Blasts from the Past.

Is it just me or are cartoons lacking something now days? I think back to the cartoons that I grew up with and the characters, plots, and even the cheesy dialogue seemed to have more to it than what I see played out for kids now days. Barney, Dora, Spongebob make me sad for the current generations lack of cartoon entertainment, and characters. Maybe it is just me but it seems like we had a much wider variety to choose from growing up.
We had:
Thundercats
Transformers
Inspector Gadget
She-ra
He-Man
Ducktales
Darkwing Duck
Anamaniacs
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Fraggle Rock
Voltron
X-men
just to name a few..

The Exterminators

I caught this show the other day on A&E, it is one of the strangest things I have seen in reality tv in a long time, yet I couldnt stop watching it. It takes place in Louisiana, and this guy Billy and his black clad, skull and leather wearing family have a family owned and operated exterminating business. It is made up of his parents, wife, brother and himself. It was so weird.




Here is a link to their A&E page and their business Vexcon website.

Book Limbo

You know that great feeling you get when you read an amazing book, you cant wait to get back to it, to dive back in to the story, find out where it is going, where it will take you, and finally end up? It is a great feeling when the author is able to so completely transport you and capture your imagination with only his thoughts written on the page. However, there is the inevitable emptiness when you finish such an amazing book that leaves you wanting another quality piece of literature. When you happen across an author, or work of literature that speaks to you, and you devour it, then what? That is where i am right now...looking for something to fill the space of the great book I just read, will I find it? Probably not right away, I will be forced to put up with mediocrity until I one day come across another book that grabs hold of my imagination and refuses to let go.

The Countdown has Begun.

After Monday's class I have one week left of class for the semester! I have one paper done(kinda) for my online class. I have to complete my paper for my Monday class then all that is really left is my final for my linguistics class-I can see the finish line!

Out of the mouths of babes

The other day I came home from work to find that my dad had gone through his book shelves and sorted through some of the books he didn't want anymore, leaving the books on the shelves that he wanted to keep. Among these books to keep was a journal that I had given him years ago that was a guided reflection journal for a daughter to write her memories of her father down and then give him as a gift. I don't remember how long ago I did this, but I decided to sit down and read it. It was amusing and truthful. The last page, well it was just sad and a little heartbreaking. This is what it said:
"Being the worrywart I am I think about 30 to 40 years from now when I am your age and your Grannies age and I can't help but think that even then I won't be grown enough to let you go. So I just pray that I won't ever lose you before we're both ready"

I included all the original spelling and punctuation errors.

Colorado!

This was one of my all time favorite trips! I went when I was...23 or 24 I don't really remember exactly, but my dad was working for Raytheon who was the company in control of Mcmurdo Station Antarctica, which was where he worked. That year my dad was the Heavy Shop Crew Manager so he had to hire the mechanics. This involved (for him) a month or so in Denver, and for me a 2 week trip to Denver and back. My mom, dad, and I drove out there and stayed in a hotel in Denver and the company paid for My parents room and part of my room.
It was in may so they still had Snow up in the mountains, this is a snow and ice covered lake up in the mountains by Colorado Springs.

This is the Royal Gorge Bridge, basically a bridge that leads to no where. It just goes across the Colorado River and the road swings back across the bridge again.
The view from the bridge, it goes down, down, down, down. And the river looks Tiny.

These were the Anastasi Ruins that we visited right outside of Colorado Springs. They were really cool. You got to walk around inside of them and through the different rooms, very cool.View from the Anastasi Ruins. To the left of this is the Garden of the Gods.


One of the formations in the Garden of the Gods. (I have no idea who that dude is, do you ever think about when you get in people's pictures you are in their keepsakes forever, like this dude.)

This was a picture i took on the side of the road on the way up the mountain. *sigh* I love Colorado.

What to do?

What would you do if you got a gift that you knew you where going to have to react to the next time you saw some one at work (or anywhere else), and you really didn't care for the gift. I know it is the thought that counts, it was nice of her to think of me, I do appreciate that, I do! But my problem is what to do when she asks "did you like it?!" Ahhhh, ummm.... I don't want to lie. It was not something I can use, or really to my taste, so when she asks (which she will), "did you like it?" What is there to respond with???

Wannabe.

So I took a nerd test because i was kinda nerdy and had nothin better to do, I was not surprised by my results:)

Thank You, Happy Birthday, Hi, Thinking of You, Get Well Soon...

I like cards, i think they are fun to get, fun to give, fun to send. I mean who doesn't like getting a envelope from a friend, there are so many wonderful possibilities that could be in that card, and it means your friend took the time to think about you. I know some people throw cards away once they receive them, that's cool, because giving cards to people is not always about the receiver but also about the giver too. I enjoy picking out cards for people, finding the right one feels like a mini jackpot. If people throw it out after I give it to them, I don't care, it is theirs to do with as they please as long as they have read and understand the sentiment inside.

I have a letter box full of cards that I am going to try to keep on top of sending cards for the remainder of the year. We will see what happens...

Some Stuffs.

I have reclaimed my car, not just from all of the breakage, but from all of the junk that has been stored in the back of it since about November. Since then there was so much junk that we needed to get rid of in the back of my car that I had no back seat (it was folded down to accommodate said junk). But now my car works with the warning that "if anything goes wrong I should bring it right back in..." I feel real confident.

Day before yesterday my dad waited until I was gone, my mother was taking a nap, and shut their bedroom door, left the TV on so that if my mom woke up she would think he was still watching TV and stole her car keys out of her purse and went down and DROVE the car to wash it, and then proceeded to wax it. When I came home the car was gone, I knew my mom would not drive it that days as she was not feeling well, so I went running up stairs and found mom, but no dad, and no car keys. WE WERE PISSED, and a little worried, okay a lot worried. Found him in the garage of the building waxing the car. Took the keys away, tried to rationalize with him, he thought it was funny. Mom came down later and told him he could either give up his licence voluntarily or the doctor would force him to. Yesterday he gave it up and applied for a state ID. I don't think it will stop him. The doctor is supposed to call today we will see what she says.

Oh i forgot that my dad, once he got the car waxed, was too tired to unwax it so i had to do it.
good times.

Doggies.

When I was little from the time i can first remember, until I was in 7th grade we always had at least one dog (and various other animals). Our first dog was Honey, she was a Yellow Lab, that I don't have many memories but she was my first puppy.

Then one day Cindy (pictured above) turned up at our doorstep, she was a runway. We took her in but she was a restless dog and would often times be gone for days before returning and resting before running again. We never knew if we would see her again. We had here during the time when my dad was getting ready to leave for Antarctica for the first time. We lived in a secluded area and he did not want to leave us without some type of guard dog and he knew Cindy could not be counted on to stick around...

So Cocoa entered our lives. Jason and I were ecstatic! We had never gotten to pick out our own dog before! Little did we know we had just picked out a Houdini dog. Cocoa was brought home on the same day that Cindy had run away for what turned out to be the last time. We never saw her again. Well it turns out dad hadn't talked to mom about getting a new dog, and he was leaving the next week for about as far away as he could get...little did he know that he had instilled a destructive force on four legs in his home. Cocoa is infamous in our family, escaping a hurricane fence, a garage, a travel kennel, a hurricane fence and a leash, trashing the house including chewing up every piece of paper she could find, shredding the toilet paper, and picking up the OPEN bottles of cream rinse and carrying them alllllll over the house dribbling cream rinse all over the carpet, but the best was when we put her in the down stairs bathroom and she shredded the toilet paper, chewed all the wood around the window, turned on the water and flooded the basement floor and SOMEHOW managed to get a ceiling tile down and EAT IT!!! She was my favorite:) She was my pal. She slept in the exact middle of my bed the majority of my childhood. We eventually worked out her behavioral problems when we figured out she was a might claustrophobic, didn't like being closed in, if we just tied her under the table she was fine, eventually we just left her in the house, and the worst she did was sleep on the couch while we were gone:)

Now our next dog, Scamper was a whole new set of issues, Scamper was part human, part cheetah.
We had Scamper and Cocoa at the same time, Cocoa considered Scamper one of life's trials to begin with but they became buddies in the end. But Scamper was also an escape artist, but in a completely different way, he liked to run. The house we lived in, in Wisconsin, had a door off the mud room that just pushed open and Scamper could push it open with his body weight so if you left the one door open...Scamper was gone and the only way to get him back was to trick him with A) food, B) a ride in the back window of the car, or C) wait for him to get tired of chasing deer, porcupines, and skunks and come home.

And just because she is so cute I put in a picture of my aunt's dog, Mandy. She is a Cockapoo (cocker spaniel and a poodle).

If I was going to get another dog I would get a white West Highland Terrier, I have always wanted one of these dogs.

Stupid Car

My car has not really worked right all winter, I have had it in the shop a couple of times doing a couple repairs but it just breaks the next time I drive it>:( So, I have been letting it go, and driving my mom's car for awhile. Well starting next week my dad needs to start out patient therapy and that means that my mom is going to need to start driving her own car, that means I need to get mine in working order again. Bummer. Stupid car.
In February I took it to a local shop because the check engine light came on and the power steering was gone, they said I needed a new power steering pump and the light was on because the gas cap wasn't tight (I didn't really believe this as I had not gotten gas recently, so the light would have come on LONG ago). So, they replaced the pump and fluid. A week later I went to drive the car and every time I turned the wheel it made a whining noise. I stopped driving it. (that is how I chose to deal with it at the time) Fast Forward to April. I took the car to Saturn to get a complete diagnostic run to find out the problem with the whining noise and the return of the check engine light!! Turns out my little 4 cylinder car had been running on 2 cylinders as the Engine coil needed to be replaced along with the spark plugs and wires. Huh, who knew. AND...by the time I got to Saturn I had no power steering fluid left, it had all leaked out! ARGH!
After much debate it was decided that Saturn would fix the coil, plugs, and wires, put in some fluid and I would drive it back to the shop that was supposed to fix the power steering in the first place! and they would take a look at it to see if it was something they had neglected. So, I have spent $700 dollars on this car since Feb. that is $700 dollars that I couldn't afford to spend. Makes me slightly angry and delusional. I dropped the car off yesterday at the local repair shop...I have NO memory of handing the man my keys, but my car is gone from the parking lot, so they either took my car into the shop, or I left my keys in the car and someone stole it along with the $700 dollars of work that has been done on it....Oh happy days, I have to go to work now and earn more money to spend on car repairs.

Happy or Sad Poem, you decide.

My Papa's Waltz
(T. Roethke)

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small bout dizzy;
But i hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one Knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

The Sky is Falling.

So when I was at work yesterday i noticed that I had a sore spot on my arm, upon closer inspection of said sore spot I noticed that there was a lump that was causing said sore spot. It is on the outside of my left forearm. This bump is kinda shaped like a blood vessel and disturbing to say the least. Needless to say i ceased all bookseller type activities and proceeded to my nearest coworker and forced them to feel my arm/lump. Then I was on to the backroom where the coworkers gather, in the end 2 managers, 2 head cashiers, 1 cafe lead, 1 music seller, and a hand full of booksellers were made to feel said lump. There were several theories of what the lump could be (many had already swirled through my slightly worried mind) blood clot, tight muscle, spiders laying eggs under my skin, another human growing, a demon growing, and bad cheese. I was hoping that it would magically disappear by today but it has not, so i think I will go in and get a real diagnosis tomorrow morning.

Spring Cleaning

When i got up today I had no real plans, no ambitions other than to do some of my homework. However, my mom asked me to take the laundry out of the dryer and things got a little crazy. We started to move things around in the laundry room, my dad has jeans that were left over from his uniforms from work, they have been hanging in the laundry room ever since he stopped working over a year ago. So we went through them and got rid of some and folded the rest up and put them in his closet.
Then we threw some stuff out that had been collecting in the laundry room. Rearranged the room so his walker could fit in there, and got some clothes ready to go to the Goodwill, then we moved on to the bookshelf. We went through all of my mom's books and got some of them ready to go to the used book store. Then we moved on to my room, got some of my clothes ready for the Goodwill, I had a bag all ready in my closet, plus a bag of books all ready to go in my closet.
I decided today was the day to get rid of my bridesmaid dresses so I found a place to donate them that dry cleans them and gives the dresses to girls who cant afford prom dresses.
By the time we were done we had 2 bags of books, 3 bags of stuff for the goodwill, 1 piece of luggage, 1 vacuum, 1 desk chair, and 3 bridesmaid dresses to get rid of today. Oh and quite a bit of garbage. I cant wait to see the junk we have accumulated in the storage room.