Midnight Drama

Well, having only one girl, she's a marvel to me. It's amazing how much we think alike, yet don't. I enjoy her company a lot.

I don't know much about pre-teen girls..but I am surely learning fast.

Good lord do these girls have a phone tree, internet tree, too...going ON. My goodness. Girls and communication is VERY important. My daughter has pages on all the social networks, made her own dang email addy, and the whole nine yards.

For a run of 3 days we had a phone tree going ...from North freaking Dakota to North Carolina to Georgia...all hysterical, crying and carrying on....

I walked out into the garage one night and there is my daughter just howling and hanging on to her daddy like there was no tomorrow. He's standing there, patting her shoulder, being sympathetic, but when I walked out the door, he looked immensely relieved. (heh! heh!)

She immediately flung herself at me and then we got to hear the ..problem.

And whatever are you going to say when you hear news like she imparted? Apparently one of her little friends moved to North Dakota....and apparently, her other friend is gone for the summer to North Carolina. So, the North Dakota friend...had a stepbrother...who got kicked out of his house by their stepmother. On his way walking to his uncle's house, he was killed by a drunk driver. Oh lordy, that's pretty damn tragic, but there isn't a damn thing any of us can do about something happening in North Dakota. Now the girl in North Carolina reports to my daughter that she's being hit and whatnot by HER stepmother...and also that several people (yes, it's getting farfetched at this point) killed themselves as a result of the kid in North Dakota being killed. My daughter is freaked out thinking the girl in North Carolina is going to hurt HERself....so...ugh...

So, here I am....talking to the girl in North Carolina....and my daughter was happy.

We had a long talk about doing what you can for people you love when they hurt and how taking their hurt upon yourself doesn't solve their problems, but mailing them a card sure does make them feel better.

Whew. I mean it's NICE that your kids think you can just make everything all better...it sucks when you can't...mostly for you, because she sure thinks I can, still. Don't ask me why. I'll take it though, for now. She's gonna be a big girl real soon, and I'm kinda glad she knows she can come to us for stuff and I hope she always knows that.

HOT!!!

It's hotter than hell and my air is broke. Yippee. I'm not jumping on a replacement just yet because the whole system has to be redesigned. Ugh, eh?

Whatever. I'm thanking the sweet lord for the whole house fan and the many overhead fans in existance throughout the house.

I just changed my schedule a little bit, as well. Hell, I don't know many women my age that don't do their housecleaning at night. It's cooler then, everybody is quiet even if they are awake. The endless bickering is done for the day and everybody is fairly happy to choose a movie and just be nice.

I swear at least once a day, someone runs upstairs screaming..."LEAVE ME ALONE"...and slamming the door. Hell, occasionally it's even me or the senior chief...heh heh!

Usually, he's just chasing me up the stairs...(grin)....and neither of us want to be left alone, particularly. (Ahhh, young love....)

Gallons and gallons of Kool-aid, (cherry is EVERYBODY's favorite) have been consumed along with copious amounts of iced tea. Copious amounts of beer too, especially during the nighttime cleaning frenzies, which nobody is complaining about. Gotta find a time to quit though..before 3am. That will take it's toll upon a body after awhile.

Impromptu water balloon fights break out along with the water balls that get soaked in icy water and flung at someone ..anyone.. at random.

Fires around the fire pit/outdoor cooking area are a daily occurance. Horseshoes have been thrown far and wide, birds have been shot at...and cards played upon makeshift tables outside in the shade.

In the evening it is at least 20 degrees cooler in the outdoor cooking area. It is definitely a "hot spot", being such a "cool spot"! I know, how can it be hot and cool at the same time? The miracles of the English language, that's how!

I think these are the lazy days of summer, just a couple of months early. We are going to move our lazy selves on out to Texas to visit with the family ...and catch the Army boy before he relocates to another state. I'm looking forward to a chance to see Colorado.

Ya know...I love summertime!

Staying Out Of It...

Sometimes the biggest challenge to a parent is navigating the fights our children have. We want all of our offspring to get along, really.

Well, the biggest challenge is learning when to stay the hell out of it and when not to. I'm cracking a beer right now...waiting. Sometimes it's fun to watch them argue...

We got a fight gonna happen in a bit and I've got MY cold beer and I'm gonna watch and laugh a little.

See, there's a few things in life ..well, when you live with people...that are just uncool. Taking someone's LAST cigarette, or beer...is definitely on that list. You just don't do that.

So, I have two over 21 that live here. One of them drinks very rarely and only two beers at a time when he does. The other day, he bought two 6 packs of beer...one for sharing and the other...not so much.

Along came his brother who not only drank HIS beers, he drank our beers (mine and the senior chief's too) but he ALSO drank his brother's beers. The taboo beers. He didn't just have one of them...he had ALL of them. Oh hell no is what the one is thinking and if I gotta pick sides, then well, I gotta pick the guy's side who bought all that beer and got one beer out of 12. Sorry, that's just wrong.

So, when he gets home from work, he's gonna bitch about it. And, I'm gonna let him.

I almost made it right because I didn't want to hear the bitching, but I ain't paying for all the beers around here. I am not bailing someone out who knew he couldn't afford his own beers, so therefore took advantage of his brother, and THEN when he got 2 bucks, did NOT go to the store and replace those beers. He bought some for himself.....disappointment doesn't even begin to express how I feel about it all.

So, the entertainment for the evening is set...but I'm staying the hell out of this one.

Sittin' On The Bench

So, the senior chief and I were sitting at the workbench the other day, as per normal when he turns to me and says, "Damn, babe, you sure can piss people off."

Ooookay.

True.

It's a gift, I know. Then he's on about how he does not understand it. I'm basically a sweet person and I assuredly don't go looking for trouble. It finds me though.

Then I got to thinking. It's not that I piss people off so much. It's more like they piss me off first. And, I fight to win. Hey, it's just one of those things, I suppose.

Did I mention I very nearly burned my kitchen down the other day? Yep. Cooking bacon. Well, more like putting bacon in the pan and walking out to smoke a cigarette. Thank God for the little dude. He's like..."Hey, there's a fire." And sure as shit, there was.

Yeah, I'm gonna get shit for that for a long time. One of the local kids is now a fireman...man, that guy used to have the most GORGEOUS hair. All gone now. It took him a while to find his ...place... but a fireman he chose to be and I'm ever so proud of him. It's nice to know we have a fireman for a neighbor.

I wish I could say that was my first kitchen fire, but it wasn't. I guess when you cook as much as I do, there's bound to be an accident every now and then.

Got a nice big burn in my floor now. I was going to replace the linoleum anyway, but now I guess I'm in more of a hurry.

And honey, I don't care how big or little a fire is...fighting it is a very accurate term. And yes, I do have a fire extinguisher. It came in handy.

All's well that ends well, I suppose, and every day I don't piss someone off utterly is a good day, too.

Days Gone By

I don't know what made me remember it but I was sitting here thinking about summers not so long ago.

I remember when the big decisions of the day happened over breakfast. The four boys sitting together at the table, laying out their plans for the day. The big decisions occured around that breakfast table.

Decisions like..."What should we play today..big cars, little cars, or medium cars?" I am not certain of what rules went with what car, but all of it involved some form of demolition derby at the end. Little cars were used most frequently for recreating their favorite races with their favorite drivers. We burned a lot of film back in the day for this experiment. I have rolls and rolls of film that is not developed. I'm sure when I get around to it, I'll take a nice walk down memory lane.

Other big decisions included when to go swimming, when to go fishing..when to build stuff in the back yard...busy, busy, busy, they were.

Some form of on the floor play was always in the picture. Sometimes it was army men. Sometimes it was the micromachines. Oh lord do I remember putting the stickers on those micromachines toys. There were a lot of stickers and they were TINY...

Then, they had the soft guns and they used to stalk stuff in the woods and have wars and whatnot.

PINECONE WARS! Pinecone wars were fun for them. Not so fun for me, but for them..those were the BEST! Whoever ran home crying to me was the loser for sure. You see, I wasn't exactly sympathetic when they came home crying after throwing stuff at each other that HURTS. And they all partook and there was no stopping them..doing it...they didn't seriously injure themselves ever, but the drama of it all was something else to behold.

Listen, boys are every bit as dramatic as the girls..they just usually have blood to back it up.

Ha! Those were some good times. These are some good times, too, but those are far enough away that I can start laughing about it now.

So GM is Bankrupt....

Big Whoop. It won't matter. See the picture. I own one of those. We've had many many discussions on this blog about how much I love my cars.

Here's the deal though. You didn't see me running out and buying a brand new one, did ya? Why do you think THAT might be?

The reason is the price tag. GM products and ALL new cars have been WAAAY overpriced for a long time.

We don't need GM anymore. There are enough chassis out there that are in sound enough shape that you could build your own car ...from the ground up... and have a better, more gas efficient, more reliable car than anything GM has been putting out in more recent years. At a fraction of the cost.

Hell, a crate engine is only $1500 -$2500. Again for the transmission. A brand new Camaro, the one I would pick is around $43,000. You could have a brand new older Camaro for around $20,000 if you paid someone to put it together for you.

Think about that. For half the money you could have something twice as good. Except for airbags. But does anyone really believe in airbags anyway?

Seriously. It means nothing to me and to a lot of people that GM is in trouble.

We've talked about money and how if one market closes...another will open. Well, so it shall again. Mechanics are going to be making a killing. That and parts dealers.

You can get aftermarket parts for any of these cars and you can get better than what comes stock. Parts that will last longer and perform better.

There hasn't really been a huge need for new cars for a very long time.

I got mine for less than 5 grand, and all of them run like champs. The same goes with any other car that GM puts out there.

Hell, if you want a brand new 69 Camaro, you can get the whole damn thing..body parts and all for less than a brand new concept.

I'm using Camaro as an example, but you can do it with anything you want that is a GM product.

Wasn't a big surprise to me that they are bankrupt and it doesn't even make me hitch in my breath or even take two seconds to worry about it, honestly.

So GM is bankrupt. Big damn deal.