CLOCKING IN

I'm trying to get more on the ball about completing projects that have laid around the house for, oh, let's admit it, several decades, instead of wasting hours playing spider solitaire.

It would be nice to hire a personal trainer/nag/wife who would keep me on track and highly motivated without me murdering him/her in the process, but it would even be nicer to simply have enough self-control to take hold of myself occasionally and give myself a good shake and acknowledge how much time flitters away during my day.


However, I have been a great employee in past years. When I am getting paid, I stay busy, I stay overtime, I get everything caught up, I do the stupid jobs that no one likes doing, as well as creating and updating forms and computer data and re-organizing the entire paper flow to make it more efficient.



I earn my money.



So today, I tried 'clocking in' with a schedule, hour by hour, of the things that need to get caught up, the stupid jobs that I don't like doing, and then re-create and re-direct some of this useless spider solitaire energy.



It worked. I studied my scriptures, I did a little TINY bit of meditation (one of those 'what-a-great-idea-and-I-never-do-it'), I brushed the horses, I painted the trim of the 435 bulletin boards that I have collected over the years, and I even drove into town to have a 'talk' with my second daughter.

So - let's see if it works tomorrow.

And right now I am going to waste at least 45 minutes playing spider solitaire.

GEORGE AND MORE GEORGE

I do not pay attention to details. My proof-reading is absurd for someone who alleges an aptitude to write - my house-keeping is enhanced solely by the use of low-wattage light bulbs (you can't see the dust using 40 watts) - I get simply SLOPPY about almost any project I undertake.

And I assume - which, as my husband, makes an 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'. I believe that everyone else thinks like I do - that people are honest, think the best of everyone, and do their jobs to the best of their ability.

Yeah, I know - 'SUCKER!!"

So I tacitly (naively?) 'assumed' that when I spoke to Sonny - the same man who I contacted and paid to cut up and MOVE to my house eight utility poles - about putting those same poles UP and INTO the ground - that he would then come equipped to put UP those poles.

Unfortunately, Sonny had a slightly different concept. That he would bring the huge, mechanical digger-thingie (I have no idea what you call 'em), and someone (I didn't quite understand who at first) was going to help guide the poles in, fill back in the dirt Sonny had dug out with the huge, mechanical digger-thingie (let's call it "George" from here on) while also running the hose to keep the dust down but NOT turn the dirt into mud - and do that SIX times.

I did two - and then admitted defeat, and called upon my wonderful neighbor Cherie's kids to bring shovels over and earn $10 apiece doing the shoveling/dirt part (putting George's regurgitation back where it came from) while I handled the hose part (I'm good at water - see previous blogs).

Do you think anyone has actually read this far? Do you think I can get away with my 'real' news? Or should I keep interspersing random musings about erecting of my horses' first actual shelter (besides the slight shade offered by the numerous mesquite trees in their pasture)?

Of course!

So this is what today has been - erecting (doesn't that verb just sound SOOO inappropriate for this?) poles (BIG cut telephone poles - BIG 'uns) - hearing from my almost-but-not-quite tearful son about he and two co-workers finding a one-year infant face-down in a pond, him calling 911 as the other administrated CPR. The paramedics took over, got the baby breathing on his own, and then he was airlifted to the major hospital in Chicago. Josiah was having trouble dealing with the other two guys joking about it - we talked about the line in the song "I'm the kind of guy who laughs at a funeral' (didn't I just write something about lyrics the other night? Wow, water and words - I'm on a roll).

Something back to dirt - let's see, if cost me $30 for the Rehiel kids to help, and I do have a definite sunburn just on the back of my neck, but my 53 year old back is still intact (sore, granted, but intact). Then my second daughter calls from, no, not work or her apartment, but the emergency room. No accident - she got mad at work, cut on her arm with (yes, this is real) with a plastic knife. I'm not certain who saw her, or who she told, but they called 911 and she ended up at the hospital.

Did I mention that my husband did come out and help some this morning? He also went over and helped a neighbor who was moving - an incredibly inactive member of our ward who had dropped out of sight when she divorced her abusive husband, had gotten remarried, and was moving up to Mesa. I'm glad he went over to help her - as well as about half our ward.

So after getting the phone call from the hospital, I see a stay dog on the highway home - dodging traffic - so I slam on my brakes, and spend about thirty minutes trying first to get him in the truck, then calling Bill for assistance, spending about twenty more minutes trying to get him into Bill's car, and then (thank God!) someone drove by, recognized the dog as their neighbor's, and took it home. HURRAH!

Paragraph here of taking a shower after this morning's construction job and realizing I had more dirt on my body that I thought possible. It wasn't that the water was brown, it was almost BLACK. Can you think of a song with black in it - we've got to stay with the water and lyrics thing, and perhaps even bring George back into story, right?

Final topping - it's 9:30 at night, and my husband had an 'accident'. Guess who is doing the laundry tonight. This day has been more than a little surreal. And I have a very bad feeling that I am not going to be able to sleep tonight.

Wow, what a wonderful story.

LYRICS

Why is a song sometimes sheer poetry, and sometimes it's just lines that sort of rhyme?

The name of the group on The Daily Show (Jon Stewart) yesterday was Cold Something. It was nice music - it sounded good - but at least with the song they performed, it was NOT lyrics, it was lines that rhymed, and that was it. Nothing poetic.

But it prompted me to look up some lyrics of songs I like, and I ended up plastering this blog page with one of my favorites - good luck if you can actually READ them.

WATER FALLS FROM THE SKY

That whole Noah and the ark story never shows up in desert lore. I mean, sure, we get thunderstorms, and I've seen some rainbows.

But in this part of the country, when rainclouds actually let loose and DROP the rain, it dries up on the trip down (wow, that sounds kinda weird, doesn't it?) and never actually touches the ground.

I mean, down here we call it MOISTURE, not rain. We pray for "moisture to come" - nothing like "rain to fall" like you people who live in areas with green areas that are not even irrigated or part of a golf course.

So tonight I took the dogs outside, not paying any attention to the weather because, hey, I live in southern Arizona, and it usually is, wow, let's see, warm and DRY. Both dogs bolted outside, as they normally do, and faster than lightening, bolted right back IN.

Because there was WATER falling from the SKY. H2O.

Can I sell tickets for this?

PRESCRIPTION DRUG REPORT

Pain killers - helped some, but definitely not enough that I wanted to keep taking them. My addiction fears were unnecessary - or maybe I just need STRONGER pain killers - YES - I need more POWER - I need MORE, I need something BIGGER, something extraordinary...

Wow - I guess I DO need to be scared

ARIZONA VS WASHINGTON

Arizona - Purple, red and orange sunset behind the mountains majesty

Washington - Extremely calm twilights that last beyond 9 p.m. with the sun somehow escaping behind the trees

Arizona - The smell of rain in the air, but only bizarre lightening strikes on the Mexican side of the border

Washington - Heavy, thunderous rain that appears and just as quickly disappears

Arizona - Home

Washington - Not home

Guess who the winner is?

A BLANK CANVAS

I am reading an extremely interesting books titled "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert, and it has prompted some unique lines of thinking.

Number one: that ugly hotel room I have been staying in the last few days was actually a clean slate. This room had no previous memories, associations, bad vibes, etc. Everything that was in that room was what I had brought in, and nothing else. The horrible television reception and poor lightening only guided me into self-awareness and some rather profound thinking.

Now I am determined when I get home tomorrow to finish a transformation of sorts in my own home - the painting that was only partial begun before Harmony and Blake came to visit - the idea of allowing energy to flow through the rooms - to put my favorite things in plain view. To bring out the optimism and cheerfulness that I want to continually experience.

So look forward to my POTM (Project of the Month) or LCA (Life-Changing Alterations) or JGEIGG (Just Get Everything in Gear, Girlfriend!).

A HOTEL ROOM ON HWY 19

What a dream vacation I am having; I am sucking down my second extra-large Diet Coke of the day typing on the hotel's computer in the main lobby after leaving my husband and mother-in-law both snoring in her living room. My backpack is stowed in the ugliest hotel room I have ever imagined - not filthy, or yucky, but just UGLY - and the only meal I've had today consisted on french toast that tasted just like scrambled eggs - or perhaps it was actually scrambled eggs that just LOOKED like french toast.

This town reminds me of West-By-God-Virginia (not the nice sections with DC commuters) in that 62% of the population appears to have married extremely close relations with bad teeth and frizzled hair. I am feeling quite thin (and at 185 lbs. that says something) and high-class (give a moment to let the laughter die down after that).

However, the rental car is a nice Mazda sedan, I've reading a couple of new books, I have Harmony on retainer so I can call her whenever I begin to really flip out, and although it is incredibly hot, humid and overcast, at least air conditioning has been invented.

How much trouble do you think I would be in if I simply got in the rental and drove back to Arizona?

JUST FEEL THE PAIN

I am a little afraid of pain-killers. No, let's be honest - I am TERRIFIED of 'serious' pain-killers.

For one thing, my father insisted for years that pain was simply your body's way of saying "Something is WRONG here," and if you take something to knock out that signal, you are missing something IMPORTANT (of course, this is before he got on morphine the last two years of his life).

The other main concern is that my mom for years was addicted to prescription medications. She worked for various doctors and medical practices, and kept all those little samples the drug reps give out. Mom also, I assume, took advantage of a few misplaced prescriptions. She took pills to get up in the morning, and pills in the afternoon to keep going, and pills to help her relax in the evening, and pills to let her sleep at night (well, I take a pill to go to sleep at night NOW, so I guess that was acceptable).

But I have an almost four hour flight this weekend to Portland, and then a four to five hour drive to get where I am going - and a crunched and upset little nerve between vertebrae two and vertebrae three and gives me NO problem at all... until I have to sit down for longer than fifteen minutes.

Wait a minute, that nerve is trying to TELL me something, right? An apology, do you think - maybe flowers? Okay... maybe not flowers... chocolate? Always works for me.

But the doctor writes me this wonderful prescription this morning with (trumpet fanfare) CODEINE - and now I'm terrified to take it. Well, not terrified enough not to try 1/2 a pill when the script is actually for 2 pills every three hours. And I didn't get too extremely loopy - maybe just a little bit silly - and it did take care of the pain.

So maybe just for the flight? Whadda ya think? Okay, I'll make you a deal , since I am so afraid of getting addicted to ANYthing like this, I'll report back when I get home on Tuesday, okay?

Deal!

KEEP THE GOAL IN MIND

Let's see how we can phrase this: you are trying to get to Goal A. Someone (Lt. Col. X) gets in your way, but two weeks later reverses his position, and supports Goal A. So do you scream at Lt. Col X, call him a liar in front of a multiple of witnesses, and proceed to carry the fight on up-the-chain of command?

Obviously, yes, some people do.

Wow - and I thought my son-in-law's family was odd at times.

BUT IT'S A DRY HEAT

100 today. And tonight at 10:40 p.m. (2240) it's 84 degrees.

But there's a full moon, there IS a slight breeze, and the air conditioning in the house is trying its very best to make a difference.

Another glass of water. anyone?

AN APOLOGIZE TO ALL BLUE-COLLAR WORKERS

I plead guilty, guilty, guilty of stereotyping delivery/moving individuals, and throw myself on the mercy of the court. I prejudicially predicted that two large apes would stumble into my house delivering my bed, and instead met two intelligent college-educated men, one a professional musician, who competently maneuvered an over-sized moving van into my narrow gateway, removed my old bed, carefully placed my new one exactly where I wanted it, and were extremely gracious about receiving a, at least in my eyes, rather small tip (all I had on me was a $5 bill).

And while looking for photos of fat, sweating moving men, I found these - not related at ALL, but what fun!

AH, NOW I REMEMBER...

... why I have kept that California-King-Size-Water-Bed all these years.... BECAUSE IT IS SUCH A PAIN TO TAKE DOWN/UNLOAD/EMPTY.

I have discovered four separate & distinct civilizations that has risen and fallen under this bed. Two new animal species have been documented by the Bureau of Wild Animal Preservation, while a certain weed unearthed may cause egg damage to the Upper Basin San Pedro Wokee Wokee bird but only when ingested with more than 1 liter of Diet Mt. Dew.

The water level in the aforementioned Upper Basin San Pedro River system has risen .000078% through the emptying of ten water tubes.

An appropriate space of 2.34 acres is now available in my bedroom for exercise equipment, piles of dirty laundry that needs to be sorted, and two dogs to sleep on. However, that appropriate space of 2.34 acres has also been LOST for hiding old books, blankets my mother-in-law has knitted and crocheted and I cannot throw away, and the aforementioned wildlife and emerging civilizations to grow and develop.


I now await the arrival of two large, sweating males to upset both my dogs, take away the large bed, and set up my new tiny little nesting bed. In the process, I will lose 95% of the cool air-conditioned atmosphere inside, inherit 43 flies, two bees, and three tiny lizards, and have a second mess to cleanup when the certain-to-be dirty boots leave my abode.


A follow-up report will be posted this evening.

WHY DO TODAY SOMETHING YOU CAN PUT OFF UNTIL TOMORROW.... OR LATER?

BISBEE POLICE BEAT

My hand before God, I am NOT making any of this up.

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May 30 11:41 pm - A disorderly man was reported at the Stock Exchange bar. He was asked by an officer to leave, and he complied.

May 31 10:23 PM - A resident in the 100 block of Star Avenue reported his neighbor was shooting at him. The man, 54, was arrested for discharging a firearm at an occupied structure.

June 1 3:24 pm - A resident in the 300 block of Pirrung reported that someone has been turning off the water to his cooler outside during the night.

7:53 pm - Donkeys were reported on Highway 80 near Bisbee Blue, creating a hazard in the dark.

June 2 9:25 am - While a resident in the 100 block of OK Street was out of town, someone broke a bird feeder and a hummingbird feeder in the yard. An extra patrol was requested.

June 3 3:06 pm - A vehicle was stopped on Highway 80 near mile post 341, and five people bailed out of the vehicle. Two illegal immigrants remaining in the vehicle were turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol. The vehicle was impounded.

June 4 12:11 am - A U.S. Border Patrol agent from the Naco Station reported seeing a black bear in the road near the Traffic Circle. Officers and agents chased the bear, estimated to weight 300 pounds, from Bisbee Road behind Mason Addition to the area behind Bisbee High School. The bear was last seen running south.

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I love living here.

PLUSES AND MINUSES

- It was 101 degrees here today
- I have a coyote who has decided that since I have an overabundance of rabbits (the understatement of the century) he is going to move in permanently
- I live at an altitude of almost 5,000 ft above sea level
- I also live three miles from the Mexican border in an area that has the majority of illegal border crossings for our state.

And those are just the pluses!

Seriously, after driving up and through Tucson today, I am SOOOOOO glad that I live way out here on my little patch of not-much.

And that I have air-conditioning.

DRUG ABUSE AND STINK BUGS

Drug abuse: The use of a drug for a purpose other than that for which it is normally prescribed or recommended.

Every evening, I let a wave of irritation wash over me whenever my husband pops his head out of the bedroom after he has taken his sleeping pill, wanting either another Mt. Dew (yes, honey, drink caffeine as you are trying to go to sleep) or chat (that pill lowers ALL inhibitions).

But this afternoon, after almost two solid days of being unable to keep my eyes open for more than a half-hour, and the same amount of time with a MONSTER head-ache, I took two Excedrin Migraine pills... FOR THE CAFFEINE.

If I was Catholic, I'd make myself go to confession tonight.

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Last night I had a stand-off with a stink bug, and it won the battle. Size was the determining factor - not MY size, but HIS. Little itty bitty bugs are fairly easy to classify as simply an airborne irritation - but black, solid, and oddly slow-moving insects the size of my palm somehow warrant some sort of respect.

When the bug was discovered slowly pacing the floor of my bathroom, I did the only thing I could humanely do - shut the door, called up Harmony to ask her advice about it, and allowed the bug enough time to escape.

I like to think of myself as humane rather than chicken.

ANOTHER MOVIE QUOTE

"Hairy legs are your only link to reality."

HERE'S YOUR SIGN

Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you had been born 100 years before? 20 years before? Even one year before? I mean, even one year would mean you would have been with that cooler senior class - you might have had an inspiring teacher in calculus instead of that scary old lady who made you swear off mathematics after your junior year - you might been stepped on by a dinosaur when you were ten (oh, wait a minute, that WAS when I was ten).

I am somehow convinced that if I had been born just a bit LATER I would be into graphic design. The first computer I worked on was with a black screen, green letters and a c: prompt, for goodness sake - there was no such THING as computer graphics.

So I grew up making signs the old fashioned way - cardboard and paint. Signs for yard sales, signs to sell cars, signs for horse owners with their horse's name - signs signs signs.

Tonight I'm making signs for my neighbor's yard sale this weekend, and actually enjoying it. If I had some way to blow-up my little computer images, they would be way more professional, but I think they are okay for a yard sale.

(And isn't this last one just the cutest thing you've ever seen?)

I AM GOD

Okay, maybe I'm not God, but the title got your attention, didn't it?

How about I can RELATE to God.

God has all of us whinny children here on earth saying, "But I don't wanna do this, I want the prize right now, why do I have to be nice to that person? I don't wanna play anymore" etc. etc. etc. We complain to Him about our petty mortal problems, our short-sighted time-restricted view and keep Him on the line with a whole lot of 'I WANT IT NOW, I WANT IT NOW, I WANT IT NOW!!!!" while banging our fists against the floor and screaming.

So when I am dealing with someone (we do not need to discuss names here) on the phone with "but I wanna see the movie TOMORROW and no I don't have the money but I wanna see it TOMORROW and why can't I just take the money out of savings and I NEVER get to do anything and NOBODY likes me and why are you so MEAN"...

... yeah. I can relate, God.

HAIKU

My house burned down
Now I can better see
The rising moon

WHEN TO LET IT GO

Movie trivia question for the night: what movie, and who said it? "I was very angry at my father; took $80,000 for me to say that. I say it very well, so I'll say it again - I was very angry at my father."

A conversation tonight with my mother-in-law: her granddaughter (my niece-in-law, if such a term exists) was taken to court by her ex-boyfriend, and father of her son, to sue for custody of the boy, after not being any part of his life up to that time. Took several thousand dollars (some of it from my mother-in-law, who lives on her Social Security) to get a smarter lawyer than he had hired, and seems to be getting resolved (now the idiot is on the books for never paying any child-support - any job he has in the U.S. from now on will have the payments taken directly out of his paycheck before he even gets it)

A lot of memories were stirred up - and it look me a walk outside for a while to recognize that it is simply best to let those memories go. We can keep them alive - stir the pot - keep the heat up... or we can decide that peace is more important. I don't mean forgetting the lesson(s) learned - and I don't think the actual memory is ever going to leave - but we don't have to keep re-living it, re- experiencing it, re-telling it.

Thanks. This message is just for me, but to post it helps.