More Up Then Down

This baseball season hasn't been very good to us as far as getting to a game. "A" can usually score on some tickets through work but they've been few and far between. We managed to get tickets to last nights game. They were the usual seats he gets, 8 rows in back of the Brewers dugout. I love the view, but I have to tell you, the people around that area suck. Every time we've used these tickets it's the same shit. The row in front of us and our row is like a revolving door. Do you think you could take all three of your kids to the bathroom at one time? You don't need to stand up for the entire beer transaction when you are sitting in the 3rd seat off the aisle. These beer guys are pros's, they will get your beer to you when you are seated. I love the game, love the seats, appreciate that they were free, but people just need to be more considerate of those around them. We spent more time standing up to let people in or out then sitting. I felt sorry for Barney as he's a little sore from the porch project.

The best part of this trip was the sites we took in while leaving. If you want to be a big girl and drink, then learn to handle it. At least puke in privacy not on the curb of the most used exit. There she was, some guys perfect girl in all her glory with puke dribbling all over her. I think her boyfriend deserted her, so I'm sure she's up for grabs now.

The next best part of the evening was a stop at Leon's. I think that was the plan for most Brewer fans heading that way as the team shirts were in abundance. My nice husband bought me an ice cream. What a guy!

Update on the porch....Ben and Barney are both pretty sore. Quote from my husband "It was fun for the first hour or so". The cement slab is all broken apart. Now it just needs to be hauled to the dumpster that will be ordered soon I hope. Not sure how long it's going to be until he stops moaning with every move he makes. Growing older sucks!

Buckwheat is Alive!

On my last leg of my route to work this morning I noticed the funky hairdo of the driver in front of me. I then noticed that in the passenger seat was something about the size of a soccer ball but I couldn't make it out. It looked as if the headrest was covered with some type of furry round thing. As we turned the corner I got into the lane next to him and glanced over. Had I been drinking anything it most certainly would be splattered against my windshield at this point. The driver had a Buckwheat thing going on. Dreds all askew. The passenger is what made me laugh the most. This woman had the brightest clown colored perfectly round Afro that I have ever seen. I'm wondering if they were headed for some costume party, buy why at 6am. It made my hair thrown into a ponytail look pretty good.

Remodeling Update..........the walls of the old porch are completely down. Tomorrow the rented jackhammer will be picked up and the breaking of the cement will begin. I figure by the time I get home from work my husband will be unable to stand without jiggling or speak normal for a few hours. HaHaHaHaHiHoney.....HaHaHaHaHaHow was your day? I give him credit, he's taking on a big chore.

Go Brewers!

Coming Of Age

I finally made it into this decade by purchasing a Wii yesterday. What I need to find now is the Wii fit. Appears that everyone is out of them. Can't find it online unless I want to pay nearly double the price. I think my friend Skinny K should sell me hers as I'm fatter than her and need it more. Think that little ditty will work?

I have some kind of bite on my arm that I don't think came from a mosquito. I've managed to keep the itching under control but it's now developed a red blotch around it. I don't feel weak or faint yet so it must not have been anything to drastic. It just looks pretty ugly. This was the result of the weekend of camping. I wasn't bothered much by mosquito's, just flies and nasty earwigs. Those little suckers were hiding every where. We had a good time. The weather was a little muggy but nothing drinking 60 gallons of water didn't cure. I have to say my intake of beer was not much. I figured the water was much better for me than downing 8 or 10 beers. Now I know someone might disagree with me, but it was just to hot to drink beer.

We did manage to keep the fire tended but probably not as well as Stb would have. It was 80 plus degrees outside so we saw no need to huddle around the fire. I think we basically had it because it's what you do when you're camping. The rain did not put much of a damper on the weekend as it rained one night while we were already sleeping and not again until Saturday night around 10 pm. It did help to cool things off a little and make sleeping a little more comfortable.

The trip to the Casino was somewhat profitable for me. T was walking past me and rubbed my arm for a little luck. He couldn't have been more that 10 feet away when I hit $250.00 on a slot machine. I took that out and went to another machine and within a minute or two hit $125.00. That was the end of my streak for this trip. It did keep us out of the hot, muggy weather for a few hours.

As usual the food and company were good. The steaks on Saturday night were good. Bonnie made her infamous crappy coffee cake which was eaten just out of pity for her horrible cooking abilities. (yummy once again) Sorry stb I was unable to save you a slice for fear of being accused of harboring the goodness.

The only thing bad about the weekend was that it ended.

A Long Way From Home

My drive to work every morning is usually spent thinking of random crap. For some reason my imagination seems to run wild in the morning. I think it's the boredom of the ride in.
This mornings focus was on the one lonely mosquito flying around my car. Did it spend the night in my car? Did it get in when I got in? Did it attach itself to me and hitch a ride? Should I kill it? It wasn't making a run for my blood, it was just sitting on the drivers side window. I didn't notice if it had a full belly of blood. I started wondering about the mosquito and if it needed the blood to fertilize it's eggs. Was it the male sent out for food for the not yet hatched eggs? If so he was going to find out that Wauwatosa, where I was getting out, was a long way from my back yard. Or maybe he got in with me last night. I chuckled as I thought about his other half impatiently waiting at home for him. What if he stung and sucked up some blood from a drunk. Would he then come home and be accused of being at the bar? Would she fall for the "took a wrong turn" or "You are not going to believe what happened" story. Should I give the poor fellow a break and open the window and let him out? From where I was as that point he wouldn't have far to go to get back. Should I put him out of the misery of his nagging partner and smack him now? My mind switch directions and went off on some other thought. A few minutes later I felt it. The sting. The smack. That was the end of the worries of the fate of the lonely mosquito. Until that is...

I got home from work and for some reason thought about it again. It intrigued me so I did a little research on the mosquito and found that it wouldn't have mattered where I let HER off. The female is the blood collector and she doesn't use the blood to fertilize her eggs. I didn't spend a whole lot of time on the subject, just enough to know that no future mosquito's were harmed in the swatting of the free loader in my car this morning.

I Need To Dust

I left for the store yesterday morning and returned to find that A and Ben had been working on tearing down the porch. The porch sits on the west side of our house which is where the kitchen and dining room are. It was mostly the width of the dining room. The boys had succeeded in removing the roof and doors. I walked in the house and was shocked by just how bright my dining room was. This was nice, except for on small thing. You could see every speck of dust and you could see dog hair on the floor that I just vacuumed hours before. You could tell that I hadn't dusted the rarely used dining room chairs in a while (not as bad as Stb's). Crap! Now there has been a can of worms opened which is going to just mean more work for me. I am liking the afternoon sunlight hitting the room.

The second problem with having this room under construction is our dog. She has never been on a chain, except for going for walks. She is not a very happy camper right now. Apparently a temporary fence is under construction. Last night I got the lecture on making sure I don't just open the door in the morning and let her out. "Duh" was my reply (I will admit it was a bit cocky). What do I do this morning? You got it, I opened the door, let the dog out, headed for the bathroom and realized my mistake.
I went back outside to find her just sitting on the deck. I'm not quite sure she realizes there is freedom for the taking.

We had a trivia tournament Saturday and although we didn't win big, I think we did okay. The questions were a bit harder than usual and we seconded guessed some of them but out of 26 teams we came in 6th place. We had a substitute player, while Stb was off on a roof top in Chicago. Thanks to Clete and his memory of song lyrics. My husband who was accused of usually being in la-la land was on it with the 3 second sound bytes from TV shows. I watched him scribbling away on his scratch paper as they were being played. I think he's now gotten over us replacing Great American Hero with St. Elsewhere. Oops..sorry honey.

After a long day at Trivia we went on to a small church festival where my husband and brother made their usual haul. Let's just say to all the fellow campers that it better rain a lot as they are stocked up with Jack for a long time. If Bonnie's nice she can probably get one just for sitting in her chair looking pretty. We also have about a years supply of hard salami. After the festival it was a sad goodbye to some great friends who have been visiting from Virgina. We'll miss them. Here's to a safe trip home.

Naked

My husband finally got the drawings together and made the trek to City Hall for the building permit for our porch. By the time I got home from work the demo had started. I didn't even get to say my last goodbyes before he started ripping it to shreds. There must be some kind of sick joy a man gets when ripping something apart as there he stood with crowbar in hand and a scary smile on his face. I know what was running through his head "I'll get you for all the times I had to fix the damn leaks. I'll show you".

By 8pm tonight the entire inside, the windows and the siding on two sides of the porch were gone. Part of the shingles on the roof are off. He had to call it quits as the bugs were getting to him. In a different situation I think he would have been out there with flood lights. Funnier was the guy next door looking over in pure admiration. He wanted in also.

I'm excited about getting a new screen porch, but I'm also a little sad. I can remember coming here when my kids were babies and sitting out on the porch with them and my younger siblings and parents. Many a family dinner, birthday celebrations and holidays were spent on the porch. The playpen was tucked in the corner so the kids could be out there and see out all the windows. Many poker games and board games where played out there. There were a few sleep overs on cots on the screen porch. Many TV shows watched and just chatting around the table. Most of all, my dad built the porch. There have been renovations over the years but it remained the original structure he built. To many good memories.

I know my husband will do an excellent job rebuilding the porch and I'm sure there will be many more memories to come. It's just a little sad right now. The back of my house will look naked for awhile and hopefully will not become a mud hole. Maybe we'll find some rare fossils or coins when digging that could bring us new found wealth.

And Three Makes it "Enough Already"

Late last September our AC took a poop. We had had a service guy over for yearly maintenance and he had discovered that the Freon was low and filled it. They suspected that there might have been a leak but wasn't to concerned about it. At the time we had inquired about the repair costs and replacement cost as the unit is going on 20 years old. So who thinks about these things in the winter when you're more concerned about getting heat in your home? Last week we decided to make an appointment for service. Husband called several places just to get more than one option. Guy #1 shows up yesterday. Not really worth it to fix it as it is at it's life expectancy. Gives us a figure of $2700.00 to replace the unit. After our jaws hit the ground we were able to ask a few questions. This is nothing more than pulling out the old unit and putting in a new one. Some electrical permit is involved. Not sure why. We tell him we'll let him know. In the mean time we borrow a room AC from Ben & Annette (thank you) to put in our bedroom to allow us to sleep.

Did I forget to mention that when I pulled in the driveway after work yesterday that I saw the hood open on my husbands truck? I should have just kept driving. He replaced the water pump today ($80.00).

Guy # 2 shows up today. I was at work so I got the information second hand. $2300.00 and they'll replace the furnace also for $1400.00. WTF? (knock on wood) nothing is wrong with that. He then tells me that the guy said there is a recall on our furnace. It's also 20 years old. I call bullshit as the people that serviced our furnace in March this year would have told us. I think it's a plot. My guess is that now in October when I turn the heat on it will go out. Then I'll get the AC for $1400.00 and the furnace will jump to $2300.00.

So, as if that wasn't enough...I decide to do laundry tonight. Go to put the first load in the dryer, turn on the dryer, the heat comes out but the drum does not turn. "Oh no, this is not happening" I calmly reach inside and turn the drum by hand, close the door, start it up and it makes this terrible clunk and begins to turn. I'm thinking the belt must have slipped. I then got a little nervous that it would stop and just burn my clothes so I went downstairs every few minutes. The old gal held on for three loads. I told Mr. Fix-It when he got home and all I saw was rolling eyes. Poor guy took vacation this week to begin working on the screen porch and has done nothing but fix things so far. I could put money on the fact that it won't get looked at.

This is my bad things happens in threes. I consider myself free and clear for awhile now. I can now go on living my life a little easier until the next thing comes along.

If this is the worst that's going to happen I feel pretty fortunate.

I Really Need To Carry A Camera

When I left the house yesterday morning for Summerfest there was a little chill in the air. Local weatherman said cooler by the lake. Using my better judgement I left the jacket in the car. There was no need for the extra baggage to carry around. The weather was great! A few of the guys managed to get a little pink in the face.

The day was interesting. Anytime there is a large gathering of people there are some that really stand out. I'm pretty sure it's the ones that want to stand out. This is where the lack of a camera is felt. People watching is a great thing! There were the usual Mohawks but what I found strange was the 50 plus year old woman with the red, white and blue one. There must have been a sale on black fishnet stockings somewhere as they were worn by many early 20 girls. The best outfit has to go to the girl with the thigh high fishnets made really fashionable with the furry boots. I spotted a girl that appeared to have lost her shorts or pants as she was just sporting boy shorts undergarments. I can pretty much say they were of the Hanes collection. We stopped to listen to a band (I am bad with band names) who had a good following of the "charlie Brown Christmas Special Dancers".

It was a good day. The bottled beer was chilled, the fried eggplant was better than last year and the company of friends was good. We left around 6 ish to be driven to the Park & Ride on a very empty bus. There was a little bit of silly singing for every one's enjoyment on the trip back. We were then able to enjoy a minute or so ride in STB's car back to Ben & Annette's house for a dinner of Gold Rush chicken and pizza and the best fries in Milwaukee.

It's A Vacation Day That You Can't Go Home

The tittle of my blog is a quote made by a co-worker on Tuesday. It was pretty dead by us for three days. We were on a repetitive, yet boring job. Around 8am Tuesday I made the comment that this could be a long two days. After joking around a bit I said "It's like hell with no fire". A few minutes later he came back with his comment. For some reason all three of us found it funny at the time.

Fortunately my company gave us a four day weekend. I'm thankful for that, as our weekend has filled up quite a bit. Today my daughter, sister and I took 6 kids to the Racine Zoo. I haven't been there in about 20 or so years. It's very small but very well kept and the kids seemed to enjoy it. There's quite a few animals with no lines or people mashing into you to get a view of the gorilla that moved an inch. The view of the lake is great. Racine has a very well kept beach area which I've been to before for air shows. And here's a plus...it doesn't smell at the beach.

The weather is promising to cooperate for the weekend. I'm glad it won't be sticky hot as walking around Summerfest sweating your ass off isn't all that appealing to me. We're looking at mid 70's which, if it happens could be perfect. I'm not really into the fireworks thing so we'll be heading to Ben & Annette's house after Summerfest. Sounds like a good day is in order.

Happy 4th To all of you and remember to say a little prayer for all those protecting our Country right now.