Category: Uncategorized

Next door to us lives two professional women who are a couple.  We love having them as neighbors, and remarkably they aren’t attempting to break up our marriage.  They have good jobs, nice cars, great house, trips a few times a year, steak on the grill, wine from a bottle instead of a box.  Here at Green Acres, The Big Daddy and I make it up as we go and make tuition payments.

Every spring our screened-in porch is some kind of cluster or another.  We are always repairing and/or repainting and it seems to me that they sweep theirs off and next thing they’re talking over a cocktail while we’re ten days and a gallon of paint away from having any fun.

It pisses me off.

This year things were different on the other side of the fence.  They had a repairman there for FIVE days.  A new door, rescreening, repainting.  There was some kind of buck$ getting shelled out and I tsked tsked the misfortune next door.

While I was basking in the glow of superiority, Lowe’s delivered some suh-weet outdoor furniture for their soon-to-be-totally-redone porch.  I looked at my curbside/vintage/garage sale finds strategically placed so the hole in the screen where the squirrel came in and the whole in the screen where the squirrel went out weren’t so obvious and thought one thing…..

Loser.

When I was in Mexico, I was amazed at how people go about making a living.  At the Mega store (which is like Target), the employees near the register are also selling time shares.  Asking where something is just might cost you a lot of bucks and a two week stay in a place you never heard of.

On the beach, you can buy a straw hat or a beach towel.  Just like hot dog vendors at the ballpark, these guys go up and down all day long trying to make a sale.

The stores…………….they’re waiting for you.  Pretty lady, I’ve got some jewelry for you.  Or Viagra.

But the most amazing way to make a living to me were the guys in parking lots who wheel shopping carts full of buckets of water to clean your car, and do a fine job with little to work with.

This is my favorite thrift store.  I frequent it often and have found some amazing things there.  Vintage picnic basket $4.99.  Camel hair coat $7.99.  Mad Men inspired cocktail shaker $3.99.  Silk black dress $12.99.

If you bring a donation, you get a 20% discount.  I can always find something to get rid of.  Like the cats.  Sometimes, though it’s a little tough to come up with anything.

I have found out that at the age of 55 one qualifies for a 25% senior discount every Tuesday.  I don’t think I look 55.  I usually don’t feel 55.  The idea of saying that I’d like the senior discount is disturbing to me, but………

I’ve always been a whore for a few bucks off.

The most lovely Catholic church in the village of San Jose del Cabo………………..

Whose interior was just as beautiful……………..

With a place to light a candle to Mary………….

…………or Joseph.

Or write your worries on a ribbon and leave them to a higher power……..

 ……and then a reminder that the least among us need our help.

 Simple.

Setting up this blog for someone who was born-too-long-ago-to-be-all-that-computer-literate was a task.  What would take my kids an hour took me a week, but I put my big girl panties on and figured it out.  I might have cried.  I might have drank a bit in the process.  I might have thought about shooting myself.

Last week, Blogger changed the layout.  The whole thing.  Now trying to find your stats, drafts or comments is completely different and it’s taking me some kind of time to figure it out.  The thing is, it flips back and forth from the new way to the old way all the time.  The screen will pop up with the old layout and I AM SO HAPPY until the next time when the screen is completely different and I AM SO SAD.

It used to be that when I checked my blog on the ipad, and found an error, I could flip it from published to a draft and fix it later.  Until now.  Twice when I’ve done that, it has deleted the entire post.  Poof.  Gone.  It happened last nite, and I went flying up the stairs to check on our regular computer saying, “Please, oh please, oh please don’t be gone.”  Twas.

So I went to bed and tossed and turned in a tizzy trying to decide if I should get up and rewrite it, but I cannot write when I’m pissed off.  That’s for emails.  Anyhow, still awake at  2:00 a.m., I cursed Blogger and wrote this in my head instead.

At least my bitchiness didn’t land in your inbox.

Postscript:  I discovered over the weekend that to get rid of random underling, I need to go to my dashboard, click the side bar widget and make sure there is no text decoration.  Whatever that means.

I also learned that with a click of a button, I could go back to my old set-up regarding stats, comments…..  Mama was right.  When one door closes…………keep beating the shit out of it and you’ll eventually get it open again. 

My acting gig as a Standardized Patient ended Monday with the last round of medical students.  Over four afternoons, I had 24 abdominal exams as well as having my heart and lungs checked each time.  There was a lot of heavy breathing/hyperventilating on my part, and I never did a header off the table even though it made me woozyish.

I was a 45 year-old English professor, married with no kids, who liked to camp and hike with my husband when the weather was good.  And a high functioning alcoholic.  That’s the tricky part for the kids.  Nearly every student asked me something that wasn’t covered in training such as:

So where do you like to camp?  Haven’t been in forty years.

Who’s your favorite poet?  Dr. Seuss.

What’s your husband do?  Make me crazy.

You said you eat out a lot.  Where do you go?  Culver’s with a coupon.

How often do you and your husband have sex?  What?????

What kind of English do you teach?  Blogger English. 

It was a lying fest for four days and more than one student told me I played a good, cagey alcoholic.  Why, thank you.  After they did the exam and asked a meeeeeellion things about my fake life, they went in the hall while I answered some questions on the computer about what they did or did not do.  When that was done, I called them back in, introduced myself and we talked about how it went.

I met students who were English and philosophy undergrads, a paramedic, a writer, a former teacher in one rough part of Chicago, a Giants fan, and a diabetic.  Without exception they want to get better, and are willing to get input and advice from somebody they just met on how to make that happen.

I can’t say it was easy, but I can say it was interesting, enlightening, and encouraging.  Oh, and a few years down the road, we’ll be in very good hands.