The new retirement plan

Lesson learned, don't take drugs and blog. That last one was an Ambien/vicodin combo with a terrible day thrown in for good measure. I don't really hate the "girls" at work, although I was almost surely letting out the inner demon on that blog. The thing is they are so blatant in their hatred and mockery of me. I am like a bear protecting it's den. I only get a small cubicle and they basically want to take that away from me and leave me nothing. A job is a great big deal for a 58 year old woman with no husband, 401k, or retirement plan. See I was living the Mormon dream. I really thought my X husband would be there and provide for me. I believed him when we knelt across an altar and promised forever. Whoa there Nelly, sliding back into bitter ville. Anyway, I should have done something by now to insure my future but I have never had the great job or the steady income to do it. Now it's almost over and whoops, my bad. No money saved. No retirement plan. So here is the new improved retirement plan: Work till I die.

Bitter much?

Today I picked up my brother from the rehab place. It was a nightmare. I really feel badly for feeling so put out. Like this is more important than work and I know that but I also want to express how crappy things are at work right now and I so did not need to miss another day. I can not find myself without a house and a job. Then the rehab/ hospice people schedule his release on a day that the 8 year veteran at work has scheduled off too. It just couldn't be a drive-by quick pick up either. They planned a whole day of suckitude for me. I had to take him to all these appointments, the store, and the bank. You know like I don't have a job and have unlimited chauffeur time for the injured brother?
I feel so low even just typing this so I may erase it all and start over with a perky blog on how happy I am he did not die from injuries sustained at my home. Screw that line of thinking, it is not my fault. However I am selfish for thinking how put out I was by spending my day toting him and all his injury accoutrement around all day. How I had no breakfast or lunch and had to spend my $ on parking valets and jeopardize my lofty career at Doofy just to take him to all the places he needed to be. Not that I am a whiner or anything but he got Oxycontin all day. I was stone cold sober.
I'm not even sure he was mentally there for most of this crap. But he WAS rambling on and on to anyone that could hear how much pain he is in and how terrible the injury was. That's the key word: was. It has been more than a month since the surgery. He recovered 20 days in basically a spa with enough drugs to sedate a small elephant. He GAINED weight. A lot of it. He refuses to use the walker for more than half the stuff he should use it for and had me pushing a borrowed wheelchair all day to take him to his various appointments. He has not had a day since the accident that someone else wasn't bringing him everything he wants and needs including me.
Wow, that was a little bitter. I better not post this.
Alright I will post it cause it makes me feel better and I do not get any Oxycotin with that cup of gall.

Ya'll come back now, ya hear?

Another blizzard sailed through the area on Monday. There is nothing like an early morning commute in horizontal snow. Last weekend was the same. The weather station here has a 90 million dollar doplar weather radar system. They said high 50's to 70 degrees all week. Today is Wednesday and we made the 60's today finally. Give me one million dollars and I will predict weather better than this.
Sparky and James let the house go into foreclosure. There are no words for how I feel about this. On the one hand I can tell they just got in way over their heads. On the other hand this has been a giant CF from day one. She took out a second mortgage and raised our rent. I can't personally see why but recently she bought a home for her son too. Now this one is going into foreclosure? I have begun the onerous task of packing up my stuff again. At the first real hint of any sort of notice, I am going to be ready to go. Pray for me.

Other problems: Robert has started talking with a southern accent. (See previous blog on Why Oh Why can't my family be normal) This accent would be (a little) OK if he had ever been to the south. Or had been around anyone with a southern accent in the last 13 years. Or had ever talked this way before except to joke about our dearly departed mother. Or didn't go in and out of the accent 3 times during a conversation.
Also new problem: He has become a hugger. Don't get me wrong, the huggers of the world are alive and doing OK, just not in my family. If my mother or father ever stretched out an arm towards us you would have seen 5 kids stop, drop, & roll away fast.  I have NEVER hugged Robert before last Sunday. Now he wants a hug all the time. Can you hear the Twilight Zone theme music, because I can.
Tomorrow his social worker is coming with him to the house to make sure he has some sort of grasp on how to live with his new titanium hip in our home.  Also to check that I have moved his stuff upstairs into a "better situation than what he was in before". She called me today at work to tell me all about her visit. As she prattled on I thought to myself what if I say NO, then what? They keep him in the hospice for the next however long? He can't drive, walk, stand up to cook, go to the bathroom, or use a shower alone. I felt as if she were trying to threaten me with not letting him come home.
And all the hinting that this was going to be better for him to be upstairs. Like I had argued against it with her before or something. He can't navigate stairs, I get it. But what's better?
Better than his old room and door with a lock on it? Better than a geeks wet dream solid state computer set up with high speed Internet and a 40" screen and surround sound? Better than his own refrigerator, griddle, toaster, and coffee pot in the room with him? Better than what? Who offered the inferior alternative? I feel like there is a piece of the puzzle I am missing here.
Well, now it is cold so I better go start the heater.

He's back

I went to see my brother tonight. Lets just say, the crazy man is back.
The boss at my new work... Mr. Perfect Plan, is turning out to be a few fries short of a happy meal. Today I wandered into his office to find him listening in to the dispatch center of our work by intercom. I would not want to listen to the dispatch center on purpose at all. These men are all a bunch of tobacco chewing, sweaty, filthy, macho, swear machines. The only thing they do better than swear is sweat and be dirty.  I have heard a guy in there use 3 swear words in a 5 word sentence. These are the guys mentioned in the payroll debacle. The ones who can't spell, tell time, read, or write. Some of them sound a lot like Bubba Gump with a mouth full of marbles. The men who don't chew tobacco and keep a lovely spit bottle on the desk smoke. It is like hell in there. They positioned it across from the men's room and the bathroom smells better and is cleaner. Don't get me wrong, construction work is dirty work and props for being gainfully employed, but did I mention the offensive smells and the smoke? Anyway, I hurried away and went and whispered to the least offensive of them that they were being watched and they now know to try a little harder to look at the black boxes on their desks before the jokes start.
 WTF? Where's the fun in listening to that crap.

Let it snow, let it melt, let it stop.

Is today finally over? Oh goody. Today started with a medium hard snow that resolved itself about the time I got home from the hospice. Robert needs his computer so I took it to him at the butt crack of dawn. It was very cold. After that I went to work and wow it really started to blizzard. Then it started snowing sideways. Then it got colder and snowed about 2 inches more. When I gave up and said to myself that I was going to be spending the night at work the sun came out and melted all the snow in less than an hour.
WTF?? What's the forecast? The Weather Channel said a 20% chance of snow. Therefore I packed my light hoodie since I could have suntanned on Sunday. I could not see the mailbox at one point in the day.  I want to see a 100% chance of snow. No wait I do not want to see that. That is where the broken hip came from.
By the way Robert's hip is not much improved, but he is no longer delusional. He is up in a wheelchair and making sense again. I do not think drugs are a good thing for him. He was very much improved today in personality. The doctors all agreed it would happen, I just did not believe you could go from totally bat guano crazy to normal and back 3 times in the same week.
Live and learn.

heal my soul

The truth is you can only love as deeply as you hurt.
That is why I signed up for this adventure, to learn how to love and hurt and choose.
Sometimes I submit to the will of God and just flow with the experience. Sometimes I want to run away and I try to bargain my way out of whatever pain or problem I have. You can only learn these things here during earth life experience, and I want to be good and experienced when I leave, but I swear I signed up for two of everything hard thinking I would be special or better at this. Or that it would be easy for me because I was so good. The truth is I am not as good as my sister Mary or my brother Timmy. They both were only here a little while to get the body and experiences and get out.
I'll probably be 100 before I get it.
The truth is I have gone as far as I ever want to go in pain and emotional trauma experience and still am stupid as a post.  I came here to get experience and got the deluxe package thinking it would be so fun and I would ace everything and here I sit a great big failure.
No, not a failure at life. You are passing if you're alive. I am a failure at the learning from this experience. I keep thinking "What was I thinking?" when I look back on my life and choices. You are supposed to learn from these things, but what am I not learning?  I guess if I knew then I would fly away home.
One thing I really need to learn is forgiveness. Oh yea I'm really good at talking the talk but deep inside I still have resentments, hostilities, and down right thirst for retribution for those who have hurt me in this life. I want forgiveness, but I so don't know how to give it. In fact given the chance I would cheer at the repayment of some of the crap flung my way by others. I don't wish anyone really bad stuff, but I would laugh at a little pay back.
"How's that feeling buddy? It's not so fun on the other end of that is it?"
I look around me and think I am on the right track but really I am about as smart as a moth and keep flying into the flame and wondering why it burns. Enough examining my soul for the night.

Paranoia. Today I put a really ugly face on that term. Oh I've had extensive experience with it in the past, but today it was brought to me and dumped on my lap like a hot drink. As it soaked in I just about did what anyone would do in that situation: jump up, run, and try to get the sting off.
My brother is in the hospital because he broke his hip. He is having a reaction to the drugs and trauma of the break and surgery: He is convinced that the staff is trying to kill him. He is sure all the nurses there at the hospital are out to get him.
Yes, he is prone to paranoia and I have had this conversation with him a thousand times in the past. No one is out to get you. You do not create that kind of obsession with your looks and demeanor. No one person has singled you out and targeted you for their chew toy, much less everyone around you. You just aren't that interesting, cute, rich, or famous.
Today I got to share this with him while he verbally offended everyone at the hospital trying to help him. At one point I wanted to just smack him. He is having a chemically induced hyper-paranoid episode and I wanted to crawl out of the room and deny all knowledge of him. He took it upon himself to insult the gender, race, intelligence, capability, and parentage of every Medical Professional who came to the meeting. Owing to great parenting he can swear in 7 languages, so everyone in the world got some today. I felt Giant embarrassment and then Giant(er) guilt for feeling embarrassed.
                               Why oh why can't my family just be NORMAL?
I have a sister who runs night ops. In a Burka. With night vision goggles and handcuffs. In downtown wherever the heck she is. Protecting the perimeter. She has been arrested for it. She believes she is doing right, she cares about security. She doesn't have a home, a car, or a job but she has night-vision goggles! Her really sad story is not atypical of any of my family. You know how they say every family has one? In my family it is one sane person, and I'm not even sure about that.
So today I missed a day of work at my new job to meet with every kind of doctor except a psychiatrist, which he really needs, at the Hospital he is in. I have to admit I saw one 90 year old lady with crazy hair and a walker going down the hall with her son and thought "why couldn't you be my relative?". And the conclusion: He will probably get better in a few days.
Meanwhile they all have me on speed-dial-in-case-of-offense and I wore out my repertoire of humble apologies today.
Twice.

Diabetes

My brother is in the hospital. He was supposed to have a "stint" or some such thing put in his heart valve(s). He had open heart surgery. What is really stinking about this is the general lack of information I have on this subject. I live with him so you would think he would have put me down to call. Nope, he told them to call Emma. Who had somehow lost the # I called her on to let her know he was in the hospital in the first place.??? Anyway it looks like he was run over by a Hummer, shot, hung, maybe mauled by a bear, and dragged to the hospital behind the ambulance. There are pipes coming out of every orifice known to exist on a man and a 6 banger IV deal the size of a large mans wallet on his pillow that would make any sane person cry for mercy. There are at least 15 machines hooked up to every conceivable wire, tube, and human anatomical position on his body. His legs are in some weird ski accident splint looking things, and basically everything in his room beeps, glows, displays, pumps, or measures. The bed leaks because he is on a water mattress. Nobody cares that his junk is hanging all over and outside his clothes (except me) and anyone who comes into the room can be told all about what is wrong with him and watch him be cared for.
I am not sure I want to live if I am ever in this position.
Now it is a few days later and he may come home soon! All the main wires and tubes are still there so I don't know how that is going to work.
Anyway, diabetes kills man

Karma is here

OK All bets are off. The universe is a myth. All home grown stories are so true. And it does flipping snow in May.
As you can tell my world has collapsed in on itself and all the truths I held to be self evident… aren't.
This first aberration is all MY own fault. (first mistake) I bought the 65% Cacao Dove whatever's. Whatever misalignment of stars that made me buy the wrong chocolate started the problems. When I realized I got the wrong chocolate,
(Is Milk Chocolate Dove Promises not the greatest?),
I put the offending chocolates in a WalMart bag and gave them to BD (second mistake) with written instructions to return them.
Now you would think I would not waste my time with written instructions for a simple return of candy unless all had gone awry in the past with verbal instructions: and you would be right.
However, my third mistake was believing my 30 year old daughter would follow written instructions. NOPE Not happening. She went out and bought the correct chocolates and set the bag on the table in the living room.
To make a very long story short, the stupid bane of my existence dog ate an entire bag of Dove chocolates. I guess her skin was not bothering her anymore so she decided to poison herself. Interestingly, she ran back in forth for hours and hours until we drugged her with the left-over doggie downers. She then slept for a day and is fine.
Too much chocolate will kill a dog. = Total Myth.
The foil sparkly poop was pretty in a weird way though.
Next bump on the Karmic cycle has been the weather. I blame BD for this one because she set the 2 crappy couches we have out on the patio a full 3 weeks before we can get them removed by the trash people. Thus, it has either freaking rained or snowed every day this month. It is May. Hello Spring. Hello warmer weather.
Global warming = Myth.
The car has decided I bragged on how Ghetto Fabulous it is one too many times and has taken a giant poop. The gear shifter sticks now so bad we do not dare put it into park when we stop unless it is for the night. It takes at least 15 minutes to get it back into gear.
No such thing as a free lunch = Total truth
I bought myself a bra at a clearance sale. Opened the box and boy howdy was that a wrong label. The bra inside was a 38DD. I gave the offending box and bra to BD
with WRITTEN instructions to return and exchange it (again). She of course flung it into the front seat of the car and left it there for everyone to see.
HENCE my roommate says "Wow, you really only wear a size B cup?" As if I had a choice in what size boobies I got. Like they make you take a quiz in 5th grade, "What size bra cup would you eventually like to wear?". Then that is what you get.
To make matters worse, she is saying this in front of my brother. Like I need an interview to wear a bra that small. This is why some women invest in boobs.
Moving on ,,, my doctor calls me yesterday and says I need to come in if I want my prescriptions refilled. Those are words you never want to hear. I go in expecting to have to pay the $194.00 I owe him and hear a lecture or something and get a great shock. I need to start taking insulin shots in 3 months if the new, improved, much more expensive medicine he just gave me doesn't start working.
So far this month has been filled with uber lows. This one was just the needle on the camels haystack that broke my back.
It never rains, but it pours = Total truth.

Celebrate

Today is a great day.
Not only because it is Friday and 2 whole days of Grandmother-ness are stretched out in front of me. No, it gets better than this..
Trip got the satelite dish off today and all her stitches out!! No more being herded by a giant black & white horse with a helmut on. (hey anything over 80 lbs at 11 months qualifies) She is a herder and if I am not fast enough to suit her, she barks my heels with the darn dish. Plus the huge puppy dog weighs so much that the doggie downers just made her slower, not less determined. I have had it with the spoon feeding her because she is disabled by her cone. The water dish has been knocked over every hour or so for the last 3 weeks also. The carpet on the stairs is permanently wet. Let me just say that was not even the worst, she could not get out the doggie door with the dish.
Alec, Cora, Phoenix, and Kale are having a sleep over tonight. It is Mac N Cheese and icecream; Spongebob and lightsabers tonight for us!! Great stuff!!

I can do it!

Tuesday we had no power all day. So I had our forklift expert teach me to drive one. I know you think it is easy Pat, but I was too scared to try before this as the lightest one is 5,000 pounds. But now I have had lessons. 54 and still gaining skilz!! It is a skill I need because when doing our second job we have to take out these giant oil barrels full of trash. In the past year they have probably only been emptied 10 times because I have to beg one of the guys to do it with a forklift.
I'm not begging anymore!!
Chalk one up for old Lady's everywhere.
Now I'll probably total one of the bay doors or take it off the dock.
I'll blame someone else and say I found it like that when I came to clean.
Maybe I need another lesson?

Darn new fangled technology

Why does my boss pick 3:45pm to do all his stuff? And I'm not talking normal work stuff either. "Bring me all the files on the repairs for the 75 ton crane right now". Forget that he paid for a few in person with his credit card, did not ever give me the receipt to process, did not even tell me till just this moment that there were repairs of this machine, and expects me to mind-read where he put them.
OK now lets talk the accountant: just like the boss he did not bother telling me he had seen the charge on the statement, did not sling it over my desk (since I keep records for all machinery), and now does not remember ever seeing any of that. He keeps an eXcel spread sheet on this machine of his own credit card charges and those repairs are not there. In fact, he is soooooo sure he never had any such repairs that he wants ME to go argue with the boss that they don't exist. (been there, done that before, NEVER going again)
Helpful, not so much
Later my boss added to this that he wanted me to scan and email them to him because I've had 3 days with this new scanner and should have dropped my normal work and learned how to make it dance.
OK can you say upside down, out of order, wrong pages, accountant who holds receipts uncooperative, and pissed off boss?
I can.

Ah the perfection returns

There is nothing like I T support. No I can not change the oil in my car, work a power saw, set up my own email or google stuff, but by darn I know how to call I T.
"Help Ms Wizzard" my blog is broken.
I, the helpless older lady blogger Bunrammitsrus humbly bow my extra long bunyay ears in recognition of your blog superiority. Thank you queen of the mega chip (or byte).
I did sew a button on today! and my actual job is accounting! So I am not without skilz... just old skilz.
HA

The queen of the Prarie Dogs, that's me.
This morning I woke up to 12" of snow and frozen roads. I called work and was going to not go in but my boss said
"Oh the main roads are fine". (Translation) Come in to work now.
So I went down the road and only got stuck 6 times before I reached a main artery. The main street was not
FINE or anything close to fine. There was ice covered with the 12" of cast off snow of a thousand other cars.
As I went along, I started hearing a strange noise. I thought it was the sound of my engine vibrating on the
chunky road. About 10 minutes into the trip I realized it was a familiar noise. The noise the universe makes
when it cocks the let's f-with-Liz gun. Yes, I had ANOTHER flat tire in Prarie Dog City. This was one of the brand new
tires. It was virtually in the same position on my car as the last one. I pulled over to inspect the damage.
However, after considering the semi sliding on the ice toward my little Kia in a giant pile of snow now serving as
the side of the road I decided that $100.00 for a new tire beats the crap out of death by smoosh and drove on the tire
all the way to the nearest WalMart. $ 89.00 later, I made it to work alive and poor.
I earned the undying respect of all the Prairie Dogs under that 4 or 5 feet of snow for getting my car out of
their field, and am now an official carrier of the plague having parked there twice to change a tire.
Happy Spring.

Happy 1st day of Spring!

Wow. There is a huge blizzard outside. Did somebody say that tomorrow is the 1st day of spring? I mean the snow is pouring out of the sky at an alarming rate. They say we will have a foot by 8 pm.
So whatnell am I doing at work????
I don't know either.
My doggies are white, my view out of the office is white, and all the cars in the lot are white. Basically a white out.
Maybe you should read "We hold these truths to be self evident" if you want my opinion on the weather man.
Mother Nature is on the rag.

Das Boat is sinking

MY latest little chunk of the "stimulus package" came yesterday.
My boss came around with a letter announcing "wage reductions" for all of us office people.
I may not like it, but I know I am greatly blessed to still have a job.
The trickle down finally landed a big fat frozen glop of ick on my wrung of the corporate ladder.
(last one from the bottom)
When all you can do about it is accept it because everyone is in the same boat, its not so bad to get the wage cut instead of the boot.

The sea hag
Brittany has the mini-mouse voice thing I get like 4 times a year. She has had it for a month.
Her voice sounds like what I imagine the Sea Hag would sound like. (reading Percy Jackson right now)
If you drank nothing but whiskey for 3 days and then swallowed 3 sacks of marbles,
I imagine you could imitate the noise she makes when she talks. Maybe. With a couple of days practice.
Anyway, you can not understand her at all and the kids are running wild like little Indians.
So if you call our house and it sounds like Gollum just answered the phone and you hear an actual noise like a ring wraith is screaming in the background, you got the right house.

Snotdoodle

The cold which has been haunting my house finally made its way into my body last Sunday.
It felt like someone was sitting on my head. It weighed at least 80 pounds. I have had nasty things dripping out of my nose, which I can't feel anymore since I have blown it into death scar mode. It passed beyond "burnt" hurting Thursday sometime. This cold is the worst ever. The first 3 days I thought I was dying. I actually missed a day and a half of work.
From Tuesday through Friday I was a mouth breathing, dripping, snot machine. (I know you want this illness dontcha?) I felt like there was no way I could go on all day, then I had to get up 3 or 4 times every night to take more medicine. Medicine which I believe did absolutely NO GOOD until today.
Saturday. A full week of snotdoodle: (fever alternating with cold chills, aches, pains, and quite a few unbelievably prolific gross bodily functions)
Today I believe I may survive. Last night the cold pills made it possible for me to breathe through my nose. In the case of this "super cold" I believe the cold pills are just something I got to say I tried. I envy the people for whom the medicine works. It just makes me look dumber and feel poorer, not better.

We hold these truths to be self evident

What goes up - comes down. Usually with the gooey side down on your clothes or carpet
If you do anything wrong, someone you know will be watching
If you do anything wrong and embarrassing, everyone you know will be watching.
Grandchildren are your only reward for not killing your kids when they were teenagers.
The size of the zit is proportional to the # of places (or important events) you must go to today
If you are having your picture taken, the zit will become mount Vesuvius and multiply.
The cat is trying to kill you by winding through your legs at the exact moment you are taking a step
Ditto the dog. And the kids.
There is no weather man. They are all really inept psychics. Mother nature does as she pleases, when she pleases, where she pleases, for as long as she pleases.
The amount of money you have in the bank will be exactly $100.00 short of what you need for the latest $ crisis.
Nobody knows how to drive, except you and me.

White wallpaper

Every day I go to work. Every day I go home. I ride in the same car on the same roads. I notice the same stuff, I don't notice the same stuff. I watch TV for mostly the same amount of time, brush my teeth in the same sink, greet my doggies and grand kids the same way.
I LIKE same. I want same. May I be so bold as to say I REVEL in same.
Don't change my toothpaste, don't move my remote out of my reach, don't want a different job, or kids, or grand kids.
Plain old vanilla IS a flavor too. I do actually want everything beyond predictable and boring in my life. I've had the fun, now I want the peace and comfort of familiar.
I want to wear my 10 year old sweats with a ragged t shirt and fuzzy sox. I am no longer a fashionista. (shut up,,, I was a fashionista before I gave birth to you)
I do not want anyone or anything exciting and earth shaking in my section.
So call me old, call me stodgy, call me boring if you must, but for heavens sake don't truly think I want change and am sitting here waiting for you to wake me up to the "fun" of whatever joyous venture you have planned.
I need napage.
I crave quiet.
I am old enough to know that about me.
I am NOT going to Yellowstone National Park again unless a space shuttle lands on my bed and launches me into space and my remains fall down over Wyoming.
EVER
Somebody actually said to me yesterday, "We should plan a trip to Yellowstone" with at least 4 kids, 3 dogs, 3 adults