Pressure

Two weeks and $1,325 to fix my car. OUCHHHH.

But.. it could be worse. The engine could have fallen out onto a homeless street person who would then sue me for everything I don't have, and keep me wrapped up in senseless litigation for 8 years and all my friends would be embarrassed by me and refuse to speak to me because my engine fell out on a homeless person and the homeless person would be then seek punitive damages because I was being stubbornly litigious, and I would be alone forever because I would be shunned by all who knew me and then Jake and I would be forced to live in a cave because the homeless person will have won my ugly sofa. Unless they take Jake away from me too. But maybe they would let me keep my Complete Works of William Shakespeare because they would just be bored by it. And maybe my favorite pair of jeans (they wouldn't want them anyway because of that weird stain on the left thigh).... and the tablecloth my mama gave me. You might see me walking down the street in my jeans, carrying my Complete Works of William Shakespeare and my blue and yellow tablecloth that was a gift from my mama.

Or something like that.

Quote of the Week

Well behaved women rarely make history.

bumper sticker on a Savannah mini van

A Tragic Story

Immigration: The Human Cost


Being forced to live year round in their summer home. I can't imagine the embarrassment.

FFF&M

Odd dreams last night. They were full of floods, fish, funerals, and oddly enough, midgets (shaddup Odat). My mind is a disturbing place to live sometimes.

Flood: To see a raging flood with its muddy debris, represents emotional issues and tension. Your repressed emotions are overwhelming you. Consider where the flood for indications of where in your waking life may a situation be the source of stress and tension.

Fish: To see fish swimming in your dream, signifies insights from your unconscious mind.

Funeral: To dream that you are at somebody else's funeral, signifies that you are burying an old relationship and closing the lid on the past. You may be letting go some of the feelings (resentment, anger, hostility toward someone) that you've been clinging onto.

Midget: To see a midget in your dream, suggests that you are feeling small and insignificant. Do you feel helpless in some situation or have a deflated sense of self-worth?

That settles it then. I'm just fucked up. But most of us already knew that so the world is as it should be.

;-)

Awwwwww

My pal Sassan has introduced us to his new little girl Megan. He has pictures!

I have never seen a newborn with such hair. She's gorgeous. :-)

Congratulations Sassan and family.

Movie Time

I watched Snakes on a Plane. I really had no intention of doing so, but I was told by a reliable source that its good for a laugh.

The reliable source was right.

The movie is as cheesy as it gets. Anyone who knows me knows that I love cheesy movies, and this one made the list. It has every cliche there is. The two having sex are the first to die. The girl, being topless, has her.. ummm.. unmentionable part (okay nipple) clamped down on by a poisonous snake. It was pretty funny. Another guy who can't stop looking at himself in a mirror gets it in another unmentionable way.

What I thought was funny is the snakes liked going down people's throats and the people would just sit there and let it happen. Weird really.

If you are up for a laugh, go for it. Don't expect it to be good for anything more than comedy relief. It rates up there with Buttcrack in the cheese ratings.

Ouch. Sunburnt.

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Pink Moon
Nick Drake

What a Long Strange Week

Mood Music
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Ly-O-Lay Ale Loya by Sacred Spirit

My visitor (my mama) has come and gone, and I am, once again, free to wander through my house in my underwear.

The week started out on a wrong note. I was driving back from Atlanta, and had made it all the way to Savannah and was exiting the interstate, when my car lost all power. It just stopped. I coasted to the side of the road and, thankfully, had had the forethought to purchase roadside assistance on my car insurance, which, I have to say, I would recommend to everyone. They made the whole thing almost painless. Anyway, it turns out that the timing belt had snapped in my engine. Yes, I know I am going to hear a collective sympathetic moan from the boys. Unbeknownst to me at the time (I'm a girl, girls aren't supposed to know this stuff), when a timing belt snaps it usually causes loads of other damage inside the engine. My car was no different. It is still at the garage. At the last calculation I was told it was $1,000 worth of repairs done. It is also at times like this that we find out who are true friends are. My office partner has insisted that I use her car instead of wasting my money on renting one. I can think of no way to repay her generosity and kindness.... maybe you guys can give me some ideas.

< sarcasm >
Along the same topic, I would like to thank the Savannah-Chatham Police Department, who, in their quest to rid the world of anyone going more than 5 mph over the speed limit, left me and my mom sitting on the side of the interstate with our emergency lights flashing. I felt safer the entire time, knowing of their commitment to their duty.
< /sarcasm >

On to the next incident. I was asleep on my sofa on Thursday night when I heard an odd scraping noise. I opened my eyes and turned on the light, but could see nothing. I assumed at the time that it was my dog getting up from the fireplace hearth, where he frequently sleeps, and I went back to sleep. The next morning I woke up to find that his chew bone had been dragged into the kitchen by something that did not belong here. It (or they) were enthusiastically gnawing on it - I could hear them before I even got up. I got up from the sofa, walked into the kitchen, and there was the bone, but no sign of whatever had dragged it and gnawed on it. I set the mouse trap, it didn't catch anything. I put out poison and whatever it was did have a nibble on that, but I am suspecting that the mutant alien rodent probably thrives on poisons. Anything large enough to shove a very large meaty bone into the kitchen isn't going to be bothered much by a few granules of tasty rodent poison.

Next.

My best friend, the WRS, his mother passed away Wednesday night. She had been a sick lady, but not THAT sick. They had checked her into hospice so that his father could get a rest, and hospice had apparently given her too much morphine. It is very sad and I hate not being able to be there.

Now for today, the temperature is supposed to be in the 80s, so you know where I am going.



Yeah.. there.

Since this was basically a pointless exercise in futility, I think I will add one more pointless thing. A list of 10 singers and/or bands that I don't listen to anymore:

1. Norah Jones
2. Peaches & Herb
3. Billy Joel
4. Guns n Roses
5. Donna Summer
6. The Bee Gees
7. MC Hammer
8. uhhh - Perry Como
9. ummmmmmmmmmmmmm.......
10. I'll think of the last two later........

Stages of Death

Sorry

Sorry for the non existent posting, but I have a visitor staying here. Posting will resume its previous schedule (i.e., whenever I feel like posting), when the visitor has left.

Until then....... The lasting impression of ancient Roman plumbers - did their ass cracks show too? Discuss.

Bunny

Black Hole

This is an odd song, but it has sucked me right in. I love it.

Beck - Blackhole

Windy
Windy
looking for a better home
gotta be
gotta be
running out of lightbulbs
crowded
crowded
open to a wastecan
yellow car
yellow car
better be inside there
wake up
wake up
nothing's gonna harm you
glass wall
glass wall
standing on the furniture
little boy
little boy
laying on a sleeping bag
watching
watching
through the cracks of his eyelids
stranger
stranger
feeling like a broken stone
lost him
lost him
standing on the orange chairs
alphabet
alphabet
can't afford a telephone
black hole
black hole
nothing's gonna harm you

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It takes a minute to load, be patient.

Oh My

Welcome to Savannah.

Newfie News

Some of you may remember that I posted about my Newfie family. After reading this article, I am filled with Newfie pride. HAHAHAHAAAA

Gawd almighty.. the nerve of him, banning drunken firefighters.

N.L. mayor's fire hall booze ban met with protest

By TARA BRAUTIGAM

POINT LEAMINGTON, N.L. (CP) — A small-town spat that began when the mayor of a rural Newfoundland community barred firefighters from drinking on the job has erupted into fierce protests from locals demanding his resignation.

Nearly a year after putting an end to the decades-old practice, Mayor Robert Elliott has become persona non grata in this picturesque community of 600.

“Not even in my worst dreams could I imagine this,” he said, looking out his livingroom window onto a frozen bay that spills into the Atlantic Ocean.

“It’s been a rough two months.”

For more than 30 years, Point Leamington’s fire station doubled as a speakeasy. Volunteer firefighters routinely sold and drank beer at the fire hall until officials confiscated the booze last spring. The move came after Elliott issued several warnings about drinking on the premises.

The fire chief subsequently resigned. Then, on Dec. 28, 15 of the department’s remaining 17 members quit en masse, citing “a lack of respect” in a letter to Point Leamington’s town council.

Since then, Elliott has endured much of the community’s wrath.

“We had motorcades go through town here in protest,” Elliott said. “I’ve had them in front of my door here for over 20 minutes, the horns blowing, about a month ago. I don’t know where the townsfolk are coming from.”

In another clash, Elliott said some residents prevented him from leaving his office.

“They barricaded my truck in,” he said. “I waited and I waited and I threatened to call the RCMP. Anyway, later on that night they finally decided to let me go.”

Former fire chief Kevin Stuckless said Elliott has lost the town’s support, arguing the mayor’s stand against alcohol in the fire hall is unfair.

“Why not have it there?” Stuckless asked. “What’s wrong with it?”

Elliott has said his stance was based on cases in the past where firefighters responded to calls drunk.

But Stuckless, a volunteer on the force for 18 years, said the department always had some members at the station designated not to drink, downplaying concerns of drunken firefighters as overblown.

He believes Elliott’s position really stems from the fire department’s push for an annual honorarium. The firefighters made the demand after town council voted to give stipends of $1,000 to councillors and $2,000 to the mayor.

Last year Elliott said he would consider the honorarium, but that only infuriated the firefighters, prompting them to pull their services, Stuckless said.

New firefighters have recently been trained. Elliott has also secured a restricted liquor licence for the fire hall, allowing them to drink at the station three times a week.

“I would prefer a fire hall without alcohol in there at all,” said Elliott.

“But when you’re boxed into a corner, whether you’re gonna have a fire department or not, you try to compromise.”

Still, more than 300 people have signed a petition calling for the reinstatement of the old fire department and the scrapping of town council’s annual honorarium.

Otherwise, residents will continue their calls for town council to resign, Stuckless said.

“You can run this town without a council, but you can’t have a town without a fire department.”

Elliott is adamant he won’t reinstate the fire department, even if it means further hostilities between himself and what he called “the old boys’ club.”

“If I go down to the post office, I go into the store, I go to the church, you walk in and you see people who just signed petitions and just stopped in front of your door, blowing horns,” he said.

“We’re doing the right thing. No one can look me in the face and tell me what I’m doing is wrong.”

Just Stuff

Here it is, 2:30 a.m. and I am unable to sleep. I've been up for the last hour and now I'm sitting here playing a silly online game and listening to Evanescence, which to me covers the drama of the weekend. This was a very eventful weekend.

My daughter was assaulted last night by people she knows. She was taken to the hospital and x-rayed and given a CT scan, which apparently showed no permanent damage, and then taken to the police station to file a report so the idiots who did that to her could be arrested. Where she lives is a small town, sides will be taken and it won't be pretty. Why would someone do that to someone they know? They beat her and stole all the cash she had on her, and took her cell phone. Are they absolutely ridiculously stupid or what? They had to know she would tell the police what happened. I just don't get it.

I wish I could sleep.

Quote of the Week

"I'm going to wait until the last minute -- do you have a problem with that??"

(A Georgia Attorney)

Tyrone

This is Tyrone, my former boss that I mentioned in an earlier post. I thought I should let you see what he looks like. Although he is small of stature, it is very apparent, even now, what it is about him that drew me to him. The dark good looks, the bad boy attitude, the leather. I fell hard for him at first, but I soon found out that I wasn't his one and only. I still get weak in the knees when I think of him in all his mullety glory.

I only went to work on the streets to make him jealous, but that didn't work, obviously.

The guy next to him (the one wearing the tie-dyed bicycle shorts), his name is Duwayne... I turned to him for comfort after Tyrone left me for Shaneeqwa. I was with him for quite a while. That nasty break up is a whole different story, so I will save it for another day. Just understand that Tyrone doesn't always just work his charm on us girls. Guys are susceptible to his wicked, bad boy ways as well.

Sometimes I still wake up at night, after a hard day's work at the Walmart Snack Center, and wish that Tyrone was with me. He was the love of my life.

Scorpio

Yes, I am a Scorpio. We are a conflicted people. We're torn between deep love and loyalty and remembering every slight and wanting to cause major pain to those who betray us. But we must behave, mustn't we. A difficult task at times. If only we could turn back the clock, but alas, even us Scorpios do not have that power.

I have started painting again. I pulled out my paints, pulled out my canvases and brushes, and am attempting to refocus my destructive tendencies towards creating something beautiful instead. I did vow to concentrate on beautiful things, did I not?

So far so good - well - at least no blood has been spilled anyway.

LOL

Strange Dream

I had an odd dream that woke me up with a start. It started off with me walking by row houses here in Savannah, you know the kind, almost like condominiums, but not.. almost like brownstones, but not. Just a row of connected homes, each with their own steps to the front door. This one particular place, it was small, connected to a long row of houses, but nobody seemed to pay it much mind. I knew when I walked by it that it had been empty for a long time. It was painted blue, but the paint was faded and starting to peel just a bit. Nobody was there.

The next thing in the dream was a girl walking with me to that house. The girl wasn’t beautiful, just average looking. She had long brown hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, and a white, short sleeved shirt on with thin blue horizontal stripes. We never spoke, just walked purposely to that house. I knew that was where she was supposed to be. When we arrived at the house, there were about 6 people on the front porch, sitting around a tiny old lady, she seemed to be telling them a story. They were enthralled and didn’t notice anything around them. I was surprised because I knew that house was empty. The girl that I had been walking with went up the stairs and took her place amongst the listeners, her eyes glued to the face of the old storyteller. I walked partially up the stairs and knew I didn’t belong there, and turned to go, but I couldn’t get back down the stairs, there were too many people coming up them, all of them intent on reaching the circle of listeners.

I looked out on the streets of Savannah and realized that whatever was out there was losing its hold on me, that I needed to turn around and listen.

Friends

I was recently apprised of a particular question regarding one of my closest friends and myself, that question being, "How did you meet?" It is an interesting tale, and I will regale you with the wild adventures and charity of which such tale consists*.

It was a cold and rainy day in mid-November, three, or maybe four years ago. The wind was whipping, yet I was once again trudging along, forced to scrape a living out of what attention I could garner amongst the scores of tourists and residents that passed by me daily. Some days I did very well for myself. Some days, such as this cold and rainy day, the business was light to non-existent. Of course the weather was not my fault, but my pimp didn't see it that way and harrangued me with constant threats for my inability to strum up a decent business for the day. He was pretty persuasive, for a midget.

Tyrone eventually turned his greedy attentions elsewhere, and I was left to a moment of peace. I stole a moment in the shelter of a doorway, away from the rain, away from the gawking tourists passing by on the Grey Lines. I hated being pointed out in whispers as, "There's one."

The doorway turned out to be a small jewelry store. The door opened unexpectedly and pushed me back out into the rain. I stepped back respectfully to allow the tiny redhead to make her way down the street, when she stopped and looked at me, standing bedraggled in the rain. She opened her umbrella (blue, I think), and studied me for a moment. I found it a tad annoying, but the steady gaze wasn't unfriendly, just curious. After a moment she spoke, and in her New York twang she told me that she was very impressed that I could walk around for hours in those 6 inch heels, and asked how I kept the chrome so shiny. She then asked me where was the closest place to get a cup of coffee. I pointed out the Starbucks on the next corner (there is one on every corner, after all), and she headed that direction. After a few steps she stopped and turned around, and asked if I would like to have a cup of coffee with her. I'm not sure why, but I agreed, and walked with her to the coffee shop. I remember it clearly, she ordered a White Chocolate Caffe Mocha, and I had a regular latte (I still smile when I drink those).

I sat in that coffee shop with her for at least 2 hours, she questioning me about my profession, me listening to her tales of Dutch castles and kangaroo porn addiction. After a while I told her that since the rain had stopped I must get back to work before Tyrone hunted me down. She then stood up and told me that I needn't live under the thumb of any midget pimp if I don't want to. She knew I didn't want to. She kept me there another hour telling me how I could escape my downtrodden way of life. I saw Tyrone's purple Cadillac with spinner hubs drive by a few times. I knew he was looking for me, but I didn't care. This little redhead had given me a hope for a future that I didn't dare have before. I was going to escape.

She gave me her email address. At that time I didn't own a computer, but I kept that email address in the deepest recesses of my leopard print purse, until the day came that I earned enough money at Walmart to buy a decent used computer from an estate sale ($45, it nearly broke me but it was worth it).

So now here we are. This is the story of how Odat and I became such good friends. I will always remember her kindness.






*Parts of this story may or may not be slightly exaggerated.

Cynical

I was told by my boss the other day that I nearly got the above clock for Christmas, due to my unprecedented level of cynicism (is that a word?). Anyway, I'm thinking I should probably tone it down...

Although I do think the clock is cool. ;-)

From now on, I will only read beautiful poetry and I will stop and smell the flowers and I will never get angry and I will post only beautiful things. You guys are going to want to hurl.

Argh

All this work and I find out my domain host doesn't seem to have enough gumption to support a blog. I have tried two software packages and can't get either of them to work (seems to be because the MySQL database is too limited - yeah, I don't know either)... so I will try yet again with another software package.

I will be back, one way or the other. I could start another blog on Blogger, but what would be the point of that. I can't seem to adjust to having any other name except Boondoggled.

lol

Quote of the Week

"Well what do you expect from an Englishman?"

(anonymous Scottish scientist)

Walking the Long Miles Home

Walking the Long Miles Home

Oh the last bus has gone
Or maybe I'm wrong
It just doesn't exist
And the words that flew
Between me and you
I must be crossed off your list
So I'm walking the long miles home
I don't mind losing you
In fact I feel better each step of the way
In the dark I rehearse all the right things to say
I'll be home, I'll be sober by break of day
Walking the long miles home

Not a soul is around
As I put more ground
Between me and you
And the whole town's asleep
Or maybe they're deep in the old "voulez vous"
So I'm walking the long miles home
And I don't mind losing you
Got the moon there for company each step of the way
And the rhythm in my shoes keep the blues all away
When you ride Shanks's Pony you don't have to pay
Walking the long miles home

Oh the party was grand
But I hadn't quite planned on staying so long
And while you accused me
The hours confused me and my friends had all gone
So I'm walking the long miles home
And I don't mind losing you
Ah there's nobody out but the cop on the beat
He's snoring so loud I don't hear my feet
I just laugh to myself and move off down the street
Walking the long miles home
I'm walking the long miles home
Oh walking the long miles home

What a great song. :-)