Happy 39th, Kenny!

Kenny turned 39 today! To celebrate, he took a trip with his mom to Tunica, Mississippi for some pre-gambling before our trip to Niagara this coming Wednesday. I couldn't go, have too much to do at work this week to take the entire thing off, but I'm glad he's able to go. He doesn't read the blog (he says he lives it, he doesn't need to read about it after the fact), but the wishes are here for him anyway! The Girl Cat (yes, that's what we ended up calling Reba) took a rest with me in bed this afternoon while we watched our television addiction, HGTV. Today we watched 35 Things To Do To Sell Your House. Now, neither The Girl Cat nor I 1./Are selling a house and 2./Have a house to sell. But we watched it together anyway.

Today is one of those non-descript days that is just kinda "here." It's trying to rain, which would be nice because I spent the better part of yesterday planting a few tomato and pepper plants. Good Lord, that was exhausting. I had to dig up the top layer of sod, and the area next to the garage that I choose as the gardening spot was an overgrown weed den, with wild and near-dead rose bushes that I had to cut down. I have 2 full cans of nothing but dead rose bushes and weeds. That area has never been maintained much. Timmy came back and asked what the hell I was doing, since no one sees it back there anyway. Good point. But it's that whole pride-of-living-space crap that takes over and makes me work hard for really, naught. Kenny warned me that small critters would eat my hard work, and damned if he wasn't right. He had a wedding to work Saturday night so he didn't see my handiwork until Sunday morning, and wouldn't ya know it, some little f'ing critter totally uprooted one of my tomatoes.

In light of the plant predicament, I stopped at Lowe's after I took Linda & Kenny to the airport in search of some critter-ridder material. Now, knowing I'd be installing whatever solution I purchased sans assistance, my choices were limited. I ended up buying a couple of small trellis things and some deer netting, with anchors to secure it around the bottom. It actually seems to look okay, I hope it does the trick or I will be sorely disappointed (I stress the sore part) with my gardening efforts. After I bought soil, fertilizer, netting, trellis, plant stakes, stake tape, etc., my 5 tomatoes and 4 pepper plants probably cost me $100. I'm sure I could have bought a whole season of tomatoes from the local farmer for $100. Problem is, we don't have local farmers in Parma. I guess I'm supposed to feel pride of a job, done. Instead I just feel sore and achy.

My baby birds have flown the coop, I believe. I didn't even get to tell them goodbye. It was a very poignant moment this morning when I realized they were all gone. At least I'm pretty sure they are. I was out on the porch and the Papa Bird didn't swoop me, the way he always has when we step out there. He was very protective of the babes. I read online that they like cherries, so we had been leaving some on the banister each day and they loved them. Now we have dark red poop in the driveway, but it was worth it to know that maybe we helped the little fellas get a start in life. I know the Mama & Papa were shoulder-to-shoulder with me yesterday as I was turning up the earth for the garden; it was a bug and worm buffet for them and they took full advantage. It was exciting to watch them, I hope someone uses the nest next season. We're going to put a "For Lease, Move-In Condition" sign up by the nest to entice in another family next year :)

Rob became an official Retiree this past Thursday. No more working for The Man for him, now he'll be working for The Little Man, taking orders from Baby Lance. That's a job I would hate and I would suck at it!

Vicki starts her new job with Cocks Cable .. I mean Cox Cable, bright and early Monday morning. Yeah, I won't get tired of making Cock jokes. Too bad Susan Cox (a girl from work) doesn't work at Cox Cable - that would be a whole lotta cox on her business card! Jill, Geri, Fran and I met Vicki for one last lunch hurrah on Friday at Don Pablos. I'm sure it won't be the last, but it will be the last where she gets to drink Dos Equix at noon on a weekday!

I bought myself a Bosch drill today while I was at Lowe's. It seems really girl-friendly. Now I can complete all my household projects that the Mailman seems to have forgotten about since the 24-year-old girlfriend entered the scene. Stupid 24-year-old.

We had a new furnace with central air installed this past week - hooray!!! It's a cool 72 in here now - no more sweating our Cox off! It struggled to cool the place down, being upstairs certainly doesn't help, but it finally got the heat and humidity under control and was able to maintain the cooler temp. The guy has to finish up some of the thermostat work I think Monday, but I have no idea for sure. I'll be at work, so I don't know when/how he's going to get in here, but I wasn't in charge of the plans, I just enjoy the cool air. I'm excited that slowly, but surely, some of the amenities I love are coming back to my world.

My nephew Justin graduated Friday night. My sister-in-law didn't call to tell me the details of the event until mid-afternoon on Friday, and I ended up working late and wasn't able to go. I'll be at his party on the 30th, and I guess the important part isn't being there as much as it is giving money :)

Kristen and Emily joined me on a jaunt to the dirty bookstore on Brookpark Road for lunch last week. I had to make my annual pilgrimage to get a dirty book for my friend Joanne who left for vacation on Thursday. Her and her friend feel naughty when they have a book with cox on vacation, but she's too embarrassed to buy it herself. It was Emily's first trip into a dirty bookstore, and she was rather shocked at some of the paraphernalia available for all sorts of deviants. Emily did say that she was going to go in and ask if they had a fitting room, which I found absolutely hysterical. She chickened out, but it would have been a classic moment had she been able to pull it off.

I added some new plants to my cute backporch, it looks even more awesome.

I'm going to go charge up my drill and get busy. Kenny will come home on Tuesday and see an addition screwed onto the back of the house. I could be dangerous with all this power in my hands!

Peace and may the force be with you.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

My tooth fell out Friday night as I was flossing, getting ready to go out. Well, not actually my tooth, but a cap on a back molar. I'm lucky I didn't swallow it, although that would have been a really good story. The thing is, when I went to the dentist about 2 months ago, I mentioned that it was painful and he took an x-ray and said nothing was wrong. Now, it pops off. I rinsed with warm salt water and popped it back on there and went out anyway. I went to bed Friday night fearing that it would pop out while I slept and I'd choke to death on it. Now THAT would be a good story!


It was a really normal week. Work, home, t.v., sleep. I golfed on Thursday, still haven't gotten my swing back yet. It was fun night, though, so at least it was a best-ball scramble and I didn't have to swing every time - when my partner hit a good one I didn't even bother. We ended up winning the match, which was surprising, because we are really terrible. Even together we're not a strong golfer. Kenny and I need to get out there on the weekend so I can practice more.


We've discovered a bird's nest on our back porch, up where the downspout and the house form a "V." The mama bird is probably more than a little ticked off that this is the year I decided to make the porch usable space. She's probably been nesting out there for 8 years in peace, and now I take over. It was fun to sit out there and watch her feed the babies. I was quiet and didn't let any cats out there with me.



Cost me $59 to fill up my car this weekend. Whiskey Tango Foxtrot. Anyone want to take over my lease?? I see a small VW Bug in my future :).

Kenny and I spent the better part of yesterday visiting my aunt & uncle. My cousin Connie and her family came out and we celebrated her birthday. I had ordered a birthday cake to take as my dessert contribution and it ended up being this HUGE monstrosity of a cake with pink and orange frosting. It was pretty, but just absolutely the wrong size for a party of eight. It was embarrassingly big, but as Connie pointed out, "There's no shame in a big cake." Lesson learned when ordering from Beckers in the future: downsize.

It was the first time I've seen my aunt since my surgery last year and at the end of the evening she said she had to ask me a personal question. Now, anyone who knows me, knows that nothing is personal - I volunteer more info than anyone wants to know - and will show ya anything on my body if it adds to the story! So anyway, she wanted to know if I had a boob job, and I have to admit, I would ask the same question. They are starting to hoop out of my D-cups, and I believe growing larger with every piece of cake I eat. But the answer is no; no boob job. All me. Every last heaving, undulating ounce of them.

I apparently lost my mind over the weekend, as I do about once a year, and thought it was a good idea to get fake nails applied. It's been 2 days and I've broken the thumbnail and am struggling to type. Maybe I can deal with them through summer vacations. I even had Geri's refrain bouncing round in my head saying, "Just say no" to the fake nails, but I didn't listen. Shop in haste, repent at leisure.

I'm supposed to give my Icebreaker speech on Tuesday for Toastmasters, but Long Holiday Weekend Girl does not want to work on it so I will be sending an email tomorrow to cancel myself off the agenda. Another day for that.

We had a cookout at Kenny's grandmother's today. It was really nice, as usual, but we got home late and it's now after 11:00, so I'm wrapping this up for the week. I don't have any good pics to post (unlike the Product Management Girls, who went out over the weekend and had what appears to be out-of-control fun with pictures to document it all!) so that's it for now.

Peace and enjoy a nice short work-week!

Miss a week, miss alot

My grandmother Sophie turned 90 last weekend - go, Sophie!! I was busy getting all the details in place and getting her little bio written up for the party that I had for her on Saturday the 12th at Mapleside Farms in Medina. It turned out really nice, about 30 guests, with good food, a lot of catching-up, and a great cake. Nothing more important at a birthday party than a great cake! Becker's in Fairview Park always does a fabulous job. Her little life story that I wrote was also a success, it made one of the waitresses cry, she had to leave the room. Below are some random photos from the party.

The cake:

Melinda, Trevor & Sophie (Trevor's giving Melinda 'rabbit ears'):
Sophie & Me:
My cousin Dawn & her husband, Earl with his son K.C.:

Kenny & his family: Marge, Stanley & Linda:

My Aunt Pat & Uncle Sonny (my mom's brother):

By the time I got home from the party Saturday, I was exhausted; I put on my pajamas around 5:00 p.m., Kenny left to run the sound for a wedding, and I passed out in a coma until about 9:00 p.m. that night. I got up, watched a rerun of The 40 Year Old Virgin (maybe that's titled after me!), and was back in bed and slept til 11:00 a.m. Sunday morning. I was wiped out.

Since the party, I've been on a steady diet of leftover cake. I believe I've had a piece each night after dinner, finally finishing it up tonight while Kenny & I watched Die Hard 2 & 3. We're gearing up for the 4th one which comes out in June -I had to catch up. We just now finished watching March of the Penguins. Well, I kinda half-watched; it was sloooooow. In the meantime, I got my My Space page up & running. I signed up for one months ago, but decided I liked this avenue for blogging, but then today I decided to have both. If you're so inclined you can also view my My Space page at http://www.myspace.com/tracyeoh.

This past week I've been working on our little back porch, getting it all cleaned up and ready for summer. I painted the interior aluminum siding, vacuumed & scrubbed the carpet, potted some plants and brought up my outdoor furniture. It is all ready for reading, writing or just enjoying a cocktail. I love my little cute extra space!

Friday night Kenny, Timmy, Tina & I had tickets to see George Carlin at The Playhouse. We didn't actually remember buying them, so Kenny booked a show for himself at Swingos, running sound for Danny Lee's karaoke. Since I didn't want to go and be a 5th wheel with Timmy & Tina, they scrounged up a date for me - the Hot Mailman!! I was very excited to have a faux-date with Chris the Mailman (which is his full name - at least for me)!

Unfortunately, he was a perfect gentleman all evening, even after I suggested making out a little bit during the terrible opening performance. Ya know, not because I wanted to or anything, just more as a time-filler :) I don't mind him being my faux-boyfriend. I think I'm as close as he has to a faux-wife - I cook and feed him whenever he's around. He's a confirmed bachelor so I'm as good as he's going to get for a wife. Plus, he likes my boobs. I think those are the two most important things a faux-wife can offer.

Carlin was good and I saw Meggan, her sister Amy, Anastasia Diamond-Ortiz (her name is so great it must always be used in it's entirety) and her husband Emilio on the way into The Playhouse. It was very fun to see them, although I did forget to bring Anastasia Diamond-Ortiz's couch pillows - I found a large bag in the basement with them inside - one more thing to get rid of in the basement!

Today was very exciting garage-cleaning day. We got a lot accomplished and have quite a bit of stuff lined up for Planet Aid or the trash. I had thought of buying a shed for the backyard, but don't think we'll actually need one now that I've weeded out some of the crap I was hanging onto - for instance, a box of carwash rags. Like I'm ever going to do that again in the driveway. At least not here. Timmy tried to convince me to sell my bicycle, he is not optomistic that it will ever go to the park with me on it again. Especially with my non-park-going boyfriend. I'm not sure I'm ready to part with it just yet.

I spoke with my Aunt Carolyn today, I haven't talked to her in far too long. We have plans to go out for dinner next Sunday. Tomorrow we have Kenny's other grandmother's birthday (not Marge, Grandmother Helen). She's Kenny's real father's mother. Helen doesn't get around well at all, we haven't seen her since Christmas. She's very religious so we're taking her a cross I bought from The Vatican when I was in Rome. I think she'll really like it.

Meggan got her remodeling project all wrapped up. She had a new tub and a tile job installed, then put on a coat of fresh paint - she is really happy with the way it turned out. Meggan's promised to send before & after photos, which, by the way she had to get by using some sort of Pi calculation to triangulate the photo off of the reflection in the mirror because the bathroom was too tiny for a straight-on shot. And that's just one more reason I want to marry her.

Geri's "old" house finally got a For Sale sign up in the front yard. She has her first open house on Sunday, hope it goes well. Her "new" house finally got actual stairs in the basement so she's able to go down there. She refused when it was just a ladder leading into a "black hole," as she put it. She made Rusty draw her pictures of what it looked like down there to determine where to put the lights - she just wasn't participating in going down there without steps!

I'm getting a little anxiety lately, Rob is officially retiring from AG at the end of this month and I'm not sure how I'm going to cope without our mindless IM's throughout the day. We have a very strong IM relationship! Since he'll be home taking care of that baby, he won't have time to log-on from home; I will be completely adrift without my Rob-Rudder to steer my course. He's my Rodder. Wow, that's bad. But I'll leave it in anyway. Rob, there's still time to change your mind and let it all be about me!

Jill and I had to find out about Vicki getting a new job from John in the parking lot at work on our way back from lunch. She'll be working for Cocks Cable...er...I guess that's Cox Cable. Have fun Vicki, and we hope to see you before you start there full-time!

Golf started for me a few weeks ago, it's been hard to get back in the swing of things - literally. My game is less than exciting at the moment, but hopefully it will straighten out before too much longer. I even bought a new stretching video to make me more "bendy" to hopefully help my game. So far, no luck.

Well, that's about it for this week. I didn't realize how many people actually read this weekly blather until I missed a posting last week - I'm not sure this was worth the wait.

Peace and have fun!

Fingered

I recently found this photo of Jill and me from my 20th year high school reunion we attended during the summer of '05. Wow, that's almost 2 years ago! We had SO MUCH fun at my reunion, in case the photo didn't allude to that. It was held at Michaud's Town & Country Club in Strongsville, where there's a number of party rooms that had weddings going on all over the place. We would find "dates," just random single guys, who took us into the receptions where we stayed for a bit, danced, got a free drink, had some cake, took a party favor, then moved on to another. We barely attended my own reunion, but we were there long enough for Jill to dirty-dance with a lesbian couple who announced their pending nuptials at the reunion. She gave them a bit of an ass-slapping on the dance floor and did some other gyrations which caused quite a stir. I hope the rumor with my high school is that I'm now a lesbian! At least I had a foxy "partner," and it's a much better rumor than the one that I had lost a leg in a car accident, which ran rampant at my 5th year reunion. I think everyone was shocked when I walked into my 10th on my own 2 feet. Anyway, I'd much rather have the gossip be that I'm a lesbian with a wild partner! If it's not going to be truthful, at least be titillating (Emily encourages the use of the word "titillating" as much as possible, so this one's for her).

The girls and I got together this past Friday for card night at Jill's. The conversation was OUT OF CONTROL and had me laughing so hard I was crying most of the evening. What a good outlet for stress - I hope everyone has a group of friends as fun as mine! I did ask Meggan to marry me as she's everything I am looking for in a wife: she bakes a great pie; she knows pi; she has nice cleavage; she knows that guys don't have pu....well....nevermind. That's an inside joke :) She turned me down, by the way, so for now I will retain my single status.

We had a full crowd for cards, with Chris Vargo getting out of the house and joining the festivities and Anastasia Diamond-Ortiz bringing her "plus one." She's pregnant with her first baby and looked fabulous! Additionally, her hair was super-soft, as soft as her dog Chloe O'Brien's fur - which is saying something. She's a librarian for the Cleveland library system and she's got this sexy stripper name, horned rimmed glasses and a whole "naughty librarian" vibe working for her. She also said she will read my friend Rob's book and give it a review - see, Rob, I work it for you every chance I get! Anastasia, the ISBN number is: 0-595-41488-5; recommend it for a book club or something! Rob is retiring in May and needs all the sales he can get.

The girls and I also warned Anastasia that she needs to be very cautious in naming her baby if it's a girl; with the last name of Diamond-Ortiz, the wrong first name could send that baby out of the womb in clear heels, swinging from a pole. Chiffon Diamond-Ortiz = stripper. Sparkles Diamond-Ortiz = stripper. I vowed to come up with a suitable list for her to choose from - I do feel like I should have some naming rights as that baby was most likely conceived on either the bed or the couch that Anastasia bought from me last fall. It's almost like I was there! How's that for a thought for you :)

I tend to lean towards pop-culture names, so my recommendation for a girl is Addison Isabella Diamond Ortiz or Sawyer Marshall Diamond Ortiz for a boy. I just made those up, they sound pretty good! Or you could go with Emelia for a girl, since your hubby is Emilo. That's pretty stinkin' cute, too! Well, whatever, I'd probably end up calling it The Small Baby or something like. Good luck and as always when someone's pregnant, "Better you than me." Ha!

Jill spent the evening reminiscing about high-school activities at Rajaland in Amherst. There really is a place called Rajaland, I googled it but could only come up with some fella's link about camping trips he's taken there in the 80's. Jill's reflections involved a bikini, a bag of Doritos and a boy. "Going to Rajaland" has been adopted as our new euphemism. We'll never eat Doritos in the same way again.

To explain a bit, the Doritos prompted a whole conversation because my snacks for card night were all purchased at the BP gas station on the way over to cards: Michelob Ultra, Doritos, and 2 bags of Twizzlers. It was a hillbilly feast! Hey, I was working late all week and had to do what I could.

Saturday morning Roger from First Impressions came over to see if he could fix my carpeting in my car. When I showed him the problem area he exclaimed, "Oh my God." I told him that wasn't really comforting as he is my only hope of getting it fixed. It really was that bad, though. He worked in the driveway for the better part of an hour, and I'm thrilled with the results:

In the top photo you can see the purplish-tint where the cleaner lifted the color; the bottom photo shows the near-perfect match of the dye. Roger's company is First Impressions, he does all types of interior repair including leather, vinyl, and of course carpet. He was inexpensive, and came to my home on a Saturday morning - how great is that!

I've got work to finish up before I go to bed tonight, so I'm logging off - although it was a very busy week and I could go on and on. But I won't or I'll never get to bed. I've got another 30 minutes or so of being insightful about greeting cards, so I can't use up all my words here. I did, however, finally get the pictures off the disk from the broken camera and have all sorts of fun shots from the cruise. Below are a few of them, one is for Rob because he said I never post of myself & Kenny. Which isn't true as I had one on there from Atlantic City, but this is a fun one of my crazy hair and cleavage.

Below are a few more from the trip. Can't wait to go again in September. Peace and be happy this week!

Another Month Passes

I certainly hope there's some truth to the quote, "April showers bring May flowers" because it will be nice to have a payoff for the rainy days we've had. It was a relatively nice month overall. I just don't know where the time goes - it literally does fly by, especially since I started my job in Product Insights. The days zip along and it's Friday before ya know it.

Nothing special enough to note this past week. Just did the typical t.v. shows throughout the week. Kenny's Ford Explorer was supposed to be ready for pick-up on Tuesday and it wasn't ready until Friday night. Things went a little hairy at the pick-up, they discovered their error of rolling tax & title into the selling price and wanted the difference. Now, I don't believe they could have actually gotten away with that as we had a signed contract, but we really weren't trying to screw them so we were okay with making good on it - although I did put up a bit of a stink to let them know it wasn't just okay. They reworked the paperwork and it came back with an additional $250 more than we were expecting the reworked numbers to be, it's for a "standard" delivery fee that all cars - new & used - have to pay. Well, I threw a fit and said we'd pay tax & title, but no more and they'd have to roll that $250 into the bottom line. To make a long story as short as possible, we ended up getting all our money back - Kenny had brought cash, so they weren't happy at all about it - and we were ready to walk out the door over that $250. I asked them if their contract was an etch-a-sketch, and they just shake the papers around and change it to whatever numbers suit them at the moment. As they were getting his deposit money to return (that was a cash deposit made last week), one of the fella's stopped the whole production, said they'd eat the $250, got me a beer and we called it a transaction. The new Explorer seems to be running great so far and all his music equipment fits in the back just fine. All's well that ends well or something like that.

Friday night Kenny had a show at The Blue Moose in North Royalton. I went with him to help him out, he fell earlier in the week and really hurt his back. His friend Pete also went and worked the show with him, so I didn't have to do much. Stayed just long enough to have a beer, listen to some singers and I was home around midnight. Sometimes it's nice to get out on a Friday night, feel like part of the action. Some action in North Royalton :)

Saturday we spent the better part of the day sorting through paper/mail and doing some general organizing of the stuff in the living/dining room area. There's just so much, I can't even communicate the magnitude of papers/mail we receive at this house. I'm like Kramer and want to stop the mail altogether! Since that's not possible I guess we just need to file it more regularly.

Melinda stopped over on her way home from work, it was good to see her. I unloaded a bag of shirts that I no longer wear. I swear to God, my boobs are getting bigger and stuff just isn't fitting in the chest area anymore. Maybe I need more carrots, less carrot cake. Anyway, Melinda benefitted from my heaving bosom (I should be a romance novelist) and got some cute new clothes. I was happy to finally find a home for this super-cute shirt from Ann Taylor, I wore it once and never could fully commit to it - it had an empire waist or something that just made me feel preggers. Not a good thing for me! It looked good on her because of her smaller ta-tas (I'm using all sorts of boobie-slang) and I don't feel bad that an expensive shirt is just hanging in the back closet.

As our reward for doing some stuff around the house, we headed up to Erie Saturday evening for more gaming action. I've decided that until the world comes up with a better hobby alternative, I'm good with gaming. As long as I'm spending Kenny's money, that is. He funded us the entire trip. We gamed until 5:00 a.m., drove to the exit where we stayed during the snowstorm and slept til noon today. We headed back for a couple more hours since we were down just a little bit from Saturday night.

Lo & behold, I actually ended up winning a little something for a change! I won $540 on a penny machine. As Kenny pointed out, it's not really a penny machine since I was playing max-bet of $1.50 (150 credits). But whatever, I was excited and cashed out, giving him the ticket since I was playing with all his money anyway. We pissed around the better part of the day, up & down all afternoon, coming home even. Can't be unhappy with even - and that's after paying for the hotel & our food. We had a really fun trip, all went well.

I started a new book this week, Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier. I've enjoyed all of her books that I've read so far, and Heidi leant it to me since she has 2 more weeks before it goes back to the library. Let's hope I get through it - knowing my recent book-reading ability, it's going to be tough.

Geri's house is finally starting to look like a house:
I'm excited for both her & Rusty and can't wait to see it!

Sophie's birthday party is coming up, it's just two weeks away. I'm busy getting the final plans into place. I need to order a cake on Monday and call Mapleside Farms with the total number of people who have RSVP'd. I still need to write up a little story.

At Toastmasters this week, I won another ribbon for "Best Table Topics." Those are nerve-wracking for me! As chatty and loud as I am on a regular basis, it's surprising how nervous I get being in a "formal" speech setting. And that would be the reason I joined! I'm glad Emily's doing it with me, that makes it a lot more fun overall. We're scheduled to give our Icebreaker speeches on May 29th. I'd like to postpone it, but I have to get it done sometime. I received a message on Friday from one of the leaders asking me if I'm going to run for any of the officer positions. I guess I didn't think I had been a member long enough to assume a position, but I would certainly do it - why not! If I'm going to spend the time in the group, I might as well make the most of it. I'd like to complete both the Communicator & Leadership tracks. If I'm giving up lunch with my friends every Tuesday, might as well make it worth my while.

I realized recently that my "baby" nephew graduates from High School this year. Wow. Wow. I volunteered Kenny to do Karaoke at his party in June, I think that will be REALLY fun. He normally charges $300 for Graduation parties, so it's quite nice that he's "in the family" and we're able to get his services for free. He's also setting up the sound system for Sophie's party, we're not doing Karaoke, but it will be nice to have the good background music going with really fun songs during the luncheon.

That's all the words for this week. Peace and please stay healthy. I've got enough of my friends I'm worried about right now! Let me just say, I have no problems - there are people without feet, and people too close to home fighting for their lives - I am contrite for getting at all upset over my car carpet or my coffee table. Shame on me.

Another Addition

This past week we added another member to our family. Ken's mom brought over her cat and "gave" her to us. They got a new dog last month, a giant, wonderfully beautiful Golden Lab, and the cat has not made the adjustment. She lives in the basement, refusing to come up, so she was brought to our house to see if she'll adjust better here and have a better cat life. I don't really mind, what's one more, but it certainly changes the dynamics of the house. There's hissing and growling and everyone's out of sorts with their sleeping arrangements because Reba has taken over Caesar's spot sleeping on Kenny at night. She's a cross-eyed little thing, hence the name Reba...we renamed her, her name is actually Mooley. Now seriously, I'm not the best cat-namer in the world, but I don't give my pets racist names. Linda swears it's a Celtic name or something, but in Cleveland, it's slang and racist. Once again when a pet naming situation arose, Jill suggested Cracker. We can't go from Mooley to Cracker. So Reba it is. So far she ignores her name, but I think she'd ignore it no matter what we called her. She does her own thing. Oh, by the way, she's a ferocious biter, a puker (we've awoken every night to the sound of a cat hocking up something unpleasant) and has shit all over herself. We're so happy to welcome her to the family!

It was a typical week with the ordinary happenings. Work is still great, even though this would be considered my worst week there so far. But even my worst day at my new job is better than my best day in Product Management. Seriously, it's no wonder people stay a year and get out of there. It needs a major work-load and managment overhaul. Well, I'm happy to say not my problem any longer. I was busy analyzing competitor Valentines cards and getting the findings into a Powerpoint presentation. I got that wrapped up and uploaded before I left on Friday.

I had a major crying fit yesterday because I got nail polish remover on my new coffee table and it left a residue mark on the slate and took off some of the paint around the edge. Kenny kept telling me he'd fix it, it wasn't the end of the world, but after the debacle with my car flooring, and now the new table, I felt defeated and had a pity party that all my stuff gets ruined. Kenny tried the "there's people without feet" line but yesterday I just didn't care. I just want something to be - and remain - in decent shape and that doesn't seem to happen all the time anymore. Oh, well. Life goes on, I quit crying and in the light of a new day it doesn't seem so dire. Still irritates me, but I'll check Heloise's Helpful tips to see if I can do anything about the little table mark.

After my pity party, we went car shopping for Kenny. He turned in his leased Pacifica over a week ago and the plan was for him to drive his Trans-Am around for the summer and buy something going into the winter. I don't like riding in the Trans-Am, it's definately a boy car, but we take my car when we go anywhere on the weekends. Anyway, he was getting his car tuned up, some new tires, etc., and the mechanic offered him $5,000 for the car, so he said,"Sold!". The engine is having problems anyway, and since he was going to sell it in the Fall or next spring for $3,000, he took advantage of the situation and got rid of it now.

He ended up buying a 2002 Ford Explorer yesterday, we think he got a great deal on it and it is big enough to haul all his music equipment around. The gas milage on those things is horrible, but I pointed out he's not big mileage guy anyway so it doesn't really matter. They actually made a mistake at the lot and gave it to us with tax & title included in their bottom line price, so that took off $700 from what he was expecting to pay. I negotiated new tires, a 1 year warrenty, freeon for the a/c, a fix to the "door ajar" sensor that won't go off, and wiper blades.

The best thing to come out of the whole car-shopping day for Kenny was I got hooked up with a guy who can dye the carpet in my car back to the original color where the Oxyclean did it's thing. I will be giving him a call Monday morning, they told me he'll even come to my house and fix it in the driveway. I've got my fingers crossed!

Today is simple plans for doing some household organizing and then perhaps catching a movie later in the afternoon. Typical, ordinary week, which is okay by me. I don't mind a little ordinary every now and then.

Stanley was overseeing the post today:

Peace and enjoy the wonderful weather!

Be Spontaneous

It was a very spontaneous week. On Monday we called about a free trip to Atlantic City offer we had received in the mail and there was still availability so we decided to take them up on the offer and away we went on Thursday. The trip included airfare and a stay at Harrah's, through the same casino junket we had travelled with in January, Personal Travel Corporation. Our impromptu vacation went very smoothly.

We left on Thursday at 10:30 a.m., arriving around noon in Atlantic City. It was a bit rainy so we spent the day hanging at our hotel. Kenny played cards and had a little windfall at the card tables, netting over $900 on one 3-of-a-kind hand at the 3 Card Poker Table. He had a big bet out there and it paid off. He always tells me "if you want to drive a sports car, you've gotta be a sport." I want the sports car, but I can't gamble that large. Oh, I lose more then him, but I pollenate the machines and lose it $20 at a time. I tried to stick to a machine this time. I'm working on following his strategy. He's up to Platinum and I'm still at the basic Gold level, so he's obviously doing something better than me.

Friday we took the shuttle over to the boardwalk and strolled around enjoying the day. The weather was nice, a little brisk and windy, but it was nice to spend some time outdoors.

We saw some crazies out there on the boardwalk and gave some hungry-looking guy some money which was probably more than he's ever gotten - he was quite appreciative. I believe we are all just one tragedy away from being that crazy person walking around the Boardwalk, so help a guy out when you can - for the grace of God, it could be you.

We went to some of Harrah's sister casinos and played a while, had dinner at The Rainforest Cafe and headed back to our hotel late into the wee hours of the morn. Back at Harrah's Kenny stayed up to play and ended up winning another $2000 on a $5 slot machine. I was in bed, having lost my allotment for the day - the typical gambling vacation for me.

We got home last night and was greeted with a snowy car at the parking terminal. Welcome home! It was good to get home, though, I miss the cats when I travel. They were glommed around us in bed last night and I was very happy about that.

The girls played cards at Jill's house on Friday night where they celebrated Anastasia's pregnancy with cake. She didn't waste any time getting on with making a little family, she and her husband just got married last Fall. Congrats to them! For those who are reading and don't know my girlies, this is Geri playing cards, not the expectant mommy.

I've been in a bit of a funk all week, pondering the meaning of life and asking the question, "Is this all there is?". Rob informed me that yes, this is all there is, it's one ordinary day rolling into the next, with vacations & whatnot thrown into the mix on occassion. That didn't do much to ease my unease. He also told me that as we get older (ouch!) we question life and just aren't sure of our purpose anymore. It seems ridiculous, we go to work, come home, watch t.v. and take vacations and buy stuff. That's what makes a life??? Maybe.

For our trip I bought an Oprah magazine to read on the plane and the cover seemed to be talking to me: "Get a Life Lift: The search for meaning, connection and hope." I read each article and came away quite disappointed with most; they didn't offer up any great insights, just the same crap ya hear all the time. No one knows. The only thing of insight I did read was a statement that said asking, "What is the purpose" is the wrong question and if you get to that point in life, ask yourself a new question that will help you achieve what you want. I still am not any closer, but have determined that I just want to somehow help people so now I need to figure out how. Or I will watch Monty Python's Meaning of Life and see if that helps.

I have exciting plans of a trip to Walmart, visiting my grandmother and doing some laundry for today. Geri gave me a good tip on carrots, she told me that Mustard Seed has the most flavorful carrots I could ever hope to eat so I may run to Solon for carrots. While I'm there I will also get their pea salad, it's incredible. I'm living it up!

Peace and have a good week!