Just Thinking

I don't have a specific topic today, mostly just the "Stream of consciousness" thing going on, I even have a commercial.

There is a house I drive by quite often. It is in an old, not very affluent, neighborhood. Now the house itself would not stand out as any different from any other house on the block. It's not painted with a really wild color, it has the same windows as all the other houses around it. It doesn't have anything new or fancy to distinguish it from it's sister houses, like say a brand new solid oak door with windows and intricate carving all around. No, none of that. It's just your typical 50 to 60 year old, 13 to 15 hundred foot, boring old house. So why do I, not only notice this house, but find it interesting enough to write a post about it?

Because it has flowers.

I'm sure you are thinking, "Flowers? Big deal. Almost every house I see has flowers." and you would be correct. Flowers are certainly an ordinary enough kind of lawn decor to not raise any eyebrows. But this house, well more like the people that live in the house, have tried something new in the beautification by flowers shtick. The lovely flowers gracing this yard are all. . . . . . .


Artificial!

Yes artificial. And I don't mean that they have a vase out front and it contains a bunch of fake flowers in it. Believe it or not I have seen that use of faux flowers before and if done correctly it can be quite attractive. But no. No tactful decorating for these people. They have an actual flower bed, and that flower bed is planted with real, artificial, flowers.

I suspect they are from the dollar store.

I suspect that, because, there are also all kinds of little statues or figurines, whatever you would call these kinds of things, all over the yard as well. Don't get me wrong. I don't have anything against the dollar store. I find it a handy little place to go to find all kinds of useful items.

It just never occurred to me to go there for my landscaping needs.

So yes, we have in my town a house decorated with, well I guess, planted with, would be the better description, all kinds of lovely artificial flowers. These people definitely know how to decorate with flowers. They not only have them in the ground, but to add a more sophisticated air, they also have several potted fake flowers. There are other fancy decor items stuck into the ground as well, like pinwheels.

I remember when I first laid eyes on this house.

I had to go around the block to come back and take a second look, in case my eyes really did deceive me. I wanted to park in front and really take my time looking at all of that artificial beauty. The problem is the house is right off of a major street in town and there really isn't any where in front, appropriate for parking. Plus I didn't want to be that obvious.

To be honest that house with all of it's "creative" yard work, really brought out my inner critic. I do admit to an inner critic. In fact a lot of the time it isn't even very inner. It's usually more of an outie.

I considered that house to be the very definition of TACKY.

Fortunately I have Courtney. Courtney, unless it has to do with me of course, has a pretty quiet inner critic. She is with me quite often when I drive by the "tacky" house. It bothered her that I found it so lacking in taste. She informed me that she always thought of it as the "FUN" house on the block.

That got me to thinking.

The next few times I drove by, I decided to see it the way Courtney sees it. I started to think that maybe, it was an eccentric little old lady that lived there, who due to arthritis and just plain being very old could not do the garden thing anymore. I realized that for someone who couldn't get out there and dig and plant, and also, probably, would have very poor vision, that fake flowers would seem like the perfect solution. Or, or, maybe a young couple live there. Maybe they always wanted a well flowered yard. Maybe they both work and don't have a lot of free time to spend on a garden. Or, perhaps every live flower they have ever planted died within a week.

That does happen sometimes you know.

I have realized that I actually really liked this house now. I have decided to no longer see it as tacky. I have decided to join in with Courtney, and see it as one of Kennewick's "fun" houses. There certainly are other unusual and interesting houses sprinkled throughout my beloved Tri- Cities.

Next: School Supplies

What is it about school supplies that make them so irresistible?

This is the second year that I have been without a child to send back to school. In some ways it's really nice. When I was sending Shawn off to school every morning, I had to be up by 6 AM to get that kid ready in time for his bus. He is not an easy person to try and hurry up. So my solution was to get up nice and early. You honestly can NOT rush this kid. If you tell him he needs to hurry, every single time he will have one response. "I am hurrying!" That is the best you will ever get when trying to rush him along. So that is one thing about having a child in school that I will never miss.

But boy do I miss buying school supplies.

I'm not entirely sure what compels me. I guess I just have a weakness for crayons, pencils, notebooks, and binders. And on top of that, those darn office supply stores, as well as your local Walmarts and Targets have all those things on sale for the most indecent prices. How on earth is someone supposed to stay away from crayola brand 24 pack crayons priced at 22 cents. And then there are all of the notebook paper sales. I don't know about you but 15 cents for the first two reams of college rule is just too tempting to pass up. In fact I have so much leftover notebook paper, I could probably see a kid through at least five years of school. I have found a somewhat acceptable method of avoiding the temptations of unnecessary school supply shopping.

I simply refuse to look at those stores' adds. So far I have not bought so much as even a package of "Two packs of pink erasers. 25 cents" Well I guess I did buy two packs of "Twin Glue sticks" for 20 cents each. Get that? That makes them 10 cents a piece!!! But hey, there are all kinds of non-school related uses for glue sticks. Aren't there?

Well aren't there???

And now a word from our sponsor (in other words, here is the commercial)

Do you ever get cold sores? I do. I have only had a few of them, but they sure are awful. That's why as soon as I started to get a cold sore last Wednesday, I rushed right into Target and bought myself a tube of ABREVA. I had never tried ABREVA before but I was so horrified at the thought of a cold sore that I was willing to give it a try. The last cold sore I had took more than two weeks to completely dissapear. I started applying the ABREVA to my cold sore five times a day as directed and within two and a half days there was absolutely NO SIGN of a cold sore anywhere. I couldn't believe it. How many times have you ever bought an over the counter medication that actually worked. I am completely sold on ABREVA now.

The only thing that worries me is the FDA finding out that it really works and pulling it off the shelves.

They do that you know.

Oh, they will never admit to it but they do. There used to be this OTC cough syrup that actually worked. Every time. So guess what? When I went back to buy more, it was no where to be seen. I asked the pharmacist about it and he said that he did remember that certain brand. He also agreed that it was a most effective cough remedy. Then he told me in "mostly" all seriousness, that the FDA must have made the manufacturers stop making it because it was too affective.
So I just might buy a couple more tubes of ABREVA in case our friend the FDA decides to pull another cough syrup, incident again.

Well these are the things I have spent the last few days thinking about. Your thoughts?

Happy Birthday Heidi!!!!!!!

Today, August 23 2008, is my darling oldest daughter Heidi Rene's Birthday!!! To learn more about the wonderful, loving person she is go here, don't worry I'll wait. Isn't she wonderful? Heidi has one of the most incredible imaginations of anyone I have ever known. As a child she was never bored. As long as she had a loose thread, a scrap of paper, a squished paper cup or any other piece of any old thing she would be happy. In her mind the scrap of paper was the beautiful Princess, the loose thread was her Prince and the squished cup would be the Prince's steed and then magically transform into their happily ever after Castle.


Heidi amazed me quite often with how creative and imaginative she was.

She still is today.

She always has the best ideas and the most creative ideas on how to do things. She has created some of the best Halloween costumes for her two daughters Abbey and Lindsay.(My two oldest grand daughters.) She is also quite well known for the amazing birthday parties she throws for the girls every year. She is fun to be around and she always has us in stitches.

Today is the Big THREE Oh for her. She isn't exactly thrilled about this milestone, well more exactly she isn't quite sure if she is happy or distressed about it. Although knowing Heidi, she will turn being thirty into an art form.

I love you Heidi!! You have added so many interesting dimensions to my life and brought me so much JOY that I thank the Lord for giving me the privilege of being your mother.

The Accidental Vegetarian

I am just a little frustrated by something. Now normally I tend to be a pretty good cook. I don't eat much of what I make though, because for about a year now I have lost all my taste for food. I do mean that literally. Most food, even the smell of it turns my stomach. And yes I have been very slowly losing weight.

Very slowly.

I really don't get it though. I used to love steak. And Prime Rib? A good slab of Prime Rib with some mild super creamy horseradish sauce. AAAAAAHHHHH. And then there was seafood. Shrimp, Prawns, Lobster even Salmon. More AAAAAAHHHHH.

Well that is all in the past for me now. Especially with beef. Even the really great Tri-Tip Steak my son Donald has been making lately. I really enjoy the first bite, and then? Gag City! Eating has become so awful for me 89% of the time that I would say it has become one of my major stressors. Most the time, if there was a pill I could take that would give me everything I need, and keep me full, I could completely give up food.

Pretty much the only things these days I can eat and enjoy are sweets. Candy, cookies, brownies, cake, and, fortunately, fruit. I do eat a lot of fruit. And yes I know that those are bad things to eat. (Well not the fruit of course.) But not to worry I usually don't even eat dessert, I just like knowing it's there if I do want it. I have let slip of course my love affair with jujyfruits. Oh if some food scientist could only come up with a nutritionally dense jujyfruit. Heaven!

One problem though.I still love the idea of going out to eat. The idea, that is.

Here is how it goes. ME; "Don lets go to Olive Garden tonight. They have a couple of new dishes that looked really good to me."
DON; " All right that's fine. Let's go." (See how that is? Don sometimes is way too easy.)
So here we have Susan and Don headed to Olive Garden. Tum tum tum de dum dum. Susan and Don arrive at Olive Garden and after a wait (sometimes long, sometimes short. It all depends on how early you have gotten there) Now we find Susan and Don, seated at their table perusing the menu.
Don is not a problem, he gets the same thing every time. The only problem he faces is how upset he gets to see that the price of his Portabello Mushroom Ravioli has gone up AGAIN!
And Me? Well lets just say that I have suddenly remembered something quite problematic.

I don't like food anymore.

And everything on the menu, even what I had just seen on a commercial four hours ago, looks, for some reason, not quite so good anymore. Of course the pressure is on now. Don knows what he wants. Don is ready to order. And of course since I have dragged him here just for this one new dish, wouldn't you think that I should be ready to order too. So it comes as a little bit of a surprise when I tell the waiter that I need more time.

Now it is time to give Don some really good credit. I'm sure he saw that coming, Susan always changes her mind when she actually has the menu in front of her. If Don is annoyed though he doesn't show it. Don is such a Goooood Husband. He just wants me to be happy.
After a good ten to fifteen minutes I am ready to order.

I order the new dish that I came for.

I guess I just need to go through the formalities of the menu search, to feel like I am getting the most out of my dining experience. The waiter brings my salad. Don always gets the soup. Don eats most the bread sticks, which is okay with me, I need just one and it will last me through the whole meal. I guess the taking of the one bread stick is from habit more than anything, because I just don't really care for them anymore either.

Our meals show up. And yes, I always want lots of grated Parmesan on mine. Cheese for Don? No thanks.

I look at my plate. Believe it or not most the time it looks and smells really good. I am thinking that I will be able to eat a lot of it. Well I take one bite. Good, good, it tastes every bit as good as the really stupid commercial made it sound.

SIDE TRACK:
Have you ever noticed just how idiotic Olive Gardens commercials are? I HATE the one where everyone, has just been presented with their food and the idiot Father says how much he likes their family tradition. Clueless younger daughter asks "what tradition is that?" Stupid father says "the tradition where we pass our dinner to the left." Now, even more clueless, younger daughter says "when did that become a tradition?" and of course the ignorant father says "when you ordered that!"

What a STUPID commercial.

If he wanted what she ordered then why the hell didn't he order it????? I hate that commercial. There's also the one where the waitress is asking the upwardly mobile looking couple what reason they are there for and after saying no to her inane questions of Birthday? Anniversary? They say, because it's Thursday!

All I have to say is, "Shoot me now."

Well back to me and Don at Olive garden (before our food gets cold).
I usually manage to eat about five bites, sometimes a few more. The problem is that after the third bite or so, it is starting to taste really bad. I keep gagging down as much as I can because I don't want to be hungry later. But I can only push it so far.

You see, I have a problem with throwing up my guts in the middle of Olive Garden.

Long story short. I tell the waiter I need a to go box. My plate is looking like I haven't eaten much of anything. It looks like that because it's true, I haven't eaten much of anything. One time a waitress actually said to me "wow, why did you come in if you didn't want to eat?" She got a small tip from us that night. I mean, the nerve!

Well, this is the sad culinary mess my life has become. I have found a few protein bars that I can usually choke down with a glass of milk. I was shopping at Walmart today and I discovered that just plain Special K cereal has like 9 grams of protein per serving. Good news, good news. Protein is the one thing that I need more of and it is sadly mostly found in the foods I can no longer stand.

I just have to wonder, has anyone ever became a vegetarian through no fault of their own?

I don't know. I never have liked to think about the animals being slaughtered to feed my meat habit. It was never enough to make me become an omnivore though. And to be honest it still isn't. It's horrible to say, but everyone has their lot in life.

Even cows.

Oh come on, I only half meant that. So anyone out there from PETA just leave me alone!

I really do see myself as becoming a vegetarian by default. That means that I'm not a conscientious objector, I just can't stand the stuff. And if for some reason my needs change and I suddenly like meat again, I will be right back on the old chuck wagon in no time.


In the meantime I will just enjoy my "bad for me, I know", Jujyfruits.

Congratulations Donald and Lisa!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you read my son Donald's and daughter-in-law Lisa's blogs then you know that today is their 8th Anniversary! Oh and BTW if you only read Lisa's, please go to Donald's and leave him a comment too. As of now Lisa has like 21 comments, and Donald has only 3.

Reading their posts today took me back to that day, and I realized what a good topic for a post that would make. So here goes.

Donald and Lisa, had been together for a little more than a year before they were married. For them it was pretty much love at first sight. Actually though, it was more like, love from first IM. They met on the computer, of all places. I was skeptical at first because Donald had been involved in a disastrous relationship by way of computery a few months before he met Lisa on line. I will make this LONG story SHORT.

They met in person. They loved each other immediately. They became engaged. They were married.

Alright now to the wedding.

They were married in the Moore Mansion. The Mo-Ma is a Tri-City landmark that you see while crossing the Blue Bridge from Kennewick to Pasco. It is a beautiful white mansion that I would probably categorize as Greco-Roman in design.
I was so excited for them to be married there. I had seen that place while crossing the blue bridge my whole life and had always been fascinated with it.

Lisa's mom Holly, set to work helping Lisa get everything rolling. Lisa wanted a Cinderella Wedding. Her paternal Grandfather Claude Coats was a background artist for Walt Disney way back at the beginning. He worked on most of the early Disney films. Because of this, well and also the fact that she had spent most of her life about 20 minutes from Disneyland and went there often, Lisa loved everything Disney. So it wasn't at all unusual for her to want a Cinderella fairy tale wedding.

The mansion was just as beautiful inside as I had always imagined. There was some of the most amazing woodwork I had ever seen. There was an incredible staircase made of the loveliest polished wood. The rooms up stairs were pretty nice but the ceilings were so low up there I felt a little claustrophobic. There were however, these big ornate windows on the upper floor, that had incredible balconies lookin over the lawns.

Talk about perfect picture taking opportunities.

Holly really went above and beyond. In the parlor of the Mo Ma, she set up a scene from the movie. She had bought a beautiful pink gown to have along with several other items to reproduce the scene in Cinderella when the mice make her the dress to wear to the ball.

The wedding attendants arrived in a limousine. They included Lisa's sister Jennifer, her college roommate, her two little nieces and my oldest grandaughter Abbey ( who was two then but is now ten) Then came Lisa, looking every bit the Princess.

She arrived in a beautiful Horse Drawn Carriage.

The wedding ceremony was really nice. The thing that I enjoyed the most though was as soon as they were pronounced Husband and Wife, Donald picked Lisa up and twirled her around as he kissed her. It was such a sweet, genuine and spontanious act of love that I think everyone there was touched by the joy they were feeling.

The rest of the night went a little too quickly. And that is no exaggeration. This was the only dark spot on the whole event.

The couple that owned the Mansion at the time, were mean, nasty people.

Everything was all sweet and friendly when things were in the planning stages (in other words before they got their money). But the night of the wedding they were just pushing things along as fast as they could.

There was a sit down buffet type dinner.

I was hanging out with Lisa's parents because they didn't know anyone else there. Plus they were just really nice and I liked them. Somehow we had ended up at the end of the buffet line and by the time we found a table and sat down to eat and visit, the woman-in-charge, I think her name was Tammy, came and told us to hurry and get out to the lobby because the cake was going to be cut. I didn't get more than a couple of bites of the dinner. It had looked really good too.

Lisa later told me that she and Donald weren't ready for the cake cutting either. Tammy just shooed them along. (So much for that expensive buffet). There was dancing outside after that. Donald and Lisa had the first dance to the song from Cinderella, "So this is love".

The dancing, as well, was cut short.

Donald had asked a friend of his, who did karaoke at this pizza place, to be there as the DJ. He was also hoping for some karaoke, but as I recall that didn't happen.

Well before we knew it (literally. Thank you Tammy.) everything was brought to a close. The carriage was back to carry Donald and Lisa off. The ever bossy Tammy started shouting out orders about what we needed to start doing to get everything cleaned up. I swear you would have thought we were that _itch's employees.

All in all though the wedding had been a huge, wonderful and amazing, smashing success.
And guess what?


They lived happily ever after!!!!!!!

French Fries and the Snotty McDonald's Girl ; A Re-Run

You may have noticed that I have not been exactly prolific lately. I don't know how to explain it other than I have a pretty bad case of blogger's block. Well the thought just occurred to me that it is summer, and what is one of the things that summer is most known for?

Re-runs! Yes that's right, re-runs.

So I have decided that running a few of my favorite older posts might be a good idea.

I have a lot more people that read my blog than I did 42 posts ago. Lisa has pointed out to me that sometimes if someone finds a blog that they like that they will go back and read all the old posts. I have actually done that myself at times. But I doubt that anyone really wants to read through that many, so I am assuming that these will be new to most of you. I'm going to try to keep the re-runs to a minimum, and come up with new ones as quickly as I can so until then I hope you will enjoy some of my oldies but goodies.

So here we go with; French Fries and the Snotty McDonald's Girl

I am more than willing to admit that I am very high maintenance. Especially when it comes to french fries. Yes, you read that right, french fries. Now I don't really like them all that much and that is mostly because by the time you get to them they are warm, limp and soggy. Disgusting.

Several years ago, before my little brother Brian was old enough to go on his mission to Japan, he worked at Burger King.

Well actually as I remember, he managed said Burger King.

One night when we were visiting my parents in Bellevue, Bri came home and told me how he was constantly frustrated with his workers not turning the fries over quickly enough to keep them fresh.

Brian apparently agreed with me that the only good fry was a hot crispy fry.

Now fast forward to about ten years ago when my wonderful Son-in-law Jeff came into our lives. Jeff had worked for years at McDonalds and had worked his way up to a pretty high position there. He told me that they were never, ever, to put the fries on your tray before your food was ready because it was important for the customer to always have fresh fries.

All of this fry knowledge over the years has kinda turned me into what some might consider a fry Nazi.

I have always been very assertive when it comes to getting what I want when I am spending money on something. My son Donald has inherited this from me, but everyone else in my family thinks I go way too far to make sure I am satisfied.

All right, now you have some background so that what I'm going to write about will make more sense.

This afternoon I went to Walmart and let my youngest son Shawn come with me. I hadn't had lunch yet so I told him we would go to McDonald's afterwards which makes sense because it is right next to Walmart.

I don't really like Mickey Dee's all that much but it had been quite a while since I had been there, so I hoped I could stomach it. It was 2:00 so they were not busy. I got up to the counter to order and as I always do I checked out the french fry station to see how many containers of fries they had sitting under the heat lamp.

I ordered and told the girl, like I always do, that I didn't want the fries that were sitting under the light I wanted fresh ones. Now I knew they wouldn't be too happy with me because they didn't even have any fries cooking at that time, since, like I said they were not busy.

The pleasant young woman that had taken my order, went over to tell the UNpleasant young woman who was standing in the back [with obviously nothing better to do] to put down some fries because the customer wanted fresh fries.

The UNpleasant young woman snarled. Yes snarled!(Trust me I was there. )
That she was not going to do that because she had just put new fries in the bin and it hadn't been three minutes yet.

I was not going to accept that kind of attitude from some snotty little McDonald's worker so I told her that they would be more than three minutes old by the time my food was ready and I would want fresh ones so they might as well put some down now. She very grudgingly put some fries in to cook and said with as much disdain as she could muster that they would take two minutes and I would have to wait. I told her I was well aware that they would take two minutes and that I was quite prepared to wait.

Then I stood there and watched the whole time to make sure she didn't SPIT in them. (Hey you know it happens.)

My fries came up and she took them out and salted them and then, trying to piss me off I'm sure, filled several boxes with fries before bringing me mine. I smiled very nicely and thanked her for the fresh fries.

I sat down with Shawn and ate what I could stand of my Big n Tasty w\no cheese and had probably 12 or 13 fries. So few that it looked like I hadn't had any of them at all, but like I said I don't really like fries that much. Even super fresh, hot crispy ones.

When we were done I had Shawn empty the tray. I always have Shawn empty the tray it makes him feel important. More on that in a later blog.

I intentionally left the fries uncovered because Miss Snotty had kind of been watching us off and on the whole time. . We walked right past her and I know she saw the almost untouched fries, and I know it really torqued her off because she immediately went and whispered something to Pleasant McDonald's Girl.

It pleased me to no end to know that she did that, it somehow felt like I had gotten in the last word.

Now, I usually like to think of myself as a nice person, but sometimes, just sometimes, it's really satisfying to get under someone's skin like that. When it's someone that really deserves it at least

Dad's Anniversary

This Monday (the 11th) was the first anniversary of my Dad's death. Now don't feel bad for me. Even though I really do miss him, it was definitely his time to go. My mom on the other hand, well, lets just say that you can feel free to feel bad for her. She just has not been able to adjust to my dad being gone. She still feels a little bit of anger towards him for leaving without her. But mostly she just misses him terribly. We all knew that this first anniversary would be hard on her.

My dear siblings have done some really nice things to help her through this time. Trust me, I do all kinds of things for her too. It's just that I, and my sister Janice, live here, so she sees us all the time. She loves and appreciates us, but it is such a nice change when she can see her kids that don't live here in the Tri-Cities.

My brother Mike and his family came up to see her two weekends ago. They weren't able to spend as much time with her as she would have liked but it really wasn't their fault. They had five kids with them. Those kids wanted to swim and be otherwise entertained. My mom lives in a Retirement home. She has a very small room. Two adults. Five kids. One small room. One lonely Grandma.

Well all I can say is "You do the math".

I have two brothers. They are both much younger than me. Mike is the oldest; I'm like eleven and a half years older than him. And Brian is the youngest; I was fifteen when he was born. So I will always think of them as my baby brothers.

So what did Brian do this last Saturday?

He showed up, out of the blue, at mom's door with flowers, having come all the way from Colorado! Mom was thrilled! Well actually more than thrilled, I just don't have a thesaurus handy so the word thrilled will have to do.

Now mom thinks that nobody knows this.

Brian is her baby; he is her precious baby boy. He has pretty much been her favorite for like forever. We all know this but she thinks we don't. Come on mom you just aren't a very good actor. Fortunately, Brian is such a wonderful, loving, kind and generous person that all the rest of us kids love him too.

I don't want to make you feel bad though Mikey, you know how much I love you. And mom too.

So here is Brian, fresh off his flight and drive from Spokane. With flowers in hand. We have dinner that evening at my sister Janice's house. It was a very enjoyable evening. Mom had a lovely time and I think she was even happier knowing that she had all of the next day (Sunday) to spend with Brian. Brian had to leave Pasco at eight o clock in the morning on Monday to drive two hours to Spokane to catch his flight at noon.

Next.

I just received a phone call about an hour ago. It was my younger sister Karen. Karen lives in Bellevue. That is over in the Seattle area for those of you who are asking, Bellevue? Karen has the week off so she came to spend it with mom. Isn't that great? I'm sure that all these timely visits will do wonders for mom, as she copes with this sad anniversary.

Well, this as usual was just a lot of background. I would like to tell you a little bit about my dad.

He was the oldest child in his family. His name was Jesse Reed Brinkerhoff.

Now to make it really confusing, they called him Reed at home because he had been named after his father (my grandpa) Jess. My grandma was a practical woman. She didn't want to deal with a Jess and a Jesse, so my dad was called Reed.

That is until he got out into the real world.

As soon as he became an adult and started going to college and after that, working as an engineer at Boeing, he started being known as Jesse. I'm not sure if he wanted it that way, or if everyone just looked at his name and saw Jesse and so that was what they called him. All I know is if you want to completely confuse a kid, then you call her father a completely different name than the one she has always heard at home.

Really.

I was probably 12 or 13 before I actually knew what my dad's name was. I hated to be asked, "what is you fathers' name?" I hated it because to me it felt like a trick question. I never knew what to say. Sometimes I would tell them his name was Jesse. That never felt right though because 85% of the time I heard him called Reed. Around family, whether it was his side or my mom's everyone called him Reed. But at church and things like company picnics he was definitely Jesse.

You see how much confusion that would cause for a kid?

Now this is, I'm sure, going to sound like bragging, but really it isn't. My father was a genius. He actually was a certified genius. He had been pretty much a child prodigy, and when he grew older he was still just as brilliant. All his brothers and sisters are also very intelligent, with the exception of my Uncle Richard (the one who owns the cabins on Lake Mason) Richard is also a true genius. In fact my dad insisted that Richard had him beat by a mile. Richard is so humble though that he doesn't like to be called a genius. It makes him uncomfortable.

So please forget I ever mentioned it.

Dad was an electrical engineer. At Boeing. He was kind of a sacred cow there. Here is a little story I told at his funeral.

In the days that he worked at Boeing everyone was required to wear a shirt and tie. Everyone. My dad hated wearing that tie and, buttoned up to the neck, shirt. As he explained to me, it's pretty hard to work on your latest project while wearing a stupid tie. So to solve the problem he just stopped wearing that tie. The thing is, they (that would be BOEING) needed him. No one else could do the things he could do. His poor supervisor had the job of trying to enforce the tie rule with my dad.

Dad refused.

The supervisor decided it would make it easier for everyone if he just looked the other way. So he did. Now of course this didn't sit well with my dad's co-workers. They apparently felt it was unfair that Jesse got away with no tie and they still had to wear ties themselves. Before too long they started showing up sans ties as well.

I really feel for that poor supervisor.

Finally it was decided that the section of Boeing where my dad worked could go without ties. Every one in his group was thrilled with this provision. It all made dad quite popular.

There was one ticklish little problem though.

There were a lot of people that worked for Boeing. Eventually word got around that the engineers in dad's building were not wearing ties. Further more it was found out that they had permission to ditch the ties. All of a sudden there was a lot of discontent in all of the other Boeing departments. Dad's group was told that the no tie rule was going to be cancelled. Dad let them know that nothing could make him go back to tie wearing.

Well I bet by now you have guessed the outcome of this little story.

That's right! It was decided that from henceforth employees at Boeing were no longer required to wear ties.

This was one of my father's proudest moments, to be the reason that tie wearing was abolished at Boeing.

My dad was an extremely humble and honest man. He never was unkind to anyone. In fact sometimes he was nice to people that did not deserve it.

Jeanette told me a story about her dad a few weeks ago in my comments section. He went out of his way to help some homeless guy, who it was later found out didn't deserve the help at all. I had to chuckle when I read it because my dad had done the same kind of thing many times.

When I was twelve, dad took me, my five sisters and our foster sister (long story) to Disneyland all by himself. Well that's not quite right. My aunt Carolyn who was like four and a half years older than me came along to help out. My mom wasn't there because she and one of her sisters had gone down to Texas to see my aunt Phyllis who had just had her first baby, my cousin Brent.

I look back on it now and I can't believe mom let us go with just dad in charge. We had so much fun. Dad was so relaxed and easygoing that we had a lot of freedom on that trip. There was one point in the trip when it was decided we were going to go swimming. For some reason my Aunt Carolyn needed a swimsuit. We were in a rather seedy section of Hollywood. There didn't appear to be any stores that looked like they sold swimwear as we walked up and down the different streets. Finally we came to one that my dad figured looked pretty promising.

We went in. All of us. We ranged in age from 15 down to 3.

It was one of the fanciest stores I had ever been in. Everything was fluffy and pink. And most interesting of all were these mannequins who had nothing on their boobs but these pointy, tiny, little cups with tassels on the end. We were fascinated by them. Well for some reason my dad gathered us all up and told us we were leaving the store immediately. It suddenly became clear that we had just visited, for our very first time,

Fredrick’s of Hollywood.

Dad, obviously, was pretty unworldly.

I loved talking to my dad on the phone. These last few years when I knew his time was almost up I really enjoyed it. We would talk sometimes for an hour or more. We had many, many philosophical discussions about all kinds of things. We discussed church issues, current events, music and any number of other topics. I always felt so much smarter after talking to my dad about those things.

I mentioned music. Dad loved music. He had a wide range of tastes. He loved Classical. He really loved a lot of Rock music. Mostly from the seventies, the stuff that my sisters and I exposed him to. And in his later years he started to love Country. He actually got me to love a lot of Country myself. We would talk for hours about the songs and music he loved. Then I would download those songs and make CD's for him and my mom.

He had a carrier route with a bank, picking up deposits and taking them wherever it is that bank's deposits go. That was actually his very last job. His eyesight got so bad that he had to give it up. That was so hard for him. That was one of the reasons that I was burning CD's for him. To listen to, while driving the long distances he had to drive. It was also how he introduced me to the Country music I love now.

He started listening to the Country stations because he said the Rock stations played too much crap.

At first I was a little annoyed to have to download all those Country songs for him, but then I realized how much I liked some of them. That was how I became such a fan of Toby Keith.

Dad had a brain tumor. It was benign. Benign, in the fact that it wasn't cancerous. But deadly in the fact that it couldn't be removed and it just kept growing. Still though, he had it for around ten years, (actually longer than that, but ten years from the time it was discovered.) It slowly robbed us of Dad.

By the time he died he was almost completely deaf. He still had his eyesight, but it was very poor. That tumor also took a lot of his great mind away from him. He still had a keen knowledge and ability with things like math and science. He still worked on his inventions. He actually held a couple of patents. But a lot of the time, he was not really in touch with reality. There were times when he could be quite demented. It was sad but believe it or not sort of funny too. We knew he was slowly dying, but it was so sad to have him taken from us piece by piece.

He really was a great man. He loved his family, he loved the church and he loved everything that was good and decent. I will forever miss him but it is such a comfort to know that when I die he will be there to greet me.

This was my dad and I am really glad I could introduce you to even a small part of who he was.

Confessions of a sloppy House Frau

Bless Jan's heart. Here I go ripping off yet another one of her ideas. I have told her and I mean it in all honesty that she is my muse.


I believe I have hinted in previous posts, and on comments left on other's blogs that I am

A. Disorganized

B. Messy

C. Scatterbrained

D.Somewhat Irresponsible

Now don't worry, I'm not beating up on myself. Don't worry that I have low self esteem and I need to be nicer to myself. I'm just being perfectly honest. You see I have a lot of really good characteristics as well. And I also am of the opinion that A B C & D, are not actually character flaws, as some people might think. No, I just think of them as a part of my personality that together with more positive traits, make me the unique individual that I am. Just like all of your traits make you unique.

Over the years I have managed to become less irresponsible.

I have worked on this. It's pretty hard to keep a family of seven functioning properly if Mom isn't giving her all to the home team.

Now what is bringing on all this self contemplation you might wonder? I will tell you.

The Today Show.

I bet there are some of you out there thinking, why on earth doesn't Susan stop watching the Today Show already. She is always reacting to one thing or the other on that show. Yes, yes, that is true. I guess that Meredith, Anne, Natalie, Matt and my personal favorite Al, have just become so comfortable with me that I just can't turn them off.

Oh I would have such guilt issues.

But not to worry my interest in the Today Show today is entirely of a "How about that" nature. Today, on Today, they had one of their little segments. I think this one fell under the "your health" umbrella, but it could have been more of the "scientific discovery" category.

I wasn't paying that close of attention to it.

But this, THIS, definately caught my attention. It seems that some Biologist has found a new gene that is sometimes found in the human make-up. Hold onto your hats. This new gene that has recently been discovered is the LAZY GENE!

That's right LAZY.

First of all, I would like to meet the scientist who came up with the idea to go poking around in some mice's insides to look for a reason for laziness. It was noted that mice with the lazy gene were mostly inactive. They, as well as the un-lazy gened mice, had little treadmills put in their cages to see how active each mouse would be.

Did you get that??? Treadmills? For Mice???

It was also documented that the non lazy mice actually used their little mouse sized treadmills for exercise. Some of them worked on those treadmills for up to seven hours a day! Seven hours !! They must have taken their little mousey TV's away to get them that interested in those treadmills. Oh yeah and what did the unfortunate mice with the lazy gene do with their treadmills? Well they mostly put a lot of shavings on them and turned them into BEDS!!!

Intriguing, NO???

I certainly thought so.

Now all this talk of mice and lazy genes got me to thinking. Is it possible, just possible that I carry the LAZY gene ?

I am seriously considering this. Is that why I am disorganized, scatterbrained, messy and somewhat irresponsible???

The thing is, I'm not sure whether that would be a good thing or bad. On the one hand it would be nice and comforting to think that some of my slightly negative traits are through no fault of my own. On the other hand, it would be kinda depressing to think that some of my slightly negative traits are through no fault of my own.

How would you deal with that kind of knowledge?

Well let me see. I have the lazy gene. I am meant to have an unorganized messy house. I am meant to forget all about agreements to be available to babysit when Donald or Lisa bring over granddaughters. I am meant to let everyone fix their own dinner, because I have been writing on my blog instead of thinking about dinner. You see? This could either be the greatest excuse in the world, or I could just feel tremendous guilt for not trying harder to overcome my natural laziness.

So many possibilities. My head is spinning.

I decided to take stock of a few things.

My house is usually fairly tidy. And by that I mean that my living room (where people other than family usually sit to visit) is generally picked up and quite tidy. Also the guest bathroom. I try to keep it at least minimally clean.

The rest of the house though, can be pretty, uuuh, lived in ?

Lately we have all been trying harder to keep the kitchen clean. And my dining room too. That's a pretty easy one, just have to gather up the newspapers every three or four days off the dining table and get rid of them. Now I do know what a disorganized MESS my sewing room is. I think it is the greatest example in my whole house of how my mind works. So I refuse to apologize for it, I actually kinda like it that way. But to be polite I do often shut the door. It's for Don's peace of mind mostly.

Don by the way has a busy gene. He is always working on something. He is wonderful at cleaning the house when it just gets away from me and I am truly too overwhelmed. He is wonderful that way. He can take a job that I would spend most the day on and he will have it all sparkling in an hour or less.

What can I say, I'm a lucky goil.

So let me see? I've covered the Living room, my Dining room, the Guest Bathroom, explained my sewing room, hmmm, what does that leave? Oh yeah, my Bedroom. Now if my sewing room shows my mind, I guess I would have to say that my bedroom shows my psyche. I have partly made attempts to decorate it, (something that I am pretty capable of) but then I don't make much of an attempt to keep it clean. What does that say about me I wonder?

Here, I will offer an example.



My bedroom seems to accumulate too many clothes. Dirty, clean, waiting to be put away, waiting to be washed. I don't like it to be this way, in fact I hate it. Don, just this weekend, decided that enough was enough and got busy and picked it all up. We also filled up a bag with clothes I no longer want. A lot of them are too big for me because I have lost some weight you see. This is good this is what I like, a tidy bedroom. And every time we get it cleaned up I promise Don and myself that this time, THIS TIME, it will stay picked up. Sometimes I keep that promise for quite a while, like say, three weeks or maybe even a month. And then there are times like now, when I have just dumped two loads of laundry on my bed and haven't yet taken the time to hang them up and put them in my dresser.

That's why I say I am stealing Jan's material. She did a post today about stashing clothes in the bath tub. I thought that was pretty clever. I hardly every do anything like that. I guess it never has occurred to me to try to hide a mess, I just figure if it's a mess then it's a mess and you just deal with it.

There is one exception however.

About the only time I ever do a quick stashing is when the cable repair guy comes. I don't know why exactly, but for some reason I don't want to be standing there with the Cable Guy in my room and have all those clothes on the floor. So I gather them all up and shove them in my closet and then shut the door. As far as Cable Guy will ever know I have a nice neat bedroom. The big question here of course is,

Why on earth do I feel the need to impress the cable guy????

I probably haven't given this the attention I should.

I think it has something to do with the weirdness of a strange guy standing there in a uniform (well if a khaki pair of pants and a khaki shirt, along with a tool belt filled with cable repair stuff, constitutes a uniform.) In your bedroom. Just you and him. As you try to explain all about the stupid and weird things your DVR box is doing. Face it. This is probably the most intimate moment with a man, who is not your husband, standing there together in your bedroom, that you are ever going to face.

It really can be awkward. Do I just stand next to him? Will that seem like I am trying to get his attention? Do I just go sit on the bed while he goes about his work? Which is the least provocative anyway? Standing there watching as he does his cable repair thing, or daintily perched there on the bed acting like being in your bedroom with a strange man is something you deal with on a daily basis.

It is one of those social moments that they just don't cover in The Ladies Home Journal.

And I feel that if a bunch of clothes are laying around on the bed or the floor, even sometimes a bra or (gulp) a pair of panties it could make an uncomfortable situation even more difficult. So yes Jan, I guess sometimes I do stash. I'm not proud of it, but in this case I have to think of it as the lesser of two evils.

And to be perfectly honest I must admit that there is little chance this will ever change. Especially if I have been gifted with that stupid lazy gene. And also as long as I am, disorganized, messy, scatterbrained and somewhat irresponsible.

Weekend fun

This last weekend was a lot of fun. My brother and sister in law Mike and Cindy came over with their kids. They got here around Midnight Friday night. They went straight to Donald and Lisa's, which is where they were staying.

Mike suffers from the same love of the Tri-cities that I do. He grew up in Seattle the same as I did. He experienced the same lack of summer in Seattle just like I did. He quickly learned that traveling to the Tri-Cities in the summer meant you could actually enjoy a few days of real summer. This is usually how people in Seattle discover our little slice of summer heaven. They leave a wet, dreary, 65 degree day and in three and a half to four hours they are suddenly living the good life with 85 to 90 degrees or more of lovely sunshiny weather.

Saturday was our day to do stuff.

We didn't really do anything out of the norm, because normal stuff can be so much fun and satisfying.

Number one on the Out of Towner's agenda was to go swimming. I didn't really think that swimming deserved that much reverence. That is until my sis-in-law Cindy informed me that they never got to swim in warm weather. What really got me was that it was probably no more than 82 or so that day. In other words, barely warm enough to even dip a toe in a pool according to me and Lisa. But I guess to people who think that 62 is acceptable swimming weather 82 degrees is swimming Nirvana.

Now all we had to do was find a cooperating pool.

We use to always go to my Aunt Doris' pool. Unfortunately Aunt Doris and Uncle Dennis sold their house with the pool that we had always used for summer swimming, roughly two and a half years ago. I try to not be too upset, but it's kinda hard sometimes.

My kids grew up learning to swim in that pool.

We have spent many a big family Fourth of July at that pool. Doris really misses that pool too. So I try not to complain. First, what good would complaining do? The house has been sold, new people live there and now their families have the fun Fourth of July's there. Second I really love my Aunt Doris and since she misses the pool as much as I do I would never say anything to make her feel bad.

All this is a really long explanation as to why we were a little deficient in the pool department.

I have several family members in Pasco who have pools. Nice pools. The only problem is they are quite a lot farther away than Doris' pool, which is what made her pool so great.

Don't worry. I'm not bitter. Really.

After a bit of calling around it was ascertained that Leon and Tami's pool was available. Leon is one half of my twin uncles that are a few years older than me. And his wife Tami who is my age is my aunt.

They have one of the most beautiful yards I have ever seen. It's so gorgeous that they have lent it out several times for weddings.

Isn't that nice of them?

They are also just as generous with their pool.

So to Tami and Leon's we go.

I thought about going swimming but like I pointed out earlier it was only around 82. Anyway someone needed to watch my sweet baby grand daughter Elisabeth so that my just as sweet DIL Lisa could attend to Alexandra and Lorelai in the pool.

Lisa more or less did the Lifeguard thing.

Walking around the perimiter, offering helpful hints to the girls, making sure that no one drowned. Her oldest Alexandra (my number three grand daughter) Has started swim lessons this summer and blew us all away with how much she had learned. It's funny too because the one time that I took her to her lesson it looked to me like they weren't really teaching them much at all. She sure did pick up a whole lot more than I would have ever thought. She was floating on her back, she was jumping in, she really did earn her new title of "Pollywog".

After swimming I went back to my house (well Shawn and I went back home, he BTW had a blast!) Mike and Cindy went back to Donald's and Lisa's, with Donald and Lisa. We all had our little dinner assignments. I was in charge of making potato casserole, beans and green salad.

Donald made what is quickly becoming his Famous Tri-Tip Steak.

(Using a rub perfected by Mike and Cindy. So if you ever hear Donald bragging about his amazing Tri-Tip and not giving credit to Mike and Cindy, be sure and tell him SHAME ON YOU!!)

I had also invited my sister Janice her husband Craig and their two kids Mitch and Miranda.

It took a while to get all the food ready because we had lingered at the pool until 5:00-ish. Finally about 8:00-ish we were ready to eat. The funny thing about this is that earlier in the day when everyone kept saying "Oh we'll be eating around 6" I kept saying "We will be doing good to even be ready by 7." I'm the realist in the family you see.

Well, we ate. We visited. We laughed.

We started a fire in the fire pit to roast marshmallows. The problem though, was that the fire got started so late that by the time it was ready for marshmallow roasting everyone was leaving.

Janice and Craig and kids went home.

Some of the rest of us went over to Donald and Lisa's for a night of American idol. That stinky (oops it's his birthday so I will lay off the "stinky") That silly, wishy washy, son of mine suddenly decided he would rather play his own special version of UNO than do American Idol.

Talk about Bait and Switch.

I guess we were trying to recapture the magical time we had, had at Mikes house in Tacoma on the Fifth of July. In my experience though, it is almost impossible to make a wonderful time happen again. At least if you want it to be just the same as the original. Still it was a lot of fun. If you could ignore all the noise coming from the game of UNO. It is pretty hard to sing to the TV when you can't hear the music.

I had to leave early because Courtney who had come with me needed to get home and get to bed because she had to get up early for work the next morning.

Apparently after I left things really heated up.

Mike and my oldest daughter Heidi who are both very funny people, kind of took over the American Idol song fest. Heidi did a perfect version of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. Then she and Mike started being just plain silly. I guess they started purposely messing up the songs and using all kinds of crazy accents. I felt sort of bad missing so much fun but I really was tired.

Now, to wrap it up I have pictures. Pictures taken by Lisa not me, and she is graciously going to help me set them up so you can see them all. So without further adieu here are pictures of our lovely weekend.

Here is Shawn singing his little heart out.

Donald preparing to light the candles on his birthday. Lighting the candles really makes him happy. But blowing all the candles out with one big breath, makes him feel very Manly! He is getting up there in age though. For him to keep on extinguishing those candles in just one breath we are going to have to put all those candles in a tight little circle on his cake. That sure will leave one big hole in the middle of the cake.
As you can see, Shawn was having himself a GREAT time!

Shawn had a pretty hard time staying on that whale, but he managed it long enough for Lisa to get a good picture.

Shawn and little nieces. He really loves being Uncle Shawn.

Mike and Cindy. Smiling because it's 82 instead of 62.

Donald and that little cutie pie Lorelai.

Me holding my sweet baby Elisabeth, who had the time of her little life. She just kicked those chubby little legs and smiled and smiled.

Alexandra relaxing by the pool. I guess she was tired out from all the real swimming she was practicing.

Scarey Circumstances

I had something really scary happen to me yesterday.

When I first started driving I was pretty scared of trucks. I'm not talking pickups or even moving van size trucks. I mean the big obnoxious 18 wheeler size trucks. After a few years of driving experience though I decided that they weren't too bad. In fact at times I would see them as downright friendly and harmless. Yes, at first they seemed to me like the cows of the driving world. You know always going slower than the cars (at least the ones that are trying to come off as law-abiding . Yeah, I just thought of them as just big lumbering giants that just wanted to go about their business.

That was at FIRST.

After a few more years I noticed that at times those "cows" would act more like Bulls.

Yes I used to see trucks as slightly menacing.

That was until YESTERDAY!!!!!!

Yesterday was Thursday. And what does devoted daughter Susan do on Thursdays you may ask? Susan takes her Dear Old, Lives in a Retirement Home, Has dialysis three times a week, Mother, out for An afternoon of lunch and a bit of shopping.My Mom really appreciates and looks forward to this every week.

I try to not disappoint her, although sometimes I do have to cancel.

Well yesterday I took her out. And as an even bigger treat, I talked Courtney into coming along.

Mom LOVES Courtney.

We had a very nice time. Mom had to go to Target and exchange something. That turned out quite nicely. Meaning that they had what she needed. After that little bit of shopping we did what always comes next, which is to go have lunch. Mom and Courtney both voted for Red Lobster. I decided that Red Lobster didn't sound too bad so that's where we went. Red Lobster turned out just fine too.

So far So good.

Mom and I both wanted to go to Fred Meyer. They have raspberries and blackberries for 7.88 for a third of a flat. So off we went to Fred Meyer. Good, Good, so far everything is just another Thursday out. ( That BTW was a little bit of for-shadowing in case you didn't realize)

Alright, shopping done. Check. Lunch eaten and enjoyed. Check. More shopping done. Triple Check.

It is now time to take mom back to the good o' Tri-Cities Retirement Home.

I head up 10th to Highway 395. There seems to be road work ahead. The kind of road work that insists that you are soon going to be expected to all merge together into a single lane. In this case it was the right lane people needing to merge into the left lane.

Now this is what really pisses (sorry Dani) me off about this.

The people needing to merge left will go as far in the right lane as they possibly can. When they get to the final merging opportunity they suddenly feel that it is their right for every one that followed the rules and merged as soon as possible to let them in ahead.

I HATE that.

I try to be a good citizen. Especially if I have my mom in the car with me. I merged over to the left almost immediately. And from that point I allowed several people to cut in front of me. These are the good decent people like me that aren't trying to speed up through the right lane and then cut everyone else off.

SIDETRACK:

Here is something that really torks me off. Ya know when you are nice and let someone who needs to get into your lane get in front of you? Well I'm sure you know the proper protocol. You let the needy person in, that's you being nice. They wave to show their appreciation. That's them showing their gratitude.

That is how it is done! It's a GOOD system!

But for some reason there is a certain type of man who just will not play by the rules. I have noticed that it is usually older men. Now I have put some thought into this. I know that there are a lot of Men-of-a-certain-Age, who will not treat a woman as an equal if their stupid lives depended on it. And these are the type of men (in my opinion of course) who will NOT wave to a woman when she lets them in.

This really ANGERS me!

Okay back to my story.

As luck would have it the first person I let cut in front of me is an old man in a light blue, smallish, Toyota Pick-up truck. At first he won't even take it. Even though I have slowed down to the point that there is at least a three car space in front of me. Also, the idiot had his turn signal on. Pretty obvious that he wanted in. I just don't think he wanted in so quickly. It was pretty obvious that he was hoping to get a little closer to the front of the line. JERK. But he finally noticed the big space I gave him. He took it but he did NOT give me a wave.

BIG JERK!

I let in three more people. They all waved.

Slightly behind me, I saw a BIG truck. A big 18 wheeler truck. I decided to be super nice and even give him a break, even though I HATE being behind those big semi's. Did he take it? No he did NOT. He just kept passing up us good citizens who were obediently in the left lane. It made me sort of mad but I thought oh well, his problem if he gets up there and can't pull in.

Well it was no problem for him at all. He simply got up there and forced his way in. I wasn't close enough to see too well but I'm sure he left a few drivers pretty shaken.

JERK!!!!!

As luck would have it I ended up ahead of him after the next light at the next intersection. We drove on. I thought we were done put here came another need to merge yet again to the left. Again I let a couple of people pull in front of me. They were wavers. That was nice. I was about two or three car lengths ahead of the stupid big truck, and there was no way I was going to give him a chance to cut in this time. Plus there was no one behind him so it was no big deal for him to merge left.

Am I making this clear? Sometime these kinds of things can be a little difficult to picture what the writer means, so I hope you are still with me.

So here I am driving towards the upcoming Blue Bridge. Everything is swell. Oh no what is this? The big truck is almost up to me. The lane to the left of me has got maybe ten to fifteen feet before it ceases to exist. This nasty truck driver has got on his left turn signal. He actually is arrogant enough to think he can bully his way in front of me.

I know I should have backed down. I know that playing chicken with a ten ton vehicle is really a stupid to do.

Yes I do KNOW that.

I was just so mad that this jerk who wouldn't merge in front of me when I was willing to let him earlier, was now trying to force his way in. I stepped down on the gas and kept going.

So did HE!!!

That A_ S - H_ LE was pushing me into oncoming traffic! I could not believe it! He was trying to push us into the oncoming traffic. We would have been killed, seeing as how the oncoming traffic was going pretty close to 50 miles an hour. I had to slam on my brakes. And unbelievably this SUV that had by now come up behind the Semi also had no intention of letting me in. They were also trying to force me into the ONCOMING TRAFFIC!!!!

I cannot believe that these people could be so evil.

I stomped on the gas and just managed to pull in front of the SUV. This was just moments before me having a head on collision with another SUV that was coming right at me. At least that guy was trying to swerve and slow down. At least he was decent.

I was so MAD!!!!

So what did I do? I managed to dig out some paper and a pen and give them to my mom and told her to write down the trucks license plate. I also looked for the call- this -800- number -if this -driver- does -anything -stupid, number. Of course there was no number like this any where on the back of the truck.

So what did I do next? I did what any sensible person would do. I went for my cell phone and dialed 911. My mom pointed out to me, that I was not suppose to be on my phone while driving.

I didn't care.

As far as I am concerned some evil truck driver trying to kill me and my passengers is a slightly bigger offense than calling 911 while driving. They asked what my emergency was. I explained as best I could what the truck driver had just done. That was a little bit hard seeing as I was shaking like crazy. 911 informed me that I needed to talk to Highway Patrol.

They transferred me.

The 911 operator gave a brief explanation of what I had called for, then she turned it over to me. I suddenly realized that I should have said I was a passenger instead of the driver. But I was too shaken to be thinking that clearly. By this time I was right behind the Semi. We were just starting to get onto the Blue Bridge. I was trying to give the State Patrol person as accurate of a version of what happened as I could. They wanted to know where the truck was now. I told him that he was right in front of me. I had my mom tell me the guys license number so I could give it to the State Patrol guy. I told him what direction the guy was headed. I was told that they would see what they could do about it and then told me I could hang up.

Somehow, I got the impression that the State Patrol wasn't all that interested in pursuing this guy. I took the 20th street exit to take my mom home. I was still shaking. I still just could not believe what that truck driver had just done to me. The only bright spot was that no one that I had talked to on the phone had said anything about me being on my cell phone. I think that if they had I would have completely lost it.

Well I got my mom home safely. Courtney helped her get her stuff on her walker. We told her goodbye. She told us goodbye.

We headed for home.

We made it home without incident.

Thank Goodness.

I think I have just lost a little bit of faith in my fellow human beings. It was bad enough for the truck driver to do what he did, but the guy behind him in the SUV would rather have pushed me into oncoming traffic than have to take his rightful place behind me.

I guess I need to hear good things. I need to be assured that people are good, because at this moment I have lost some of my faith in the basic goodness of people.

Hopefully this will fade in a few days and it will just be a sad memory. I hope so. If I can let it fade away I know I will be happier and will feel better about people in general. I also know that I was protected by my Heavenly Father. And that really means a lot to me. So I guess I will have to work on putting this behind me and move on. I promise to try. And next Thursday I will take my mom out and we will have a nice time and everything will be good.

Thanks for letting me vent.