One day I asked my 5 yo dd if she needed a bath and she replied, "I don't smell like anything but sweetness."
Went to target for school supplies today. Are you kidding me??? Why in hell does she need 4 boxes of crayons, 4 bottles of glue, and 20 freaking No. 2 pencils? She hasn't used that much in the 5 years she's been on this earth for pete's sake.
I love this time of year. Especially when the rubber band man shows up on tv.

Sponge Bob and Round Ass have once again trashed my parents' house and then bugged out. Probably sticking them for the last month's rent and the electric bill. Just like last time. This time they left behind a ton of garbage and a cat. But they didn't forget the air conditioning unit that didn't belong to them.
So, once again, Mom and Dad have to replace all the carpet and have to patch the hundreds of nail holes in the walls. Well, at least now I can visit them again without having to deal with Bob's juvenile bullshit. What a loser. Mom says that's it for him. She's never going to help him out again...particularly since he verbally accosted her and blamed her for everything bad that has happened to him in his life. I'm not sure I believe her because he is her son after all and he will be back. It's inevitable. He's always been an arrogant, pompous, self-centered asshole and one day he'll tell his boss how to do his job and he'll be fired AGAIN and he won't have anyplace to go since he's burned every bridge he's ever had.

Mom and Dad were trying to sell their place...well, probably not really trying...and now they won't advertise again until they remodel the guest house and put vinyl siding on the main house. Dad is 82. Mom is 74. They're not going anywhere.

And now for some local news: I still have some painting to do in the sunroom but other than that it's finished. My next project is pulling up the carpet in the hallway and refinishing the hardwood floor. I scrubbed the hell out of my shower yesterday and discovered that I really need to tear the whole thing down and rebuild it. There is a leak, or was at one time, behind the shower head and the sheetrock is spongy there. And it's regular sheetrock, too. The whole wall will need to be torn down and replaced with backerboard. I also wanted to replace the vinyl in the kitchen with ceramic tile but I'll have to wait until next year's budget since the asshole contractor from last year ate up our budget for this year. Dick.

The garden is producing pretty well so far this year. I've actually harvested squash this year. Yellow crookneck and zucchini. I'm loving it. I've got delicata and lakota coming on as well. I'm glad I only planted two short rows of string beans. I got a mess with my first picking with just a half row and picked the rest and gave it to Charlie next door. He must have planted his late because he hasn't gotten any yet in his garden.
I had to do something different with the garden this year. I used one of the lightweight insect barriers as a shade cloth over the peppers and tomatoes and it has worked wonders. It was amazing to see that the plants under the shade cloth looked fine but the rest of the garden was limp, wilted, and half dead looking. So last weekend Jim and I erected a shade "tent" for some of the squash. What a world of difference. The insect barrier allows rain to pass thru and diminishes the light by 5% but it's enough to give the plants some respite from the scorching heat.
This is how I did it: Cut two 10' pieces of small bore pvc in half to create four 5' pieces. These are flexible which I find important so the shade cloth won't rip in the wind. Take another pvc pipe in a larger bore and cut into lengths of about 2' each. These short pieces are pounded into the ground at the corners of the plot. They have to be long enough to offer some stability to the smaller pvc. Drill a hole completely thru the top of the small bore pvc about an inch or so from one end. Take a piece of coat hanger or wire and thread it thru the hole and form it into a ring. Tie the corner of the shade cloth to this ring. Drop the 5' piece of pvc into the foundation pvc that's in the ground. Repeat with other 3 corners. The shade cloth is about 4.5 feet off the ground so one can go under it to weed and water and harvest. The sides are open so the ventilation is great and the bees can still get in there to do their pollination thing. I'll update if I run across any problems with it.

What I've been up to (on the lighter side):
I got my belly button pierced finally on Friday the 13th of all days. Now, watch my legs get gangrenous and fall off. I leafed thru a tattoo magazine while I was waiting for this chick to get her tongue pierced and happened to see Kelly's half-page layout. Kelly is a long-time member of Mama-Drama and is adored by many. She looked good. :o)

I picked up some pepper plants and various other things at the berry farm this afternoon. Planted 5 of them. I had to wait for dh to till the garden plot again. I swear sometimes I just want to haul off and kick him square in the ass. I asked him to till it with the tiller but he decided to turn it with a shovel instead. Well, that just causes more work for me because I have to bust up the clods and rake it all smooth whereas the tiller would bust up the clods for me. *sigh*
My secret to excellent pepper production is in the planting. I sink bottomless black plastic pots in the garden. I plant the pepper seedling inside leaving ample room for mulch and compost. When I water I fill the pot to the rim and all the water and nutrients go straight to the roots. No run off. Plus, the black plastic releases heat at night and keeps the crawling gnawing bugs at bay.

I had to make some wire cages to fit over my squash and cuke hills today. The cat has taken to shitting at the base of the hill and letting gravity help cover her prize. I discovered this in a most unpleasant manner when shoring up one of the crumbled hills. *barf* On a good note tho...this year the seeds are actually germinating. I've planted delicata squash for 2 years without a single seed sprouting. This year I got a pack of seeds at Walmart and they are busting up. Third year is the charm I guess. Same with the lemon cucumbers. I must have sown 30 seeds last year with maybe two making it to maturity. I think I harvested a single cucumber. This year every seed I planted has germinated. Go figure. I'm glad I didn't sow 30 seeds this year!

Not so much on the light side, April 27, 2005: Chigliak died. I had taken her to the vet since she just seemed so run down and the vet had nothing but bad news. She had heartworms so bad that the larva were present in her blood draw. She had a heart murmur. She was so anemic that she would need a transfusion but that it probably wouldn't help and the treatment for the heartworms would surely kill her. Poor old dog. I guess she was about 15 years old. Someone had dumped her and the rest of her litter next to a dumpster out in the middle of nowhere...in July....in blinding heat...with no water and no chance for survival. Assholes. I took two of the pups, Chigliak and Moose. Chigliak was a really good dog. I miss her. So does Tuco. It appears that he tried to dig her up last night. I'll need to add some more cobblestones to her grave. I've lost all three of my long term pets in 6 months.

I registered my child for kindergarten. I'm looking forward to the extra time I'll have this fall but I'm also experiencing a little anxiety because my kid is going to public school. I hated public school. Maybe if we hadn't moved around so much I would have liked it but it was pure hell for me. So much weird shit happens at public schools these days. I'm going to pull a Scarlet O'Hara on this topic and think about it some other day.

Lots of other things have happened but those boring little tidbits of my day to day life will have to wait until another day. Eastenders awaits!

We went to Williamsburg today to listen to a time-share spiel. We received a card in the mail about it and decided wth... we hadn't been to W'burg in about a year and we had nothing else planned so why not. We didn't know anything about it but figured our chances of getting timeshares from the inlaws were coming to a close.

Well, I was completely unimpressed immediately upon arrival. There was the main building and a "model" building that was being remodelled already. The salesman reeked. I was getting nauseated sitting next to him. He smelled like an ashtray full of old butts....wet butts. Gak. His hands were grubby. Nothing wrong with that...mine get grubby as hell when I'm pulling weeds in the garden but I seriously doubt this guy had ever bent down to pull a weed, even if he were physically able to, which I doubt. Something told me that his grungy, ragged fingernails held the contents of his breakfast burrito.

So, he starts his thing and is completely disorganized. He's flipping his pages back and forth trying to find this or that to show us. Really bad. I wander off to check on the kid. He still hasn't got his shit together when I get back. Finally we go off to see the models. I'm unimpressed. They are painted the most ungodly purple I've ever seen. The dining room walls are deep maroon, sage green, AND gold. Holy shit... it was fugly! The interior doors were those cheap ass pressed fiberglass jobs. Maybe even fisher-price plastic. The rooms were small. The guy said when the other buildings are built the rooms will be bigger and the interior fixtures would be better...bigger tvs, nicer doors, bigger tubs. Whatever dude.

Then off to have a "virtual tour" of the timeshare. There was a flat screen tv in the hallway upstairs...we had to take the elevator since the guy would never have made the stairs. Apparently this particular timeshare was going to be a themed water park. I'm not sure how people dressed in colonial era costumes are supposed to fit in with a water park but hey...I've got an open mind. The thing was supposed to be a big domed building where you enter on the second floor into a cave opening and there will be smoke coming from the doors where you enter. (I've got a chill already.) After that it just gets bizarre but he did mention Starbucks half a dozen times.

After the "virtual tour" we looked at a miniature model. The salesman is gabbing away about all the newspaper articles, blahblah, when I interrupt him to ask why the tabletop model didn't look anything like the "virtual" model. He said that was there first plan and it had changed and they hadn't gotten the new model made yet. Ok.

Back to the table to start negotiations. Now it gets really weird. He calls the second string over. (The third string is sitting against the far wall just waiting to coerce someone into signing away their child's college fund). The second string guy starts writing down numbers and dh is saying, nope, no good. Can't swing it. I detect a hint of snottiness about the guy. So I cut to the chase, decide to end it there and say, "You know, I'm a kind of hand's on person and just don't feel comfortable investing in something that I can't see." I thought it was a fairly reasonable excuse. They wanted $15K for a small 2 bedroom unit that we could only use in certain times of the year. The guy says, "didn't you see the model?" I replied, "Yes, I did, but that isn't the domed building." He countered with, "Well, you saw the virtual tour." (His tone was getting snarky, iykwim.) I said, "Yes, but the final outcome may be quite a bit different than the "virtual" model." We had seen absolutely no floor plans of the proposed buildings, just an illustrator's rendition of what the place would look like. Plus, the first salesman had only said that the rooms would be "bigger". He made some comment, can't remember what it was, but I said "We had an addition built onto our house last year. The photo (our virtual model) that we showed the contractor was beautiful and we said we wanted it to look like that. We ended up with something so bad we had to pay another contractor to redo it which put us way over budget. That's why I'm cautious." This is where the guy starts antagonizing me. Dh said he was afraid we were going to start shouting at each other.

He said "This is a multimillion dollar project. We're not going to hire just anybody off the street." I said, "I don't care how much you pay them, there is always the chance that the builders may take shortcuts in order to make more money." The building that we were in, and that they were remodelling was only four years old. Why a four year old building needs to be remodelled is beyond me. Then the guy really gets in my face. Remember, he's trying to sell me a timeshare. He starts mouthing off, "are you trying to group us in with all the corrupt contractors now?" I said, "no, I'm not saying that. But it happens." He continues, "Well, we research the contractors we hire." And then they got up and left. Right in the middle of my saying "we researched ours as well..." The second string guy just left in a snit. The first guy said "someone will be over to finish your paperwork." No handshake. No 'have a nice day'. No 'thanks for coming out'. I was like "WTF???"

Then dh told me I was too aggressive. That I could have been nicer. I replayed it over and over and damn it to hell, the other guy started it. I just finished it. I'm not going to give someone $15K based on a freaking drawing of something they hadn't even broken ground on yet. Get real. That had to be the most unusual sales ploy anyone has ever used on me before. The old "antagonize the punter into buying the timeshare" routine.

I planted broccoli plants out today and two kinds of carrots...both heirloom varieties...touchon or something like that and atomic red. I also raked one of the other raised beds smooth so it is ready to plant in the next few days (if it doesn't rain) and I still have 1.5 beds to level. My poor hands are dry, cracked, stained and bleeding. My back is killing me and I'm asleep on my feet. I love spring.
Chickens were out all day having fun in the sun. They are loving their new run and house.
Started outlining a new perennial bed the other day. I bought an edger from the tractor supply store. Things are really shaping up around here. I've got volunteer aquilegia everywhere.

I'm not getting what I need from the web anymore...or perhaps I never got it at all and I'm just now willing to throw in the towel. I'm the empty beer can that was tossed out on the information superhighway, run over by a couple of semis, and so faded that no one can make out my label anymore.
I've had my widdle fewwings hurt I guess. I wish I were more charismatic but I'm not and that will never change. I'm just, eh...what was her name? You know, the mole, wasn't that her? Didn't she used to be a mod or something?

They're not really telemarketers....it's the sheriff's department, or the state police, or the fire dept retirement fund. Holy shit! They call all the freaking time. Last night around 8:30 the state police called. Dh told them he was eating dinner. Just a minute ago the phone rang. I picked it up. Dead silence. I almost hung up as I usually do because that's a sure sign of a computer placed call. Finally this deep monotone voice comes on the line and says "is this Mrs. XXXXX?" (The voice was eerily familiar....like the voice that woke Elaine Benes up in the middle of the night from the AMA.) I said yes. The monotone started the spiel. I interrupted and said "Look, we already got a call last night." The voice said "Are you going to make a contribution today?" I said no. Silence. Finally the voice said 'fine' and hung up.

The day before yesterday I got a call from the sheriff's department. The man asked me how I would feel if my child disappeared. WTF??? He then proceeded to talk about how much money I could contribute to wtf-ever he was trying to promote. I said he could send me any paperwork involved but that I wasn't going to commit to a dollar figure on tape...he said I was being recorded. He continued to pump me for a contribution. I said if you send me the paperwork I'll send something in but I will not give you a dollar figure over the phone. He said thanks and hung up. Jesus. If I don't give them at least $20 they don't want anything? WTF is up with that?

Even if you say no to these people they still call back every freaking day. I'm to the point that I don't want to answer the phone anymore. Who does one complain to about something like this? I pay so much money per month just for the privelege of having my phone hooked up and I have to deal with this shit? Grrrrr!

I have a few minutes before I have to go pick up the kid from preschool and while I'm waiting for the building inspectors to show up. So much trouble for a 10X14 foot space. Go figure.

Watched dodgeball (movie) the other night. Stupid but it had it's moments. Ben Stiller gives me the creeps. The best part was the cameo from Lance Armstrong. That was a shocker. Speaking of Lance, he has finally announced that he will be competing in this year's Tour de France....going for his 7th consecutive win. Can he do it? Yes, he can! I used to make fun of dh because he is riveted to the tv during the tour but now I find myself drawn to it as well. Can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Speaking of dodgeball...when I played it in school we called it Slaughterball. I loved it because I was good at it and I could pound those assholes who were always beating up on me throughout the week. Funny thing...I was always picked last...it never failed...but most of the time I was at least one of the final four, if not the survivor. I really hate popularity contests.

Speaking of popularity contests...Faith doesn't seem to be winning any at Mama-Drama. I can understand it to a degree. When she bugged out MD was little more than a soapbox for people to bitch and moan about AW and scammers. Now it is a community and some people feel like she is an outsider coming in to rock the boat. I don't know how I feel about it. I'm disappointed that she wouldn't sell MD to me. Some days I feel like saying tamp it. I've put in a lot of hours at MD, I've crawled all over the web trying to learn how to take care of business so we wouldn't have to rely on anybody else to run it. I've searched for new things to add that would keep it fresh and I've tried to make sure that all the technical stuff got handled. That wasn't always easy because I seldom got responses from my PMs or emails. I was really afraid that the domain was going to lapse since it had already "expired" by the time Faith renewed it. At least I don't have to worry about that for two years. :o) After all the jostling, the corrupted data, the board wars, and the schism taking place, it's a wonder we're here at all.

What else can I go on about? Gardening? I've only started one flat so far. 24 broccoli, 12 tomatoes (brandywine), and 36 peppers. We went to a family birthday party at Bill & Jen's on Sunday. (That deserves a post all on it's own.) Granddad (dh's) asked me about the garden and put his "order" in for some pepper plants. FIL put in his order for tomato plants. Both are millionaires. You'd think they could spend a couple of bucks and buy them at Lowes.

Speaking of money...I spent a large portion of yesterday online researching schools. Dd will be attending kindergarten this fall. Woohoo!!!! I am not happy with the SOL scores from the public school she would be attending. There is a newer school, which is closer, that has much better scores, but has many more students and is out of our zone. And there is a private school that interested me a great deal. I broached the subject with dh when he got home and he shot it down in a heartbeat. He doesn't want me to homeschool and refuses to send her to private school because he doesn't want to change his standard of living. What freaking standard of living??? He comes home and parks his ass in front of the tv. Yeah, that eats up a lot of funds, particularly since we have basic cable because he won't pay for a better tier. He went to private school the whole nine yards. It was wasted on him. I told him last night he wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed so private vs public was no indication of intelligence. BUT the private school offered more than the basics.
I remember back when I was in highschool we had two english classes: mainstream and honours. They had to do it that way because you couldn't grade on a curve if some students were A+ and half the class would fail. By moving the higher scoring students to the honour's english class you could now grade on a curve and those students who were getting 70s and not passing were suddenly the high scorers for that class. Pretty sad.

Well, the inspector showed up and I'm embarrassed that he saw my messy house but the room has finally passed all inspections. Time to pick the kid up from school. Hey, the sun is shining!

It's going to trial. The asshole contractor and his shady wife contested the allegations. The law is on our side tho. We have a guarantee on their contract, a breach of implied warranty, and their reputation in past dirty dealings in our favour.
If you enter into a contract when you know you don't have the proper license and then falsify a government application to get a permit you leave a paper trail of deceit. There's no way to deny something like that.

Ironically, it has been exactly one year since we signed the contract to have the addition built onto the back of the house. And it's still not done.
Over the past couple of days I've managed to reduce page upon page of bitching and moaning over the addition onto 4 index cards. I think I hit all the high points. We're suing because he didn't build the room we negotiated for, he built it his way, poorly, and illegally. That about sums it up.
His contract (illegal) guaranteed materials and workmanship. He deviated from the materials AND he had no skills. We're asking for all of it back. Everything we paid him.
It's like going to a Honda dealership, ordering a silver Civic, and getting a baby blue Pinto hatchback...or the "family truckster" instead. Unfortunately, this is not the last thing we have to do. If we win a judgement, we have to try and collect it. If that doesn't work, we have to apply to the state's contractor's fund. We may never see a dime.

The room was inspected Tuesday. It didn't pass. We need a final electrical inspection and we need to install handrails on the deck even though it's not in the code. We specifically built the deck at a certain height so we wouldn't need rails but the inspector said that since it had 3 steps we had to have rails. WTFever. Besides that, the deck isn't even on the building permit and we may have to pay an additional $48 for an amended permit. Logically, since the deck isn't on the permit, the inspector should have passed the room. *sigh* I'll be so glad when this is all over.

Time for a story...

Once upon a time I worked with a real bitch-child. The boss's daughter. One year I was elected by the other employees (V and R) to buy the bitch-child a birthday present. This was no easy feat since she hated me and was totally bereft of any social skills whatsoever. I thought and I thought. What could I possibly get this freaking little punk bitch that she wouldn't be able to criticize. It was tough since she was a master of the backhand complement but I finally got it.....a nice photo frame complete with a picture of her and her boyfriend that I coerced from her mother (who was just as devoid of tact).
Next obstacle....the card. It had to be completely neutral and utterly pleasant...not my forte.
Finally the day arrived. The bitch-child stood expectantly for the gift from her minions.
The card...simple...elegant. She turned to V and said "Oh, what a lovely card. Thank you V." To which V replied, "Don't thank me. Cat picked it out." She simply said "oh". The card was cast aside as she happily shred open her gift. Her eyes lit up when she saw the photo in the exquisite frame. She turned to V again and said "Oh, it's beautiful! Thank you so much!" To which V again replied, "Don't thank me. Cat picked that out, too."
And then the little bitch-child looked straight at me and said "oh, I didn't think she had that much class."
End of story....well, except the part where I told her to kiss my ass.

My point? I worked for this company for 3 years as a collection agent and I brought in a ton of money which my boss later embezzled from his clients. And not once was I ever given any recognition for exceeding their expectations. Typically, as in the previous entry about the Tobacco Exchange, someone else got the bonus or the raise. I got laid off. Pushed aside while someone else took the credit for the work I had done for the past 3 years.

Wow, and now, at MD, I'm just an admin working for someone who has been involved all of two months. All I can say is 'ouch'.

I took the decorations off of the Christmas tree today. I plugged it in last night for the last time and dh panicked that someone in the neighbourhood might see it and think we were deranged or something. He gets into a tizzy over the most curious things.
It has always been a very depressing task for me...the undoing of Christmas. It's almost as if I'm packing away the "good will toward men" along with the ornaments that grow shabbier and shabbier each year. The spirit of the season comes to a screeching halt when the doors of Walmart open the morning after.
What happened to all the bell ringers? I saw only one this year. He was standing outside of Michael's with his red kettle, ringing his bell half-heartedly. I gave dd 50¢ to donate and she thought it was great. There used to be somebody jangling away in front of every major store.
I miss Christmas the way it used to be...the ribbon candy, the bowl of nuts to crack, cheese on fancy crackers, snow, the smell of cedar and cookies. The television broadcasted wall to wall hallmark commercials, the same old comfortable Christmas shows, and Christmas merchandising didn't show up in the stores until AFTER Thanksgiving. Oranges still bring back very vivid memories of Christmases past. And figs strung on raffia. Nobody had them this year.
I just feel like Christmas was incomplete this year. I used to stay up past midnight every Christmas eve and spend time with my cats. Just the three of us. We'd sit and watch the shifting patterns of light that were thrown on the ceiling from the tree. They would purr and purr. That didn't happen this year. That part of Christmas is gone for me now.
So, everything is packed away and ready to be put up in the attic. People have gone back to being bitchy, and apathetic. I wish the Christmas spirit would hang around a little longer. I need some.

Of all the assinine ideas....
The local government guy, (we'll call him B.R.) called A.C. (Asshole Contractor) this morning and told him he had until the end of this month to get his licensing in order or else he would be swearing out a warrant on him. A.C. was highly upset and asked if maybe he could come to our house and finish the work he started instead. He was just convicted and fined $500 because of my letter campaign...why in hell would he think we would allow him back on our property particularly since I told him I would have him arrested for trespassing if he showed up? What a freaking moron.

Dh went to court last Friday as witness for the state against the first contractor who bilked us out of 8K. I reported him and they took him to court for violation of occupational code 54.1-111. He was found guilty and fined $500, 90 days suspended. A slap on the wrist really....compared to $8,000. (Plus the additional $4,000 to redo what he screwed up.)
According to the prosecutor, the defendant admitted to everything and implicated his wife as well. Dh was told to contact another guy after the trial...local government...and they have plans on having him arrested for working without a business license. I don't know if dh will have to testify during that case.
I was right about them coming from Florida. They had told us they moved from Buffalo, NY, but I tracked them to Florida. I love the internet.
Anyway, we have to get a copy of the transcripts of the trial if we plan on going after Mrs. Asshole Contractor. We were told we have a 50-50 chance of getting money back from the state contractor's fund. I don't like those odds much.
So, today I have to write up a report for the local guy complete with photos. Cake and Pie.

It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. On November 27th I took my beloved cat, Bastet, to the vet for the last time. When I got up that morning she was lying on the kitchen floor in her own mess. She had thrown up all over herself the night before and had frightening convulsions that clearly were painful. She wouldn't drink her milk or even eat a piece of cheese, so I wasn't able to medicate her. Her front legs would twitch and quiver as she was lying down and her back legs just didn't function anymore. It was time.
I can't go into detail right now. She was euthanized and I stayed with her throughout the procedure. She is buried next to her brother who died October 26th. She spent most of the summer laying under the tigerlily fronds like a big lazy jungle cat. I really miss her. I miss them both.

The steroid shot that Bastet got last night has done a world of good for her. She's not leaping and racing but she is able to walk, albeit shakily. She has gone to the potty each time I wheeled her bed over to the tray, she is eating well, and the pill was history hidden in a lump of extra sharp cheddar. She's a sucker for a piece of cheese. So was Goliath. I am hopeful that she will be back to her old self in a couple of days. For now she is sleeping in the bottom half of a large pet carrier. We took the top off so she wouldn't be so secluded and we roll it from room to room so she can be a part of what's going on. When she gets done with her business she gets right back in on her own so I guess it's pretty comfortable for her. I ripped open a brown paper bag, her bed of choice, and lined the bottom of it. She seems happy enough. I even caught her purring last night. I went over her vet records this morning when I was waiting for the taped joints in the floor to dry. She has had a bunch of steroid shots over the years. She used to get them for her skin condition. At $20-$24 bucks a pop they sure added up. That's alot of money for a cat you can't really pet. They never seemed to help her skin, though. I also tried feeding her a special diet provided by the vet for a couple of months. Cha-Ching. No help. The only thing that helped was eliminating fish from her diet. That's pretty tough to do considering fish is an ingredient in nearly every canned and bagged cat food on the market today.
I fed her Alpo dogfood tonight as I ran out of her usual brand and there was no fish in it. She hooved it down. Unfortunately, dogfood doesn't have taurine in it and she needs that.

We started laying tile in the sunroom today. I ran out of tape for the backerboard joints so dh picked up another roll when he went to Lowes for the rest of the tile. I taped and "mudded" the joints, then we had lunch and then the fun began. The room is really out of square so we are having to fudge the spacing a bit between the tiles. I had hoped that we could just use my little 1/4" spacers but that won't work on all of it. This is the first time I've set 12" tiles. I tiled the bathroom vanity and tiled the big custom walk in shower at Tunstall but that was with 4" tiles. I've also laid a few 6" quarry tiles. I'm hoping that the 12" will be super easy since there is less of them. We've encountered a few high spots already due to the floor not being quite level. I'd love to pound that asshole contractor in the mouth.
I'm hoping that we get most of the floor done tomorrow. I would like for it to be grouted and the walls and ceiling spackled, sanded, and painted by Thanksgiving which means I'm really going to have to pour it on in the next few days. My hands hurt!

She's sliding down the slippery slope. Two days ago she stopped walking. At first she tried to get her legs under her but only one was able to support her so she kept falling down. Yesterday she quit trying and dragged herself from spot to spot. She made her way to her food dish and also to the potty tray. Today, however, she couldn't make it. We got home after running errands all day to find her laying in the hallway. She had taken a crap and it was stuck all over her. I got the cat carrier out of the barn, the same one that her brother died in two weeks ago, and loaded her up for a trip to the vet.
She suggested euthanasia. I couldn't do it without trying something else first. Bastet still enjoys a snooze in a warm patch of sunshine, she'll purr and purr, kneading the air with her paws. She also looks forward to her meals and a warm cup of milk at night. So we opted for a steroid shot this evening to see if that would help with any inflammation she may have in her joints. I've got pills to give to her for a few days as well. If they don't help her I don't know what I'll do. The vet also said that Bastet had a heart murmur.
My poor old cat.

I worked there as a cocktail waitress while I was in college. I got paid $2.01 an hour plus tips which were very good because I was fast and I worked my ass off. After the punters left at 2:00 a.m. the waitresses had to clean up, wrap silverware for the lunch shift the next day. By law we were supposed to be paid minimum wage after 2 because we couldn't earn tips to supplement our pay but we never did. In fact, at the end of the night we had to pay a percentage of our tips to the bartenders who made more money than we did and didn't have to clean up. They sat around drinking while we worked. I started work at 4:00 and usually got off at 3:00-3:30. I busted my ass for nearly 12 hours for $25 day after day after day. To add insult to injury we also had to chip in a few dollars each to give to JellyBean and Shirley to clean the kitchen and mop the floors. Lots of times I refused because I couldn't afford it. I was paying rent, tuition for classes I couldn't stay awake thru, and groceries for my alcoholic boyfriend, who, btw, was one of the bartenders.

The other bartender who worked the happy hour shift, damn, what was her name...doesn't matter....she worked to socialize and would never mix my drinks for me. I had to go behind the bar to mix my own and then serve them. That's how I learned how to mix. At the end of the shift she was always there with her hand out waiting for her cut. I stopped tipping her. She turned me in because I was too young to mix legally. Didn't matter. The boss didn't want to lose me because I sold ALOT of drinks and I actually checked ids. I was the first person in town to prosecute someone for drinking underage with a fake id. It was a very big deal since the town fought liquor-by-the-drink so hard.

What am I rambling on about? After I had been there for over a year and had seen a complete overhaul of the staff a couple times over the manager decided that the restaurant needed a supervisor for the cocktail staff. I was all over it. I was senior staff, the big money maker, and even worked parties at the boss's house. I could step in behind the bar and was always willing to come in at any time to work lunch, or serve dinner. So one night when the rest of the cocktail staff showed up, around 9ish, the manager called us together for a meeting. The bartenders and bouncers were there, too. (Oh yeah, Jane A. that was her name and her daddy was one of the rich folk in town).
Anyway, Rodney, the manager started talking about the new position and what it entailed and then said, "the new cocktail supervisor will be Berkley C. B. III. He doesn't know anything about the job but he'll learn." And Berkley, who often came to my apt to get drunk with my boyfriend, and got the cocktail waitresses to put long island ice teas in the walk-in freezer so he could drink on the job, looked right at me and smiled. His parents had the biggest, poshest house in town. He didn't need the job but he was friends with the manager and his parents were friends with the restaurant owner. He didn't know the job, didn't know the first thing about ABC laws, but he got the job. The staff congratulated him on getting the promotion and when I asked the manager, later, why Berkley got the job and I didn't, he told me 'if you don't like it you can leave.' I left.

It's funny how some things in life keep recurring over and over again. You bust your ass doing things to make it right, to make everybody happy, and you get shit on. And if you dare ask 'why?' you get told 'if you don't like it you can leave.' I'm tired of giving so much and then being treated like I'm nothing. I'm tired of people smiling to my face and then stabbing me in the back. I'm tired of pouring myself into something and then someone else taking the credit. I'm tired of being called a bitch because I'm not a lemming.

You know what's funny? People used to try and make me feel guilty for not contributing to JellyBean and Shirley because they were "mentally impaired" and were broke all the time. We did most of the cleanup for them anyway. After I left I heard that JellyBean and Shirley got busted for selling steaks and booze out the backdoor of the restaurant when they were supposed to be cleaning. I guess they were cleaning up, in a way. Funny, the new cocktail supervisor, who was also responsible for the liquor inventory, didn't notice the thefts and apparently they had been doing it for some time.

It's laying on the desk like a missed pototo chip, curling at the edges. Gross. Dh liberated it from dd's big toe last night while she slept. We surreptiously tried to steal it the night before last but got caught when dd suddenly awoke. Dh had the flashlight poised on her digit and I was slowly trying to twist the defunct nail off. I tried to make her think that she had had a bad dream and that she had called out to us and that is why we were there. I don't think she bought it.

She stubbed her toe about two months ago. I figured she would get a nasty bruise under the nail but she never did. Instead, a new nail started to grow under the old one and just popped the old one off. Unfortunately, it hung on for dear life at one corner, a mere thread, and she was certain that it would cause excruciating pain to remove it. So I did what any resourceful mother would do. I bribed her. But she's much too crafty for that. She knows whatever I offer her, she'll end up getting anyway. I tried another tactic. I lied to her. I told her that the ToothFairy had a cousin, an unpopular and often misunderstood cousin. The lure of treasure under her pillow was still not enough. So, once again, under the cover of darkness, dh with clippers and flashlight in hand, crept into her bedroom and stole that toenail with one swift, decisive snip.

Now I have the defunct toenail and she, totally unaware of our chicanery, is 41¢ richer. I think it was a fair trade.

Goliath passed away this morning between 6:00-6:20. We've been together for 16 or 17 years. My friend Wanda called me early one spring day in (probably) 1988 while I was living in South Boston. The trailer park next to her house was flooded again and some kittens were stranded and she needed me to come out and rescue them. I told her on the phone that I couldn't have any cats in my apartment and I really didn't want to come out there. She leaned on me. I caved. So I waded out into the park and retrieved a floating bucket that had 3 of the cutest little balls of fur I've ever seen in it.
On that day I became Mom to Bastet and Goliath. The third kitten was adopted by someone else and grew up to be a huge long haired cat. Goliath was a black and tan dsh and Bastet is solid black except for about 3 hairs on her chest. Goliath was nearly eviscerated twice by dogs. The second time I left him at the vet's overnight and he started to slide downhill. I went to visit early the next day and found him laying in a puddle of his own urine. I soaked it up with newspapers and took my cat out of there. He got a severe infection which ate away his skin, dissolved the sutures and left his guts wide open. I cleaned him up several times a day by injecting hydrogen peroxide into the opening and flushing out the pus. I also applied a necrotizing agent around the opening to dissolve any dead tissue. It took awhile but he healed up nicely.
When I first started writing seriously he used to lay in a basket on top of the drafting table where my word processor was set up. A shaft of sunlight came thru the window and fell right on that basket and he would purr and purr and purr. I remember one time when we were living in the Grandin Court house in Roanoke, Goliath started meowing really loudly from the bottom of the stairs. I got out of bed, went to the laundryroom and let Bastet out. I had inadvertantly locked her in and Goliath told me so I could let her out. I didn't even stop to think. I was that close to Goliath. I was devastated when he got laryngitis a few years ago. I feared I would never have another "conversation" with my best friend again. Yep, I may be nuts but I sure do love that cat.
So, I planted him today. I laid him to rest where he always used to lay to rest. Right in the middle of my flower bed. I was forever fussing at him for flattening my flowers and creating voids. Now he's there forever in his favourite place. He used to sit out there, which was right outside my bedroom window, and wake me up in the morning. I sure do miss him.