Friday Cemetery Blogging

Well, dang. It feels like weeks since I've sat down to write anything. I guess maybe that's because it HAS been weeks since I've written.

I blame the railroad.

Up until just a month or so ago, I lived in a constant state of danger. Facing one's mortality at every turn stimulates the mind and force feeds creativity. I was on the edge. And living there made every breath more stimulating, everything was brighter, stronger, more pungent.

But now the danger is gone.

Blasted railroad.

Here's the deal. At the end of one of the roads leading away from my house, there is a railroad crossing. I've lived in this house for almost ten years, and I lived every day with the knowledge that the train was going to kill me. For years I've told my friends and family, when the train finally gets me, it will be my own fault. I forget to look both ways before sailing over the tracks. So don't sue the railroad.

Anytime Katie was riding with me and we encountered the train, I told her I could jump it with my truck. The tracks are five or six feet higher than the road. You approach them on a dirt ramp sort of thing. Perfect setup for launching the truck right over the top of the moving train. I watched the Dukes of Hazzard all the time as a kid, so I knew I could do it - no problem.

Kate wasn't so sure.

So, to keep from offending her delicate sensibilities, I'd have to come up with a new excuse for not attempting the jump each time we ended up there at the same time as the train. Sometimes it was my own fault - I'd not been paying enough attention and hadn't built up enough speed on the dirt road leading up to the ramp. The price of jet fuel was prohibitive on several occasions and I wasn't sure if I could reach launch velocity on the cheap low-octane stuff I was using. Every once in a while the angle of the sun interfered. Occasionally she was in the truck with me right after I'd completed a successful jump and to do it again, so soon, was to run the risk of showboating and I'd never want to be accused of that.

I was running short of Shinola. But then the railroad solved the problem. They came along last month and put in lights and those arm thingies. Now I have to stop -- I can't jump the train.

It's the law.

Thank God!

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Phallacy

The Bureaucratic Paper Fairy has dumped on me mightily this week. Have you noticed how that kind of thing will completely zap your creativity? This frumpy little freak sneaks into your office and litters your desk with page after page after page of useless muck. Then just when you think she's done, and you can get started on dealing with the mess, she backs a truck up to the door and dumps the whole load.

I hate her.

If I ever get my hands on her grey polyester skirt suit (you know the one I mean - and she always wears a plain white blouse with one of those floophy 'lady' bow tie things at the neck.) I'm gonna strangle her with the mouse cord. I'm gonna sharpen some pencils and stick 'em as far up her nose as they will go. I'm gonna wad up all those papers and stuff them down her throat, one by one. Then I'll beat her about the head and shoulders with my phone. After that, I will run over the dang phone with my truck. Repeatedly.

And after that?

After that I'm gonna get really creative. You got any suggestions?

Domestic Felicity Day

Guess which two people found the perfect Valentine's Day card for each other this year?

 

Friday Cemetery Blogging

Not So Much, Anymore.

I wish

...that I understood French. All the naughty bits in the book I'm currently reading are in French. Hard to enjoy peaceful perusal of mysterious tomes when the laptop is propped open on one knee so I can look up the translations. (It's a British mystery written in the 1930's; therefor the naughty bits consist of lines such as "You intoxicate me" and "I wish I were in his shoes" and "now is the time for him to learn the difference between kissing and embracing" and the like.)

...Sinclair would stop eating the trees and digging up the yard. Other than that she's the perfect dog. She's so mellow. And she's rubbing off on Zoe just a bit. Zoe is ever so slightly less bouncy now that Sinclair is here.

...it were possible to fast forward to the end of this week. The stress! Argh! (But I am taking a few hours off on Friday the afternoon in honor of the thirteenth.)

...y'all could've seen the guy's face stopped next to me at the red light this morning. (Notice how it's "the" red light. 'Cause there's only one. Ha!) I like to listen to my music LOUD. So did the kid in the little Toyota. His hip hop was no match for my Puccini.

(I'm not an opera connoisseur as a general rule. This was just a fragment from Turandot - Nessun Dorma - that was included in the movie soundtrack that I was listening to.)

...someone could explain to me why the movie "My Bloody Valentine - In 3-D!" came out in the middle of JANUARY??? And now it's gone, gone, gone. Guess we'll have to see the new Friday the 13th movie, instead. Darn it.

So far this morning...

...everyone who's come in the door has stopped and taken just one more deep breath. Then they turn to the rest of us and say "It smells soooo good."

Moisture. Actual humid-type stuff. In. Our. Air.

Not a cloud in the sky, but we can still smell the rain.

Friday Cemetery Blogging

      Fievel's tombstone.

...and now I'm goin' to bed!

I started teaching another drug class today.  On a Monday of Mammoth Misery, Mishap and Misfortune.

I didn't know it was such a Monday when I left home this morning.  In fact, I didn't realize it until I got to the office.  Once I arrived and popped my oh-so-healthy sausage biscuits into the microwave, I went to the water cooler to fill my cup.  It was then that I looked down at my feet.  It took me a few minutes to realize what was wrong, but I finally figured out that I was wearing one black boot and one brown boot. 

That was the start.  Things went downhill from there.

I haven't had my blood pressure medicine since Friday.  Ran out and have no refills.  I spent the morning trying to call my doctor's office every time I had a moment.  Took me half the morning before I got anything other than a busy signal. 

I was in such a hurry to make it to work this morning following my masochism catechism class at the YMCA, that I forgot my rings.  That was one of the few happy accidents of the day, because no doubt they wouldn't have fit on my swollen fingers.  Did I mention I ran out of blood pressure medication?

At the end of the day, I rushed out of the office to go pick up aforementioned medication and a sleazy burger that I could gulp down before class started.  I careened into the oddly angled CVS drive-thru and screeched to a halt inches from the pharmaceutical window, where I demanded my drugs.  The nice little chemist tried to hand me one package. 

"There should be two," I said - somewhat panicky.  "One I called in Saturday and one the doctor's office called in today."

"They did call one in, but it's the same one you called in."

They called in the wrong prescription!  I was briefly incensed until the whole thing became tragically moot when I realized that I had no money.  I lost my debit card holder thing-y.  Couldn't find it anywhere.  Had no cash and no checks.  I never have cash or checks because I live and die by the debit card.  Which I had lost.

Furious, I peeled out of the drive-thru and headed for my house, trying to remember the last time I had it.  I found it in the pocket of a recently worn jacket.  Managed to make it back to town in time to grab the burger, snarf it successfully and get the class set up.

In all my above whining, did I mention my back has been nagging at me for the last couple of weeks?  No?  Well, it has.  And tonight, two hours into the class, I dropped my dry erase marker.  I didn't really have a pressing need for the dry erase marker.  But they won't allow me to carry a security blanket a la Linus Van Pelt - well, maybe they would, I haven't asked - so I always make do with carrying a dry erase marker while I teach.  I needed it.  And it was way down on the floor. 

I knew I couldn't bend my knees to pick it up.  I can't actually bend my knees for the first two days after M. C. class.  So, I bent from the waist and swooped down to grab it up off the floor.  I'd like to point out that thanks to my snazzily well stretched hamstrings - thank you pilates - this was not a problem and I had the magical marker back in my hand in the blink of an eye.

But I couldn't straighten up.  My back was stuck. 

I grabbed the edge of the podium and finally pulled myself back up to a standing position and managed to stymie the rasping gasp that tried to leak out of the sides of my mouth.  Thankfully, the class didn't last much longer.  I'd already decided it was time to wrap it up and get the hell out of Dodge.

Why, you ask?

Because, at the point when we were discussing the history of drug use, and I was supposed to talk about the rise of designer drugs in the 1980s, I was going to make a point about the drugs crack and ice. 

I said "crack and ass".