Random Thoughts

So, Paris Hilton is back in jail. Good. I could go on about this, but why bother?

Isaiah Washington. You idiot. In a moment of stupidity you called someone a stupid, hurtful name and trashed a good part of your life. I'll say it again, idiot. I hope you learned that sometimes an apology comes too late and means too little. Oh, and just making a public service announcement doesn't make it all better either. I know I've done the same thing in a fit of anger, and the result may not have been the same for me, but I hope I learned my lession also. Words said in anger and stupidity usually come back and bite you in the ass. That's all I'm saying about that.

I tried to do a good deed last night and ended up catching hell for it. I work at night with one other person who is... Well, she doesn't always tell the truth about things. And she doesn't work very much. Call that what you will. Last night supposedly her husband had to go to the ER and she had to take him. Amazingly, this happened 2 minutes into her shift. When midnight came around and she was supposed to be on call, she wasn't back to work yet so I called the hospital and told them I'd take any calls since I was working late. I also sent an e-mail to my boss saying that I was taking her calls since she wasn't back yet. When she did get back an hour later I got a snotty e-mail from her about how she couldn't control the time it took at the ER and SHE would call the hospital and tell them SHE was back working. I told her fine, maybe a phone call at midnight would have been nice, so she shot back that I was being totally inappropriate, blah, blah, blah. Yes, I probably should have shut the hell up right then and there, but quite frankly I'm sick to death of working my butt off trying to get things done within turnaround time, things that both of us are supposed to be doing, so I sent back an e-mail calling her Miss Manners and saying the next time I needed advice about writing appropriate e-mails I'd contact her. I think it was the hydrocodone talking. Heh. Oh brother... She e-mailed our manager and I'm sure called her today as well with some sort of sob story. So next week we have to go in to HR and be verbally counseled. What the hell ever. This person has written e-mails to all the other transcriptionists saying she couldn't work the because her cable was out - it wasn't. She constantly has some reason why things don't get done, so this time I checked with the cable company. They didn't show any outages for her area and she never called them to report an outage. Seems to me when you need the internet to work, you'd report it if it wasn't working. But what do I know? She doesn't bother to show up for staff meetings half the time, and when she does she argues with everything everybody says. She sits with the same jobs in her work queue for the entire night and has more nonproductive (nontyping) time than probably the rest of us put together and no one does a freaking thing. But, I lose my temper one single time and get counseled. Whatever. I know I probably should have just ignored her, but it was like the straw that broke the camel's back. Our manager says we have to learn to get along... I think this other person needs to learn to work, but that's just my humble opinion. Apparently our hospital makes enough money it can pay people do to nothing.

I'm thinking of getting a new camera on pay day. Our Canon is okay, but it's old and drains batteries like crazy. My battery died on me the night of the Tim McGraw/Faith Hill concert and I was more than a little annoyed. I've had my eye on a Canon Rebel for awhile. I'd like to learn how to really take pictures, not just point and shoot, and the Canon lets you do both. The only thing stopping me is we really need a new computer too, and I can't afford both. Steve says he has no money to contribute. I say HAH! So be it, if I get something it's mine. (Insert maniacal laughter here). I was thinking about just a new monitor, but really the computer is about 6 or 7 years old and I've added all the memory I can add and it still slogs along and stalls altogether sometimes. I told Steve I wanted a computer for Christmas - he got me an external hard drive. Not quite what I had in mind, but I did put on my pictures on that, which freed up a lot of space from the computer itself, but it still doesn't run worth a crap with photo editing software and my DVD making software, it's just too old. I'll have to see. I think I'll get the camera first.

I need to get rid of some Eeyores. Seriously. Does anyone know a serious Eeyore collector who would like to buy some? At one point my collection was up to about 300, but I've given some away and sold a couple. I don't want to just put them on a garage sale or anything. For one thing, there's too darn many, and for another thing I want to make more than 50 cents apiece for them. I have everything from the little beanbags to the big Eeyore that cost about a hundred bucks when it was new. (Actually I have 2 of those, in different styles). I was a serious collector, but it just started taking over the house. I'm with my sister, Mel. I'm sick to death of the clutter in my house and it's time to get rid of it! I've sold some on eBay, bu they recently upped their listing prices on stuff and I have too many to sell. Maybe I'll put an ad in the paper. Oh heck, I don't know what I'm going to do...

Ben and Jojo got into another fight tonight. Grrrr. They haven't gotten into it for a couple of months, I must have been feeling a bit too comfortable about the whole thing! Jojo was eating dinner in the office with me tonight when Steve let Ben in. Ben has to be fed by himself because he can't leave everyone else alone while they eat. He downs a bowl of foot in about 20 seconds (for real), so he's foraging out of every else's bowl and that causes some problems. Anyway, Jojo hadn't finished eating yet and Ben stuck his nose in Jojo's dish. Jojo is old, past 12 probably, but he's a snarky old guy at times. I tell Steve his mouth has to learn to stop writing checks his body can't cash. Of course like the idiot I stuck my hands in there to separate them. Luckily I didn't get bitten, but I never stop to think until it's too late! No major damage done, though Jojo wouldn't leave my side for the rest of the night.

I'm covering another transcriptionist's on call time from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m. tomorrow, so I want to get out and do something in the morning. Mom's having a garage sale, but sitting around a garage gets old fast. You always get the Hispanic people who can't speak English, or at least act like they can't speak English, and they try to give you the wrong amount for stuff they buy and then act like they don't know what you're saying when you tell them they owe more. Last year I got so ticked with this lady who gave me two quarters for about five bucks worth of stuff I finally just took the stuff out of her hand and put it behind me on the floor. So she left. I have no problems with immigrants. Just do it legally and learn to speak the freaking language people! That's how my family did it.

Okay, enough BS, I'm going to bed.

Okay, here they are...

Piccasa wouldn't load all of them at one time and since it's 2:30 in the morning I didn't feel like messing with them, but here are my Tim and Faith pictures. I have some more, but they're kind of blurry and not something I want to waste blog space with! But these are pretty good, n'est ce pas?

I was going to post a picture of the bruise I got on my leg when I fell up the stairs while going to our seats! Bottle of water... $3.00, Soul2Soul tour ticket... $150, watching some idiot fall UP the stairs... Priceless! Yeah, I'm a bit punchy.

As I said before, the concert was just fantastic, you can't help but feel the chemistry between Tim and Faith. At one point, when they were singing a duet, my sister said to me, "I feel like a voyeur!" Which was true, they only have eyes for each other and it shows!

Tim sang the song that he performed recently on the American Music Awards (? - I never watch those award shows), about a soldier who was killed in the war. I practically sobbed, I'm such a wuss, but it was a beautiful song! I can't say enough good about the concert.

The tax-money sucking Qwest Center - that's another ball of wax. I hate that place with a passion! I have a handicap parking permit because of my ankle and because of my back and neck pain, so we took that along with us to the concert. You don't have to pay to park if you have one, so that saved 6 bucks, but that was all the good it did. There were no handicapped places left. To be honest, even if you get one, you're still about 300 yards to the door and then the area is clear at the other end of the building. I bet by the time we got to the arena we had walked at least 5-6 blocks. Then, they had put the ramp down (one of the side runways from the stage, so we had to go up a flight of stairs to the first tier, follow that tier to the end of the arena and then go back downstairs to our seats. I'll be the first to admit I'm not in the best shape, unless you prefer round, but holy mother of Pete! I got about halfway up the flight of cement stairs when I fell down. Thank goodness the opening act had started and the arena was dark. Not that it mattered, I'm sure my face was glowing red! Mel and I had a good laugh about that when we finally got to our seats!

Of course that was the only way to get any drinks, was to go back up the stairs to the next level to the concession stand, none of the doorways on the mainfloor were opne, they were all blocked. Isn't that nice?

The parking is horrendous too. There are numerous gates in the parking lot, but the only way out is through the entrace, four lanes of traffic going out of the parking lot and it still took us almost half an hour just to get onto the street. That's just nuts! I'd really prefer to never attend another function there ever, but Trace Adkins is coming in September... LOL

Pukefest - Not for the faint of heart (or stomach)

I was just reading Mel's blog, and she was talking about how her daughter had a pukefest this past weekend. Just reading about someone else's trials and tribulations with the puke monster brought back all too vivid memories of my kids when they were little. Meg in particular. You know how they say if a child or a dog doesn't trust someone, you shouldn't either? Let me tell you, I know that for a fact. Meg was about 6 months old when I started dating my first husband. (No, that's not a typo. ) From day one, Meg hated him. I mean really hated him. So much so that whenever he came over or we went anywhere with him, Meg puked. I should have paid more attention. Anyway, I digress...

Anyway, fast forward to when Meg is in about 6th or 7th grade. Report card time came and she had a particularly good report card, so Steve asked her where she wanted to go for dinner. She named a popular Mexican restaurant (on the other side of town), so off we went. Meg has always been well known for her "tummy aches". To this day, any kind of stress (or milk product) will set off a reaction that you don't want to be in the room to witness.

We got the restaurant, placed our order and Meg disappeared to the bathroom. After about 10 minutes I was starting to get a little concerned so I went into the restroom to check on her. She was locked in a stall, I could see the feet dangling as she sat, so I asked her if she was okay. "I just have a little tummy ache". Okay. No problem. I told her dinner was going to be out in a few minutes and asked her if she wanted me to stay with her. No, she was fine, she'd be right there. So I went back to the table and she followed a couple minutes later. I asked her if she was okay. Oh yeah. Did her stomach still hurt? No. Fine. The food came and Steve and I jumped right in, I love Mexican food. I looked over and Meg is sitting there staring at her food. This is not my child. Again, I asked if she was okay. Yeah. Does your stomach hurt? A little. That should have set off red flags, but oh no, I never learn.

She finally managed to eat her dinner in between trips to the bathroom. I wanted to leave, but she wanted to eat because it was her celebration, she just had a "tummy ache". I asked her a couple times if she felt like she was going to throw up. No, just a tummy ache. Okay...

On the way home Steve decided to stop at his sister's house, but luckily (or not) she wasn't home, so we got on the interstate to get back to our house. I noticed Meg was really quiet, definitely not Meg-like, and when I looked in the back seat she was lying down. Uh oh. AGAIN I asked if she was okay. Um hm. No problem.

We got off the interstate and were about 6 blocks from our house when suddenly she shot straight up and said, "I'm going to throw up" and before I could yell, "Out the window!", she had vomited in her cupped hands. So she's sitting there with two handfuls of puke, choking and crying, and I'm trying not to gag because I can't even stand to hear someone throw up, Steve rolls the window down in the backseat and tells her to throw it out the window (hey, I'm just sayin'....) So she did. She just tossed her hands toward the open window while we were moving... Yeah, you can guess where all that landed. Right. Back. In. The. Car.

I don't even remember the rest of the ride home. I'm sure I was hanging my head out the window by the time we got there, though. Poor Steve had to clean the inside and the outside of the car, including the floor, seats, door, and the handle well on the back door. If it had been up to me, I'd have junked the thing as is. Yuck.

That was about 15 years ago and I haven't eaten at a Mexican restaurant with her since then without worrying all the way home about whether or not she going to yark. And if she says she has a tummy ache? I'm gone.

Soul2Soul - Tim McGraw and Faith Hill

Wow. That's all I can say for now. Just wow! That was the most amazing concert I've been to in a long time. I've got some pictures that came out pretty good too, I'll post them later. Just had to say..... Wow...

Nicknames and other funny creatures

I think nicknames are odd. Take for instance my name. How do you figure they got Mindi our of Melinda? Makes no sense to me. You would think I would be a Mel, or Lin, or, God forbid, Linda. But no, I'm a Mindi. Melissa is Missy, Melanie is Mel (which is probably why I'm not Mel, they were saving it for her). Marc... Well, he's another funny one. He's Buzzer. Which came about because Missy couldn't say she had a new brother, she said she had a new buzzer. So it stuck. He's been Buzz or Buzzer in the family since then. Well, I guess he's kind of outgrown it, but that's how I still think of him.

Then there's my dog Toby. His nickname is Toaster. What? How did I ever get Toaster out of Toby? Has he ever toasted me? Not that I'm aware of. He's never even made me breakfast in bed. He came to us as Toby, and I started calling him Tobster, which reminded me of Toaster, and there you have it. He's Toaster. He even comes to me when I call him that. Silly Dog.

My dog, Jojo, has even kind of evolved to Joey part of the time. His real name is Johan, the shelter was calling him Yoyo, which I thought wasn't very dignified for the old guy. I called him Jo or Jojo, and it's shortened itself to Joey on occasion.

You would think I couldn't possibly give Ben a nickname, wouldn't you? You'd be wrong. I actually call him Benny Hana for some sort of oriental food I think I heard of once. He's so funny.

Ruger is Ruger, Heidi is Heidi Ho, and Buttercup is either Princess or Buttercup. I'd shorten it to B'Cup, but I don't want people to think I'm yelling for my bra out the back door...

Oh, and dare I forget my neice, Sarah, who is known far and wide as G-skillet or Gina. Meg was Miss Magoo when she was younger and Matt was Baldy Bugs, which really was quite apt considering he had no hair until he was 2. What about it? Any funny nickanames in your family?

Our Flowers

Steve's gargoyle that he got for his birthday. He said he wanted a gargoyle, I got him a gargoyle. Those things are stupidly expensive though. He got a little one!

Our yard has way too much shade - we have like 20 trees in the yard and that makes for a lot of shade. Flowers don't do too well, partly because of shade and partly because I have a notorious brown thumb. This year, though, Meg planted a lot of flowers and they look pretty good. I have to share.

This is under the cedar tree by the street. Don't they look nice? The only flowers that really didn't make it were the Gerber daisies that Meg planted on the west side of the house. They're still there, but looking pretty sad. :-(

These roses were here when we moved in. We lost one plant this year, which Meg replaced. Steve just mulched them, so that looks like crap, but the flowers are beautiful!

Toby, Toby, Toby (and maybe some Ben)

Toby, obviously wanting Ben to get OFF the bed that he loves. Silly dogs!

This is Toby in front of his favorite Dog bed. Excuse the other mess, it's my office, i.e., the room that holds the vacuum!

Genealogy revisited

I guess the post about Viking ancestors got me thinking about genealogy again, so I was off to Forest Lawn to get some pictures yesterday. It was a beautiful day for taking pictures. I had wanted to get some pictures of Bob's family plot, and we were talking about it the other night, so that got me going. I took a ton of pictures and then wound up in Lullaby Land looking for the grave of a baby from church. I never did find that grave, but I took a bunch of others that I'll add to Find A Grave for future reference.

I was doing our family stuff the other night on Find A Grave and I had just added my grandfather's brother who, fortunately, is buried here in Nebraska so I had a picture of the headstone, when much to my surprise it was already there! The headstone only has the year of birth and death for he and his wife, and since I had the exact dates I wanted to e-mail the person who had originally entered it with that information so they could update it, and I was shocked to find out it was my very own friend, Cherry Blossom Girl! I knew she did a lot of picture taking and entering information on Find A Grave, but I never imagined she would have done some of my own family! Of course Vossler has nothing to do with Erikson or Kurtz, so she didn't know, but what a coincidence. She's got it all updated for me. What a gal!

I took a picture yesterday of my ex's brother's grave. I feel so sorry for him. He died way back in 1973, but the family never mentions him. In the entire time I was associated with the family they never mentioned his name and never visited the cemetery. Even yesterday, when most graves still had flowers left over from Memorial Day, his was bare and neglected looking. Poor kid. I tell you, that's one freaking weird family IMHO. And I can say that with confidence, being a part of it for too long! Heh.

I'm glad I did my picture taking yesterday, the wind is blowing like crazy today! We're in a wind advisory until 10 p.m. tonight, with wind gusts to 50 mph, lovely. At least I think they took out our chance of severe storms, so we don't have to worry about that tonight. Mel and I are going to see Tim McGraw and Faith Hill tonight. I can't WAIT! We have 2nd row tickets. I think the way the diagram for the Qwest Center showed it, the stage is shaped like a T and we have 2nd for on the bottom part of the T. It's their second show, last night about 15,000 went and tonight they're expecting 17,000. Hm. Maybe I shouldn't think about that, you know, me and crowds... At least we're on the main floor and don't have to trudge around the top tiers. Can't complain about the stairs, they have an escalator, but still I hate looking for seats. I hope these are aisle seats... Anyway, wouldn't you know it, I can't find the battery charger for my stupid camera. Ugh. I know there's some charge left in the one I have, but I don't know how much.

I ordered myself some Disney Crocs yesterday. I'm so excited. I love Crocs! They're like walking on marshmallows and when my feet are really hurting, they're the only thing I can wear. Speaking of my stupid feet, I suppose I'm going to have to have that huge bump removed from under my big toe. I've put it off forever, but it's getting hard to walk on now, so I guess I'll check with the rheumatologist this year when I have my blood work done. Whoopee. The good thing is we'll meet our deductible that way, we usually do, but it usually doesn't take until July! (Isn't that sad?)

I got some pictures of Toby yesterday, I'll have to get those posted here too. No time like the present, but I'll do another post for them.