This is a two part narrative. Part One of the Two Part Narrative on Chewing:
So last night, in the middle of the night, I got up to, uh, use the facilities and noticed there was a light coming from down the hall. The light flickered and I realized it was a TV and I thought that Thing 2 was either watching TV in the middle of the night or she fell asleep with the TV on which would have been odd because even though she is almost 15, she insists that I figuratively tuck her in to bed every night. This means turning off her TV, taking off her glasses, giving her a hug and kiss and telling her "Happy Thoughts and Happy Dreams" as she climbs the ladder into her loft bed. Even on weekends when she can stay up late and I'm going to bed before she does, I have to perform this ritual.
Anyway. I deduced that the TV that was on in the middle of the night wasn't her TV and I continued down the hall to find the TV in the living room on with nobody watching it. Since I was the person to turn off the TV and all the lights when I went to bed, I thought this was strange and wondered how the TV had turned on. I looked down and found my answer:
Yeah, that was the remote to the TV and notice the chew marks right about where the Power button is located. I don't know if Gracie was bored and went looking for Animal Planet in the middle of the night but I was Not Amused that she chewed up yet another TV remote.
Fast forward to 6:00am, when our little alarm clock jumps on the bed and gets all "Wakey wakey eggs and bakey!" on me. I noticed that Gracie was a bit hesitant to follow me out to the living room when normally she's jumping in excited anticipation of her breakfast. But no, she stayed in the bedroom which instantly made me suspicious and I started looking for Evidence. I found it:
This is the second pair of earbuds she has destroyed this week. I keep telling the kids, if you don't want her to destroy something, don't leave anything where she can get it.
So I get Gracie's breakfast and after she eats, she comes and lays down on the floor in front of the couch. She's still acting suspicious but I can't see anything. However, I do notice that there are some crumb-type of things on the couch but I don't recognize them and assume that she was eating one of her doggy treats on the couch. She gets up and I see what she had been eating. It wasn't a doggy treat. It was a First Edition biography of Queen Mary that I had been reading and had left on the couch when I went to bed:
For reasons I don't know, Miss Gracie Lou has decided to do some Nocturnal Destruction of Personal Property instead of sleeping like a good little dog. The death toll now stands at 2 TV remotes, 2 sets of iPod earbuds, 3 visors and 1 First Edition book. Obviously, I now have to do a reconnaissance and sweep the areas clean of anything chewable before I go to bed from now on.
Part Two of the Two Part Narrative on Chewing.
At the park on our morning walk, we're walking along when Gracie squats and does her business. Being a Good Dog Owner who cleans up after her dog, I scooped up the pile and we headed to the nearest trash can to deposit the bag o' poo. There happened to be several geese loitering in the vicinity of the trash can but I (foolishly) felt I could get to the trashcan before they would notice me. I was SO wrong.
As Gracie and I approach the trashcan, 2 of the geese took exception to the fact that we were trespassing on their turf and they got all up in my face about it, flapping their wings and hissing and honking. I start giggling nervously but continue toward the trashcan when those fuckers attacked! They came at me biting and hissing and I'm start screaming and flailing the bag o' poo at them and they are so not afraid of me, my bag o' poo OR my little dog, too. I say, "screw this!" and turn tail to run for my very life when Gracie decides to run in between my legs and trip me with the cord of her leash and I fall on my butt and the geese are nipping and biting and I'm screaming and flailing and Gracie is all tangled up in my legs and I'm all "Dude whose side are you on here?" and the other geese are just standing there watching and laughing and high-fiving each other and the squirrels who had come down from the trees to watch the fun and I'm on my hands and knees crawling as fast as I could until I could get untangled and I finally get to my feet and run away with the geese in hot pursuit and I'm thinking, "why am I a chew toy for geese?" and Gracie is all, "That was fun! Let's do it again!" as she tries to run back to the geese and I'm all Get Me the Fuck Out of Here.
I would have taken photos of these gangbangin' geese but I was too busy running for my life to get my phone out and tell them "Strike a pose for my blog, yo!"
And people say I live a dull life.
Or, as Steve Martin once said, "R A M B L I N apostrophe"
Years ago, when I was still in High School, my sister and I went and saw Steve Martin perform at the Universal Amphitheater and his opening act was The Blues Brothers. I think it was one of the first Real Live appearances by the Blues Brothers. Anyway, one of the things I remember most about that night was when I heard someone yelling my name, "Kelly! Kelly! Hey, Kelly!" and I'm looking around and I don't recognize anyone and then this guy runs up, puts his arm around me and says, "Ok!" and another guy takes our picture and first guy, says, "Hey, thanks Kelly!" and runs off and I'm all "What the hell?" and when that guy gets his photos developed he's going to have one of him with a girl who has a totally confused "Huh" expression on her face and I always wondered a) who WAS that guy? and 2) how did he know my name as I wasn't nearly as famous back then as I am now what with my dozen followers and all so that, folks, is one of the Big Mysteries of My Life which pretty much tells you there ain't a whole lot going on my life now, is there?
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The other day, over at Bye Bye Pie which is one of my favorite blogs because the comments and the followers have pretty much taken on a life of their own and are frequently more entertaining than the actual blog, the topic of adult tantrums came up and I was reminded of my late father who was FAMOUS for his tantrums. We never knew what would set him off. One time, Hand to God, it was the way the toilet paper was on the holder.
But the best and most memorable tantrum I can recall is the time he pitched a fit about going through the drive-thru at Jack in the Box.
I think we had been at the beach that day and on the way home we asked my dad to go through the drive-thru at Jack in the Box and he refused. And got angry about it. Of course we kept clamoring for Jack in the Box and he kept refusing and getting angrier about it. Finally, the real reason for his refusal came out and it had nothing to do with money or the food. It was the drive-thru itself.
Why, you ask? I'll tell you. Back then, this was in the '70s, when you placed your order in the drive-thru at JITB, the speaker was located in the head of a clown and that was where my dad drew the line. As he so eloquently put it, "I AM NOT TALKING TO A GODDAMN CLOWN!" which of course just sent us all over the edge in hysterical laughter which did nothing to help the situation and in fact, made it worse because my dad did not have much of a sense of humor about his own quirks. We still laugh about the Jack in the Box episode to this day. He also had a "thing" about answering machines. When he had to leave a message, he would speak in a strange staccato, robot-like voice. If it wasn't a real live person to speak to, he choked.
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So, I got a new cellphone. Thing 2 had been hounding me for a new phone and since it was Upgrade Time and Thing 2 had made some coin the night before by babysitting, I took her to get her new phone. My kids know if they want something like a new phone or iPod etc, they have to pay for it themselves. And since I was there and qualified for an upgrade myownself, I decided to take advantage of the offer and switch out my 2 year old BlackBerry Curve for one of them newfangled Droid phones. Oh. My. God. It was like going from a Walkman to an iPod. From a Commodore 64 to a MacBook Pro. From Pong to Xbox 360. I can't type on the keypad as fast as I could on the BB's keypad and there's a few things I'm still learning but for the most part, I'm LOVING it. Yeah, I would have liked an iPhone because I'm a tried-and-true Apple Fan but not an AT&T fan so I got the next best thing.
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Ok, so I'm STILL stunned over last night's episode of LOST. I actually got choked up while walking this morning just thinking about it. I know there are only a few episodes left and I'm still completely, well, LOST.
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I love "Designed to Sell" but I really wish they'd get rid of that Orange gal. Between her Bad Acting, her Bad Acne and her REALLY bad Orange makeup and/or spray tan, I can't even enjoy the show.
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Speaking of driving even though I wasn't, it drives me nuts when I'm waiting to make a left hand turn on a green light and I'm in the intersection waiting to turn and there's a car coming towards me and they're going to make a right hand turn and they get to the corner and they STOP. And sit and wait for you to turn even though they have the legal right of way and you're sitting there going, "Dude, are you going to turn or what?" and they just sit there staring at you and it's like a Mexican Standoff as the two of you just sit and wait for the other to turn and finally you say, "Screw it" and you start to turn and THAT is when they decide they're going to turn and then you have to hit the brakes and the people behind you have to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting you and you figure out the only way that driver got their drivers license was by blowing the DMV dude because they sure as hell didn't get their drivers license by actually passing the written and driving parts of the test.
And on that note, have a lovely Wednesday.
You know how just about every website and their brother now requires you to have an account so you have to come up with a user ID and a password and the password requires a minimum of 37 characters that must contain a mixture of capital letters, lower case letters, numbers and characters and when you've finally come up with one that meets the criteria you get a "sorry, that ID and/or password is already in use" and then you have to start the process all over again? The type of password that is the best to have is something like this: "fy:23GT*9Xcxl" which is one pain in the butt to type in. I think I'd rather have my account hacked than have to type something like that in time after time after time. Oh, and you're supposed to change your password every time the seasons change to keep those hackers on their toes.
So you come up with a successful ID and password but because the password is so frickin' complicated (see above) you can't remember it long enough to write it down in your secret book that is filled with all your User ID's and passwords and if you ever lost that book your life would come to a screeching halt so you guard that book with your life but since your password doesn't work anymore you have to answer the secret question that is usually something along the lines of "What is the maiden name of your first pet and what street was your favorite author's elementary school on?"
As I may have mentioned, my new laptop somehow had all my files and internet bookmarks wiped out. So I'm re-entering my bookmarks, one of which is my e-mail server and I have to enter my User ID and password to access my e-mail for the first time in, well, 2-1/2 months. But here we hit a bit of a snafu. For some reason, Verizon was refusing to recognize me. No matter how many times I would put in my ID and password, Verizon would perform the Cut Direct. I could totally sense Verizon looking down its nose at me and saying, "Do I know you?" and I'm all, "Dude, it's ME! Don't you recognize me? Hello!!!???" and Verizon going, "Um, no. Sorry" and then they ask me to please move outside the Velvet Rope and stand over there with the rest of the Losers. Again.
So, it's obvious I have to re-do my e-mail access stuff and luckily, I'm able to answer the Secret Question correctly and all I have to do is choose a new password. Which turns out to be easier said than done.
Password after password was rejected as too easily hacked. Finally, in my extreme irritation, I chose an expression famous in my family. It's a Polish term that roughly translates to, how can I say this delicately, "Bite me!"
And guess what? Verizon rejected it! They claimed that my Polish term was too easy to guess and therefore was a security risk that they just couldn't allow.
Dude, seriously? I mean, I can see using a Spanish word might be too common and therefore easy to hack but POLISH? Who knew Polish was such a common language here?
It was probably a good thing I didn't try using Yiddish because you know that Yiddish is such a widely used language someone would have been able to hack into my e-mail account in the blink of an eye.
I eventually came up with an acceptable password that met all the criteria of letters, numbers, characters and secret handshakes and immediately wrote it into The Book so that I wouldn't forget it.
I miss the Good Ol' Days when "password" was considered sufficient.
Sigh.
Two and a half months ago, my 3 year old Gateway laptop crashed and burned. It was very ugly and there were no survivors. So I purchase a new Toshiba laptop with Windows 7 along with a portable hard drive so I can back up all my files just in case something like this happens again.
Guess what? No, not chicken butt. Something like that happened again. To my two and a half month old laptop. Suddenly, I'm getting a million pop up windows, NOT from my Norton 360 anti-virus software oh by the way, telling me that a virus has been detected and if I would just "Click Here!" my problems will be solved. I'm also getting a million pop up windows that all happen to be from porn sites on Internet Explorer which I never use because it's crap and I only use Firefox. Porn site windows that won't let me close them.
So Thing 1, who doesn't seem to have any problems with his log on account on my laptop, tells me to just delete my account and create a new one. No problem because I had backed up my hard drive on to my portable hard drive only a few days ago.
Guess whose portable hard drive is telling me that my files cannot be retrieved? Guess whose Norton anti-virus software that backs up my files for safety is not able to retrieve said files? Guess who is ready to put on a hockey mask, pick up a chainsaw and go all Freddy Krueger on Microsoft, Best Buy, Norton and anyone else related to the problem and yes I know I'm mixing up my horror movie villains but I. Don't. Care.
What makes me even more angry is that the reason I needed this laptop was for work and it was only when I went to install the software needed for my job that I found out the software was not only not Mac compatible which is why I went with a PC/laptop but is also NOT Windows 7 compatible. Isn't that SPECIAL? And this was after I had to also get Microsoft Office because the software program needed Office to work.
I never wanted to get a Windows computer. I think Microsoft sucks and Apple products are far superior because you don't get the crap that happens with Windows computers but I had to have it for work which was a big waste of money because see paragraph above.
I think the problem came when Thing 2 watched "Breakfast Club" over the internet this weekend on my laptop. She does not remember what site she found the movie but that's the only thing I can think of.
I had a chat with TheManTheMyth about this and told him we have two options. Option 1: We can continue to have problems and lose files over and over, apparently, and spend money over and over without any guarantee that it won't happen again in the next year or two. Or even in the next month or two. I've already lost my files and all my work twice in 2 months.
Option B: We can just bite the bullet and get a new Mac that will last for years. That software program I need for work will not be used after this year anyway so I have no need for Windows in my life except the kind that lets me look outside. To put it in terms that TheManTheMyth would understand, I told him that Macs are the equivalent of KTM dirt bikes and computers that use Windows are the equivalent of those cheap dirt bikes made in Communist Asian countries that you can buy at Pep Boys and always need repairing and you end up spending more than you paid for it just trying to keep it running.
TheManTheMyth looked at me, whimpered and went off to take a nap. I don't know if the whimper is a Yes or a No.
Well, I'm off to the Geek Squad to see if they can fix this problem and retrieve my files from either the laptop or the portable hard drive. Best Buy sells Macs. Hmmmm.
Update: I took both the laptop and the Passport to Geek Squad. The good news is, they couldn't find a virus anywhere and they gave me something to scan my system to look for malware, viruses, etc and that came out clean.
The bad news is that once again, none of my files could be retrieved. Somehow, both the Passport backup hard drive and the Norton Backup thingamajig failed miserably and my files on both systems are gone baby gone with the wind. So I am right back to where I was 2-1/2 months ago and having to start from scratch to get my 500+ racers data entered all over again. Unless I can convince TheManTheMyth we can sell one of the kids so I can get a Macbook.
But not after Midnight because that would be dangerous what with all sorts of nefarious characters afoot although it would be kind of interesting because if I'm out walking after midnight the odds are good I'm sleepwalking because I'm a 10:00pm bedtime type of gal because I like my sleep. A Lot. And I got all that "Stay Up Until the Cows Come Home" stuff out of my system a decade or so ago, not that I knew any cows that came home when the sun came up because I've pretty much lived in the suburbs my entire life where there aren't any cows to come home to and where was I going with this nice run on sentence that started with the title of a song by the Late Miss Patsy Cline?
Oh yes, I remember. I'm walking. Yes indeed I'm walking. Ok, who's feeling musical today? That'd be Me.
ANYWAY.
Miss Gracie Lou requires exercise to get her tuckered out because otherwise, an unexercised (nonexercised?) Gracie Lou is a hyper, bored and possibly destructive Gracie Lou so we go on a good walk in the morning and another walk in the afternoon. During the week we do these walks at a park a couple of miles away that's on the way to and from Thing 2's school so it's not like I'm going out of my way but on the weekends, we walk from our house. We had been just walking straight up the road about a mile and then coming back but that got a bit boring so now Gracie Lou and I have decided to start walking through the various neighborhoods in the vicinity. I have lived in my house in the Prestigious Plaza area of Long Beach almost 15 years and this is after spending almost every weekend and vacation in this house while growing up so you'd assume I'd know these neighborhoods like the back of my hand but you'd be wrong there with that assumption.
This has been a very interesting experience I'm enjoying seeing more of my hometown, even if it's just within a few miles from my door. I love looking at houses and our walks give me the opportunity to look, admire AND critique and lemme tell you, people have done some interesting "remuddling" of their basic 1950's California Ranch houses. There have been more than a few that I've stood there, gaping, and I'm all What. The. Fuck? and have thanked my lucky stars that I'm not their neighbor and are forced to look at that every day.
So anyway, yesterday I was over at my seester's new house and it was time to take the dogs for a good walk. This is my seester's dog Coco. She's a Labradoodle but I think she looks like one of the Flying Monkeys. Coco is one of the best dogs and is a wonderful Role Model for Gracie Lou.
So Gracie Lou and I are taken for a walk and I am shown a place I never knew existed in my own town.
This was a beautiful Nature Preserve that goes along the Northeast end of Marine Stadium.
It's filled with native plants and flowers and the Golden Poppies, which I neglected to take pictures of, were in full bloom and there were benches to sit down on and take in the view and it just amazes me how many things there are in Long Beach that I don't know about.
So we enjoyed a lovely walk along the waterfront and through this nature preserve and then trekked back to the house through another neighborhood I had never been in and by the time we got back to the house, Gracie Lou wasn't the only one who was completely tuckered out (raises hand).
So our walks are serving two purposes: health and exercise and experiencing previously unknown parts. And you know what that tells me?
I gotta get out more often.
Ok, this is the view from my front yard circa 1954 when my grandparents bought the house:
This is the same view taken yesterday:
I had found the original photo mixed in with a bunch of old pictures and I thought it was fascinating to see what our neighborhood looked like before the 405 Freeway, aka "San Diego Freeway" cut right down the middle of the neighborhood.
I'm going to have the original photo enlarged and framed and hung in my entryway so I can be reminded of What Used to Be.
