Five Pound Family Size!!!

CHAPTER ONE: The Guys With the Beards, Right?
Song that's stuck in my head right at the moment:'Breakaway' by ZZ Top. Had thought about going to see them this summer when they're on tour, but I seem to be lacking in the area of anyone I know who'd be interested in going. Also noticed they have 'meet and greet' options at some, if not all, of the concerts.Tempting as that may be, I bet it would easily add another $100 or more to the ticket price. It was kinda neat when Cromag and I did something similar for the Blue Man Group show at the Convo. The options would be Summerfest in Milwaukee, the state fair in Springfield, or the Allstate arena in Chicago. Don't know if I even want to see what the ticket prices are, money being tight like it is. Then again, this could wind up being another situation like the one where I missed seeing Kiss onstage in makeup. Maybe I should just stick with my idea of maybe getting a hat and a new keychain....

CHAPTER TWO: Must.....Not.....Kill.....Dog....
Less than five minutes. That's how long it took Lucy to get herself into a situation that ended with me having a strong desire to forcibly remover the life from her. Two weeks worth of nurturing a batch of scarlet runner bean seedlings nearly ended with the dog trying to eat the whole batch. All because I had to go out front and get a container of water. I left the tray of seedlings sitting on the ground right in front of the place where they were to be planted, and something about the peat pots they were in must have just screamed 'dog treat'. Lucy had managed to shred all of the pots but one in the time it took me to to go out front and get a watering can full of water. I was not at all happy. I salvaged what I could, and planted them anyway in the hopes that somehow a few might make it. So far, several have started to take off, but now some insect is making a banquet out of the leaves. Did I mention that I was not happy about the situation?

CHAPTER THREE: Grow dammit!
The other starts for the season are quite a mixed bag so far. The pumpkins are all starting off well, and I fully expect that the entire front of the house will be swarmed with vines before too long. The hardy banana plants are growing slowly, but seem to be moving along. The cana (?) is also doing well, and has put on a nice show of soft orange flowers. The butterfly weed has gone insane and is now starting to resemble a medium sized shrub more than a group of individual plants. I plan to seed in the next two bays on the front side of the house with butterfly weed one we have a hard frost, and get rid of all the things that didn't really take off out there. The miscanthus is already over my head, and shows no signs of slowing down. The morning glories in every bay have emerged, but haven't quite hit twining height yet. Hopefully they can get a good start before anything starts munching on the leaves. I actually seem to have gotten starts on several of the moon flowers as well, so there may actually end up being some white in my drift of blue flowers. Gotta call Terminix and see if they have anything to deal with the Japanese beetles, too.

CHAPTER FOUR: Read It
'Busted Flush' A quick read authored by Brad Smith. Set in Gettysburg and centered around the discovery of some mythic Civil War relics, there are enough twists in this plot to make you go back a page of two to make sure you read it right. Add a dash of actual factual history, a crusty anti-hero, a wilderness man wanna-be, and a Yugoslavian history professor, and you have a great light read for your summer reading list.

CHAPTER FIVE: Watch It
'King of CA' Reasons why you may not like this movie: You have a bizarre need to have every last minimal detail of everything explained to you in the course of a movie. You have no imagination (see previous note also). A movie is not a movie for you unless naked breasts, or references to naked breasts, appear in at least every third scene. Beyond that, this is a neat little film. Makes me want to go out and buy a metal detector. And go digging up the floor of a Costco.

CHAPTER SIX: Is That a Moose?
Some notes on riding home at night from work: Fireflies bear a strange resemblance to animal eyes. The temperature along the trail is easily 5-10 degrees colder than the ambient outside temp. Technically, the trail is 'closed' after 10 PM. While I greatly enjoy the new rack I had fashioned for my bike, I also discovered that it has greatly affected the center of balance, and effect that gets magnified the more weight I put in it. Haven't dumped the bike as a result, but I have come close a couple of times. Just have to remember to take corners really wide.

CHAPTER SEVEN: Quite A-muse-ing
Ms Sparkly Drawers celebrated her birthday far out on the east coast this year. As of yet, I am still unbale to locate that specific thing that I want to get her. Still the summer is young, and there are a decent number of flea markets to go. On the flip side, she was kind enough to gift me with a little triangle of blue that has served to be the starting point for a couple of art related things. We'll see if she continues to be kind to me in that regard when she hits the road all over the IL/IN/MI area. I can but hope.

CHAPTER EIGHT: I Think Darwin Had It Right
Monday afternoon my head nearly exploded when I came in and found a huge hole in the July schedule. Seems that another full time day shift person had either been let go, or had quit without any notice. At this point in time I realize that the circumstances are not as important as the end result. As such, I don't really care what exactly happened. The unfortunate part would be that this was one of the people who had been grabbing up hours right and left to make up for the others who had gone or been removed from the schedule. Now, it seems that all bets are off. Tonight, for example, I have the new heme supervisor (who will not be staying on this shift), and the new second shift tech (who is not yet fully trained) as my coworkers. I was unhappy with the situation, and expressed my agitation to those who had the highest degree of potential to deal with it. The end result of that skull session was that I somehow wound up just slightly on the wrong side of things, yet again. There is not currently, and there is no potential for (at least the next half a year), smoothness of flow and that knowledge that comes from understanding your coworkers and what they are capable of. There will be some new technologies thrown in to boot sometime soon. The whole thing just went BOOM. And then once the dust had settled a bit, then it kinda went BANG. Yet another situation I find myself not liking very much. And again, I find myself uncertain of how to proceed.

CHAPTER NINE: And The Chicks Dig It....
Why blog?: There it is. A rather simple question. Two words, seven letters, and and a galaxy full of things I hadn't completely considered yet. So, when presented with this little gem by The Canuck, I had to do a bit of thinking. One of the first things I came up with was the idea of it being a way to let far flung friends keep up with whats going on with me. OK, so far that sounds pretty true. She asked if I was trying to give her some insight into who I am, or somehting somewhat along those lines. Yes, I suppose that would be true. Given the basically total lack of people I find trustworthy at work, this seems a first glance to be a relatively harmless means of self-expression. I can discuss things that people may not have thought about, or may be uncomfortable with. Don't like where a section is going? Skip it, and find something more to your likes to read. Or not. Skip the whole event, if you choose. But, I can't say that this goes unnoticed. If I didn't care about being read, I wouldn't have installed a hit tracker on my blog page. Scratch the notion of writing for the sheer need for anonymous self-expression off the list. I'm not quite an attention whore, but it does matter to me in some way that whatever this is doesn't go totally unread. Lack of social skills would be another reason. I don't chat (verbally), because it takes a great deal of effort to do something you're not very good at doing. Comfort level and editing ability are another couple of good reasons. Feel free to add to this list as you, dear reader, have need.

CHAPTER TEN: File an Extension....
The return of MSD to the area reignited my honest intent to complete the Giant's project. All I can really say is that the start I did make was nowhere near as impressive as I had hoped. This project now has all the initial earmarks of turning into yet another started but never finished project. Like the huge pile of my own records that I haven't cut yet. The furniture that hasn't quite gotten completely refinished. The incomlpete tiki room. The mounds of unfinished art projects. The inventory that never got cataloged. And who knows how many other things that I've forgotten about. Why is it that I can't keep focused long enough to get any of these larger scale projects done? Has my mindset been so conditioned by what I do at work that I can only focus on things that are viewed easily as piecework? And, if that is the case, how do I change my view so I stop seeing things as monolithic impossibilities destined to die a dusty death on a shelf next to all their predecessors? Do I get some sense of continuance from all these undone labors? I do have a track record for not being able to handle the end of long term things well. Perhaps by leaving things undone, I can put off that sensation of discomfort that comes with having to move on to something new. That loss of the familiar, that comfort in what you know well. If truth lies there, then why would I be agitated by the same undone projects? Have I come to rest at the crux of needing to move and fearing to move? Worse yet, have I never left that spot? That latter statement seems to be far more squirm inducing than the previous. Therefore, I think I have to grant it a higher degree of validity. This was all so much esasier when I could just bury all of this under gallons of alcohol, if only for a while. And none of that changes the fact that the stuff just needs to start getting done.


PEAS AND CARROTS

*Fourth of july: uneventful. The neighborhood was mostly abandoned, and there wasn't anyone in the left around who was trying to do their impression of the invasion of Normandy. Did get a nice whiff of cordite and gunpowder drifting through the house when they started the show over at Hopkins park, but I was content to sit and work on my jigsaw puzzle. What made me less content was when I seemed to get the Princess Cowgirl quite pissed off at me. And I'm still not sure exactly why.

* OK, I finally came to grips with the fact that I fried my hair with all the coloring I did while I was letting it grow out, and I now have an inescapable need for conditioner. But why is it that when I actually find one that works and that I enjoy the smell of, they no longer make it?

* Soon to be returning to her own house:Meenah, the farting wonder! Not a bad guest as far as our dogsitting escapades have gone, but I still have no realistic idea how such a small animal (Boston terrier) can generate such vast clouds of noxious fumes.

* Pinklady's folks finally had to put Trixie down. Her 6,458 years on the planet ended with an hour long seizure, and a trip to VCA.