial farts” into the googlie search thing.  No.  It was Rascal Flatts.  Do I need to get my eyes checked out?

I have this blouse I got for my birthday from Mither when we went shopping that I started out really liking and now I think I am beginning to see what my family is seeing.  They all, every one of them, has expressed a severe distaste for this shirt.  Even John, who usually thinks if it’s on me it has to be lovely doesn’t like it.  I went terribly wrong somewhere.  Well, I know where.  In Kohl’s.

Does anyone out there have clothes like that?  You know… you buy the thing and maybe wear it a couple of times and finally decide that you must have had some sort of stroke to have picked it out?

Mither, I’m sorry.  But really.  How could you have let me?

It’s OK, I love you and I forgive you.

The Offending Object-Please click to enlarge on it’s… offensiveness.

I don’t know if you can tell or not, but the sleeves and neckline have a strip of satin sewn around them and the sleeves tie in these things that are not bows, yet are big like bows.  And since they are satin ties they slip, no matter how tight they are tied.  So even though they start out pulled up and puffy, (yes, I really said PUFFY), they slip down and are hanging about my elbows the majority of the time that I am not in the actual act of yanking them back up and cussing adjusting them.

1. When it’s raining like this I love to clean house.  Well, maybe “love” is a strong word to use, but I like to,  Wonder why?

2. I wonder who has been reading my blog for so long that lives on or near Long Island NY.  They have been reading almost everyday since day one, and I don’t think they have ever commented.  I wanna know you people!  Er, HI!  Leave a comment for goodness sake!  Introduce yourself.  I can be very nice and not too terribly scary at all.  Well, when I’m really trying, anyway.  I swear I won’t stalk you!  Not any more than I already have….  M’k?

3. I wonder how many calories I eat every day in nothing but CARBS.  I loves me some pasta and rice!  Oh Oh! and bread and pretzels and popcorn!  I need an intervention.

4. I wonder what ever happened to our Maine Coon cat.  He just decided to stay down the road at someone else’s house a couple of months ago and he would show up here and eat occasionally but not often, because she was feeding him too.  We would see him laying about in people’s driveways and yards also.  But for the last few weeks he hasn’t been spotted.  Is somebody feeding him better food than us?   He always was fickle.

5.Our cell phone contract is up this month, (Hallelujah!), so long Cingular/ATT!  I think we are going with Verizon…wonder what phone to get?

6.The (now, mama) possum visiting our cat food is going to be caught tomorrow night as I have located a live trap and we will swing by and pick it up tomorrow on John’s day off.

7.  Amazing how greened up everything got when it finally rained.  It looks like spring outside instead of summer.

8.WHY is it like pulling teeth to get out of here.  I want to leave NOW.  We actually can leave NOW and yet John is in there cleaning up the kitchen or piddling on the computer in the bedroom or something and it’s always “just a minute…”.  I swear if he wasn’t so damn cute…!

9. No Possum Trapping Tonight!  John had the good sense to call the animal shelter place in Texas City and ask if they had any live traps available, (they are out right now), before we went all the way over there and came away empty handed.  DAMN.  I was all excited about going trappin’ and I’ve been practicing my east Texas/redneck accent all day! GONNA CATCH ME SOME POSSUM, AND COOK ET AN FIX ME SOME VITTLES, YA’LL.

So far today, John has gone to work and he has a “close” shift, which is ironic because his store is open 24 hours. To “close” just means work the late shift. He goes in at 1:00 and will get off about 11:00 or midnight.

Gil, who is Kes’ boyfriend is upstairs with her and they are watching some creepy movie. I will never understand their fascination with horror flicks. But, hey, if they enjoy it…

H is, (true to life), on the shitter. So I am in a holding pattern until I hear the cowbell ring and then I am off to ahem, clean up her nether regions and get her dressed if she wants to get up by then. It is currently almost 3:00pm so, she may not want to get up today. She’s been obsessing all day about all the coughing she did last night. I have tried over and over to tell her that it’s just her allergies and her sinuses are draining. This tickles her throat and she coughs. No. She is having none of it. She announced that “I have a fever in my stomach because I keep drinking water.” Well, if ever there has been a good reason to invent some mysterious, abeit impossible malady I say drinking water should be it. I have an ingrown hair on my leg and I’m sure that that’s why I’m thirsty right now. Hey, at least an ingrown hair is possible. Fever in her stomach? What kind of old Mexican wives tale is that? Better yet, how on earth do they justify it? Someone swallow a thermometer and barf it back up after 3 minutes to prove it?

Ya just gotta wonder where this stuff comes from and why anyone would buy it.