Well, here I sit in the path of destruction.  Future path, that is.  We will see.  We are north of the predicted landfall and thus, on the “dirty side”.  For all of you hurricane virgins, this just means the side of the hurricane with the most rain.

We evacuated three years ago for Rita and I will never forget that experience as long as I live.  Someone, somewhere, high up in city politics probably, screwed the pooch and started yelling something to the affect of “Run!  Run for your liiiiiives!”.   It was just plain hysteria talking due to the totally unbelievable fiasco that happened in New Orleans.  Apparently the ones in the know didn’t stop to consider that there was no way to duplicate that tragedy anywhere else but New Orleans.  The city that sits below sea level and has a series of dikes and levies, (that were in poor repair), holding back the water.  This information was apparently denied the person who started telling everyone to evacuate, from Galveston all the way up north of Houston to Conroe.

My FIL was alive then and so we had John, Henrietta, Marcos, Keelan, me, two dogs, two cats and oh, did I forget to say that the day before the hysteria we picked up my dear friend Susan from the airport.  She was visiting me from Italy, via her parents house in Denver.  Almost my first words were, “So, have you watched the news lately?”  At that point we were just barely paying attention to “it” and were wondering if it was even coming this way.  By the time we got home and turned on the TV things were getting all out of control by the news media.  They were starting to get whipped into a frenzy and eventually, I am sure, they believed their own hype.  EVERYONE was leaving.  We got sucked in and piled on the freeway outa here with everyone else.

It normally takes about 7 hours to get to my parents house up just north of Ft. Worth.  We arrived in 32.  No, REALLY.

Quite literally, Marcos almost died on that trip.  He and Henrietta were both on Hospice and doing fairly well at the time.  We sat in stopped traffic in triple digit heat for hours and hours.  There was no A/C because you can’t run it in that kind of traffic as the car will overheat.  He dehydrated to the point that when we FINALLY found a place we could stop, waaaaay off the beaten to death path, he staggered out of the car with a good deal of help from me and walked straight over to a trash can and threw up.  Henrietta’s wheelchair was strapped on top of the Trailblazer and so John just picked up her 80ish pounds and carried her in to the restroom for me.  He turned his head while holding her up in front of the potty while I snatched down her pants and she pooed in the potty.  I was able to hold her up while I pulled up her pants…somehow.  I don’t really remember how.

You should have seen all the looks we got with him carrying her in there!  That was so funny.  That was the only funny thing about the entire experience.  John and Susan took turns driving and I kept apologizing to her for the lack of fun her visit was being.

Susan was a dream come true to evacuate with.  I wouldn’t wish what happened to us on anyone, let alone my best friend, but good Lord, she was such a help.  Just dealing with the old folks, was hard enough.

Poor Marcos.  We planned to leave in the dead of the night, I’m thinking it was about 1:00AM, so hopefully we wouldn’t have as much heat to deal with.  At least not immediately.  I told John and Henrietta that I was going to give her an Ativan, (anti-anxiety meds), so she could just go ahead and sleep once she got in the car.  She agreed that she should.  They were her Rx and she took one every night to help her go to sleep.  So when we left I gave it to her and turned to Marcos and said, “Here, Marcos, why don’t you take one, too?  It’ll help you sleep.”  Famous last words.  He popped it in his mouth and we set out.  In about 20 minutes he started crawling out of his skin and was grabbing everything in the front seat with him.  NOTHING was sacred.  Gear knob, glovebox, buttons on the door, OnStar, radio, A/C, played with the seatbelt endlessly.  He was like a very badly behaved toddler.  I can’t tell you how many times I said, OH GAWD, I AM SOOOO SORRY I DID THAT!  Needless to say, he never got another Ativan.

So I have been up since the butt-crack of dawn trying to get “ready”.  We are staying here and keeping our fingers crossed.  I know it is looking really bad right now, but last time, we left and the power never even went out, people.  Not a single blinking clock greeted us upon our return.  I think there was a medium sized dead branch in our yard.  Woo-hoo.

Is this the smartest thing I’ve ever done?  Probably not.  Yet, neither was evacuating for Rita.

Hi intertubes people!  How’s it hangin?  We’re fine here and intend to be right up until we are washed away by Ike.  No, not really.  I don’t think he’s going to stray this far north, we’re just going to get a good deal of rain.  Oh well, we were behind in that department anyway.  I just hate getting caught up all at once…*sigh*

A few strange things happened today.  Firstly, my 17 year old girl child has gone to a City Council meeting with a friend of hers that is in a  US Government class.  Her friend says she needs, “moral support”.  Yeeeah.  Sure.  Keelan says she is going to have US Government next semester so why not?

John and I are taking bets on how long they are allowed to stay before being thrown out.  Their odds are not good.  Contact your bookie.

I have been sitting here watching The Weather Channel and I cannot, for the life of me, come up with a good solid reason for wanting to live in Cuba, year round, except for that pesky Castro not letting anyone leave…  I mean these people get totally flayed by multiple hurricanes every single year.  They wind up to cat 4 and 5 and go tearing across the island, sometimes twice per storm.  These people, for the most part, live in a near poverty situation and are flattened over and over.  Hundreds and hundreds die every year.  And they couldn’t leave if they wanted to.  Not even just for Hurricane season.  And that just seems wrong.  They should all be allowed to leave during the season for, oh, Europe or something…  God knows I wish I could.

Someone should complain.

H has a new caregiver provider person.  YES!  Again!  I know, I know.  I have reported this several times already, and no, I wasn’t lying.  The latest is “Tiffany”.  So far so good.  Please, everybody cross your fingers. She stayed here with H today while we ran frantically around for our allotted three hours.  Got back and she had done all the things I had verbally laid out for her to do.  And for those of you wondering, no, she won’t do taxes or windows.  Henrietta got a “bed bath” and put in the chair and her sheets changed.  Plus she cooked her breakfast and washed and figured out where to put all the dishes up.  All this was amidst her being visited by the nurse and then a very nice little lady from the church that comes by to give her communion.  I didn’t ask her to clean H’s bathroom or clean her room or anything cause we were having such a hard time getting out of here and she’s new, so I would have had to take more time than I already had when I showed her what to cook for her breakfast and how and where it all was.

I swear.  If she starts not showing up, I will scream.  She is very nice and H really likes her and each time she has left, Henrietta says, “Oh thank you so much for everything you did and please come back!”  How sad is that?  I will talk to her about trying to muster up a tear next time…

So far the contest has been hotly debated.  I have given up clues in the comments section, but, I swear, it’s something that is unusual to any mans dress shirt and is the reason John refuses to wear it.  It is an obvious thing at first glance and we should have noticed it except that it’s not that obvious.  Obviously.  I can feel all the obvious evil thoughts you people are sending me, now…  Oh!  There has been one winner so far!  And she’s not even a regular commenter.  I erased her comment immediately as soon as I got it and wondered, just as quickly, why I had set it up this way.  I should have said the first person to get the correct answer.  But I didn’t so if you can figure out what is such an obvious problem with the shirt that John won’t wear it you get a shot at the lovely prize also.

More tomorrow.

What’s wrong with the men’s dress shirt in this picture?

John and I bought this dress shirt for him recently and while I love the color and the soft, cotton damask fabric, we both neglected to notice one very important problem.  No, it’s not the size.  It looks great on him and fits perfectly.  I didn’t button it all the way, but it’s not the buttons or the placket.  The shirt will never do.   He will never wear it to work.  He says he’ll wear it on days where he has all day meetings.  I know better.  I am betting he will never put in on except to maybe go out to eat, occasionally when it’s very cold.

Click on it to make it bigger if you want to.

Can you figure out what’s so wrong with this men’s dress shirt that would make him not want to wear it, yet it never occurred to us to look for the, (quite obvious), particular problem it has?

Here’s the booty prize, er, no! not “booty”, just prize!  Eh… yeah! That’s what I meant…

This is Burt’s Bee’s Foot Care Kit.

Foot Care Kit

Completely pamper your feet.

How it Works

Treat your feet to a pedicure in the comfort of your own home. All the natural foot care tools you need are right here. A pumice stone will help smooth rough skin. Then moisturize with Coconut Foot Creme and our comfy Bee socks.

I will mail this to you promptly, after you’ve been chosen as the winner of this contest that ends on, oh…let’s say Friday September 12.  Multiple right answers will be numbered and tossed, then served to one of my rather undiscerning teenage daughters to select a winner.  Believe me when I say that the number selector’s general lack of concern for which right answer wins could not be more left to fate if I was to use a random number generator.  There will even be a guaranteed gratuitous eye roll accompanying the selection.

The more I look at the pictures of the little owl fellow that flew around in our garage, the more I think it’s a baby.  And not just because it’s small, either.  No, I have found pictures of breeds that are much smaller.  See below.

Pygmy Owl

No, I think it’s a baby just because it’s so ruffled looking.  It doesn’t have the smoothness the adult owls have in the pictures I am finding online.  But then again, it was in MY garage.  I get ruffled every time I go out there too and that obnoxious little dog barking like that…  I bet he was thinking, “If ONLY I were bigger and I could just eat that damned thing to shut it up!”  I don’t know for sure, but since I am having trouble finding a picture that looks like it, I think that it’s a youngster.

Now here’s my story about the last time I had to deal with an owl.  I mean before this.

I was 18 years old and my brother, Cam was 10.  Our dad was in hospital having some heart bypasses, so we were staying at home by ourselves while our mother was at the hospital with him.  We lived in a big ol’ two story house and he and I had never stayed by ourselves before.  (I mean, OF COURSE, right?)  I had been hearing a strange little scratching noise in the wall of my bedroom at night and had decided we must have mice and made a mental note to tell Mither about it as soon as everything calmed down and got back to a more normal routine.  The chimney to the living room fireplace shared my bedroom wall and it never occurred to me that there could be anything in there.  This went on for three nights.  Then, one evening, I was sitting on the couch in the living room reading and all of the sudden there was this gigantic WHOOSH of ashes that flew up in the fireplace.  I couldn’t see anything and then this huge white face with two enormous eyes turned around and looked at me and blinked.  It was a gigantic barn owl.  IT WAS HUGE, PEOPLE.  It just stood there in the fireplace and looked around and at me.  I just sat on the couch without moving like a scared little kitten.  I wasn’t really scared even, I just had no idea what to do.  My brother was asleep and besides that… he was 10.  I called Mom and told her and by this time I watched the owl hop up on top of the damper and sit there.  I stuck my head in the fireplace and could see two great big talons wrapped around the metal edge of it.  I counted myself lucky that I hadn’t received any owl shit in the face, wondered briefly if it really was slick, (My pop was always saying one thing or another was “slicker than owl shit”.), and pulled my head back out.  Mom had said she didn’t know what to do either and she’d be home the next day.  So we agreed that it needed water and food, as it had been there for at least three days, (that’s what I’d been hearing in the wall, actually the chimney).  So I got a little bowl of water and some lunch meat and put it in the fireplace.  I then closed the heavy metal chain link screen…and went to bed.

I have to say that except for the initial whooshing landing in the fireplace I was never really scared of it.  I felt very sorry for it and was worried it was going to die of dehydration, but I just never got the feeling it was threatening.

It never touched the food or water at all, that I could tell.  Perhaps it wanted mayo and wheat bread with pickles.  Perhaps it was a mustard kind of owl.  I don’t know why it turned up it’s…beak to my dinner selection, I only know it did.

So, that next night my dear, brave mither came home and we set about getting the owl out of the house.  It had jumped back down in the fireplace.  Mither was terrified out of her mind awed by it.   I opened the screen and we waited for it to decide to come out.  It was probably a little shy and wondered why we kept peeking around the corner at it.   Finally, it did and we ran in to try to shoo it…somewhere, and it flew straight into the sliding glass door.  No, we had not thought to open it first.  It was freakin cold outside and that’s my excuse.  Whatever.  Anyway, it smacked it’s beak pretty hard and was dazed and confused.  It was like it was competing with us… still think we won the dazed and confused contest…

The poor thing flew around the living room for a short bit and landed on things you wouldn’t think it would choose to land on and then flew through the breakfast area, kitchen, utility room and into the game room, completely avoiding the sliding glass door that stood open.  We followed.  Finally we had it somewhere we thought we could get it out easily.  There was a pair of French doors that one of us opened all the way.  I kept trying to shoo it toward the doors and it seemed oblivious.  It flew all over and finally when I was wondering if we were keeping it and could it please live in my brother’s room, it looked straight at the doors and I almost heard it say, “Ah ha!”  I saw the little light bulb go on over it’s head and it took off.  With both full size doors open it had to tilt diagonally to fit through the opening.  The doors were six feet across.  I don’t even know what the diagonal measurement was.  A lot.  Freakin’ huge-ass owl.

I have to point out that my dear mither was a squealing mess, cowering against whatever wall she could back up against and standing in doorways ready to flee, whilst making small squeaking noises.  Pretty much useless for herding owls.  Luckily, she has proven invaluable for a large multitude of other things… and we all love her dearly.

If you head on over to Psychicgeek, Witchypoo has written a very moving post about Ivy, a two year old little girl that is desperatly ill and is having a life saving treatment withheld from her.  It’s all a bunch of bureaucracy and her mother is trying to do everything possible to help her.  This is an online company that does petitions and I want you to go there and sign up.  Ivy needs all the help she can get.

Last night I informed john that we would need to make something exciting happen tomorrow in order for me to have some sort of reasonable blog fodder.  He immediately responded, “Have sex?”.  I then told him,  1) I don’t usually write about our sex life on my blog and 2) My mother reads this.  His swift, cocky comeback was reduced to, “Ooooh…”.

Today has been a bust.  The caregiver provider was supposed to show up at 1:00 and let John and I run out and madly dash about doing things together willy-nilly until we had exhausted our three hours and had to return to take care of H.  She never showed up.  Now remember, this is the “new” provider that is, not the same one that had trouble showing up a while back.  So I called the number we had for her cell phone and, surprise, surprise, no answer.  I next tried calling the company that was sending her out here.  The lady told me that she had called her and told her that she didn’t feel well and that she had called us and left a message for us telling us that she wasn’t showing up.  Left a message?  Why on earth would she lie and say that?  That makes it sound as if I WAS ABLE TO LEAVE THE HOUSE AND NOT ANSWER THE DAMNED PHONE.  Ahem…  Anyway, there was no message on the answering machine and we had been here all day.  Waiting.  I was not a happy camper.  I told the lady so and she said that maybe I should call the… “provider’s” home number and she gave it to me and, of course, no one answered.  I called the company back and told her I want someone else and it’s not that she was feeling poorly, it’s that she’s a terrible liar and that really chaps me arse.  So tomorrow afternoon some new chick named Maria is supposed to show up and we will see.  John works a half day tomorrow and so we should get to do something.  I have an exciting list, too.  Let’s see… post office, Lowe’s, grocery….oh gawd…

The exciting thing that happened today is that my wonderful husband has figured out how to get the pics in the memory of my camera onto the memory card and onto the pooter.  Actually, I got them onto the pooter, but he did the rest.  He may get some booty tonight…

On Sunday, August 21st, the same day Henrietta came home from the hospital, Kes came running in to get John and I early in the morning.  I mean DAYBREAK.  She had gone out to the garage to investigate what on earth our little dog, Kissy, had been barking at.  It was a stray cat.  Don’t know why the cat decided it wanted in our garage.  There is no food in there or anything like that.  While she was looking at it something flew across the garage and landed, spooking her no end.  It was this little bitty owl.

Now I have quite a history with owls and I will update you on all that in my next post, given something earth shattering doesn’t happen in my life to supersede it, i.e. H has a blowout that completly dissolves a diaper or the provider care person shows up and John and I have sex for three hours in some seedy motel.  Don’t hold your breath, cause H is finished with her antibiotics and is no longer suffering with diarrhea.

I just read this to John and his first response was, “Are you sure your mom can read all that?”  I said, “She knows how to read…anything. “  He looked a bit desperate and responded, “YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!”

Is it a baby or just a small breed?  I dunno.  But now that I have the pics on the pooter I will try to look it up.  Tomorrow.  John wants my attention now and I have to go…..

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…

Today, while shopping for bread in the Mrs. Baird’s Thrift Store, John and I were discussing the merits of different loaves of breads.  Which kind to get?  Hmmm.  I casually remarked to him, “So, what’s the difference between 7 grain and 12 grain?”  The guy behind the counter just COULD NOT let it go by.  Slow drawl,  “That’d be ’bout 5 grains…”.

Sometimes you can escape the smartasses at home, let your guard down, and still find yourself not entirely safe.

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…

Hello again.  This is Krissa, not her brother, Cam.  I have sent a hit man out looking for Cam and will update as needed.

H is home from hospital, though for how long I can’t say.  Her UTI seemed well under control when she left on Sunday and her urine was clear and light colored.  She still feels bad and is very tired and her urine is quite dark again.  They sent us home with a Rx for more antibiotics and she has been taking them as prescribed.  Oh well.  I am betting she will be going back in the next couple of days.  God, I hope not.

On the up side!!!

Kes and Keelan had their first day at college and as senior in high school on Monday.  They both really excited about the upcoming year.  So am I!

The weekend before school started Keelan was at a friends house and a… small herd of boys showed up at the front door to see her.  I was quite busy doing something or another and met them at the door before they could ring the bell and set the obnoxious dog off barking.  They asked if she was here and I said no, she was at Anna’s house.  They left and I called her later when I wasn’t so tied up doing things and told her that some boys were here and did they call her on her cell?  “No, who was it?”  Er, I didn’t know…  “What did they look like?”  Tall, skinny with stringy hair.  (Hint, all the kids she knows look like that.)  “MOM!  What color was their hair?”  I don’t know, brown?  Blondish?  “Mom! was it ____?  Or _____?”  I dunno, Keelan.  They all look pretty much the same to me and I didn’t really pay any attention cause I was in a hurry.  “Gawd, Mom!  What if one of them was my future husband?”  I dunno, what if all of them were your future husbands?  “MOM!”  KEELAN!

Later she let me know who they were and that there were two of them and not three as I thought there was.  Also that one of them had pink streaks died in his hair.  I said something like, Huh?…pink? Really?

I then promised to be sure and ask any boys that come to the door while she is out if they are her future husband.

“GAWD MOM!”

Sometimes you just can’t make people happy…

Hello everyone!  This is Cam, Krissa’s much, much younger brother.  I am INVADING Halfasstic.com to announce that I have finally gotten around to updating it to the current version of WordPress AND finally installed Akismet (a comment spam blocker).  So now Krissa should be able to manage her comments much easier than before.

Before I go, however, I’d like to leave you with a few gems I came across when I was recently back at our mom and dad’s.  Call it revenge for the pictures Krissa posted of me back in July for my birthday.

Enjoy, and please comment!

(to view in their full-sized glory, click on them!)