From the “well she sure showed me” files……

As I’ve said numerous times, GrandDolly is the light of my life. I am enchanted with every little thing she does or says. Too bad she doesn’t feel the same way. Case in point:

We make our weekly Wal-Mart run on Sundays — Darling Daughter needed a few things as well but GrandDolly was napping, so I offered to pick her items up for her. Upon our return, GrandDolly was just waking up, which is her “don’t bother me ’til I’ve had my coffee” time. Sweet Baboo  kissed her cheek and we jumped back into the car to go home. By then, GD was laying on the sofa vegging out and slowly ramping up for the rest of the day.

So home we go, bring in the bags and start unpacking. Phone rings. DD on the line. Where’s Pepere? GD was throwing a hissy fit because Pepere had left and not kissed her or told her goodbye. DD gives GD the phone, at which time SB starts their “growl and giggle” routine. After many good byes and I love you’s, SB hangs up the phone. He had a look on his face that asked, “who does she love better?” Oy.

An interesting exercise

Just for the heck of it, I let my spam folder fill up for exactly one day. (I usually empty it everytime I log on to check my email.)

I had 100 emails in there

25 were for medications

43 were for (ahem) enlargement concoctions

19 were for watches

8 were for loans and debt consolidation

2 were for shoes

2 were for software

1 was for weight management

Who are the yahoo’s that respond to this detritus? Do the originators of this offal actually make money doing it?

I don’t click on any of it, but just the few words that come up on the subject line make me realize that there must be a lot of sick puppies out there.

I just don’t understand it.

More of the white stuff

Well, the meteorologists are probably high fiving themselves. New England is taking a direct hit with this snow event. In my little corner of CT, we have about 4 inches, with a warning that it could be up to 8. Jeesh.

I know that forecasting in New England is iffy at best. Ocean currents, jet stream, southerly breezes all combine to give the (ahem) forecasters several different weather event options from their computer models. More jeesh.

I think the problem is that the new stations give them way too much time to fill up. Did you ever notice how many times they repeat themselves? And they all seem to have catch phrases that will crop up several times during the segment. For instance, my favorite weather forecaster (okay, make that the only one that I watch, at least right now) has a habit of saying “no question”. “No question, there will be frigid temperatures today with the wind chill.” “Severe thunderstorms will result from this cold front colliding with our warm, moisture laden air, no question.” This phrase is starting to be more annoying than when someone asks a question and then answers it themselves. “Do I think it will rain today? No question.” I think I will send her some different catch phrases to use. Without doubt ..Most certainly …Definitely …Unequivocally …Indubitably

On the up side, it’s February and people don’t seem to pay as much attention to the storm mongers as they did in November and December. Which, of course, makes the weather twits jump higher and make even more noise in a bid to draw in a larger audience.

I wonder when they will figure out that the way to get the best rating is to calmly and logically not over forecast the weather? I can always hope they will get a clue.

Jeesh. And oy.

A True Story

Our house is second house from the end of a dead end street, with another dead end street almost directly across from us at a 45º angle. We’ve lived here 12 years, so we know most of the cars and people that come into this area.

Last fall, I was sitting on the sofa and saw a couple of guys with clipboards walking toward the end of the street. I figured that they were selling something probably not legal, and watched as they knocked on first one neighbor’s door, then the another.

One of the fellas went down the dead end street across from our house and the other fella knocked at my door. I opened the inside door with a Louisville Slugger just slightly behind my back. Can’t be too careful these days.

Through the door:

He:     Good afternoon ma’am and how are you this fine day?

Me:     Fine — what are you selling?

He:     I’m not selling anything today, but because the construction company that I work for has an overabundance of shingles because of a purchasing error, I am offering to the fine people in this area a one day only offer to estimate what it would cost to re-shingle your roof at below cost prices. I can see that yours needs to be re-shingled in spots. (I probably should mention that our roof is 3 years old.)

Me:     Really? Well, I can’t make any kind of decision without checking with my husband (I love to play the “little woman” card when it behooves me to do so.) If you’d like to leave a card and any literature you might have, I’ll be sure to have him give you a call back when he gets home.

He:     Well, we’ll be up in this area again because we’ve gotten 4 or 5 re-roofs to do on this street alone in a couple of days. (Yeah, I’m so sure) You can talk to your husband and let us know when we come back.

Me:     Okay, I’ll do that. Have you checked with my neighbors across the street? Their roof really needs some work and I’ll bet they will be glad to talk to you. (I checked across the street — the mister was home, the missus was not)

He:     Great thanks for the tip and I’ll be back in a couple days!! (He’s just about jogging to get across the street)

I shut the door and begin to laugh. I see roofer guy knocking on the front door. The door opens and my PC (my neighbor) appears in the doorway. I see roofer guy waving his hands, gesturing, pointing to the roof, back across the street to me, back to the roof, then to his clipboard…..

Before he can go any further, PC gets a look on his face. I see his hands waving, gesturing toward the roof, pointing across the street, back to the roof, then his finger pointing repeatedly at roofer guy’s chest. Roofer guy is backing up, backing up, tripping over the step and almost going down, backing up and I see his head nodding with his hands up in the air as if to wave him off. He heads around the house and up the other dead end street to find his buddy. Together, they double time it down the street and out of our neighborhood, all the while roofer guy’s hands are gesturing and his mouth is running as fast as his feet.

I don’t think I told you that PC stands for Police Chief.

….and For My Next Trick, Ladies and Gentlemen…..

The lower part of our building is rented by two professionals. The lunchroom is also part of the lower part, but we rarely use it. It is used mostly by the tenants downstairs. It has come to our attention that they have a bit of a “ahem” rodent problem down there. Suggestions such as “maybe taking out your trash every night” and “it’s probably not a good idea to leave dirty dishes in the sink” were met with a frosty glare. I have to say that they tried those recommendations after they were suggested, (hard to believe that it had to be suggested, but there you have it) but it was a case of horse and barn door at that point.

Enter a bug guy. (You know them — guys in brown uniforms with large spray cans of who knows what wearing rubber gloves and goggles. They always try to tell you that the can contents are not toxic to anything but bugs. Bah!!) This bug guy spent nearly two hours down there setting those snappy traps and the sticky traps. We were starting to believe that he had set a trap down for every square foot of floor space. Kind of like the Sylvester and Tweety cartoons with the yard full of dogs.

Later that day — I go downstairs to pull a couple charts for incoming patients. (We have a utility room under the stairs that is just for old charts and other odd stuff. Like mice, apparently.) Although I have tried to make the filing as simple as possible, sometimes it’s a bit confusing and will involve opening several storage boxes before finding the chart you need.

So here I am, heaving boxes here and there and not really watching what I am doing. Or where I am stepping. Suddenly, my foot (I was wearing my old faithful Börn clogs which have a rubber sole) didn’t feel quite right. Looking down, I see that I had managed to step onto one of those sticky sheets. Darn little sucker wouldn’t come off. I took off my shoe and pulled on a corner of it for all I was worth — nothing. Tried using the other hand. Nada. (Of course my thumbs are so strong, I don’t understand why I was having a problem.) Finally, after pulling on this stupid thing for what seemed like hours, and thinking to myself, “terrific, I’m going to have to go upstairs with my shoe in my hand and find somebody to get this thing off for me”, I threw the shoe on the floor. Looked at it. Looked again. Stood on it with both feet. Bent over and hit my head on a box. Swore. Twice. Stood on it again. Pulled on one corner with both wimpy thumbs. Slowly, slowly it came off — then apparently decided that it had had enough fun with me and came off all at once. At which time I fell on my butt and hit my head on a box in back of me. More cussing. Even more being glad that there was no one there to witness my theatrics. Threw the sticky little #$@&^%* down on the floor again, picked up my charts and made my way back up the stairs, thump, whsht, thump, whsht, thump……. TGIF!!