August 27, 2008

She's home and fine.

Just wanted to update this entry.

I kept calling my ex-neighbors cell phone and not getting any answer, and her voice mail wasn't answering either, so I just kept calling about once an hour since she left.
She just called me about 5 minutes ago, said that she made it home ok, she was very very tired the whole way, so she cranked the AC, the radio, and also drove along with the windows rolled down, kept smoking cigs one after the other, and she had a diet soda with her, so she kept taking drinks at every red light or stop until she made it all the way home.

Once she got in the house, she kicked off her Crocs, put her purse and stuff down, she went to her fave chair, and she said as soon as she sat and got comfortable, she fell asleep, like just passed out.
She stayed asleep until just now.
She said her husband and son just let her stay sleeping and they ordered pizza for dinner, because she so very rarely sleeps, they figured she needed it.
She apologized for not calling me to let me know, and said her cell was in her purse so neither her husband or son heard it ringing, otherwise they would have answered it and let me know she was ok.
Then she started crying because she felt bad that she made me worry, and how much it sucked that we lived so far away now, she's scared about having something like this happen at home and have no one around, how I was always around for her when her diabetes would make her all sick and dizzy and stuff.

There's not much I can say or do about that, but I told her I was glad she made it home and was safe, that's all that mattered.

August 27, 2008

She shouldn't be driving. At all.

My ex-neighbor called me a little bit ago, wanted to swing by and pick up any mail that was still being delivered here until the post office completes the change of address switch, and she said she wanted to talk about something important.
Now knowing her as well as I've come to know her over the 4.5 years they lived right next door, my mind wondered what she wanted.
Did she need help at her new place to finish unpacking?
Did she need me to watch her son, did she want to sell me something because she had a bill to pay?
It could have been anything knowing her.

She finally gets here, honks the horn on her minivan, I grab her stack of mail and head to the carport.
She's disgusted she says, just look at this house!
Look at how clean the outside is!
Why didn't the landlord come pressure wash the house when we lived here?!
Damn him!
I just shook my head, shrugged, and said he's just been doing outside cleaning, gotta keep up on the lawn and stuff I guess.
But in my head I'm screaming, "He couldn't come pressure wash the outside of the house you crazy dirty woman! You had stuff, crap, boxes, weight benches, Halloween decorations, fish tanks, Gar-bage, all over the place out here, not to mention your actual garbage from inside your house that you'd pile out here, stack it as high as you could, use my trash cans when yours were overflowing and teaming with rancid meat and gallons of rotten milk! You wanted him to move all of that crap so he could pressure wash?!"

Then she starts telling me about the new house, they've only been living there for about 1.5-2 weeks now, and already, just as I suspected, she's already found multiple problems, leaks, the toilet runs, one of the windows doesn't close all the way, the air conditioner makes this weird rattling noise every night at like 3am that wakes her up from her sleep, when she can sleep that is, because she keeps hearing things she says, like an animal, maybe mice, or rats, in the walls. (This was said oh so dramatically, so I used multiple commas for effect)
I nod, not really sure how to respond to that.

She then starts telling me about her day, I'm patiently waiting for her to get to the "important" thing she needed to talk to me about, and she says that she just came from her new diabetes doctor, the one she waited 3 months to be able to see, and how when she got there they tried to tell her they couldn't see her, that they tried to call and reschedule her appointment, but when they called, her phone had been disconnected.
Here it comes I'm thinking to myself, she needs to either borrow some money to get it turned back on, or wants to sell me something so it can be turned back on.
She says she refused to be shuttled out, demanded to be seen, she had waited 3 months for this appointment and wasn't leaving until they saw her.
So they saw her and confirmed that her diabetes was seriously out of control.
They checked her levels and it was bad, so they wrote her a script for glucose and a monitor, but she told them she couldn't afford the monitor, so the doc gave her one for free, and then they gave her an injection of glucose and told her to go get her scripts filled immediately, taught her how to use the meter, how to inject etc, and then she left and came straight here.

She said for a few minutes, she didn't feel anything, but then it started to hype her up, that the whole drive here, she felt like she was on speed.
I started thinking about the one time my dc gave me a glucose injection, how it made me feel, and how other diabetics I know who have injected too much, have the same reaction I had that one time.
You get all hyped up, feel like you could run a marathon, lift a milion pounds, you feel awesome.
For about 20 minutes and then you crash hard.
Because the crash can hit you quickly and you get wicked way tired, almost to the point of passing out, you really have to be careful.
I didn't tell her any of this, she's still talking about her appointments, the bills, how her son is doing at his new school, when I see it happening.
Her eyes are rolling in the sockets, her eyelids start drooping, she's slurring her speech, and has started to drool.
She goes to start the car back up to go home, says she'll call me from her cell later on, but she was starting to feel tired so she wanted to get home, but oh yeah, she needs to go grocery shopping and her son is at school, so can I go with her. *slurr, drool, eyeballs rolling back*
I ask her to come in the house, cool off, take a short rest, she's not looking or sounding good I tell her, she's sugar crashing, she shouldn't be driving.
She says no, she's fine, can I go with her to Publix right now.
No, I tell her, come in the house, you shouldn't be driving, your eye lids keep closing, your falling asleep sitting here, please don't drive, come rest, it'll be ok but you need to rest, please come in the house and I've got some juice, you need some juice and to sit for a little bit.
No she says, she's slurring really bad now, cranks the key again but the car is already on, says she's got to go, go home and nap, she'll call me to go shopping later or take her son when he gets home.

Their new house is about 10 miles from here, you have to go down some really busy 8 lane roads to get there, lots of traffic lights etc, and all I can think is she's gonna crash, she's going to get in an accident and be the cause of it, and somebody is going to get hurt and I know she let her car/travel insurance lapse, it hasn't been paid since May, they couldn't afford it, and so when she gets in an accident and hurts somebody or really bangs up their car, she's going to be in trouble because of the no insurance thing, they will either give her a ticket or arrest her, most likely arrest her because this will be the 4th traffic stop, the 4th time being caught with no insurance, and they warned her that the next time they caught her, she'd go to jail.
I told her if she insisted on leaving right now and going home, to please call me and let me know she made it in the house safely.
She hasn't called yet, I tried calling her cell and got no answer.

August 25, 2008

Pit hairs and mommy thoughts.

That is Sebastian's armpit.
He came to me last night right before bed, all excited.
"Mom! Come see! Come see in the light! I have pit hairs!"
Can I take a picture? Can I blog it?
"Yes! You can take a pic! You can blog it! This is awesome! I have pit hairs! Woo hoo!"
Ok, be right there buddy. Hahaa

So I went in the bathroom and he raised his arm up.
There in his little 15 year old armpits, were a few strands of hair, maybe 6 or 7, maybe less.
But the fact that he finally had pit hairs was a major huge deal to him.
He had this huge cheesy grin on his face, his cheeks were beat red from a combination of laughing and embarrassment over his excitement about "starting to become a man."
He called Mark to come in and see it all too.
Mark laughed, he laughed, and then he begged Mark to show off his manly pit hairs.
Mark took off his shirt, and Sebastian's glee turned to embarrassment and a sort of sadness.
"Mark has more than me, he's really hairy, more man than me."
I explained to him that having lots of pit hairs isn't what makes a man a man, it's the things that man will do in his life that will make him a man.

Then he looked down at Mark's legs which are covered in dark hair, then lifted his own leg up, rubbed it up and down a few times, and then told me to rub it, to feel that hairs are starting to grow there too.
I obliged him and said "Yup, I feel them growing, you'll have lots of blond hairs on both your legs soon enough, this is your year young man."
He got that big cheesy red-cheeked grin back on his face, and then ran to jump in his bed where he waited for me to come in and do the blanket flip to 'tuck him in'.
I've been doing the blanket flip almost every single night since he was 3 or 4 years old.
He lays down flat on his back, I grab two ends of his blanket, and do the huge flipping motion to make it float back down and cover him completely.
He always giggles, gets red faced, and then tells me he loves me, he'll see me in the morning.
I give him a kiss on his forehead, tell him I love him, turn off his light, and go to say goodnight to Mark.
Mark who is older, more mature, and hasn't wanted his blanket flipped in several years now, is already in his bed, blanket on, doesn't want to be tucked in or kissed goodnight.
He prefers instead to high-five me, says "love ya", and I tell him I love him and then pull the string to turn off his light and leave his room.

They are my kids, my baby boys, but they are becoming men right before my eyes with all the teenage giggles and embarrassment of growing hairs in all those places that hairs grow.
They are also as different as night and day, two totally opposite people with different ideas of fun, different life plans are being mapped out, they fight all of the time, yet they are also the best of friends.
They are both kind and respectful towards others, they helped our landlord this afternoon haul the crap from the newly emptied duplex apartment next door, to the curb.

It is amazing how much crap the old neighbors left behind.
A washing machine, a huge rusted out meat smoker that was behind the house, a kitchen table, boxes, all kinds of stuff.
He had to rip out all of the carpeting from every room, they really did a number on that apartment, but he's going to be fixing and cleaning, re-painting, and laying down all new carpeting.
He's been in there every day for a few hours a day, just busting his ass to clean up the property.
We asked if he needed help, he kept saying no, but both boys saw him struggling to haul things out and all the way to the end of the drive, and they just jumped in and started grabbing the ends of the carpet rolls and huge wooden beams that neither the landlord or myself, knew where the hell they came from, and helped him take it all out.

In between helping him haul stuff, they mowed our lawn, and Sebastian even did a few rows near the drive, he can't go all the way into the grass due to some underground hornets nests and his allergies, but he helped as much as he could.
Mark has a head cold, he's all congested, so Sebastian is trying to help him with his chores.
It was hot out there, Mark had to keep coming in, drinking a lot of water, and standing in front of the AC to cool down.
When they finally finished with everything, I gave him a couple cold tablets and told him to lay on the couch with the cold AC blowing on him, and kept refilling his water glass.
I finished making dinner, they ate, and are now playing some video game together.
It's quiet in there, a little too quiet actually.
I fully expect some name calling or some sort of disagreement to break out soon.
That's how they roll.
One minute, best buds working in perfect harmony, the next, shouting at each other and ready to gouge out each other's eyeballs.

It still amazes me every day that these are my little boys, my babies.
They used to be so small, so needy, so cuddly.
They are grown up, growing up, and becoming really cool and interesting people.
I marvel at this whole mommy job every day.
It's constantly changing, my role that is.
It used to be the do it all for them role, cut up their foods into itty bitty pieces, bathe them, cuddle, read, play, tie their shoes and all kinds of other things.
Now my role is basically cook and laundry do-er.
They can do everything else for themselves, they don't need cuddling anymore, they don't need help tying their shoes, they just keep on growing up and doing for themselves, becoming their own individual people and doing it all on their own.

It's been such an interesting ride, at times I feel like I missed a few things along the way, but watching them, having some intense conversations with them, I think whatever I did miss out on seeing or being a part of, I somehow caught up with it anyway.
They really are turning out pretty freaking awesome.
They are mine, they are their own, and they will be really awesome men when they get older.

August 18, 2008

Bye, thanks for the mess to clean up.

My neighbors have officially moved out.
They were mostly finished on Sunday evening, they came back today for just a couple more things, and then her husband came back over supposedly to clean up all the trash.
Wanna see his idea of cleaning up all the trash?
You can click for bigger.

He pushed all of their trash cans over near mine, and just dumped a bunch of stuff on top of them.
Broken garbage bags, pool floaties, moldy wet carpets, all kinds of crap.
Then over on that side of the duplex, is all the rest of their garbage.
There's no trash pickup tomorrow, it will come on Wednesday instead, but they aren't going to be coming back to put theirs to the curb.
Her husband said to me after I went out and told him about the no trash pick up due to the storm, "Well your boys can take care of this on Tuesday night then. You were good neighbors, the wife is really sad about leaving you, you were a good friend to her. All she's done is cry because we're moving away from you. Call her every now and then would ya? She really cares about you and your boys."

She is a good woman deep down, no matter how messed up their lives were, she did try to be a good person, she did care, and I know that when we said our goodbyes on Sunday, she was really choked up about moving away from us.
She said she didn't know what she was going to do now, what will happen to her when she has another diabetes spell, I was always there, I always heard her and came over to help, what's she gonna do, she just kept saying.
I told her she could call me anytime, I couldn't go to her, no car, but she could talk to me whenever she wanted.
She just cried even more.

But damn that man for leaving all that fucking trash for us to take care of.
The boys and I will take care of it, I don't want the landlord to have to deal with it, he works so much as it is, and he's going to have to do some major cleaning in there before he can rent it out again, so we'll deal with their trash on Tuesday night.
Well, whatever doesn't get blown away in tomorrow's storm.
I just can't believe they left all of that crap.
At the curb, he put a huge blue sectional sofa and a microwave before I finally realized someone was out there and told him about the no trash pick up.
I should have just let him take it all to the curb had I known he was going to be an ass and not come back to take care of it himself.
Sometimes, I just don't think things all the way through.

August 16, 2008

So much for that idea.

I was planning on going grocery shopping, but then the skies opened up and the heavy rains started. coming down.
And my neighbors who are moving, have parked all of their cars and trucks loaded with stuff. underneath the carport.
Yay.

August 8, 2008

Being our usual.

My neighbor called me, they needed a babysitter for a couple of hours tonight, and I said that I couldn't do it, and Mark offered to do it.

So Mark is watching a little baby named Jessie James and his older sister who is 3, named Loren.
They have Fios tv and the closed captioning is turned on, and I have absolutely no idea how to turn it off.
It's kind of annoying trying to watch the opening ceremonies with that on.
I keep going back over there to help Mark out, so he's not alone, but I said no to babysitting because of how much stress I'm under.
But I'll probably be the one doing most of the babysitting.
It kind of figures.

August 2, 2008

Why me? No really, why me?

My neighbors will be moving, yuppers, gone in just a few short weeks.
Not only will it be good to be rid of them, but also rid of some of their friends.

One of them, her name is Nikki, is always coming to my door trying to sell me stuff, like yard sale type items, but she personally goes door to door trying to unload them.
She just brought over some crib bedding and asked me if I'd like to buy it seeing as I have kids.
For the millionth time, I told her that yes, I do have kids, but they are almost adults now, I have no use for crib bedding.
Oh, she says, I forgot.
Yeah, ok Nikki.

It will be really nice to get rid of the whole lot of them.

August 1, 2008

They're moving.

My neighbor was one of the unfortunate people who called me this morning after I had finally fallen asleep after being awake for 39 some odd hours.
These are my duplex neighbors who were planning on suing my landlord.
So I guess I can be thankful that instead of a lawsuit, they are just moving away.
They're going over there tonight to finalize the whole thing, it's a lot more rent, but supposedly everything is included.
Good for them.
But knowing them, they will find a problem or two and start complaining about the new place or the new landlord within a month of moving in.

They will be moving out within 2-3 weeks, and so far she's super excited.
It has a HUGE kitchen she said, huge, all new appliances, the bathrooms all have those rustic looking farmhouse sinks, and big claw foot bathtubs, and there's no carpet anywhere in the whole house, it's all Mexican floor tiles in every single room.
They are renting the entire downstairs of this house, and there are two apartments upstairs, with a few people living in them.
I can almost guarantee that there will be problems with these new neighbors, I pity the new neighbors.
They will be drawn in to their world of anger and issues, and dependency, just like I was.

Now I just need to keep my fingers crossed that the next people to move into this other half of the plex will be somewhat sane, normal, friendly, nice.
Keep all your body parts crossed for me.
I've never had a normal neighbor on that side of this plex in 10 years of living here.

July 30, 2008

I'll be your hero today ma'am!

So my neighbor and I both had to go to Amscot today, it's not far from our house at all, and she had a quarter of a tank of gas left.
It should have been more than enough to get to us there and back to our street to get gas.

As we're coming back down US41, we swing that left at the huge intersection of 41 and Stickney, the van starts sputtering, dying, it's running out of gas.
Crap.
We manage to make it through the intersection and about another 150 ft or so, when it's just dead, not going to move another inch.
So her son gets out and starts pushing the van, he's 12 years old, he's small, you would think that someone would stop and help push the van to the gas station right?
But noooo, no one stops to help.
I tell her to let me out, that if I get out and just start pushing, we'll actually get a few guys to help us.
She doesn't think it will work, I bet her $5 it will, and I get out and put my hands on the car.
All of a sudden, da-da-da da dadum! I'll be your hero today ma'am! 3 guys are suddenly offering to help push us.
A guy on a bike, a guy parked his Bronco in a lot, and another guy who's walking, are all helping push the van to the gas station, about 30 more feet from where we were.
They were pushing that thing so hard and so fast, I had to stop. I couldn't keep up with them, and it's a good thing I did because her son dropped his Swiss Army knife out of one of his pockets as they were all pushing and running the van down the street.

We get the van to the gas station, her son is now putting the gas in and had gone in to pay for the gas and get us all something to drink, it was so hot out, and I put my hand in front of her, palm up, and said "$5 bucks please!"
We both started laughing, but it's amazing that nobody stopped to help a kid push a car, but as son as they see a woman, big strong men come out to help.
Female in distress! Help! Help! *laughs*
I didn't make her pay me the $5, it was just a funny thing, but it is pretty sad that no one helped the kid, but they'll help a woman.

July 22, 2008

Can it be replaced? Please?

Mark didn't mow the lawn yesterday because it started to rain a little bit, so he had to wait until this evening to do it.
And then the rip/pull cord on the mower broke.

We had to borrow the neighbors lawn mower in order to finish our front yard.
So can the rip cord things be replaced, or do I have to buy another mower again?
The mower itself is still in good condition, the cord just broke, and it's now inside the cord storage area thing, I can't pull it out to tie the two ends back together, or even if it can be tied back together.
Do they make cord repair kits?
Is it it even called a lawn mower rip cord repair/replacement kit?
Help!!!!

July 17, 2008

I wish I had taken my camera!

Mindy came to pick me up this morning for my doctor's appointment, and her daughter Katie started telling me about the car that was stuck in the ditch.
I know this happens all the time on my street, but usually I see the people do it and then attempt to get it out of the ditch.

So we rode back down the way they came so I could see the car.
The people must have had a party last night and one of their guests drove head first into the ditch, and the car is still there.
Hopefully no one got hurt, or they might end up needing some type of Chicago personal injury lawyers or something to go after the city.

The ditches on my street are really deep, about 4 feet deep, because the city comes along and digs them deeper every summer so the rain doesn't get backed up and flood the street.
I've seen tons of cars end up in the ditches over the last 10 years living here.
I've seen drunks swerve and end up in them and then try to get them back out before the cops show up.
I once had one of the elementary school lunch ladies end up in the one right in front of my house after she took out my mailbox with her car.
She was plastered at 4 in the afternoon!
She was trying to get her car out, spinning her wheels, it's not like you can just back up and get your car out, it actually has to be towed out.
She was crying, trying to push her car, I offered to call a tow truck for her and she said no because they'd call the cops on her.
I had to tell her it was too late, the cops had already been called.
She started yelling at me, and I was all hold on lady, it wasn't me, it was my cranky ass neighbor, and she was just screaming and freaking out.

The cops did show up and arrested her because she was hammered, and I look over and my neighbor Bill, he's dead now, is standing in his doorway, shorts on, no shirt, chest all covered in scars from his multiple heart surgeries, with this big smile on his face and a moon pie in his hand.
That guy was never happy unless someone else was miserable.

July 6, 2008

Dealing with a lying, scheming kid.

I went and dug through my archives, and nope, I haven't posted about the situation with the kids in the neighborhood, so I'll do that now.

A few weeks ago I got a call from my neighbor, she's the mother of the boy who about a year and a half ago, maybe longer, who had been doing all that lying/truth telling about his father abusing him.
The real truth has never been discovered, but what the kid discovered, is that lying to get people in trouble works in his favor, it makes things go his way for awhile.

During this phone call, she starts going off about how Sebastian is older than all the other kids in the hood, that her son and another little boy aged 12 or so, have been friends since the 2nd grade, and Sebastian just sorta moved himself into their little circle of friends and how violent he is when they play.
She said that her son told her that Sebastian punched this other kid in the side of the head so hard that his head split open and he had to go get stitches.
I said hold on a minute, this kid had to get stitches and this is the first I'm hearing about it?!
Why didn't his mother call me or come to my house, if my kid gets hurt by another, damn first thing I'm doing, any reasonable parent does, is notify the parents of the offending child that something happened.
She starts yelling even louder that this really did happen, her son said so, the parents of ALL the other kids don't want Sebastian around, etc etc.
I found that to be rather odd because one of the other kids in this little group had just been at our house that morning inviting Sebastian over to play.
So I went next door, this lying kid has a hard time lying face to face, he gets red, looks down and to the left.
Left lying, right remember, it's a cop trick to know when people are lying about stuff.

I get over there and start asking more questions, telling her what really happened that day, that it was another child who actually hit this kid in the head, but it wasn't hard, it was actually a finger flick, no skin ripped open, no being rushed to the ER, no stitches.
Her son wasn't even there that day, he was off at a swimming party with a different friend.
I looked right at the boy and asked him who told him this.
He starts stuttering, uh uh, that's what I was told, I don't know if it's true or not, they told me it was.
Who is they? Who are the parents who don't want Sebastian around? And exactly how many stitches did this require, and why did this mother not come to my door and yell at me for this?
A pissed off parent usually goes straight to the other parent and bitches them out for serious bodily injuries.

He keeps stuttering, looking left, has no direct answers, his mom is now yelling at me for interrogating her perfect son.
I said to her, "How many times has he lied and gotten you and your husband in trouble for child abuse? How many times does he lie about all kinds of stuff? You are constantly telling me that he lies about even the simplest things, yet you're going to take his word for this without speaking to the boy who supposedly got hurt or his mother? If your son and he have been friends all these years, you should have his phone number, call her right now and ask about the stitches. I demand to know how many stitches, I want to see the injury, and I want this kid to tell me Sebastian did it."

Her son starts stuttering even more, says he hasn't seen any stitches, he now thinks the other kids in the hood may have been lying.
She now starts saying oh, if there's no injury, then there's no reason to call this kid's mother.
I started yelling at this point.
"I'm sick and tired of the lying! I'm sick and tired of him lying about Sebastian all the time! So here's what's going to happen. Sebastian is no longer allowed to play with your son or any of the other lying brats in the hood. Period. That way, if someone does get hurt, no one can blame him because he won't be anywhere near any of them. They can find the real culprit of the bullshit, which is the known liar, and they can deal with him and his mother. I'm sick of this shit."

She yells at me for calling her son a liar, and I said you call him that yourself every single day, so don't start saying he's Mr. Fucking Innocent right now. Not going to happen.
She apologizes, makes him apologize to me, and asks if her son and Sebastian can still be friends.
I said "That's up to Sebastian, I can't make him be friends with someone who lied about him causing injury to another child, making people afraid of him, making the other kids in the hood not want to be around him. Why would he want to be friends with someone who lies about him all the time?"

She makes her son come outside and apologize, Sebastian doesn't care, goes back in our house.
I said "See what happens when you lie? You lose a good friend, someone who actually liked hanging out with you. Too bad. maybe one of these days you'll learn not to lie and make up bullshit stories."
He started crying, apologized to me again, I came inside too.

This morning, she calls me up and goes through this huge story about her husband being mad about the fireworks mess in the driveway her son made, he's not home right now, so could Sebastian go out and clean it up? She'll pay him to do it, $10.
I said he's sleeping and it's up to him when he wakes up.
I'm not going to make him save her son's ass even if Sebastian wanted the $10.
That kid is a lying, scheming, pain in my ass.
If her husband gets pissed off about the mess, he can yell at his own son who made the mess.
Not our doing, not our mess, not our problem.

June 19, 2008

The one time she should have asked me for help.

My neighbor called me this afternoon, she needed my help installing a new memory card in her desktop computer.
No problem I said! I've done this a lot, be right there.
I get in there and took one look at what she bought, and it was obvious it wasn't the right kind.
She bought laptop memory cards.
Laptop cards are fatter than desktop cards.

Anyway, she has a Dell desktop, and she at least knew her computer was a Dell when she went to the store.
But I'd like to know what kind of yahoo salesman didn't ask her if she has a desktop or laptop.
Or maybe she just picked one out on her own, looked for the little signs that say compatible with Dell, Acer, Gateway, Sony, etc etc.
So I had the oh so pleasant job of telling her she got the wrong kind, and she was pissed off, said she thought she was doing so good that for once she didn't need my help, started to get really upset and almost started crying.
I told her to put it back in the package and take it back, and hopefully the store will let her exchange it out for the correct kind which I wrote down for her.
I wrote down her Dell model name and number, and the size memory card she wanted, and her oldest son who is visiting is going to try taking it back.
He's the one who drove her out to get it, and tried to help her install it.
He's 19 and obviously knows as much about computers as she does.
Not much.
I told her when he gets back if they let him exchange it for the right one, that if her son couldn't install it to call me.

There are certain things I don't mind helping her with, like her computer stuff.
She's an older woman, and this is the first time she's ever had a computer, and she didn't even know how to get on the internet when she first got the computer.
She thought all you had to do was set up and plug everything in, and open IE up, and it would just go to the internet.
When it didn't just go and I had to explain that she needed an ISP, she had no idea what that was.
When I explained it to her, she was like, "Well how do I get one of those? Do I have to have a special kind of plug, and where does it plug into? There are no ISP plugs on my walls?"
I couldn't help but laugh, that was kinda cute, something an older person with no computer knowledge at all would ask.
So then I had to explain to her that she needed to call Verizon or Comcast, and tell them she needs internet service, DSL if she went with Verizon, or Comcast if she went with cable.
She had Comcast cable for her tvs already, so I told her to just call them and they would come out and hook it up.

She's getting better at it all the time, she finally learned how to print things after only showing her about a dozen times.
Then when she got a little cheapo digital camera, I taught her how to upload them to her computer, and then taught her how to attach them to emails.
She takes tons of pictures now and sends them to everyone, she loves it.
But of course being so new to the internet, she is caught up in the annoying forwards and chain emails.
She sends me dozens of them every single week.
At first I tried to tell her that all those forwards and chain emails are junk, crappy stuff that people send and expect to get back after we've sent it on to all our friends, but the majority of people on the net hate them with a passion.
She apologized, but she keeps doing it.
I just delete them now and when she asks if I read that cute email with the little bunny and the angel, I just say yes, it was so adorable and funny.

I don't even want to tell you how long it took me to help her when she bought a camera phone.

June 18, 2008

I am not the 411.

My neighbors.
*sigh*

I was laying on the couch trying to catch a little nap, not much sleep last night thanks to Shahiro, and they called.
They wanted the phone number for the cab company.
Um, the cabbie gave them a card last time, and she programmed it into her phone, but ya know, gotta call me for it anyway.

What I need is like a cell phone repeater or some kind of machine, that repeats information and just replays it for when they call.
I can record some scenarios that they would need answers to like the cab company, the phone company, and all the food delivery places.
Then when they call, instead of answering, the machine will pick it up, recorded with my voice of course, make it say hello, and stuff, then ask what they need.
"You need the number for the cab company? It's 922-6666. Is that all, cuz I'm right in the middle of some important stuff here? It is, great. bye."

Some get right on making that for me ok?
Thanks.

June 12, 2008

Neighbor, not servant.

This afternoon and evening, is just dragging by.
Probably because I'm not as busy today as I normally am.
It's been rainy off and on, so my joints are stiff, so I've been trying to take it as easy as possible today.
I have a long car ride tomorrow, and tend to get super stiff riding for that long, so yeah, I tried to have an easy day.

But that's just not possible when you have a needy neighbor.
I try so hard to be understanding of her, I really do.
Disabled, lonely, bored, lonely, Oh I said that one, um, alone even if her husband and son are home, so she's very needy.
She calls literally 5-10 times per day, needing help with a multitude of things.
She dropped her glasses and can't reach them, she doesn't understand her health insurance, can I come explain it to her, she needs help with her laundry, or like today, her cat knocked over the tv stand and now everything is on the floor behind it, and she can't watch tv.
Oh, and then she needed stuff from the store, and was I going to be going.
Um, no, I went yesterday, with her, and she bought $241 worth of crap.

So yeah, she needed someone to come fix all of her tv stuff.
Sebastian is not home, won't be home till tomorrow morning at 8am, and Mark was asleep all day.
I let him sleep, I don't have a problem with that.
She did though.
She wanted me to wake him up to come pick up and fix all her stuff.
I said when he wakes, I would ask him, but I'm not going to make him do anything he doesn't want to.
We are not going to spend our whole summer taking care of her and her home.
It's already started, it's been this way for awhile.
Her son is a lazy jerk, he won't do any chores even if she pays him, so she asks my boys, and because I've raised my boys to help people who need it, they do.
So she's taking advantage of us.

Today, I said no, I wouldn't make him do anything, he needs a break, a day to just have fun.
And I also played sick.
I know, it's terrible of me, but she has called no less than 7 times today, and each time I have told her I am not feeling well so I won't be going to any stores or doing anything, plus, my back hurts and I need to rest.
And when she kept calling, I had Mark answer and tell her I went to bed due to not feeling well.

I feel horrible about lying, but even after having said no to her, she continued to call and request help with stuff.
I felt like I was left with no choice but to lie.
I do not like lying to people, but when I say no and it's completely ignored like I should just do what she wants, I had to in order to just get some peace and quiet.
And I really believe it is because of how needy some of the people in my life are, that I have a very hard time asking others for help even if I truly need it.
Mindy offers so often to help me, and I know I need help sometimes, but I don't ever want to be seen as a burden or hated because I need help sometimes ya know?
Does that make sense?

So I'm going to go take care of a few things I need to finish up for myself tonight, and then I'm going to go make some popcorn in the popcorn machines, and watch some bad tv shows or play with my Sims until I need to go to bed.
I set several alarms including a wake up call, so I will be ready in the am.
Later days.

June 6, 2008

Delivered to the wrong house again.

I'm pretty sure my street has a new mailman, I never see the regular guy anymore at all, heck, I never even see the mail truck anymore.
But whoever is delivering the mail now, keeps giving me my neighbors mail.
Not my next door neighbor, but a neighbor 10 houses up.
Our house addresses are exactly 1 number dfferent.
I'm 5328, and they are 5428.
I don't know how they can make that mistake repeatedly, there's a big difference in the appearance of the numbers 3 and 4.

But anyway, once again, I got their mail which includes the husband's guitar magazine, and the wife's furniture catalog.
From reading the address info on the back of it, I think she's an interior designer.
I have to confess something.
I flip through their magazines before I send Sebastian up the street to stick them in their mailbox.
Is that a crime?
I know you can't tamper with other people's mail, like open envelopes and stuff, but these are magazines with no seal keeping them closed, no plastic wrap, just wide open and ready to be read magazines.
Am I breaking the law by flipping through them?

The guitar magazine is very cool, there are some beautiful ones in there, custom designed and painted ones, and an order form to get a custom painted one if you want one.
They are way expensive though.
And her furniture mags, oh man, I love looking through them.
The pieces are just so gorgeous, and the beds and sofas look incredibly comfy, and there's all these paintings and throw pillows and stuff that you can buy to make the whole room come together.

But I get done flipping through them, get done oohing and ahhing over the stuff, and then I send Sebastian up the street to plop them in their mailbox.
What's funny about this mail mix-up is that they never get any of my mail, I've asked, and nope, they don't.
I need to stake out my mailbox one of these days and drive home to the mail person that 3 and 4 are not the same number, and he needs to pay closer attention to what he's cramming in my mail box.

May 29, 2008

I would like to call a do-over for today.

I have been pretty much going non-sop since 8am, taking care of my neighbor and my own home, and my kids.
Mark is done with school for the year, so he was home all day.
Sebastian only had one exam today, so he was back home by 9:30am, and now he's done for the year.
I installed another expansion pack for his Sims game, and then he went on a download spree and screwed up the entire Sims installation.
So I had to uninstall all of the game packs and all of the crap he downloaded, and reinstall the whole thing again.
I was running back and forth between doing this at my house, and trying to help my neighbor again today with all the medical appointments she has to do.
And at some point in running back and forth and trying to take care of everyone and make people happy, I yanked my frigging shoulder muscle again.
It's on fucking fire right now, and burning all the way across my chest too.
Gah.
I need to take a muscle relaxer and get a nap in to make this stop.

May 28, 2008

A follow up to the scary morning post.

I'm just following up this post I wrote the other morning about my neighbor who was in really bad shape.

Ok, first of all, the reasons she didn't want to go to the hospital.
Number 1, her husband is a dick.
Yes, this is that neighbor.
Second, she was worried about her son, the what ifs were scaring her.
If she was admitted, who would care for her son, her husband is a dick, she didn't want her son coming home to her not being there, he'd be scared.
The reason she was so out of it was because her oxygen tank had been turned off completely, she had taken 2 muscle relaxers and 2 very potent pain pills, and fell into a deep pain pill sleep.
Her pupils were like pin dots, I should have known it was pain medication that was causing this.
But when you combine those potent pills with a diabetic with congestive heart failure, and no oxygen getting to her, you end up with someone in a very bad state.

Her doctor did not admit her to the hospital, but he did order an xray to try and determine why she's in so much pain and unable to move much.
Well the results of the xray are back, and she's in very bad shape.
Cervical discs 3-7 are pretty much destroyed, and there's a rotator cuff issue as well.
She has to go for an open MRI tomorrow morning at 9:30am.
She then has an appointment with an endocrinologist on June 2nd, for her diabetes and a TON of blood work, and we are waiting on the neurologist to call back so we can schedule that appointment.

I was over at her house for about the last hour or so, helping her make all these appointments because she can barely move at all, and she has no one who can help her make all these calls.
She called her husband who was out of work already, and he basically told her to do it herself, he'd be home when he gets home.
The doctor put her on even stronger medication for the pain, and so I'm also trying to make sure she doesn't take more than she should be taking.
Personally, I think her doctor wrote her script too high.
He put her on 30mg oxycontin, 2 at at time, every 4 hours.
That's way, way, way too much oxy.
I read the pill bottle and was like whoah, that is far too much, and she handed me her papers from her appointment today.
That's what he wrote out for her to take.
Still, I'm just thinking it's far too much at once and every 4 hours.

She has to have surgery ASAP, on those cervical discs and the rotator cuff.
She is terrified she won't survive the surgery.
She was crying, thanking me for helping her, and she said she knows she won't come off the table alive.
She said to me "Kat, I'm 44 years old, I weigh 450 pounds, I have congestive heart failure, diabetes, fibromyalgia, and have already had major back surgery 10 years ago. I won't live through this one."
I told her to stop thinking like that, that she can't start thinking negatively, and if she can't try to be positive for herself, she needs to try to be positive for her son who was in the other room, scared out of his mind.
I continued making the phone calls, leaving messages where I had to, leaving her phone number and mine in case they can't reach her, writing down all her appointments on one piece of paper so she can have them all in one place, and organizing her meds for her.
She told me she was very tired, so I told her I was going to let her get some rest, and I'd come back over when the neurologist calls back.
I brought the phone into the room where her son was, told him to answer every call and not make her talk to people, tell them she'd call them back later, she's resting right now, and come get me if it's a doctors office.
I was keeping track of all the appointments, so I need to make sure this one gets scheduled right for her, not on the same day or time as another one.

He asked me if she was going to be ok, he was really scared.
I told him that the doctors are doing everything they can to make her better, that she will get good care, and we'll do what we can do here at home to help her when she comes home from the surgery, just like she did for me when I came home.
She cooked meals for us, helped the boys when she could, gave them rides to get groceries etc. I'll do the same for her.
So that's the update.
I'm scared for her, this is the worst I've seen her in the 4 years they have lived next door to me now, her health is very bad. Part of it is her fault, her weight is a big issue, her doctors have been telling her to lose weight for a long time, but it's too late now.
She just needs to get to all these appointments and get the surgery.
She needs to think positive about this as best she can. Her son needs her to be positive, he's so scared.

May 23, 2008

Scary morning!

My day started off kind of scary.
I called my neighbor to check on her, make sure she was ok and able to get to her doctors appointment, but I got no answer.
I figured she was up and in the shower already, so I was going to wait like 10 minutes and call again.

Then one of our friends comes banging on my door around 8:45, and is yelling that something is seriously wrong with my neighbor, she's not breathing my friend says.
I run over there with her, and my neighbor is in her chair in the living room, her oxygen tank wasn't on, her glasses and phone were on the floor, and she was slumped over in her chair.
We turned the oxygen back on, placed the tubing back in her nose, and started trying to wake her.
She had a pulse but it was very faint.
We finally got her to come around, but her pupils were constricted, like the op of pins, and her skin was a really pale shade, she was slurring as she was trying to speak.
We couldn't make anything out that she was saying except for "no hospital".

We kept talking to her, asking her questions, what medicine did she take, how many etc.
There were 5 different pill bottles dumped on her end table, we had no idea what medicine was what, nor what she took, or how many of these pills.
We got her some coffee, made her drink it through a straw, and the two of us kept saying we need to get her to a hospital.
My neighbor kept saying no, no hospital, please. She started crying, begging us not to take her to the hospital.
It was just scary and sad.
We finally convinced her to go to her doctors office as scheduled, and my friend called off work and drove her.
She said she would tell the doctor how we found her this morning, and if he calls an ambulance, there's nothing my neighbor could do about it.
My friend said she'd call me if her doctor calls an ambulance and has her admitted, so I can contact her husband and take care of her son.
I'm hoping that doesn't happen, but she was in really bad shape.

I thought she was dead when I first walked in.
Slumped over, an icky gray pale color, the oxygen not turned on, things all a mess on the floor and table, and her dog laying near her feet with his head on her foot.
Very scary.
I hate things like that.

May 22, 2008

It's a windy hot rainy kinda day!

My neighbor out back's wind chimes woke me back up.
He has about 4 of them attached to some trees back there, and the wind picked up so it's like a symphony of clanking.
Kind of annoying when you're trying to sleep.

I have some stuff to do this morning, and then an appointment at noon, but I'll be around off and on most of the day.
Later days!

March 29, 2008

That will be 10 per hour, thanks.

I'm trying really hard to get up and get going here, but I stayed up late, couldn't sleep, and then my neighbor needs help with computer stuff again.
Maybe I can charge for computer rental and printer ink?
She has all kinds of stuff she needs to print out for her lawyers and she's not so good with her pc, and personally, I think there's something seriously wrong with it.
It behaves weird.
I've tried fixing it, but I can't find the exact location of the problem, so she comes over here, we login to her email, print out her stuff, then she asks a million questions on 'how do I do' stuff.
I don't really mind, but I have things I have to do today.

I'm trying to gather all my coupons up for the grocery store, find the list I know I wrote out yesterday, and then I need to get in the shower which will help my back loosen up a bit more.
Then, I can go.
Hopefully.

And I seriously need to eat something.
My stomach is rumbling, and meds on an empty stomach is nausea in the making.
Ok, going to go eat, then shower, then attempt to get out of here and get my shopping done so I can come back and clean the house.
Later days!

March 25, 2008

Great tasting meatballs.

I make some really awesome meatballs, and they are really hard to screw up, but even after telling my neighbor how to make them step by step, she messed hers up.
So I'm writing them down for her, which I had not done, just the verbal recipe and directions, and I figured I'd share it with you too.

What you need:
1- 80 count regular flavor frozen meatballs (Armour makes a great product)
1- 12 ounce jar of Concord Grape jelly
1- 18 ounce bottle of original flavor BBQ sauce
1- crockpot or as some people call them, slow cooker
A package of hoagie rolls is optional, we usually just eat them out of a bowl, or get toothpicks and serve them as hors d' oeuvres at a party.
Cheese slices on the hoagies is also optional.

Take the jar of jelly and dump it in the pot, dump in the BBQ sauce and stir the two together, breaking any big clumps of jelly.
Add in the frozen meatballs, and stir them gently to coat with the sauce.
Set your crockpot on low for 6 hours.
Stir gently once an hour during the 6 hours.
Done!

Most people will tell you to not open and stir the contents of your crockpot during cooking, because it lets out the heat.
But with this jelly/BBQ sauce mixture, if you don't stir them at least once every hour to an hour and a half, the meatballs will A) not get all saucy, and B) the meatballs on the bottom will burn.
That's what happened with my neighbors meatballs.
All of the ones on the bottom burned, along with most of the sauce from the bottom, and this gave the flavor a really nasty aftertaste.

Mark and Sebastian can eat these like they've never eaten anything in their whole lives.
They go from making a hoagie, to just grabbing a bowl full of them until the pot is empty.
I try to get in there and get myself some, and set aside a bunch for some leftovers, but I have to do it quickly or the bottomless pit teens will devour them all.

Do you have an awesome and easy meatball recipe?
Post it on your blog or tell me it in my comments.
I'm always up for new and tasty recipes!

March 19, 2008

Money in, money out.

Well I won't be going on any luxury vacations for a long while.
I won't be going on any vacations for awhile.
I just get caught up and slightly ahead on my bills, and something big breaks, like the lawn mower.
But I finally replaced the charcoal exploded lawn mower on Sunday.
Wanna see the one that got blown up?
I kept it in the shed until I could get another one, so the explosion holes are rusted around the edges now from the weather, but just check out what happens when you run a lawn mower over charcoal briquet's that have the lighter fluid already in them.

It blew a massive hole in the side, and it's no longer connected to the rest of it here.

It blew the handle completely off on the left side, it's no longer connected there either.
The back piece where it faces you, this is where sparks were flying out and hit Mark in the face.
He's lucky he didn't get hit in the eyes.

The front of the mower where it got ripped open and sparks were flying out.

I was going to go to the dreaded Walmart to get another one on Sunday, they were cheaper than even Home Depot. They had a mower for $138.99, but one of my neighbors said they had a friend with a mower for $75.00, so I went and took a look at it.
It was a brand new mower that they had sitting in their shed since they bought a riding mower.
They replaced the fuel hose because it had dry rot from just sitting for the last 4 months, but other than that, it was like new, no rust or dull blades or anything, so I bought it.
Mark mowed the lawn Monday after school, and it worked great.

Now I'm just keeping my fingers crossed that nothing else breaks and needs replacing.

February 6, 2008

True southern natives.

My neighbor man came home tonight with a whole bunch of stuff in the back of his pickup, and tied to his truck rack.
What kind of stuff?
Stuff his wife didn't want, but he insisted she make room for.

He came home with it all, they argued about the pile of crap as she calls it, and he won the battle, unloaded it in the house, and left for the bar.
He warned her first, that it must all be put away when he comes home.
She called me up, told me what he brought and what he said, and told me to come take a look.

I went over and yup, it is indeed crap.
Old dining chairs that are in really bad shape, another television that probably doesn't work, a big padded foot stool with worn and faded fabric, and a set of old pots and pans, and many more items like knick knacks and old lamps.
He thinks it's all good stuff of course, she thinks it's junk and I agree.
No clue what she'll do with it all, but she probably has until about 11pm to figure it out.

Crazy junk collecting man.

February 4, 2008

I'll report it to his supervisor.

The mail came, and none of it was mine.
My mailbox has HUGE numbers on it, my name is clearly written inside my mailbox, as a matter of fact, it says 'COOPER ONLY' on the inside.

What came in todays mail?
9 pieces of mail for a house 3 doors down.
A name on the envelopes that doesn't even remotely sound, or even spelled close to COOPER.

I called the post office and asked if my route has a new driver.
The guy who answered put me on hold, then came back and said yes, and asked me why.
I explained that I received mail for a house name and number, 3 doors down, and none of my own mail.
He said he'd report it to that drivers supervisor.
I said ok, that's all well and good, but where is MY mail?
I am expecting tax forms and other important documents this week.
We take the mail that isn't ours, and give it to the rightful owners.
Other people don't always do that.
They sometimes throw it out, or write return to sender on it.
If some of these papers I'm expecting get returned to sender, it's going to cause problems for me.
These are time sensitive documents.
I need them.

The guy said he doesn't know where my mail is, but the supervisor will deal with the new driver and tell him about his mistakes.
That doesn't answer my question, all I can do is hope my mail is not lost.

February 3, 2008

Now that was an exciting night!

So we were having the BBQ and watching one of the most intense and well fought super bowl games I've witnessed in a long time, when things got a little exciting right here in my own hood.

The duplex to the direct right of me, the one where the drug dealer just recently moved out of, has new tenants.
They have been in there for about 2, maybe 3 weeks now.
Anyway, we're all cheering, screaming at the tv, eating ribs, wings, pasta salad, deviled eggs, beverages of all kinds, and then we hear screaming of a different kind.

The woman in the duplex, was screaming in pain, the man, be he her boyfriend or spouse, is unknown to any of us, is yelling and screaming back.
Things are being thrown and smashed, dogs are barking, and someone dialed 9-1-1.

At first, just one cruiser showed up with an ambulance for possible injuries in a domestic dispute.
Then another cruiser, and another, and another.
We were all told to get in our houses, so the teens and I came back in ours, Dave went back in his with the rest of his guests.
Within just 7 minutes, there were 9 cruisers and 2 swat vehicles, and the ambulance, and a K-9 unit. They were lined up in front of my plex and that plex, and 3 cruisers were in my driveway.
All the officers were in tactical positions, guns drawn, and aimed at the front door and windows of that duplex.

The man was now holding the woman hostage with some kind of weapon.
It took from the end of the 1st quarter of the game, until the beginning of the last quarter of the game, to get the situation under control.
An officer finally had gotten in the back door of the plex, and got up behind the man, tackled him and disabled the weapon.
The woman was taken by ambulance to the hospital, and the man was cuffed and dragged out by 5 officers.

I was able to watch the entire thing go down from my driveway, no photos, I did try, and got yelled at to turn the camera off and get in a safe position behind a vehicle.
When it was all over, an officer came and apologized for disturbing our super bowl party, but they had to take tactical positions around the property, and that required no citizens to be in the back yards or peering out windows.
I was only allowed to stay in my own driveway because 2 officers and their vehicles were in it, and I stayed behind them.

Between this all, I kept going in and out and checking on the game, the teens did watch it for me and kept me posted through the screen door.
I got to see the awesome last quarter, and am so freaking impressed with how well both teams fought their asses off.
I couldn't believe how it ended, but wow, a damn exciting game.
17-14, un-fucking-real.
Congratulations to the Giants, and well played to the Patriots.
They fought like hell, they should be proud of their season, and how hard they played tonight.

How was your night and super bowl party?

February 3, 2008

Go Pats!

Ok let's see, the teens slept over my sisters house on Friday night, I laid staring at the ceiling until about 6am, and then only slept until 9am.

Last night, Susan stayed over, and once again I couldn't get to sleep.
I was awake the entire night, all day today until 2pm, and I only slept until 3:45pm.
So in the last 48 hours, I've slept a grand total of 4 hours and 45 minutes.
I knew this was going to happen without the Ambiens, but I was taking an insanely high dosage of those every night, and that's no good at all.
I'll have to force myself into a sleeping pattern again. It's rough, it will take me about a week to do it, but eventually I'll sleep for at least 5 hours a night.

We will be watching the game this evening and chowing down on some BBQ and other snacks, with my neighbor Dave out back, and a bunch of his friends. He invited us to come hang.
He does this every year, so it's nice. He's a huge Patriots fan too.
We were just going to have some wings, chips, dip, that kind of stuff, but a big ol' BBQ is much more fun.
I'll probably be back and forth talking about the game, commercials, and checking in on stuff all night, because I just can't sit still.
There will be other kids and I believe I even saw a few teenage boys back there, so I know the teens won't feel awkward hanging with a bunch of adults.

Will you be watching? Who are you hoping wins?
What will you be eating?

January 30, 2008

Lots of strong opinions on the post below.

Most of the women would be as upset as my neighbor, one guy blames the wife for not pleasing her husband in bed, some think she should just tell him she knows, some think she's a liar too, some people think porn is just fine, others think she's violating postal laws by opening his mail.

On the mail issue, the husband has given his wife permission to open all the mail no matter what it is, because she is the one who does all the bill paying.

For the guy who says she's not pleasing her husband as the reason he's turned to porn, what if she is pleasing him? Does that change your view on his porn ordering?

For those who think porn is just fine, remember now, to each person their own. Not everyone likes or enjoys porn like you do. Some people find it nasty and disgusting, and truly oppose it.

He may indeed call the company and ask where his product is, and when they say they were shipped, he'll just keep checking the mail even more. This guy is not the brightest bulb in the bunch here, he lies about where he ate lunch everyday, he's not gonna come out and ask her for this.

For those who think she's a liar as well. Yes, she is, but as a wife who opposes porn of any kind, and has this show up in the mail with her husbands permission to open all mail and packages, she's doing what she thinks she needs to. This is her marriage on the line, not mine, not yours. Two liars under one roof makes for a lot of secrets about a lot of things on both sides of the marital bed.

Would it make any difference to any of you if they had a 12 year old son who shares the exact same name as his father, and could possibly open these packages thinking it's for him?

Does having a kid in the home make any difference at all?

January 29, 2008

Hey honey, did you get the mail?

My neighbor called me up yesterday, asked me to come over for a few, so I went.
I get there and she's wicked upset, like crying shaking upset.
I ask what's wrong and she hands me this package that she opened, it contains 2 DVDs.

They were 2 of the girls gone wild DVDS, uncensored, and the girls on the cover look to be way under the age of consent, but maybe that's one of the reasons why Joe Francis is still sitting his ass in jail.

So anyway, she's super upset that her husband ordered these, and she asks me to help her get rid of them because he'll just look in their trash for them.
I say yeah sure, why not, I'd be pretty upset if my husband ordered this stuff myself.
If I had a husband that is.

About 20 minutes later, her husband pulls into the driveway and checks the mail box.
He comes in the house, asks if the mail came yet, she says yes, she shows him what came.
I've got the package hidden amongst my huge stack of crap junk mail and Netflix movies.
He just stands there and says he has to get back to work.

Now today, he comes home at lunch time again, and again looks in the mail box and asks her if the mail came.
She asks him what he's expecting to come, she'll keep an eye out for it.
He says nothing, just curious what came in the mail.
He leaves and her and I crack up.

He is not gonna tell her what he ordered and waiting for. He ordered porn basically, so he'd be really stupid to say honey, I ordered girls gone wild and they are coming to the house.
What husband in his right mind, would tell his wife about those DVDs, if he ordered them behind her back?
He isn't going to tell her, but every day this week, it will be hilariously funny watching him race home to check the mail.
He won't tell her what he's waiting for to come in the mail, but he thinks he can get the mail before her.
It's funny to me that he's trying to get them before her, but oops, she already got them, and they have been sent out with this mornings garbage collection in my trash cans.

January 22, 2008

I want my power back!

Was the loud cry out in the driveway on Saturday night by my neighbor. He was out there yelling at midnight.
We all just sat in here laughing because it sounded so ridiculous.
Like yelling to the sky was going to somehow get it back on.
But now that everything is back on, I get to listen to them complain about the house, the weather, the lightning, the customer service of all these companies who made us go without service for all that time, and now he's talking about looking at South Carolina land for sale to get the hell outta here.
Every single time there is some type of weather situation, he starts talking about buying land in some state.
Last time, it was Tennessee, the time before that, Utah.
He claims all those places don't have severe weather problems.
She however, does not want to move, so I get to listen to him yell they are going to move, and listen to her yell that they aren't going to move.
It's pure entertainment people.
I just wish they would wait till a decent hour to start this yelling.
5:00am is not the best hour to be out in the driveway arguing about moving to a new state.

January 18, 2008

It's a huge monster, BIG, scary. Roar!

I'm totally overdoing it and I know it. I'm exhausted.
Blah.

Cloverfield was excellent, I really enjoyed it and would love to tell you about it, I just don't know when I'm going to have time right now.
I will say though if you are planning on seeing it this weekend, if you suffer from motion sickness, take some dramamine before you go, or look up at the ceiling a lot.
The entire movie is done with a hand held camcorder from the point of the view of the victims.
Lots of running, therefore, lots of shaking.
None of us felt sick, but they warn you when you go into the theater.
I'd say, the shakiness in the Bourne movies is worse actually.
It has some excellent scare the shit out of you moments. Good stuff.

Right now I'm making some un-fried chicken legs for dinner, something for a side dish, no clue yet, I'm so tired I can't think straight.

Oh, people need to stop being asshats.
My neighbor has driven me bat shit the last 2 days.
She's uber needy, and apparently she thinks it's perfectly acceptable to call me a dozen times a day because she needs things and she can't reach/get them.
Um, I'm busy, I have company, I have a ton of things to do and I'm barely getting any of it done, and seriously, people need to get off my case about what I need to do or I'm gonna snap so freaking bad.
I just really need a night to just sit still and do my stuff or I'm gonna be useless.

Ok, gotta go figure out what the hell else we are eating.
Later days.

P.S.
The Mad Money swag give-a-way will be coming up at around 6:30pm.

January 16, 2008

I've begun without them.

Cleaning the house that is.
I've started the laundry so I have clean sheets and blankets for Shell to use, I need to do the dishes, vac, mop, and then the boys can do the bathroom and their rooms when they get home.

I stayed up really late last night, it was about 4am when I finally went to bed.
the alarm went off at 5:45, I got the teens up, sent them off to school at 6:30, and then went back to bed, hoping to sleep till at least 10am.
I set my alarm to get up at 10, but I didn't need to, my phone woke me up over and over again starting at 7:30am.
Grrr.

I have a feeling it was my neighbor, because at 9am, she called, and when I answered the phone in a gruff, she was all 'what's wrong Kat?'
I explained to her about the phone ringing repeatedly, and the person hanging up, and she was all sorry, I didn't wake you did I?
I said some jerk kept calling and hanging up, so I'm awake now, but I hate it when people do that.
She just kept saying sorry.
I know it was her.
Grr.
Then some doctors office called looking for a patient.
I said no, wrong number.
The nurse said 'are you sure?'
Why gee lady, let me double check my ID, I might have forgotten my name over night, or maybe(!) that person moved in while I was asleep, let me check the rooms!
I said yes, I'm absolutely sure that person does not live at this phone number, check your number again.
'Oh, I dialed a 5 instead of a 6, I'm sorry.'
Uh huh, and I'm the one who doesn't know my last name or who lives here. *eyeroll*
Stupid people.

I have tons of stuff to do today, I need to get busy on all of it. Home stuff and work stuff.
Oh, what did my neighbor want?
She wanted to know if I was going to the store because she needs dog supplies, dog food, a de-wormer, and some flea stuff.
She said she's too sore to go anywhere today.
Um, she have a car, I would have to walk, and I'm sore today as well.
See, Shell is headed down, and it looks like she's sent some cold Maine air ahead of her so it will feel like home.
It was 40 degrees last night.
It's warming back up again though.
High's will be mid 70's for the rest of the week, nights will be low 60's.
That's perfect Florida weather for winter.

November 23, 2007

Turkey carcass is yummy.

So I'm all hanging out by myself, chilling watching some tube, cuddled with a blanket and the kitties, and I hear noises coming from the back room.
Lots of noises.
All 3 o the cats were with me till we all heard the noises, then they jumped off the couch and flew to the door way of Mark's room, ears perked, hissing.

Um would you kitties mind telling me what the hell you're all hissing at?!

So I go in, flipping on the light of course, the kitties follow me in, rush past me, jump on top of the dresser and start trying to get at whatever is outside.
Now, I'm home all alone, I have like no intention of flipping those curtains back when I'm by myself, so I call the neighbors, I know they are always on their back living room, and I'm all hey, something or someone is right outside my back windows, I'm home alone man, can you please take a look?

The husband went out and looked, and sure enough, the wild critters were in their trash eating the turkey carcass, knocking over the bins, ripping through everything.
Damn animals, scared the shit outta me.

November 13, 2007

Keeping up appearances.

After my last post, I decided to go for my daily walk, help take off some of this stress and work it out so I didn't take it out on anyone else.
I walked around my neighborhood, some of my neighbors have really nice homes and gardens, but one of my neighbors goes a wee bit overboard.
As I was walking down the street, one of his lawn aerators was spraying way out into the road, completely missing his lawn.
There are droughts in some parts of our country, and here's this guy watering the street.
*sigh*
I kept walking and looking and another neighbor had a gorgeous yard, flowers everywhere, roses, wildflowers, all sorts of beautiful flowers and plants everywhere.
He takes part in the natural Florida lawns, but he's added other plants like roses and peonies. It looks gorgeous.
He was out there plating some new grass seed.
Some parts of his lawn are dead from the scorching sumer heat and the lack of the normal seasonal rain.
He had seed and sod, and was busily working away on his yard.
One of these walks, I'll go take some pictures of it.
It's the kind of yard I'd love to have.
So beautiful and peaceful looking.
Like just looking at it calmed me down and made me smile.
I would love to be able to do something as beautiful in my yard, I've lived here 9 years and the best I've done is keep the lawn mowed.
Maybe tomorrow on my walk, I'll take the shots.
It's really gorgeous.

November 4, 2007

Neighbor news!

Oh my gosh! I forgot to tell you this!
I told you about my neighbors who have been driving over my lawn, how they stabbed the 50 gallon drum of water my landlord put up, and how the cops went over to speak with them right?

Well last night, I went outside after the girls went to bed just to get some air, stand in the cold, (we're having awesome chilly weather!) and I see these same neighbors packing up their car, a minivan, and a trailer attached to the minivan.
I don't really think much of it because they had him and his wife, her two sons and one of his sons, all living in that tiny two bedroom duplex.
I just figure one of the adult sons is moving out, or maybe all three of them.
Nope.
The entire family moved out in the middle of the night!
He and his older son looked over at me, said something to each other, and finished packing, then they all left.

This morning, there was a real estate agent in the driveway putting a sign in the yard, and she had a laundry basket of cleaning supplies and a broom, a vac, and a mop.
I guess they really did all move out.
I wonder what the reason was for the hasty departure.
Could it be the fact that the cop who came over told them that a Sargent for the sheriff's office, owned this property and he "knew" who they were?
I really have no idea why they left so quick, but I am so greatful they did.
Now I don't have to worry about the cars on the lawn or him or his kids trying to "sell" to my kids.
I warned him the day he came over and introduced himself to me and offered his "services", that if he ever tried to sell to my kids, I'd kill him. Not call anyone, not have him arrested, kill him.
He swore he would never sell to kids, that selling to kids is truly evil, but that adults are free to make their own choices, blah blah, blah.
Anyway, just really glad he's gone now.

October 31, 2007

Update on the lawn story.

So I told you my landlord came over and put up a 50 gallon drum, we filled it with water, and thought that would work.
Well, it didn't.

I go out today and the drum was tipped over, all water drained out.
So I stand it back up and go to refill it with water when I notice this.

They stabbed my drum!
So the landlord had me call (he's out of town) and file a suspicious incident report.
The cops come, they already know who my neighbor is and the "stuff" he does, and she explains to me that he does car detailing and other neighbors complained that he was doing it in the driveway, so now he must be doing it the backyard so those neighbors don't complain anymore.
While she's standing in my drive talking to me, my neighbor pulls into his yard in a 2000 Mustang and goes in the house.
That's not his car. He owns a pos rust-bucket.
So she went over to talk to him, to tell him to stay off the lawn, and then she comes back and tells me if he does it again, to call, that it's been filed and he's been warned.

October 31, 2007

It's a changing day in the neighborhood.

I took my walk a little earlier this evening, not as far as yesterday or even the day before, just a small one around 3 blocks.
I spent time thinking and looking around at all the various houses and landscaping, kids playing, dogs barking, couples sitting outside talking around their little fire tables, watching the wind whip through the palms.

Parts of my neighborhood are still really nice, and some parts are slowly degrading.
As people get pushed out of one area because of development, they gradually move into other sections and change it to what they're used to I guess.
I don't understand that.
If you move into a nice home in a nice part of town, wouldn't you be motivated to keep your home, your part of that new neighborhood looking nice?
I don't understand how or why, people can be so sloppy and disrespectful of their own homes.

Take the dealer on the right hand side of me.
He moved here less than 8 months ago, and his house and yard already looks like trash.
Cars always on cinder blocks being fixed, a huge bbq pit thing in the side yard, an actual couch underneath the carport where he and his buds sit and drink their 40's on the weekend, trash piled up, beer bottles strewn about.
And on both sides of him, people mow their lawns, keep their yards looking nice, trash is contained etc.
I don't understand why they wouldn't want to keep their home looking nice too.

October 29, 2007

50 gallon drum.

So the landlord came back about an hour ago with a huge blue drum and we filled it with water.

He did this so that if the neighbors tried to drive over the lawn again, they'd smash head on into a 50 gallon drum full of water.
It should stop them dead in their tracks.
Also, there's a guy up the street with two huge old railroad ties sitting at the end of his driveway.
If he's throwing those away, I'll find a way to get them down here and line my driveway with them.
I saw those on my walk this morning.
They will cover the main section of lawn that the neighbor has been using to get onto my lawn, and he won't be able to drive over those.
Like I said, the landlord was pissed when he saw the tire tracks across the lawn.
Building a fence is out of the question because the city is supposed to be installing sewer lines sometime in 08', so it'd be a total waste of time and money to build a fence now, and have to tear it down when they begin the construction.

I wonder how the neighbors are going to react when they see this?
Oh yeah, there's a reason Mark hasn't been mowing the side yard, the landlord and I saw it when we were out there.
There are about 15 hornets nests on the side of my house.
Mark had sprayed some of them with bug killer, but he didn't tell me there were more.
So the landlord is going to be coming back over with some industrial strength poison to kill them all.

October 28, 2007

The landlord swung by.

He came by to talk to my neighbors, and then just as I thought, he wanted to know about the tire tracks across the lawn.
He was quite pissed just as I expected he would be.
So tonight all my outside lighting will be on all night, both front porch and back yard flood lights.

He also told me to put up a sign on a stick or pole, that says stay off the lawn, which I did, but then it rained so now I need to make a new sign.
He also said that whoever is doing it, can be arrested because intentionally driving over a septic tank drain field, is intentional damage.
But I have to actually catch them in the act of doing it, get a license plate number and all of that.
So yeah, I'll be having to keep my blinds open all night every night, to try and catch these guys.

October 28, 2007

Don't drive or park on my lawn!

I certainly hope my neighbors to my right, yes, the drug dealers, are able to find themselves some good truck accident lawyers or already have one, for what they did.
This is my front lawn.

These are the tire tracks going through my front yard, all the way through my side yard.
(I know, the lawn needs to be mowed. Mark is actually doing it right now)

This is the tree they hit.

And this is the back of their house where the tire tracks end.

Why is this such a big deal and they may need a lawyer?
We have a septic tank in my front lawn, the drainage field runs the entire width and length of my front yard.
There is also a septic tank in the side yard belonging to their own duplex.
If they have broken my drain field, my landlord is going to sue them.
This is the second time they have done this, and now I have to go out there and place huge signs or get a barrier fence, to prevent them from driving on my lawn again.
I don't know why they did this in the first place, but it will not be happening again,

September 20, 2007

I'm totally gonna scarf dinner down!

I'm like starving! *laughs*
I'm making BBQ chicken legs and alfredo pasta.
Yums.

Doc B still hasn't called back, I called two more times, and the nurse said he has the message.
I'll be calling again first thing in the morning, and I'm going to call Doc F and ask him about it too, seeing as it was his idea to go to the hormone doc about the low testosterone.
Maybe he knows if it was a reaction to the med or the needle or something.
I get to do it again on Saturday, so I need an answer like quick.
I don't really feel like being sick for 4-5 days again ya know?

Oh, my neighbors, yeah, those neighbors, are pissing me off again.
They have been having a ton of people at their house for a few weeks now, I think they actually have a bunch of people living with them now which is kinda gross considering how dirty their house is all the time.
But anyway, someone keeps moving my basketball hoop and parking their cars on my side.
I went over there and knocked on the door and the bitch was all "Don't answer it, it's my fucking neighbor!" So I hollered through the door, "Who ever owns this gold Toyota, has 10 seconds to get the fuck out here and move it or I have it towed!"
I stood and waited, counted to like 5, and this lady comes out and is all sorry sorry, I was told I could park there.
I was like "No bitch, you can't, and neither can anyone else who comes to that house. I pay the rent on this side, this is my half of the driveway. You better tell that woman in there she best be telling her friends not to park on this side, or every vehicle will be towed. I have Upman's on speed dial."
She just looked at me, so I said "Are you moving that or do I hit pound 2 on this phone?"
She ran to her car and moved it to park on their side of the driveway on their grass.
Seriously, I'm becoming like super bitch over this issue.
They did it on Saturday when Mikey was here and needed to leave, and a lady who was visiting was all "oh, do you need to get out?" Like I need to ask my neighbors if I can move a vehicle off of my own side of the drive!

Yes, I really do have Upman's towing on speed dial. Since they started this shit, I just decided I'd give them a 10 second warning or I have all vehicles towed.
Maybe I should just start having them towed, fuck the warning.

September 11, 2007

No more kings.

I had one of those days around here.
After I fixed my net connection issue, I had a problem with the AC, and spent a few hours fixing that.
There is nothing like fixing your AC in a house that gets hotter by the minute, let me tell ya.
I got it fixed, then spent about 20 minutes in the shower cooling off, and washing about 3 hours of sweat off.

Then the boys came home and argued like I posted below.
Then Mark went out with George for dinner, and Sebastian and I had some tacquitos for our dinner.

Then the toilet attempted to bubble over for some unknown reason, no one had used it or flushed it, it just started coming up.
I think my plex neighbors may have done something, or had a problem on their side.

Then there was still just as much confusion as the last few days, and I'm just so over legalese, I give up.
I have taken a leave of absence from a pay to blog company, for an undetermined amount of time, due to a ton of ongoing issues which are never fixed, and I was seriously starting to feel ugly inside.
Regardless of how badly I need the money, no amount of money is worth the stress it was causing me on a daily basis.
I'll stick with contextual links and no rules, and continue to do paid reviews privately, and seek out more sponsors, in order to pay my bills.

And then I amused myself with some old Schoolhouse Rocks videos on youtube.
This is one of my favorites, No More Kings.

September 4, 2007

I may end up in jail over this, but enough is enough.

These images are clickable for bigger.

This is my neighbors pos minivan once again, parked drastically on my side of the property.

As you can see from the picture, her van is clearly on my side, it's well past my shed door, well past the middle of the carport.
This is another view from my shed door, right in front of my shed door as a matter of fact, that shows just how far on my side she is.
My basketball hoop is laying down, the hoop head is on the dead center divide of the carport.
It's actually 10 inches to the left, (my side) of the center divide.
This clearly shows just how much she is on my side.

Why am I so pissed about this when I don't own a vehicle, you might be wondering?
Because I pay for my half of this property for one thing, and for two, my sister came over today with my niece Susan, and they could not get her vehicle in my side of the carport.
Even if I had moved the hoop, there is not enough space between my bitch ass neighbors van and the concrete pillars, to allow another vehicle in.
Maybe if my sister had an MG, (the really tiny 1976 Midget), she may have been able to squeeze it in there, but it's doubtful.

We went to the grocery store and came back with a lot of groceries.
We could not park under the carport, out of the scalding hot sun, to unload them.
Ice cream is melting, milk is getting sun directly beamed onto it, frozen foods getting warmed up, all because my bitch ass neighbor has chosen to park like a fucking dumbass, day in and day out.

The basketball hoop will stay right where it is.
If she needs to move her van, she's going to have to do a 10 point turn to get it the fuck out of there, because I plan on sitting here with my blinds open all day and night, and watching to see if she moves it, or makes her son move it. (my hoop)
If anyone goes near my property, my hoop, and tries to move it, I'll go outside and sit on the freaking bar part of it so they can't move it.
If she starts shit with me, attempts to hit me, I will not hesitate to punch her fat fucking l