Notes and observations on living in Kansas
We are now entering our fourth year in Kansas
and I think we've settled into a routine.
You can click the Ancient History link on the left if you
need to catch up with the journal I kept until May of 2004. Most of
the summer was documented on the
cowboyjunkies fotopage so I probably won't
do a lot of rehashing. There are also links to prior month's entries so that
this page does not get so out of control and take forever to load.
July 30, 2005 12:57 am CDT
Aw, Utah just needs to lighten the f- up. Who has enough time
on their hands to protest a freakin' license plate, huh? Get a life...
Work goes well. I can't believe how huge this place is. There
are more people here than at the F·o·r·d dealership I
worked at many moons ago. The company is growing by leaps and bounds;
constantly expanding and remodeling so my week has been spent moving
computers from one workstation to another so that they can tear down old
cubicles and build new ones. And then I get to move everyone back!
Some of the moves have involved stairs. There is no elevator. Apparently
they kept the square footage just under the amount that would require
installation of an elevator. But you know what—since I quit smoking,
stairs are a breeze. I'm calling this my summer weight loss program.
It's nice that they are tearing down the old cubicles because I am sure it
will displace all the mice this building seems to have. For the most part my
co-workers are a great bunch. Still, I just hate all this time away from
home and the animals and all the stuff I do around here. I was up doing
laundry tonight until midnight so that I can at least have one day of rest
this week.
I'm also working on a website for the cat
rescue organization that took that cat I found a few weeks back. The kitty I
found already has been placed in a home and is very happy there. There are
many more kitties that need good homes so Monday morning I will go to the
kitties and take their pictures and post them all over the website so folks
can come and see the little darlings and fall in love with the little
bundles of purry-furry-love and take them home to live happily every after.
I'll give you all a linky-dink when it's up and running.
It did cool off this week. We had one entire
day of steady, life-giving rains and behind that the cold front that
actually had us dropping into the 50's at night! It's slowly warming back up
again, but no where near the hell it was. The neighbors bought a John
D·e·e·r·e that was delivered last night so we went over and checked it out
and then the four of us went to Blackjack Hills "restaurant night" to
celebrate. Judi has been on vacation all week and has been golfing every
day. Today she took our neighbor Connie with her and apparently Connie can
hit the ball quite a distance. But she can't putt for shit so they were
evenly matched, in fact they finished the course with the same score. Today
Judi and Jeanna had a little craft project. They were looking for something
cheesy that said John D·e·e·r·e for the neighbors and couldn't find anything so
they bought a cheap yard-art garden sign and proceeded to completely remake
it. They painted it John D·e·e·r·e green and put a little blue jean pocket
on it and a little replica of the straw hat that gets worn when mowing the
field (the 'blue jean' to signify Jean, our straw-hat wearing neighbor) and
painted tractor crossing on it. It's really very cute and original and I'm
going to have to take a picture of it tomorrow so you can all see it. It's
hysterical.
Hey! We did see the final Star Wars movie last
Sunday and did the Olive Garden. I'm so relieved that Star Wars has finally
come to an end. They just aren't the same movies they were 30 years ago and
gosh, if someone could just tell George Lucas he's full of himself or full
of shit, these past tragedies could have been avoided. The funniest part of
the whole movie was when I realized I'd become so disenchanted with the
franchise that I totally skipped seeing the middle movie of the second
trilogy. My bad. Guess I have to go rent it before I can finally put this
chapter to rest...
This weekend I have a BBQ to attend and Judi
has some tree cutting planned for Sunday. I have noticed two moles making
merry in the lawn, but haven't had the time to patiently wait for an
opportunity to kill them. Perhaps this weekend...
July 22, 2005 10:30 pm CDT
I'm dyin' from the heat. Thank heavens I got my A/C charged
else I'd be a sodden, sweaty mess by the time I got to work in the morning.
Today was a busy day with hardly any down time at all so the day flew. My
eyelids are getting very heavy so this will be quick.
Ha! So quick that I ended up in bed and am
continuing this on Saturday night....
My friend Bonnie bought a Sebring convertible so we
celebrated with dinner, Cold Stone Creamery ice cream and of course a little
shopping at Pier 1. Bonnie's sister has these cool little garden lights that
are like tiny bamboo shades on a light string. Well I did not go immediately
to Pier 1 to buy them when I first saw them, and now that I am ready to buy
them they don't have them. If anybody knows where I can get these,
please
drop me a note. All that Pier 1 has right now is the ones that look like
tiny little paper lanterns and my home is not even remotely Asian so they
don't fit the decor at all. I did find
some
lights that I think will fit well with our
style
deck. They are metal cut-outs of stars with some scroll work and they are
colored more in line with our home. Of course now that I'm not smoking I
spend much less time out on the deck. The latest plus to that is that
I'm no longer covered with mosquito bites. Still once I can again enjoy the
great outdoors without the compulsion to light up, I would like some subdued
lighting with which to enjoy the evening. Bright enough to keep from
tripping over dogs, yet dim enough so that it doesn't attract every bug in
five counties. Maybe this heat will kill all the bugs and Kansans can enjoy
Kansas once again. The loud bugs are back, the cicadas. If this is what they
sound like in an 'off' season, I cannot imagine the din they create when
they are in one of their huge hatching cycles. It must be enough to drive a
person insane. Well, being I'm already insane I guess I'm safe...
I guess I should probably talk about my teeth now that a
course of treatment has been decided upon. I really wasn't comfortable with
the idea of extracting six teeth, filing five teeth into pegs and cementing
a 'permanent' bridge onto the 'pegs'. Too much stress on the teeth that it
attaches to and if something goes wrong with even just one of them, the
whole works is lost. The dentist that wanted to do that wouldn't even
guarantee it would last me for 10 years and at his pricing that would amount
to over $1000.00 a year for teeth. I also was not comfortable with the idea
of several years of braces to move my own teeth into their proper place with
the possibility of losing one or two of them to be replaced by implants.
I've a very strong suspicion that due to my current level of bone loss, once
the teeth started getting pushed and pulled around I would be losing more
than 'one or two' and looking at a very expensive series of implants. I
think the orthodontia is simply this dentist's way of being able to do more
implants and charge me more money. The final verdict is five extractions
with a partial bridge that gets removed at night replacing the extracted
teeth. When the third doctor that I visited said that this is what he would
do in my situation, it just felt right. No butterflies in the gut, no
trepidation at all. Just a very fine sense of relief. The torture, er
treatment, begins August 11th.
It's too hot to take a major road trip in that fancy
convertible but we are going
to make a Topeka run on Sunday to finally see the latest Star Wars offering
and of course the required Olive Garden meal since we will be within ten
miles of an Olive Garden. Long ago and far away I used to eat at Olive
Garden all the time. Now that it's a quarterly treat, I always get the same
thing. Portobello mushroom ravioli. If they ever take it off the menu I will
be so disappointed. California Pizza Kitchen is where I first got hooked on
Portobello ravioli. The plus here is that I will still be able to eat this
dish after my teeth are done, but those steaks I love, I'll be cutting them
up in tiny little pieces. God I feel so old...
July 17, 2005 6:00 pm CDT
I just thought I'd mention while I am running around this
weekend doing 17 billion loads of laundry and vacuuming and dusting and
killing moles, (you know, all the stuff I used to spread out over a whole
freakin' week) I have taken time to stop and smell the lilies which have the
most divine smell on earth. It fills every corner of the yard. Wish it was
cool enough to open the windows so their scent could fill the house...
July 16, 2005 7:00 pm CDT
Part-time my a$$. I can't believe how little time I have now
that I have a part-time job. The light at the end of the tunnel is that once
the training is over, the hours will be more towards the 20 a week side
rather than the 30 a week side. I still have all the stuff at home to do in
addition to the paid hours so I'm sort of scrambling to keep up with my fun
stuff on the web and the animals. I even had to drag myself out of bed early
Friday morning because it was Appetizer Day
at work. I made my hot chili cheese dip and home-made guacamole. I swear,
the first person that comes around asking my to buy something for their
kid's fund-raiser dies...
Other than getting into the swing of things at work it's
pretty quiet here. Haven't heard anything from the defector in Nevada since
he last called (see July 2nd entry). Although we did get a letter from an
attorney today that said, "...he would be handling things."
I am cat sitting for the neighbors this week. They have that
cool one-eyed cat, Maya, and this time when I met with the neighbors to get
the little instruction book (very similar to the one I create when I travel)
their scaredy-cat Tucker came out and actually let me touch him, although he
has been under the bed these two trips I have made there so far. Also their
FHIV cat in the basement is coming out and letting me pet him and brush him.
He's becoming quite a lover-kitty.
It's hot, although I temporarily have A/C in the Jimmy.
Temporarily until the system charge I had done leaks out, but hopefully it
will last through the warmest part of the year and then I won't have to
worry about it until next year. The mechanic has the truck this weekend
doing the biggie service on it and he will look to see where the A/C is
leaking and then I will take it to the shop that charged it and see what
they say is leaking.
Oh, and my boss is out sick....with the mumps!
July 12, 2005 9:17 pm CDT
Just a quick update to let you know that the job is going
fine. I've only worked two days and I can already tell you it's going to
take up a lot more time that I thought it would. It's a nice bunch of people
(so far) and the problems their computers have don't seem to be all that
complicated (so far), but hey, I've only been there two days...
July 6, 2005 3:45 pm CDT
I have a job! It's not the one I had applied for a few weeks
back, but it's with the same company. Apparently a spot opened up in their
IT department they need my skills more. I start Monday. I won't
name the company because I don't want to get
dooced at some point down the road, but I will say I will be geeking all
things computer once again.
July 2, 2005 6:41 pm CDT
Apparently DJ's grandmother is having second thoughts about
keeping him on a permanent basis. She called last night to ask if we could,
"...just give her the guardianship for one year." Seems that having a kid
around is really messing up the grandparents plans for vacation and other
stuff. Everyone, all together now, "Aw. Bummer."
