I want to say to all those bah humbug people that I am acutely disappointed in them.  What happened to neighborhoods fixing up their houses all along the block? What happened to the Festival of Lights in Coralville? Why are more houses dark this year than have decent decorations? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE???

I know Christmas is a hectic time and all that but Christmas lights/decorations are a big cornerstone of having the Christmas spirit.  Really, what is going on out there? I counted 11 houses with Christmas lights on my way home and 19 without…that is just damn unacceptable. I told my son I should have written down all the addresses and sent out letters about how their lack of holiday spirit dampened those who drove by their houses.  Most of them aren’t spreading joy in any other way so the lights can be their holiday gift to the general population.

Well, that has made me forget the other topic I was going to write about tonight so I guess I’ll go to bed.  It is 11pm anyway which is way past my bedtime on a work night – 5:30 am is going to come awfully fast.  Still, wish I could remember what the other topic was…

Cap’n Craig Colantoni I actually got a 911 call from an older lady that stated that she need the paramedics out at her house because her husband was having a stroke. She stated that he was in his 70’s and then she told me the one thing i didn’t want to hear, and she said i shouldn’t tell u this but we just got done having oral sex, well com…(yarr)e to find out they did and her husband died as a result of it, Man she must have been good…..

Lady Princess Of Law Enforcement Best call I ever got was a female who wanted the police to respond to a domestic. Of course since she was female and made the call, officers responded. When they got there, she open the door naked as the day she was born, told the police to arrest her husband because this was his 3rd time coming home this week trying t…(yarr)o have sex with her and all 3 times he basically sucked and should be arrested. Needless to say, the police had to arrest her eventually because she just could not understand why they would not arrest him for being the worst lay ever…..

Lady Megan Henley Top call from last night:

0200: Chest Pain
“What’s going on?”
“My heart keeps stopping…the only way I can keep it going is to hit myself in the chest when I feel it stop.”
“Ah ok….are you having any pain?”
“Yeah, right here” (points to central chest)
“When’d that start?”
“After the second time I restarted my heart…”

Lady Dawn Pope heard over the radio this weekend….21yo complaining of a swollen vagina. had it pierced 2 months ago and cant get the piercing out. We almost fell out of the rig laughing

Lady Emily M Kolkmeyer-Wilson One of the junior fighters was bored one weekend so he called in 4 FAKE calls so he could have something to do. Then he lied about it when they figured out it was him because he called from his OWN cell phone.

Lady JayLynn Sharpe Caller (at 2 in the morning and with great anxiety in her voice): There is a cat stuck in my wall! It is meowing and whining in great distress!
Dispatcher: Ok ma’m we will page out animal control
(30 minutes later and after animal control has been woken up and paged out)
Caller: I called earlier about a cat stuck in my w…(yarr)all.. Well see yesterday was my birthday, and my daughter gave me a clock shaped like a cat.. Well I didn’t know when the alarm goes off it meows, so that is what I was hearing.

Lady Brittany Higginbotham My personal favorite happened earlier this week

The following occured in spanish
0340
Hispanic male walks to ambulance… My feet are gone
me: your feet are right there
Him: No, they are gone, like the bottoms of my feet are gone
me: you just walked to the ambulance, cant do that if your feet are gone
Him: (proceeds to remove…(yarr) his unsocked feet from sneakers) See! My feet are gone
me: (gagging) Thats the worst case of atheletes foot Ive ever seen
Him: What do I do?
me: (still gagging) Well I can take you to
Him: No! No hospital, how do I fix it
me: Tinactin, Lamisil
Him: Ok, thats it, thank you

UGH Atheletes foot is NOT a 4 am 911 call people! just FYI

I wish someone would let me know in advance that it is Hell Day.  Maybe I could mentally prepare for the chaos that envelops the day if I knew it was coming.  The very least I could make sure I have a lot of ice available for pina coladas when I got home.  OK, so I don’t really drink that much but still – some times I wish I was the type to get drunk.

Have a friend who got so drunk last night she awoke with a hickie and has no idea how she got it – let alone how she got home.  I have never been this drunk – have never wanted to lose control like that.  At least not until I started working 911 – now I sometimes wish I was capable of drinking till I was drunk.  Unfortunately (or fortunately) I can’t.  The voice of reason always steps in, though sometimes after the fifth margarita, and I stop long before I’m throwing up sick.  I am never confident enough in my designated driver making sure I got home safe and sound to get too drunk.  The only person I can trust to keep me safe is me.  As Mattie said in True Grit “I would not put a thief in my mouth to rob my brains.”

Ok, you are wondering what made it Hell Day.  First off I had a trainee for 12 hours – it is exhausting having one for 8 hours, 12 is excruciating.  That isn’t due to the trainee – she did wonderful – but to all the reams of red tape and documentation I must do for every single call.  We stayed caught up the first little bit but then everything went to hell in a hand basket.   Too many calls coming in one right after another, officers doing traffic, a basketball game going, an armed robbery in Coralville we assisted on, a possibly gunmen on his way somewhere he wasn’t suppose to be going, and on and on and on it went.  By the time I left at 7:20pm, I was 12 calls behind in my documentation.  Thankfully the trainee volunteered to come in tomorrow once I catch up to review and sign the DOR.   Ugh! I can see why the other trainers get so frustrated with it all.  I thought I would enjoy training but I don’t.

Another thing I don’t like is I can’t get on the internet at all to check my emails or anything.  I hate that.  Playing on the internet relaxes me so without that outlet, I was pretty damn stressed.  Man I’m exhausted.  So good night world – tomorrow surely is going to be an awesome day!  I heard snow starting tomorrow night and lasting through Tuesday…yippee, winter is here.  It has to start to get over with – Spring is just around the corner. 

f

Something is different in my brain today – I’m not sure why.  I know that sounds ominous but it isn’t.

It is very strange really.  I was listening to Bob Marley, thinking about life, and started thinking about maybe it was time to get into shape and consider dating again.  Usually that takes way more years than this.

My last boyfriend and I broke up on Fourth of July in 2004.  That is a mere five years ago.  Normally it is six to nine years between boyfriends – no reason to rush into something else, ya know?

It isn’t that it takes me that long to get over the person – god knows I’m usually well over them before we finally breakup.  It takes me that long to even consider going through the rituals of dating again.  Dating takes so much out of me…yes, I’m strange.  I have to spend time compromising, thinking of someone elses feelings on a more intimate level, giving up my personal time to spend time with someone else…etc…it is exhausting. 

So now that I’m thinking about dating again – it will take me about a year to actually get to the point of meeting someone.  I will have to work at getting back into shape, getting some stuff I need to do first out of the way, and getting myself in the correct mindset.  It is almost like taking on another job.

I don’t have any expectations of marriage or anything remotely like that.  I know I have a lot of porcupine needles for someone to deal with and I’m also not big on long-term committments…I’ve never met anyone who changed my mind about that either.

But it is strange to be thinking this way again after so many years of not.  Really am not going to rush anything – it is just a miniscule spark of a thought in a sea of thoughts.

Have I ever mentioned that I do not like worms? I hate them.  They are slimy, slithery things that make me want to gag.  I prefer snakes to worms any day of the week – snakes may slither but they generally aren’t slimy.   

Nothing ruins my walks with the dogs like worms.  I can’t relax and enjoy the walk at all which makes me more aggravated with the dogs who, obviously, don’t deserve it.  It isn’t their fault our path is littered with slobbery gross squirmy things that make me want to vomit.  I get back and I’m afraid to take off my boots for fear I will find something plastered to the bottom that I have no desire to see – I’d rather have dog shit on my boot then dead worms.  Seriously.

I don’t know when this acute aversion to worms began.  When I was a child, I would go fishing with my grandpa (yes, I was a tomboy) and never flinched at winding one of those gross things on my hook – or doing my sisters hooks either when they thought it was yucky.

Several times my brother-in-law’s dad would put a stake in the ground and electrify it which served to bring the creepy crawlies squirming out of the ground.  He would give me a jar or can and I’d scoop the worms up for him without worrying about gloves.  I dissected a worm in biology class and barely gagged at all.

But now if I see the things I want to run back inside and forget walking the dogs.  Who cares if they potty on the floor? Isn’t that preferrable to walking out among the worms.  You are wondering, no doubt, what brings the worms out on some nights and not others – or perhaps you know already because you use to fish – it is the rain.  Any time it starts to rain the worms come sprinting out of the grass to seek higher ground which, as it so happens, is usually the sidewalk.  I try to step around their slimy bodies but it is hard when there is a cluster. 

On the dark, unlit sidewalks it is hard to tell the difference between a worm and a twig so I have to avoid both which is quite the challenge.  I won’t wear my good tennis shoes outside in the rain because of the worms.  I have been out walking on a cloudy day and had it start raining – those slimy little bastards would spring out like a plethora of canned crazy string into my path, daring me to find a way around them…insidious little bastards.

I have more like 7,000 words to get done – hope to get most of that done later today before another days worth gets added in.  I have 31,083 words so far so am firmly past the halfway mark.  Course, I’m way past the halfway mark on time too.  My goal is to be done on the 27th so I can relax the last three days of the month.  However, I’m off on the 30th so could do some then and get it submitted.  I want to have it submitted no later than noon on the 30th.  I did check this evening to make sure that the NaNo counter and my Word program both count the same so there wouldn’t be any surprises at the last minute.

There is no way the story will be over at 50,000 words.  I have finally accepted that matter.  One of my writing buddies is up in the 60,000 word mark – well past the 50,000 required words.  She advised she was nowhere near done either so I don’t feel bad that mine will end up being about 85,000 words by the time it is complete.

I didn’t want to rush into the story but now it is feeling like it is moving too slowly so I need ot pick up the pace some.  I haven’t even had the two main characters kiss yet…something one of my friends thinks is nuts.  I am working up toward a “first kiss” scene but won’t get it written tonight.  I just killed off the woman’s best friend so that should bring her and the main male character closer together.  LOL

I bit my lip earlier and it keeps bleeding.  It is swollen and hurts anytime I lick my lips.  I know, how could I bite my lip so hard? I don’t know – was out walking the dogs, Bennie jerked on the leash and I must have been chewing on my lower lip which is a bad habit I have.  Anyway, I bit down on it so hard that I dropped Bennie’s leash – luckily he is a good doggie and waited for me rather than taking off like Baxter would do. 

I had a delicious turkey dinner when I got home last night, curtsy of the landlords.  I have had a stomach ache since then though so wonder if it was something I ate.  Thought it would be over by now though it if was something I ate but guess not.  I ate when I got home tonight and my stomach began acting up again right away.  Arg – I refuse to get sick.

Decided to take the “long” way home because that is the street the Laundromat is on although I had half talked myself out of doing the it. The rain has been pouring down and really, who needed clean clothes anyway?

Got past the Super Wal-Mart signal light and traffic came to a screeching halt. I had already seen two car accidents on the strip so figured that is what was happening further up too. The green light loomed in the distance and I was barely creeping towards it. Cars zoomed by in the other lane figuring they would make it through the light before their lane ended – I could feel the seething anger coming from the drivers, like myself, who had decided to keep their place in line even though we were barely crawling along. I know the fast cars all made it through long before I did but you know what? I didn’t care in the least.

I had my tunes going on the radio via my mp3 player and was enjoying listening to the songs mixed with the sound of the pounding rain on my roof. What was the hurry? I was just going to the dreaded Laundromat and then home. My son didn’t have time for me today which was fine – I told him yesterday not to sweat it if he didn’t because I had plenty of other stuff to do.

Took about eight minutes, I half timed it just for the fun of it, for me to get up to the light. Once there, much to the chagrin of those behind me, I let ALL the speedsters from the other lane go ahead of me. Yep, it was that kind of day where I just didn’t care. Earlier, at a car accident, my lane was blocked by the officer and people in the accident. No one wanted to let my lane in to go around so I finally pulled into the other lane, totally stopping that lane dead, and let everyone ahead of me into the moving lane. The car behind me honked but I just gave him the one finger salute and kept going. Irritates me that people can’t let others in the lane when there is obviously a need for it. Such assholes – where are they rushing off to? No where, most of them aren’t even happy at home so why rush to get there? I try to always let people in if their lane is blocked through no fault of their own – it is the courteous thing to do.

Anyway, my lane barely moves – it takes almost a full half hour to get the four miles to North Liberty where suddenly the lanes were clear for going the speed limit. There was no accident, no stalled cars, nothing! So why was traffic so backed up??? I have no idea – can only think that someone at the very front was going too slow or that we were behind a tractor or something that turned off before I got up there. Whatever the case, I was a tad bit miffed that I had just spent all that time in a traffic jam for no apparent reason – would have at least liked to have seen a stalled car or something. Ridiculous.

Got to the Laundromat and put my clothes in the washer. It was absolutely pouring outside but I decided to go outside to that horrendous pop machine to try to get a soda. This machine has only actually worked ONCE in the past 15 months. So I stood in the freezing rain plugging quarters into the machine. I had 20 quarters and tried them all to no avail. Some would work but most just fell right through. I tried a dollar bill along with one of the quarters that worked but again, no avail. By this time I am soaked despite the raincoat.

Frustrated, I made my way to the Tobacco Bowl next door and they had soda there – forty cents more than the machine but who cared at that point? The guy looked at me and said “wow, you are wet” and I wanted to have a smart comeback but bit my tongue because it was not this nice man’s fault that the pop machine didn’t work or that I had wasted time in a reasonless traffic jam. I just smiled and said “Indeed I am” and came back to the Laundromat with my Diet Pepsi. My fingers were bright red and so cold they hurt – no it isn’t that cold outside but I think it was the length of time I was out there and the cold rain that made them so chilled they barely worked to open the soda.

As my clothes spun around in the front loading washer, several college age guys were also doing their clothes around me. Of course, I had one bra in the entire two loads and what gets plastered against the window for practically the whole 22 minute cycle but that bra. I guess it is better than a pair of underwear but still…why? I have tons of shirts and pants in there…but no, the bra. Figures.

Sometimes I feel like I am sleepwalking through life.  I know most of you know what I’m talking about – I’m not putting forth any real effort to make life better or worse.  I’m floating down the middle of the river without a care which might sound ok but in reality, it isn’t.  Life is too short to be passive.  When did I go from Rogerramjet to passive? I don’t remember but I think it started back when I had that car accident ten years ago. 

Besides being painful, it was a very scary thing that galvanized the knowledge that I wasn’t indestructible.  It also made me ask myself if something happened to me, what would happen to my son? So I started working at being more “safe” and somewhere along the way lost my passion and perspective…neither is a good thing to lose.

Today I looked myself in the mirror and had to admit, I don’t like the person I see peering back at me.  I don’t like my hairstyle or color; don’t like my face looking splotchy; don’t like how fat my cheeks look; don’t like the turkey neck I’m getting; don’t like my body as a whole because I’m out of shape and way overweight; and I don’t like my clothes either. 

But beyond appearances, I also don’t like that I sit on the sidelines a lot for fear of being hurt again – physically and emotionally.  I look at the task of fixing myself and loath that the first thought out of my head is “this is impossible” because I’m defeating myself before I even start. 

I hate that I let the fear of failure stop me from trying to be published and possibly bettering not only my life but also my son’s.  I look at children I want so badly to adopt but have no idea how to get to the point to be considered.  Yes, I know the paperwork part but seriously feel I better have my shit together before bringing children home to live with me – especially children who have had other adults in their lives who let them down.

I keep telling myself it is TIME to start making changes but often the thought goes right out of my head several minutes later and I forget I was even considering it.  It is like I’m drifting along in an inner tube, poke my head up to see a waterfall coming and thinking I should get out of the water, only to be distracted by a stick floating alongside me to the point that the waterfall is totally forgotten.  Eventually, I’m going to arrive at that damn waterfall and I’m going to be wondering why I didn’t see it in the distance.

Tonight I’m sitting here again, seeing that waterfall, thinking about what I should be doing.  It is frustrating yet also a bit exciting to think about changing…oh, my pizza is done.

So I stopped at Panara on my way to work today for some soup.  I ate a bowl there and then took a bowl with me to work of their scrumptious potato soup for later.  As I always do, I stopped in at a convenience store for something to drink.  I didn’t pay much attention going in but as I went to the counter to pay, I noticed a very good looking deputy in there also buying drinks. 

Unfortunately I was wearing a jacket that covered up the patch on my left breast that identifies what PD I work for. So as discreetly as I could, I moved the jacket back as much as possible to reveal my identity boob. I looked up and he was looking at me…he probably thought I was going to flash him or something. Maybe he thought I was trying to impress him with my lack of boobs – I don’t know but I blushed bright red and felt pretty daft. He didn’t seem to notice, thank goodness.

In an effort to get close enough for him to read my patch, after all law enforcement agencies always talk to each other so figured it was a good ice breaker, I moved up behind him in line and jingled my keys a little hoping he’d look up. He started talking to the cashier and didn’t seem to notice me at all…so much for law enforcement officers being in tune to their surroundings. I stood patiently behind him…maybe a little too closely because I could smell his aftershave lotion (I had to refrain from reaching out to pat his pistol) – I kicked myself for not spraying on some of my wonderful perfume but then realized I didn’t have any makeup on either so what was the difference? I was as pale as a cumulus cloud and as odorless as a plastic bag…hell, I wouldn’t notice me if I was looking in a mirror.

He was taller than me, a little bit younger I would guess, muscular and quite impressive. His smile made it all a perfect package – not that he smiled at me…no, it was the clerk behind the counter who cracked some joke I was too distracted to hear.

The deputy paid for his drink and started out the door. Knowing he could get away from me pretty quickly if I let him, I had the exact change ready to toss to the clerk so I was practically on the deputy’s heels as he left. Some of the change might have missed the counter but I’m sure the clerk found it all.

I had two sodas, my billfold and my car keys in my hands but I was trying to strut in an effort to appear confident and alluring. He got to his vehicle and turned slightly so I knew he was glancing my way. I quickly juggled the bottles to give a little wave when what happens? Somehow I accidently pushed the “emergency” button on my key fob so my car, which was sitting next to his, starts honking insistently with the lights flashing dizzily in unison.

Horrified, I tried to pull the key fob up enough in my hand to turn the darn thing off but I was losing my grip on my soda too. I was so embarrassed – everyone stopped to look over at me. There were three people getting gas, two store clerks, and another customer besides the deputy. Beleaguered, I finally found the right button to turn the horny car off. Talk about making a good first impression – I’m sure I appeared to be a helpless female who didn’t know how to work a damn fob. Thanks, car, for all your help in rousing this guy’s attention but not in a positive way.

The deputy went ahead and got in his car – I was too humiliated to look up and hastily covered my patchy breast so he wouldn’t see it and think what dumb broads we have working at UI Dispatch. All in all, it was quite mortifyingly gauche. I’m 46 years old and still as socially awkward as I have always been. LOL

I told my coworker about it, I thought she was going to hyperventilate from laughing so hard. Glad someone found it amusing.

Talk about something being hilariously ironic – I finally get an offer on my condo just after I’m served the foreclosure documents.  Isn’t that just so damn laughable that it makes a person want to laugh till they cry? I know I sure laughed over it.  It is too late, according to the attorney, to sell it now that I have an offer.  It has been on the market for almost a year.  Really just makes one want to throw up their hands in disgust and shout out at the universe “what took you so damn long?”