Spinning

Where in the world did my days off go? I certainly don’t know.

The first one was spent moving into my apartment - made two trips to WL and one trip to IC to pick up items.  My gas tank is on empty - something that hasn’t happened in quite awhile as I’ve been keeping it up around half a tank.

When I arrived at the unit there was no refrigerator but that came later while I was picking up the TV from my son.  It is nice and new - can’t ask for much more then that.  I almost bought ice cube trays but when I found out I was getting a brand new refrigerator, I decided not to as a new refrigerator almost always comes with ice cube trays.  Well, wrong.  Yes, my new refrigerator in FL did come with two ice cube trays but this one had nada so I will have to grab some sometime.  Not a big deal, mind you, just a little irritated when I got home as I didn’t have anything cold to drink then but such is life.

Got the TV and DVD player hooked up so have been putting on my movies when I need background noise.  I almost got speakers for my computer, having left mine in FL, but I couldn’t remember if my computer had a built in speaker or not.  It doesn’t.  Just means I can’t listen to my music until I get computer speakers which I will do on the 1st.

The maintenance man came over on Wednesday because the toilet water hose was leaking.  He thought he had it fixed but it still leaks a little every time I flush.  I put a rag under it so that takes care of that problem.

Baxter and I have gone for walks twice a day since being there.  He loves going and I love that it gets me out exercising.  We haven’t gone far - though today we did go farther then previously.  Part of it is not knowing my way around town that well but the biggest reason has been the heat.  We didn’t get a walk in tonight before work due to the rainstorm.

Yesterday my nephew and I moved the loveseat and entertainment center my sister gave me.  It is so great to have some furniture in the apartment! The loveseat is almost comfortable enough to sleep on - something I might have to do because my air mattress keeps losing air.  Another sister has a bed in her basement that I might see about using if they can bring it to NL for me as I don’t have a way to transport it.  I’m not in any rush, I can sleep on the floor if I need to for awhile.

Several of the ceramic and glass pieces I sent up from FL were broken.  I was disappointed because I packed them in bubble wrap and everything.  A couple of other pieces were chipped or broken but not so badly that I can’t glue them back together.  Ah the joys of shipping things.

My beautiful skirt that I was looking forward to wearing to my nephew’s wedding next month was left down in FL too.  I was upset to find that out.  But I left a bag in my closet there that I meant to grab - it had all my favorite clothes in it so I should have guess the skirt would be in it too.  Oh well, I will have to find something else to wear.  I’m going to plead with my neighbor down there to send me the bag - she can take the whole bag to the UPS store and they will do all the boxing and shipping. She hates to be put out but I’m hoping she will take pity on me and do it.

I have been asked by work to switch my hours this coming Monday and Tuesday from 7pm-3am to 3pm-11pm because the trainer on that shift needs a hand with the trainee.  I agreed to do so though it means getting off at 7am on Monday morning and having to be back at 3pm the same day.  I will also have to do it the following week.  On Wednesday they are putting out OT requests for the other days as well, I may sign up but changing shifts like that makes sleeping so much harder again.

It continues to rain outside which is good, it means we won’t be doing many traffic stops and, hopefully, the guards will be staying longer at each building.  I really could use a quiet night.

Last Post for a Few Days

Just wanted to let you all know that I am at my new apartment now.  It is a lot smaller then what I remembered but oh well.  One disconcerting note when I got there was there is no refrigerator.  I left a message with the landlord so hopefully they will take care of it.  There is also no hardware for curtains or blinds so I will have to do something about that.  I don’t have the money to buy either right now so will probably buy some cheap white sheets and tack them up until I can get blinds and curtains.  Yes, this is a time when a charge card would come in handy, huh? 

I have loaded the boxes I sent to sister’s - I only have seven and I could swear I sent nine but I don’t know where else they’d be so assume I only sent seven.  I will have to check my ups slip when I find it.  That isn’t to say that I think they are at my sister’s but worry more that they got lost in shipping and I never checked them until now to make sure they were all there.  Stupid of me, I know.  All the boxes were pretty light but I thought for sure I had a couple of heavy ones too that cost me almost $30 to send - I hope they didn’t get sent back to the condo and then stolen.  Ugh.  Always something.

First thing I did when I got to the apartment was throw up - second thing I did was faint.  Don’t know what is wrong with me these days, I feel sick about as often as I feel well.  I took some Advil on an empty stomach so assume that was what caused it - that and getting overheated by carrying boxes inside and also not eating.  I grabbed a cheeseburger from MacDonald’s before coming back to load the shipped boxes and feel much better now.

As a reminder folks, I won’t have internet at all until early next month sometime.  I will do emails from work when I do work - which is Thursday-Tuesday of next week.  That means no more posts until then either but I will write some long hand so when I get to work on Thursday I can type several in.

I couldn’t sleep from 12:30 till after 4 am this morning because I was worried to death about my condo - really the first time I have done so since being up here.  I got to thinking about all the things that could go wrong with it and how I should have the air on in it, etc.  So hopefully in the next couple of months I can get down there to get it ready to be sold.  I really wish I knew someone down there who would take care of it for me but I don’t.  Oh well.

So this is my last post till Thursday night unless I get to the library to get on there, which I highly doubt.  I have unpacking and, as I said, laundry to do.  I know, you are thinking why don’t I just do it at my sister’s before I go? Because my neice is sleeping and I don’t want to disturb her because she has to work today.  The laundromat isn’t all that bad and with only one load should go fairly fast.

Thank you, everyone, for your prayers and kind thoughts during this whole moving delimma.  Hopefully I can move on mentally now to more positive things.  

 

No Service

I get no bars on my wonderful AT&T cell phone here at work.  It can be frustrating when I am waiting for a call to come in because I have to remember to go outside during break to see if any calls came through.  My phone doesn’t even beep or give me any indication at all that a call was received until I go out.

Well, tonight I went out just to see if I had any messages.  I actually did too.  It was my new landlord telling me I could start moving in on Wednesday - possibly Tuesday.  I am suppose to set up a time tomorrow to go to his office to sign my lease and pay whatever rent I will need to pay for the rest of this month.

Because I didn’t get the call last night at 7:30, when he actually called, I can’t get the electric put in my name until Wednesday now.  Had I been able to do it last night, I might have been able to have it on Tuesday.  But that is OK, Wednesday is fine.  I doubt they’ll let me stay there overnight Tuesday night though if electric isn’t in my name.

I have already put in a change of address as well and changed my address with the University.  I am very excited and hope it is a good thing.  Putting down the deposit was such a rushed thing that I still need a few questions answered like - do they pay water/sewer or do I; where are the mailboxes; where is the laundry room; etc.

I am sure I will find out a lot more tomorrow - including what kind of a deposit I have to put down for electric service, etc.  Still, it is nice to know that I will soon have my own space and can finally unpack.

I still won’t have cable till next month so that is kind of a bummer with the new season of Closer starting tonight but oh well.  Can’t have everything.  Guess I can buy those dishes by the end of the week…or the first of the month anyway. 

It will be so good to get Baxter and I back into a routine.  I miss sleeping with the little bugger but couldn’t sleep during the day with him in there because he likes to bark when he hears Kato bark.  He will have to be broken of that barking habit - he rarely ever barked at all in Florida.  I sure do love the little guy.

Night

My sister tells me I don’t write enough posts so I’m writing several this weekend.  Also, I have the writing bug but don’t have access to my stories to write on so guess I have to satisfy the urge to write by doing posts.

The races are going on at the race track tonight as they do every Saturday night this time of year.  Sound really carries so it sounds like they are in the backyard even though they are probably a mile away.  I’ve never cared for the races or even the demolition derby that they have during the fair.  Speaking of the fair, it starts in a couple of weeks.  I won’t be going - have never cared for fairs either.  My sister’s family buys season tickets so they can go every day and to any event the fair has such as concerts.

I read on the internet that Jeff Goldblum is taking Chris Noth’s part in Criminal Intent.  I am happy about that as I really didn’t like Chris that well anyway.  Hopefully Jeff will bring some levity to the show - hope his character goes well with whatever female they have on the show then.  Eams and Goran work quite well together so we need that seamless quality with whoever does the other shows as well.  I don’t know why they split Criminal Intent into two different teams - I’ve always thought Goran and Eams carried the show very well but I guess the new team gives the others more of a break.

I know, how did I jump from the fair to Criminal Intent? LOL  Well, I’m watching Criminal Intent right now and saw Chris Noth so it triggered my memory about Jeff Goldblum. 

Hate to admit it but I’m tired.  It is only 9:20 pm and makes me wonder how I’m going to switch back over to working nights this week.  Damn, I’m so sick of them screwing with my schedule.  Course, in August I work five day shifts and the rest are nights.  I only did that because I need the money to work on the condo - it is going to be hell getting through it though.

Can’t decide if I want to go to bed now or try to make it later.  Usually my brother-in-law is anxious to go to bed by now but tonight he is out working in the garage.  Once he gets done out there he will want to shower and stuff so I could potentially stay up till about 11pm.  The question is, can I keep my eyes open that long? I took two Tylenol PM’s about twenty minutes ago so those should be kicking in soon on top of already being tired.

Well, anyway, guess I’ll at least close down the computer for the night since it is getting warm on my lap and I hear the garage door shutting which signals that he is about done out there.  Guess he is going to work in the bathroom now - he is putting up a new curtain rod or something.

End of the Day

Well, this day went very fast - I just can’t believe it. How could it go like the wind? I swear it is just amazing.

I visited my puppy again today - he is so adorable! I’ve been trying to think up a good name for him but have been struggling with it.  I was thinking “Jonesy” after the cat in Alein but damn, what kind of a complex would that give him if he knew he was named after a cat?

I’m also thinking of calling him “Norman”…don’t ask me why but it came to me and I kind of like it.  Course, I also thought of “yuri”, “chester”, “charlie” and “brenner”.  So hard to come up with a name when he doesn’t fit any of the other names I had previously picked out for a dog - like “jules”.  I don’t know - guess the answer will come to me eventually.

I am in the mood to write but don’t have my stuff available to me to write on.  My stories are in my computer which sits in my car - sure hope it works alright when I do go to set it up.  Of course, I won’t have anything to set it on once I move to my own place anyway.  I’m going to go around curbside shopping after I get moved because people are always throwing stuff out to their curbs. I’ll also check the second hand shops.

Well, everyone came in from outside so I guess I will work at visiting some now.  The movie I was waiting to watch is coming on now but it is too gorry for the kids so I’ll have to catch it some other time.  Oh well, no big deal - I wouldn’t get to see it all anyway.  Probably give me nightmares since it is about werewolves.

Snakes

I am watching the History channel’s “monsterquest” episode of huge pythons that have become a nuisance in Florida by the Everglades.  They believe the snakes were pets that someone released into the wild.  Snakes can have a lot of babies each year so the population is growing too quickly.  Some of the snakes are moving into residential areas that back up to the Everglades which is a hazard to domestic pets and small children.

A 15 foot snake can open it’s mouth 2 feet wide which is about the width of an adult male.  They are concerned, therefore, that the snakes in the Everglades could easily swallow an average person whole.  Some of the snakes are growing in excess of 25 feet - they fear some may grow as large as 40 feet which means they could be more then a formidable force to mere humans.

A firefighter in Florida who found a nine foot snake tried to catch it by coming up behind it to grab it around its head.  Well, he misjudged the distance and got the snake too far back behind it’s head.  The snake came around and bit him in the wrist.  Helpers managed, eventually, to pull the snake’s head back enough to release the man but not before it punctured his wrist in several places.  Snakes have teeth that slant back so that the more their prey struggles, the more it gets stuck in the teeth - sounds gruesome to me.

Pythons, according to the show, have a very nasty disposition.  They catch a 6 footer crossing the street going into someones yard so it is obviously a possibility that even larger snakes could be coming out of the Everglades.  My question is why would they come out when the Everglades is so ripe with food sources? According to the show, and this makes me shiver, neighborhoods offer more docile prey - they don’t have to work as hard to catch our dogs, cats and kids as they do an alligator. 

It did show a snake that swallowed an alligator whole but then burst open.  They believe it burst open not because the alligator was too big but more that the gator probably clawed the snake’s insides as it went down.  Gross, huh? 

Even though I find this all very interesting, you could not pay me to be a snake expert.  Working with them would be terrifying and not a way I’d want to spend my life.  I admire people who can take on this kind of stuff to study and catch.  They just found another one - 12 ft long - in a neighborhood by the Everglades.  I don’t think I’m going to go to the Glades anytime soon.  Actually, they said that so many people are letting loose their pet snakes when they get too big for their aquariums that pythons and other poisonous snakes are being found in all the lower, hotter states.  Sounds like a good reason to move to the mountains. 

Almost FRIDAY!

It is almost Friday, I have to tell you…I didn’t think I’d make it through this week but here I am.  It actually wasn’t that bad and I have to take back a lot of the complaints I had about the trainer I didn’t want to work with.  I can appreciate, after watching her the past two weeks, just how difficult her job is and how well she does it.  She took me out for a margarita tonight after work which was nice.  She wanted to say “thanks” for all my help this week.

My vacation starts Saturday and I grieve not being able to go to Wyoming.  I was so looking forward to it but when it was decided not to go, I figured it was for the best.  Now that the time is here, I so wish we were going.  It would have fulfilled a lifelong dream of mine to stay out in the wilderness with minimal amenities of the civilized world.  It was to be a test of my character and endurance.  {Sigh}.  Granted, I can’t afford to go so it is good that we aren’t but it just seems like one more failed dream, you know?

We seem to make plans a lot but little grows to fruition.  It gets a bit sad that we can’t pull it together enough to make some of our dreams come true.  But, of course, when times get tough then vacations are the first thing to be sacrificed on the alter of financial wellness.  Now I have no plans for a vacation in the coming months or years.  Sure we said we’d go next year but why should I believe we can get it together enough to do so when we couldn’t this year? It is disheartening.

Tonight we watched the last hour of “Legends of the Fall”.  Yes, most of you automatically think of the hunky Brad Pitt but I actually saw the movie for Aidan Quinn whom I think is quite good looking.  I like the characters he plays - usually men of dignified repose.  Brad was a sight for sore eyes but really, the story is so tragic.  I do like the ending when the old indian says that Tristan was the rock everyone else broke themselves upon.  It had little to do with his life but more with what people expected or wanted from him.  However, I liked Aidan Quinn’s line about how he did everything right - followed the laws of man and God - yet everyone loved Tristan more.  It shows, of course, how people always go for the rebel.  Don’t know if women think they can tame him or if others just find a rebel more daring then they have the courage to be, but it still seems true today - everyone loves the bad boy more.

No Country for Old Men

I saw this movie for the first time tonight.  I wanted to see it in the theater but just couldn’t coordinate a time to go with my work schedule.

This movie disturbed my sister more then it did me but I suppose I’m somewhat numb as to what people are capable of doing to each other.  The killer in it has no remorse, no conscience, no wavering in attacking and getting his prey.  He kills without mercy and always carries out his promises to kill someone even if the reason for killing them no longer exists.  It is rather sad to think such a person exists but I know that they do.  Killers don’t always kill for passion or out of anger - sometimes it is just something they want to do for whatever reason.

Tommy Lee Jones is in it and I have to say, I still think he is sexy as hell.  In it he comments that America is slowly breaking down - that there is no longer the structure and respect that existed back in the “old” days.  There is much wisdom in the movie and, like my sister remarked, it shows what one bad choice can lead to.  Had the man just reported what he had come across, there would have been no need to kill all the people who ended up dying.  But he saw what he thought was an opportunity to get rich quick and that no one would know.  It was the wrong choice.

Choices…each day we make easily a dozen choices - a lot of them without thinking about the possible consequences.  I know I’ve said this before - that people make some really stupid choices such as “I bet I can beat that train across the railroad tracks” without considering the possibility that if they can’t then that train will kill them.  It reminds me of the kid who was dared to jump across from one bridge to the next (8 feet).  The bridges were over a roller dam of death - I can’t remember anyone ever going over it and living.  Of course he didn’t consider what would happen if he didn’t make it to the other bridge…leaving his parents to plan his funeral.

But even other choices that aren’t quite as dire, still have long-term effects on our lives.  What we say and do today is what shapes our years to come.  Be safe people, make good choices, and remember, its a jungle out there.

Puppies

So Penny had her puppies yesterday.  She ended up with five - four boys and one female.  Of course, the fight is on for the one female that also happens to be the runt of the litter.  The males are all huge while this little female is half their size.  My son plans on keeping one and while I try to insist that, as the owner of the father who sired the puppies I get first choice, he isn’t buying into that.  I want the brown male but that, of course, is the one my son likes as well. 

There is one male who is the largest of them all - so large he got stuck being born and had to have my son pull him out into the bright new world.  He may be the one I end up taking…if I get to take any of them.  Right now I’m not sure because I don’t have a place of my own yet but I should by the first of July and wherever that is, it has to allow me to have two dogs.  I’m excited about getting a puppy. 

There is one male puppy that is totally white, one with white & brown spots, one totally brown, and one black and white one.  The female puppy is mostly black with a little bit of white around her throat.

Well, it is beautifully warm outside so I should get out there and do something.  Was suppose to do something with my sister Cyndi but she never returned my phone message so she must have gotten busy doing something else.  Tomorrow I move to my sister Marge’s house for the month of June.

Of course, as I wrote the above paragraph, my sister called me.  :-)  Maybe I’m a bit telepathic.  She hadn’t received the message I left this morning on her cell phone which is why she hadn’t called earlier.  So we are going to eat and going to the movie later.  That will work out well because my son Wayne is going out with his girlfriend tonight and I won’t have to sit home alone the whole time.

I was kind of hoping my check would be in the bank today but apparently they aren’t going to have it in until Monday or Tuesday.  Bummer.  I have one more week of 3-11pm then move to 11pm-7am for two weeks.  Then I’m on day shift for a week before going on vacation.  As our vacation has been cancelled, I will be moving into my own place that week plus going to visit my sister in LaMars, Iowa.

My younger sister, Wanda, is moving to CO in June or early July.  Isn’t that the way of it? I move back from Florida and suddenly everyone else is moving away.  LOL.  Once she gets settled then I will try to make plans to go out there to visit her - maybe before Christmas.  It would be a fast trip and not even sure work would give me more time off till Spring but would see.  Might have to go down south to get my condo sold so everything is pretty much up in the air right now.

Well, my sister and I are going to eat at Panera and then go to “Prince Caspian”.  I didn’t see the first one except for excerpts at work in Florida but it will be nice to get out to do something.  I haven’t done much of anything since being back in Iowa - mostly due to my depression but that is a whole other story. 

 

Still Raining

Wow, it is still raining and suppose to continue through tomorrow…possibly Sunday.  I’m not complaining, mind you, because I love the rain but it does kill my 2 mile walk today.  Took Baxter out for a short walk, we both came back soaked.  He had to go in his kennel then because otherwise he’d jump around getting the furniture wet.  

I have a movie “Primevil” on - it was filmed partly in Africa.  I would so love to visit there someday.  I love the vast ruggedness of it.  Maybe one of these days I can afford to go on a Tauck Tour of Africa.  The problem is, other then money of course, that they have several tours to different regions and I can’t pick which one I’d want to go on.  I want to see the big five but also want to see the congo.  Ah, well, maybe someday.  Yes, the movie is cheesy but I love cheesy movies.  I love movies on crocodiles and sharks…don’t ask me why.

I’m reading this book as well - “The Killing Night” by Jonathon King.  It, obviously, is not holding my interest that much because I’ve been reading on it for two days now.  Almost want to just read the ending at this point as I’m not even halfway through it yet.

Man, I’m ready for the weekend! This week seems to be going so slow to me.