How time flies....but I'm not sure about the fun.

SURELY is hasn't really been two years since I've been here.  Been a pretty busy couple of years though. 

Have been to California, Utah, North Caroline, Canada, and Alaska in that time, but it STILL doesn't feel like two years. 

Oh, yeah.  Have had three grandchildren born in that period (one singlet and one set of twins).  Oh, oh, oh!  And a large portion of my house has been remodeled courtesy of a water leak (while I was out of town taking care of those twins). 

Did I mention the new job?  (Not that they let me give up the old one--they just added another job and a half on top of the old one.)  (Which could explain why the past year has gone by in such a blur.) 

Anyway, I'm working 12-hour night shifts as Balance of Plant supervisor right now for another refueling outage at the old nuclear plant, and duty calls.  Hopefully, I won't be such a stranger for the next two years!!

Okay--guess what I got to do yesterday?  I went to training to be a controller for a Force-on-Force drill for our site security team.  They'll use real weapons that have been modified and made into (basically) laser tag weapons.  They have "laser" grenades, too.  The terrorists (specially trained guys) will try to "take the plant" while the security guys will defend against them.

This is gonna be so cool! 

Hey!  Long time, no see!

Since I am stuck at home today waiting for the plumbers to finish fixing my house, I find myself sitting at my desk with time on my hands.  (wow!)

How sad is my life right now?  Let's just say that the most personal thing I got in the mail yesterday was a note from e-bay wishing me a happy 3-year anniversary.  Now doesn't THAT make me feel special?  Am I pathetic, or what?  [Oh, MY!  Have I spent that much money in only THREE YEARS?!!    ]

Okay--so Monday I waited for the plumber to show up.  He finally showed up at about 3:30 for the 8 to 12 appointment.  I was not amused.    He checked things out, decided what was wrong, then he said he didn't have the stuff he needed so would have to come back the next day.  (can you tell I'm getting even LESS amused here?)  Meanwhile, the support guy has shown up with the gale-force-wind fans and the dehumidifier and set them up to start the drying out of the carpet, paneling, and molding.  The plumber tells me he has another appointment first thing the next morning, so would probably be by sometime after 10.  I strongly encouraged him to remember that I was the MONDAY MORNING appointment, so it would be nice if he would start with me.  He said the guy was scheduled and they couldn't help how things worked out.  I agreed, and said, "Yes, surely the other guy will understand that."  He actually showed up first thing Tuesday morning.  (Hah!  Nice to know I haven't lost my touch!)

So, Tuesday morning, the guy finishes up early afternoon.  I head out to my car, and notice that my driver's side front tire has not one, but TWO, humongous bulges in it.  So instead of running my planned errands, I tootle off to the tire dealership.  They no longer make my tire, so the guy spends twenty minutes calling around trying to find someone who still has one.  Nope.  Then he spends another 20 minutes calling around trying to find someone who has the next closest thing.  Finds three not-too-far-away ones.  We're discussing whether he should just throw a used tire on my car or use my spare to get me to the other place, when the manager comes by and says to get the closest thing they have in stock and they will just eat the additional cost.  (yeah!!)  So they get the new tire put on in 20 minutes (which makes me very happy, cuz the other places all told him it would be an hour and a half if I got there NOW).  Since I bought the tires in 2004, and they are replacing this one for free (since I bought the road hazard warranty), I happily fork over my 22 bucks for a road hazard warranty on this one.  Brand new tire to replace a two-year old one for $22.  I'm happy with that.  (especially given that the tire's list price is about $175)

So I head off to get something to eat, then go visit my friend, Mady, who is in the hospital following back surgery.  Since I'm so pitiful that I have to rely on mail from e-bay for that personal touch, I celebrate my friendship with Mady by stopping at Boston Market and loading up on brownies and chocolate chip cookies.  Not wanting her to feel like she has to eat alone, I help her eat them.    She mentions that she has quite a few dirty clothes, (i.e., if somebody doesn't wash something, she'll have to wander around the rehab hospital wrapped in a sheet the next day).  It's still pretty early by then, so I tell her I can take them home, wash and dry them, and have them back by the end of the day.  (I'm SUCH an optimist!) 

In the course of washing her clothes, I discover that the plumbing problems have NOT been fixed.  (This is made obvious by the washing machine water collecting on the floor inside the wall where they have removed a/c grating to speed the drying process.)  So I call the plumber, call the homebuyer warranty people while juggling things between the washer and dryer and mopping up water with gale force winds trying to blow me and the towels away.  The guy at the plumber's office can't promise me when they can come, since he is only the on-call guy, and is just there taking messages unless there is a real emergency.  I agree that this isn't an emergency, since I've mopped up all the new water and am savvy enough not to run the washing machine again, now that I've finished what I've promised to do.  I do STRONGLY SUGGEST that it would be a good idea for them to show up first thing, since I am the MONDAY MORNING appointment, and this will be the THIRD DAY of work I have missed.  He says he'll see what he can do.

[NOTE:  If you ever have to dry carpets out following a leak, the handle on the dehumidifier machine is a really convenient place to drape unmentionables that you don't want to throw in the dryer, AND it dries them really, really FAST!  They dried before the clothes in the dryer did, so I was able to take all the clothes back!]

Finally got back to the rehab hospital with clean clothes for Mady a little after 9. 

This morning I get a call at about 8:15 telling me the guy will show up between 8 and 12.  (I'm thinking, "oh, right, I've been through THIS before!.")  He actually shows up at about 9:15.  He looks things over again, decides he's going to have to install a drain access in the wall of the garage (on the back side of the kitchen sink), but that since he's had to come back, he's gonna give me a really reasonable rate, and deduct the service fee from the Homeowners Warranty.  (Sounds like a good deal to me, since I'm quite sure the work he did the day before needed to be done.  The inspector mentioned something about that before I bought the house, so I wasn't surprised when he told me what he recommended.  Unfortunately, it didn't completely solve the problem.)  So I'm a pretty happy camper.  Even happier when we moved the stuff away from the garage wall and discovered there was already an access port, and therefore, everything was covered under homeowners warranty. 

Hopefully tomorrow evening, the fellow will come and determine that my carpet and walls are dry enough to take away the hurricane force dry air moving equipment and I can move the piano, curio cabinet, coffee table and sofas back where they belong and get my house back to normal.   He says he thinks he can spot clean the carpet and get the stains out.  [For free.  Yeah, right.  After charging a small fortune renting equipment designed to turn my living room into a desert storm, and he can sit there with a straight face and use the word "free?"  The nerve of some people!]

Last weekend, I went fishing and caught a catfish and a black bass (and two other little tiny thing that weren't much bigger than the lure I used).  This coming weekend, I have a friend coming into town.  So I guess it's okay to have a less-than-stellar week sandwiched in between.  And at least I don't have any more leaks (for now!)

Hope everybody had a good hump day, and that the rest of the week just keeps getting better.  (I have a feeling MINE will!   )

Mel

Well, thank you all for your support.  It's nice to know that when you behave yourself (most of the time, anyway--LOL!!) that your friends will stand by you when strangers make up fantasy tales about things you are supposedly doing.

Renews my faith in the xanga world, a bit.  I had heard so much weirdness about xanga and read quite a few hateful and lewd comments on some of the sites that I had begun to wonder why I wanted to hang out here.  (not to mention that lately I just can't seem to find the time....) 

I've also had the pleasure of experiencing a bit of "weirdness" (to put it mildly) through my daughter's having to deal with some looney tunes psycho that is stalking her and generally being an intentional annoyance (although she falls quite short of being as devastating as she'd like to be--LOL.)   I have struggled with just finding the time lately to sit down and even post on my own site, much less try and visit all of your sites that I enjoy so much.  Where do some people find the time to devote to the "stalking" and harrassing of someone who doesn't even care that they exist?    I don't know about the rest of you, but I find that LIFE interferes with my trying to spend THAT much time on xanga.  When I found the time to read all of the delightful sites I enjoyed visiting and maybe even time to post comments on some of them, I certainly didn't have enough available time left over to devote to spreading hate and discontent.  If the wannabe tormentor expended as much energy on productive things, she could have been a multi-millionaire by now.  Gotta wonder about folks like that.

Anyway, thanks for the vote of confidence.  I assure you, it is well founded.  And once again for the record (and those who don't know me well), I have never harrassed nor stalked or otherwise tried to torment, annoy, irritate, tick off......anybody on xanga, whether I know them or not (nor do I ever intend to).  Life is just too short, and I suspect I get a lot more pleasure out of trying to lift people up.  (And besides, God likes it better when I'm nice.)

I've been told that someone out there is accusing me of harassing them.  For those of you who may be aware of it and know who I am, I just want to say that I have never harassed anyone, nor do I intend to in the future. 

This note is not for the people who know me well.  Those people already KNOW that such an accusation about me is untrue.   This is for the people who may not know me except through xanga, and might wonder if the accusation is true.  [Although, most of the folks who've known me through xanga very long should already have a pretty good idea that I'm not the type of person who would do that.]

And for the person that is accusing me of such things, I have no EARTHLY idea what would possess you to think such a thing about me, much less tell other people something like that.  Shame on you.