Technology

Is a wonderful thing.

When I called to cancel my debit card, the nice lady at the bank checked for any transactions.

Whoever stole all my stuff attempted to use my card at the ATM at a nearby (like, a block and a half away) convenience store. Three times. They did get money off the other card, but we canceled it in time for the bank to not hold us responsible for the charges.

The first and second times were spread out, too, so there's either two chances for the security cameras to have caught the guy (or gal) coming in, or there's a nice long stretch for it to have caught them while they hung around in the store for about three hours.

Hopefully, they got a good picture. Then the nice officers can just go get a warrant and slap the guy in jail. It wasn't that much, money wise, but for me, it's the principle of the matter. I'd very much love five minutes alone with the asshole that did this, but I know that isn't going to happen.

Still... it's a nice fantasy.

Edit: What idiot decided that the convenience store security cameras didn't need to cover the ATM??? We'll find out tomorrow if there were any other charges to either card. It's very confusing, on the one hand I hope there aren't, because that's less money the bank is going to have to get back somehow (yay fraud protection, I'm not liable) and on the other hand, if they just got the cash from the ATM then they didn't use either card anywhere that a security camera could get a good picture of their face, which means it will be that much harder to catch the bastard.

And if one more person tries to sing me happy birthday today, I'm going to kill them. Thanks to this I'm seriously considering becoming one of those women who don't have birthdays.

Victim

It's amazing how much impact a single word can have. Most of my life I've been striving to keep that label the hell off of me.

I've used phrases like "With the way I look, I might as well have Victim stamped across my forehead."

I've advocated self defense (loudly) and told people to be smart, use their heads.

And last night, I was an idiot. A complete, and utter fool.

I picked the kids up from daycare, and it was hot, so I left my windows down on my car. I wasn't sure if I'd be taking them to CM's house or if he was coming to pick them up, and I didn't want the kids, or me, getting a case of heat stroke on the way over, if we took my car.

Well, CM picked the kids up, and I promptly forgot about my windows being down.

As I was drifting off to sleep last night, I thought about it. And instead of getting up, throwing on a bath robe, and going out to secure my vehicle like I should have, I thought "it's not going to rain tonight" and rolled over and went to sleep.

When I woke up this morning, my roommate informed me that my trunk was open.

Yeah, my car was ransacked.

XM Radio, gone.

Bookbag, gone. Although they were nice enough to dump out all of my books before they took the bag.

Wallet, gone. That one hurts the most, it had my driver's license, debit cards, concealed carry permit, and social security card in it.

Tried to take my car stereo but they couldn't get it out. I need to remember to thank my brother for putting it in correctly when he did it, they didn't have the tools to get it out of the mounting.

I was all right until I remembered that one of the debit cards was to an account that isn't mine. Then I felt like an absolute heel. That one has already been canceled, and I'll be canceling mine as soon as I can get ahold of someone at the bank.

Once I got the debit card taken care of, I was back to being pissed off about it, until the officer used that word.

A single word, and it was all I could do to keep from bursting into tears right then and there. The only thing that saved me was that another part of me was wanting to slap the officer for calling me a victim.

But, I am. A victim of a crime, through my own stupidity. Might as well get used to it, as much as I dislike it.

Hell of a way to start my birthday.

Huzzah!

At long, long, long last, Law Dog has finally completed the infamous Pink Gorilla Suit Story.

I think we finally nagged him enough. Either that or my creative writing teacher was entirely right when she said that sometimes, the best thing to do is to walk away from a tale for a while, and come back to it later.

I hope so, because my block on Jane has only gotten more solid the more I push on it, and my life has increased in hectic-ocity since CM and the kids came into it, so I've back-burnered her for a while. She's not going under the bed yet, just to the side of the desk, I swear. But she isn't being very forthcoming with me right now, and I don't have the time to sit down and sweet talk her.

Maybe all of ya'll can spend the time you used to spend thinking about the PGSS bugging me about Jane. I'm not sure if it will do any good, but maybe it will make her feel important again, and she'll start being clear. Lately she's been about as clear as mud about the rest of her story, the confounded woman.

Yippie Skippy

I'm sitting here waiting for my Computerized Farm Records class to start, listening to everyone BS and fiddling around on the net.

It's been a long weekend... I spent twelve hours in the car on Friday, did the Old Homestead's Big Birthday Bash Saturday, in addition to hauling Sparky and J down. I hauled Sparky cause Farmmom would have killed me if I hadn't, and J wanted to look at Miss Legs and maybe take her for the semester. We're still not sure if he's gonna or not.

I'm just exhausted for no good reason. I napped this morning before my first class, and again in between my first and second classes, and I'm still tired. Maybe all the napping is why.

On an entirely different note, I'm sort of scared. MC asked me what I wanted for my birthday, and said that since I wouldn't tell him (I don't know! Everything I wanted the Farm Family got me!) he's going to have to be creative. My actual birthday isn't until Thursday, so he's got some time to plot yet.

Well, the instructor is starting to look around like he's ready for us to chill out and get going, so I'll have to wrap this up and actually pay attention. Sort of. Since it's Quick Books I ought to be able to snooze through the biggest part of the lectures without too much trouble.

First Day of Classes

Over and done with.

Two classes with Marilyn, one with the droning snorefest from my Ag Financing class last semester.

Should have known he'd be in charge of the Computerized Farm Records class. Ah well. I also have to have a three ring binder and a thumb drive for his class.

Tomorrow, I have Career Math at eleven (with Mr Droning Snorefest himself, again) and Intro to PC Applications at five thirty.

Nothing extremely entertaining to report, I haven't met any of the freshmen yet, so I don't know what they're like... Maybe I'll be able to report on some of them after tomorrow.

Sparky has returned, after a summer of no love, since he didn't have a phone or access to a computer that could go on Myspace all summer. He's right back in the swing of things, living over a bar and already riding C's new horse, who by all accounts, is just a bit evil. She wants me to ride Lakota (the horse) too, but since C has been building this horse up as a big bucker ever since she got dumped, I told her it would have to wait until I got my saddle up here. I don't like her saddle, it's all smooth leather including the seat, and it feels like riding a greased pig if anything goes the slightest bit rodeo.

We still don't have an indoor arena. You know, the brand spanking new fancy shiney expanded indoor arena barn and classrooms that they promised we'd have by the time fall semester started last year? Yeah, they tore out all of the panels in the arena, and the wall between the arena and the old stall area, and the outside wall on that side, dug a bunch of trenches for their new foundation, all in a week and a half or so at the tail end of last semester, and then.... stopped.

I've been watching all summer and it got to a certain point and then, everyone vanished. No workers, no new materials, nada.

Turns out, they ordered the wrong steel to start with, and the steel that they needed only started arriving yesterday.

So, no indoor this semester, which is going to suck when the weather gets bad. They've ordered a cover-all (I'm thinking that it's going to be what I like to call a condom building, a cover of some kind of flexible material stretched over a series of pole supports so that it has the texture of a giant "her pleasure" condom) for the stalls for the colts, and are waiting for it to arrive before getting the "school" horses in and starting riding classes. All reports say that the school horses will arrive the second. That's right, the second of next month. I may have to take C up on her offer of riding the evil mare (the more the merrier, this horse has serious respect issues, and the more she is reminded that that poo don't levitate around here the better) just to keep my sanity.

I'll be bringing Sparky with me this weekend, Farmmom, so you can beat him yourself for not staying in contact. And, I'll be bringing JB (the one that worked out at the Blue Rose all summer) to look at miss Legs and see if he wants to take her for the semester. I think she'd teach him a thing or two.

Speaking of the horses, the college has instituted a flu shot policy. Either you hand over a vet certificate saying that your horse had it's flu shot, or you administer a flu shot yourself to your horse with an instructor present, or they're just gonna go ahead and give the damn flu shot and make you pay for it. They're tired of dealing with the influenza sweeping the barn.

Looks like it's gonna be an interesting semester.

YAY!

Teh Intarwebz is back up and running.

No time for a longer post right now, got too much stuffs to do to finish up the move.

Updates n stuff

So. Moving house tomorrow morning, still got a buttload to pack.

Will be without net and tv and house phone till I can get them switched over.

Got the Noel pup moved up here, and she's doing really well adjusting to having Happy (Roommate's dog) around. He's in his kennel and Noel is in what will become my bedroom, with a kennel set up for her. She probably won't use it tonight but its got a nice soft blanket and one of my older housecoats in it.. it smells like mommy. Plus her food is in there, so yeah.

Lots to do tonight. Not a lot of time to do all of it, and not a lot of motivation, since it's raining out. Days like today make me want to curl up and take a nap, not industriously pack up the rest of my household.

Blargh

Heavy box of glass baking pans + a slip + a bad catch = owwie wrist.

I'm thanking my lucky stars that I have a brace for the right hand right now.

Oh Joy

"Hey Doc, how ya doin?"

It was last Friday and I'd just walked into the back room of Doc Moreschini's office, and plopped my happy (read: well-drugged) butt down into the torture devi... er... dentist's chair.

"All right, how about you?"

"Oh pretty good, Doc, just a couple little annoyances. Bone spurs, one here on the side of my mouth and one in the roof. You know, where I had that sore on the roof of my mouth?"

"You just can't get them out, huh?"

"Well the one is attached to my jaw still, but it's coming through the gum. The one on the roof is weird though, I may have some growth on that one."

"Hmm... let me look at it."

......................

"Well, it's not growth, it's just a dead flake of bone that's floating around up there. We'll pull it out just so that it for sure won't cause any problems."

"Whatever you say Doc." Bless you, makers of Diazepam.

I don't know about you, but when I hear the word "flake of bone" I'm thinking like a bone spur, a little sliver. Not something that requires an incision. And a good firm yank.

I am so glad I had figured on him actually having to do something really dentisty and had taken my happy pills. Otherwise, I might have hurt Doc.

Anyway, he got it yanked out and took care of the other little problem, and I was sitting there reeling, when he showed me the piece that he'd pulled out of the roof.



Yes, folks, that's a standard #2 pencil. And yes, that really came out of the roof of my mouth. The top picture is the side of the thing that was pointing down, with the top right corner of the thing being the portion I was actually feeling. You might be able to see the jagged protrusions on that side. The other side is smooth.

Anyway, Doc wandered off for a few minutes, made a slight adjustment on the denture, since the fit had obviously changed a tad, and then he dropped the bomb. He told me that he wanted me to go check in with the oral surgeon before I left town, and made a point of talking directly to the guy to make sure I got in.

Two hours in the waiting room at the oral surgeon's office, five minutes of face time with Dr. Day, and he tells me "I don't see any problems, it doesn't appear to go into the sinus cavity, so it should heal over just fine."

Whew. $95 later we were on our way.

That night, as I was performing my standard oral care, along with the oral care for open wounds that has become all too routine, I made a rather unpleasant discovery.

I couldn't spit.

I'd try to work up a good spit while brushing my teeth (the ones that don't come out) and I'd get a mouthful of air. Oh, I should explain. I take my denture out to brush my bottom teeth, because lets face it, it's easier. Besides, running my tongue over the roof of my mouth and my gums while I have a mouth full of tooth paste is an easy, effective way to clean and freshen up there.

I managed to spit out the mouth full of tooth paste, although it wasn't pretty, and I felt at the hole in the roof of my mouth with my tongue. Then I performed a little experiment.

I closed off the back of my mouth with my tongue and sealed my lips tight, and tried to open my jaws.

And lo and behold... I discovered a hole from my mouth into my sinus cavities.

Well crap, time to worry about infections a lot more.

So I made what seemed at the time to be one of the bigger mistakes of my life. I rinsed with Listerine.

You don't realize how little you think about what you're doing with your mouth until something forces your attention to it. I took a good rinsing swig of Listerine, and proceeded to half drown myself.

Do ya'll have any idea how much Listerine burns in your sinuses??? It's not pretty.

Saltwater rinses, while possibly less effective at killing the nasties, are, for the nonce, kinder to me myself and I than Listerine.

And, before you all start yelling at me to go back to the oral surgeon, I called his office yesterday, and he said that the soft tissues should heal back over and close the hole. If it doesn't close completely in a month, he wants to see me.

Other than that, I get to half drown myself every day trying to care for this... hole.

I am learning how to do it without winding up with salt water running out of my nostrils, but I still sputter to some extent every time.

You Know You're a Lush When...

Your upcoming move doesn't really feel real until you pack up a few boxes, tote them to the new place, get back to the soon-to-be-old place and think:

"Wow, I have to move now... my margarita set is over there!"

Sort of sad. Especially considering I haven't had a margarita since before classes let out for the summer.

So Long, Old Friend

Long about eighteen years ago, when I was a young Farmgirl, and the Farm Family still lived out in the country, our nearest neighbors had a pair of cocker spaniels. As often happens when you have a male and a female, they had pups.

Once the puppies were about eight weeks old, Farmmom, Farmbrother, and I went over and saw them. There were two left, and we took them both home. Farmmom knew we could find a home for the one we decided not to keep.

One was a solid blonde pup, with a head like a gallon jug of milk, the other was blonde and white particolored.

These pups were born in a remote corner of a dirt-floored shed, and lived there until they went to their new homes. Unfortunately, a large colony of fleas also lived in that shed, so the pups were just covered in them.

So, first order of business for the little furballs was a bath. Farmmom got them home, put them directly in the kitchen sink, sprinted to the bathroom and ran back out. By this time I was already on a stool at the sink keeping the squirmy pooches corralled and setting the water temperature.

The puppies yelped and cried when the water hit their feet, whimpered and shook as we tried, in vain, to work up a good lather with the shampoo, and we murmured soft reassurances and stifled giggles as they tried to crawl out of the sink.

Well, I giggled. Farmmom was slightly appalled at how dirty they would have to be to keep the shampoo from lathering after three washes. That is, until she declared it as good as it was going to get (we were both soaked from the waist up, and the puppies were convinced that it was the end of the world) and we wrapped them in towels. One arm full of puppy and towel, I reached out and snagged the bottle of shampoo, only to turn to Farmmom and say "I know why the shampoo wouldn't lather."

"Why?"

"Because it's conditioner."

Those puppies had the softest fur in three counties. But, the fleas were gone, either smothered by the conditioner or drowned and washed away by the repeated rinsing.

That was the beginning of a long friendship with Misty, the little particolored cocker spaniel. We named her Misty because she seemed to walk around in a mental fog about half the time, and had a habit for a while of bumping into large pieces of furniture.

I maintained that she was thinking deep thoughts about the meaning of the universe. Farmdad said she was just a blonde.

That pup took to farm life like a duck to water. Playful, sweet, and loyal, she was the epitome of a cocker. She also had a deep seated joy in retrieving freshly shot prairie dogs, from the very start. Before she was much bigger than her target she would wait patiently by your side as you took aim with the twenty two, and the minute she saw one fall, she was off like a shot, to laboriously drag the carcass back to within ten feet of you. She'd drop it, and pant heavily, while wagging her stub of a tail so hard that her whole body wiggled side to side.

She was so proud of herself. If you tried to take the dead prairie dog from her, though, she'd grab it and run away. It was her dead thing, she just wanted to show it to you.

She was fearless. When we brought her to town on a visit to Mamaw's house, she picked on Mamaw's Doberman bitch, playfully nipping at the bigger dog's ankles until Baby, the Dobie, snapped. Baby caught her on the face, puncturing a hole through the bottom of her jaw, and cutting her lip. Misty yelped, and hid under a chair until we dragged Baby to another room. A trip to the vets determined that Misty would heal, and as soon as she quit bleeding (and the little chunk of tylenol we gave her for the pain kicked in a bit) she was right back to growling at the much larger dog. Keep in mind Misty wasn't even half grown at this time. We kept them separated after that.

One day, we opened the door to find her laying on the porch, her nose swollen and her muzzle covered in blood. She'd gotten into a fight with a rattle snake. We weren't sure if she'd survive, for a while, the snake bite was in a bad place, the swelling nearly cutting off her air. A dose of anti-venom and a large vet bill later, she was back on her feet with a new scar and a bone-deep hatred of sticker-snakes.

Three more times we had to rush her to the vet's for snake bites, one of them the fang marks were so far apart they almost didn't find the second one. How big does a rattle snake have to be to have fangs nearly two and a half inches apart?

But, she never lost a fight with a snake. We'd find her on the porch, sick and beginning to swell on the site of the bite, muzzle covered in more blood than a snake could afford to lose.

She was a circus performer, a fierce guard dog, or a mighty bear, in games with my brother and I. She'd "Stand Pretty", and dance, and play "which hand is the treat in."

When Farmmom was working in Holyoke and we rented a house there for the summer, she came with us.

Whenever we went through Lamar with Misty in the car, she got chicken gizzards from KFC, or ice cream from the drive-in. She liked chocolate.

She was a friend, a family member. She was the world's biggest mother, and she never got to have pups of her own. The one time she got pregnant, it was from a stray lab mix, and the pups were just too big for her. We got her fixed when we had to abort the pups. That didn't stop her from being momma dog, though.

She helped me raise litters of kittens, and once, a calf. Somewhere I have a picture of the first night we had Moo, a feedlot calf out of the finishing pen. I'm in my swim suit and shorts (I'd been at the pool just before the Farmparents arrived with Moo) sitting in the kitchen with the baby-gates up, Moo standing beside me, skinny and still unsteady on her pins, with her head down by Misty, who is cleaning the calf's face.

Misty would lay perfectly still while you cut tangles out of her fur, which was so fine that no amount of brushing could keep it from matting. We had to trim her with scissors, clippers would just clog up and tangle into her fur. But she understood that she needed to be still, and you could trim between her toes, on her ears, or right next to the sensitive skin on the inside of her back legs, and she'd do her best to stay put, even when you had no choice but to pull a little.

She was a good dog, our Old Pup. Arthritic, and deaf as a post, but she still had days that she felt and acted like a puppy.

Until last night. Last night Farmdad had to put her down.

She's the only dog we've ever had that we've had to put down due to old age. We've had dogs that got sick, got hit by cars, got snakebit, but never one that was just too old to go on.

It feels like I lost a piece of myself, and I know Farmmom and Farmdad feel the same way. She's the first critter I've lost in a long time that I haven't been there to say goodbye.

They're going to bury her today at the farm, where she was happiest.

So long, Iddle Dog. Wherever you are I hope someone is shooting prairie dogs for you until you can't walk to get them anymore, and the snakes don't bite, and taste like Lil Smokies. I hope there are babies everywhere for you to love and that there's no such thing as too much ice cream.

We'll miss you, Misty.

Moving Again

I've been looking for a new place, since my lease was coming up on it's end. Actually it ended the first, but yeah.

I couldn't find anything, there were no one bedrooms or even two bedrooms in town.

Well, circumstances looked like they might conspire to hand me a two bedroom duplex with a little yard for two hundred a month plus utilities, but that fell through.

That is, until B (who lives there now, but is looking for a house to buy with her fiance) got fed up with her roommate. Well, Roommate didn't want to pay her part of the bills, so it's understandable.

So, B kicks Roommate out and calls me, knowing that I've been pulling my hair out about finding a new place, and had finally thrown up my hands, about half grateful to have the apartment at all.

"Give your notice and start packing."

See, I'm pretty sure I can handle having a roommate, knowing its a short term thing. And who knows, I might just like it. Regardless, that place is going to wind up being more space for about the same money as this one, without a roommate. And I can finally bring my pup up.

Now I just have to pack, and decide if being moved before classes start is worth basically giving them two weeks of my rent money here for nothing.

Oh, and basically move two households, since B and I talked about it and agreed that since she's going to be moving out anyway and has access to free storage through her fiance's family, we're going to use my stuff in the house and put hers in storage. So we'll be moving her stuff out and then my stuff in. Another thing in the "pro" column for moving before classes are over.

It's gonna be a busy month....

Just A Regular Old Irregular Girl...

Hit Big R today to look for some jeans. I was hoping to get into some Wrangler Aura jeans on sale, but that wasn't in the cards, and I can't afford to spend fifty dollars on one pair of jeans, right now. (And probably won't be able to bring myself to actually pay that much ever...)

Regardless, I needed to find some higher waisted jeans, because frankly, I'm not going to survive if I can't wear tank tops this semester. I haven't been out in the heat as much this summer and I'm not adjusted to it, and it's been high 90's and low 100's here.

And it's August. Hottest month of the freaking year.

So, must have tank tops at the barn, and in order to wear tank tops and not break the dress code, I have to have jeans that are high-rise enough to cover the portion of my long torso that is generally left bare by my tank tops. Lets face it, day to day, who cares if I show belly??

There are very few brands that fit the high-waist description that also come in sizes long enough to cover my legs, and throw in boot-cut and you're down to pretty much three brands. Rockies (great show and goin out dancing jeans, freaking expensive) Cruel Girl (a newer brand, they have the high-waist options but you have to dig for them, and they're freaking expensive) or, the old stand by, Wranglers.

Wranglers aren't as cheap as what I'm used to buying for work jeans (eleven dollah Wal-Mart specials, here we come!) but they're not as expensive as rockies, they're sturdy, and they come in whatever inseam your little heart desires, pretty much.

Now, usually when I'm buying women's jeans I wear a 0 or a 1. Shaddap, all of you. My main problem is finding "tall" or "x-tall" lengths.

Wrangler has a neat twist on their women's sizing, though. They size the waist like what most people think of as "normal" and that's your first size number. Men, and women who have bought western style jeans for men will recognize 32/34 as a size, and it's not like the size 10/12 you see on the Wal-Mart shelves.

That's a 32 inch waist with a 34 inch inseam. When I buy mens wranglers I buy 29/36. 27's are just too much of a struggle to get over my hips (shaddap, I do so have hips) and since men's jeans have a little more room in the crotch area (waistband to crotch, dirty) I buy a couple inches longer inseam than I need if I'm buying women's, to allow for the different fit, and prevent ride-up incidents.

So anyway, my size in womens would be anywhere from a 0/34 to a 1/36. I can wear those, although the 1's don't fit as well.

Now, generally, I've bought mens Wranglers, because I can get the inseam/waist combinations better in mens. Apparently there are more beanpole men than women. But, as I was perusing the women's jeans today I happened to glance at the rack on the wall and saw the big sign: "Irregular Jeans: $18.99"

Hmmmm. Went over and looked and about wet myself. I was standing in front of the largest collection of 0 sized Wranglers I had ever seen in my life. I went ape. Bypassing the garish red, stain-magnet white and heat-stroke black, there was still quite a selection to choose from.

Lots of pairs of standard dark blue denim, seen one pair of Wranglers you've seem 'em all style, which is fine, but there were others, that looked like a little different fabric....

Two pairs of stretch denim 0-waist Wranglers. If you're a woman, and you ride horses, stretch denim is a miracle. It keeps you from getting bruises on your thighs where your jeans bunch and pinch when you mount, which is only avoidable otherwise by not bending your legs at all. Or, you know never wearing new jeans. I love stretch denim, as long as it's denim, and not denim-like material that's paper thin and gonna tear at the first opportunity.

I bought both, plus a standard pair. At that price, I couldn't pass them up, especially since the "irregular" portion is simply a strip of slightly discolored fabric (lighter) on the outside seam of one of them, and the same discoloration in the fabric on the inside of the knee on the other. The dark blue ones were just a minor coloration problem as well. Who cares?? I'm gonna be wearing them to the barn anyway, they're gonna have a lot worse than a light/dark patch of fabric on them by the time I'm done with them. Three pairs for under $60. Barely, but still under sixty bucks.

So I get home and talk to Mamaw and brag on how cheap I got three pairs of new jeans and she tells me, "Well, why don't you just go down and get you another three pair on me, since they've got em."

Don't you just love grandparents? Thank you Mamaw, for helping to cover my skinny butt with spiffy new jeans!

Anyway, I have six pairs of jeans that I can wear my tank tops with now. Four of them I need to take back to the Old Homestead and run through the washer and dryer about a bazillion times, before I climb on a horse with them, but that's a small price to pay for ventilation when classes start.

I always knew I wasn't normal, but I never quite thought I was "irregular"...