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At the beginning of the year when I left my job at Crazy Town, the plan was to devote a few months to writing and the vintage business that Nancy and I have been working on.  Once we got back from our summer vacation, I would seriously look for employment.  Easier said than done.  I have sent out resumes, filled out applications and inquired at businesses I frequent.   It’s a humbling experience looking for a job, but finally on a tip from a friend, I got an interview at a local flower shop.   Thank ya Jeezus.

And it went like this………….

Tell us why you want to work at a flower shop?   I love flowers, always have.  

Do you know the different varieties of flowers?  I do.  I’m a gardener.

Do you know how to cut flowers?  Yes.  

So you have cut flowers and brought them in your home?  Yes.

And put them in a vase?  Yes.

Do you know that maintaining a flower shop is a lot of work?  I know that maintaining a beautiful space requires plenty of grunt work.

We don’t call it grunt work, we call it Mom work.  Like as the mom you clean the counters, restock, sweep, take the garbage out.  Can you do mom work?   Yes. 

You aren’t a Lake Girl are you?  I don’t know what that means.  Do you like to go to the Lake on the weekends?   I don’t have a lake to go to.  Well, that’s good for us.  Wink.  Haha.  Wink….return serve.

Some of our stock is not bar-coded, so you have to learn the abbreviations to put in the register.  For instance, a short vase of roses would be SVR.  Do you think you could learn that?  Yes.  It can be kind of confusing.  For who?

You’ve had a few jobs over the last ten years.  That’s a red flag for us.  Well, two of those stores closed.  (And if either of them were still open, I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you.)

The interrogation lasted thirty minutes, with the owner and manager taking notes on everything I said.  At one point, I told them I was from Chicago, which they wrote down on their notepads, as if that had anything to do with selling flowers.  Maybe it did.  Maybe they wanted their next salesperson to be from Cleveland.   Finally, the interview ended and they told me that they had to review their notes over the next few days and would get back to me.  Review away.

The day I interviewed was in the low 100’s – a real scorcher.  When I went into the shop, the metal doorknob was so hot, it burnt my hand.  Sometimes, messages from God are sort of vague, which makes them easy to ignore.  Not this time.

I told The Big Daddy that I thought we should refinance the homestead to lessen the interest rate and term, and crunched the numbers to make the case.  He hates matters like this, but I used to be a loan officer back in the day, and I’m not as skerd as he is.  I stalked the rate page on the bank’s website waiting to pull the trigger, and they almost had me at 4%, but I got the willy nillys when I was doing the application and never finished it. 

A couple of weeks ago, the rate dropped to 3.875%, and I added that to my shopping cart and proceeded to checkout.  The avalanche of paperwork came in the mail and we signed and signed and signed.  Then we copied and copied and copied.  First, we signed that we agreed to have the transcripts of the last two years of taxes sent to them by the IRS, and then we had to copy the last two years of taxes.  That there is what you call redundant.  Copies of the last two pay stubs, drivers license and social security cards?  Check, check, and check.  Just a matter of getting an appraisal and badda-bing, badda-boom, we were good to go.

Mr. Appraiser made his appearance and snooped around the place taking pictures and notes.  A week later, my enthusiasm for this idea was waning after using up four hours and an ink cartridge getting Mr. Potter all he needed to give the A-OK for this.  All looks good, the banker said, and BTW, here’s a copy of your appraisal.

How do I put this………..oh I know, we got a smackdown on the value of the homestead.   I low-balled it on the app, but my low-ball got low-balled.  Son-of-a-bitch, The Big Daddy said.  Times two, BD, times two.  Now we have to wait to see what Mr. Potter has to say about all this, and I figured what’s the point in cleaning the place if it’s not worth much.

Most of the time I have to admit that I’ve got a wonderful life, but I’ll advise that if you’re thinking about doing a refi it’s best to take a deep breath and call on your angels.  It’s one steep drop when you take a ride on the Housing Bubble.

For five years, Mark and I lived in Maryland.  He got a job in Bethesda and we lived about 15 miles away.  The first weekend we were there and not even close to getting settled, we loaded up the stroller with Baby #1, and took the train to the National Mall to see the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial.   From there, we walked over to the White House and sat in the summer heat for more than an hour, just staring.

The metro stop for the Mall is Smithsonian Station.    As you make your way up to street level, the first thing you see is the Capitol Building.  I couldn’t even count the number of times we used that stop to sight see or take friends and family for a tour when they were in town.  Dozens and dozens of times.  The first time I saw that building, it took my breath away, and continued to each and every time.

In a few days, Congress will be back in session and we will all bear the burden of their endless arguing.  After a much needed summer break, this weary and worried country will once again be subjected to predictable sound bites and talking points from our politicians.  I don’t know how it is possible for anyone to stand in that building and not feel the spirit of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Bobbie Kennedy or Martin Luther King, and then think it’s acceptable to dishonor it with bad behavior.

Do the nearly 60,000 names on the Vietnam Memorial, the mountain of shoes in the Holocaust Museum, or the watchful gaze of Abraham Lincoln, not echo continuously in the thoughts of those who represent us?  Do the souls of those who fought the good fight ever whisper in their ear, pleading with them to not repeat the mistakes of the past?  The history of our country has required great things from ordinary citizens, and there are countless examples of those who have risen to the task.  While they go about their quiet work, this Congress will put a pin on their lapel and look straight into the camera, while patriotism searches elsewhere for a hero.

When I was working at a little clothing boutique (a.k.a. Crazy Town), my job was to continually prop up the owner.  If business was slow and she was going off the deep end, I’d say it was too hot to shop, too cold to shop, too rainy to shop, too early in the week to shop, too late in the week to shop……….  I’d dig deep into the excuses bucket over and over.  It. Was. Exhausting.

When I first started writing this blog, the numbers were dismal and I was o.k. with that.  It was new and I needed to get the word out, and when I did, things started picking up.  I check the numbers a couple of times a day, much like my former employer checked the register.  A few weeks ago I had my best day and oh me, oh my, I was starting to hope that this thing was taking off and getting some attention.

Then this past week came and went with numbers so bad that I wanted to pick up the computer and heave it out the window.   Is it too hot?  Too August?  Too what?  Every time I checked was a punch in the gut of my self-esteem and that’s taken a shellacking lately.  I whined to The Big Daddy that maybe this was a bad idea, maybe I suck at this.  Maybe being the entertainment for two dozen people in a day is too much work.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Today I read about a guy who writes a weather blog that gets 80,000 hits a day.  Hurricane Irene and he was up to 650,000.  For crissakes, you can open up the window and figure it out for yourself most of the time.  If I got a fraction of that, I’d have thought I’d died and gone to heaven. 

Maybe one of these days, I’ll hit the literary jackpot, but in the meantime, today’s high in Kansas City will be near 100 (no shit people…..again with the hunnerds and the humidity), winds out of the west at 12 mph and partly cloudy.  Watch your back Mr. Big Shot 80,000 Hits Weather Blogger.  I’m knocking back a shot of assertive and going after your audience.

Source: flickr.com via Evangeline on Pinterest

Teacher Girl and her Prince Charming were feeling the need to share the love, and so they adopted a puppy.  Butters is her name, and she is about the cutest dog in the land.  They’ve all been learning to get along, but with both of them at work all day, Butters needed some company and that’s how she ended up with me the other day.

Whoa.  Whoa.  Whoa.

Henry and I spend our days as pretty laid back roomies.  We walk in the morning and then he sleeps for the rest of the day.  I putter, I do some laundry, do some stuff for the next Prairie Girls sale, do the checkbook, freak out about money, do some writing.

Butters is of a different mindset.  From the second she walked in the door, she was looking for excitement.  WHAT ARE WE GONNA DO, HUH?  GO FOR A WALK?   I’M GONNA EAT THE CAT FOOD.  I’M GONNA EAT HENRY’S FOOD.  YOU DON’T MIND IF I PEE IN THE HOUSE, DO YOU?   LET’S GO FOR A WALK.  HEY, I CAN HELP YOU FOLD THE TOWELS.  YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE BATHROOM?  DON’T MIND ME WHILE I COME WITH YOU.   I’M GONNA WALK AROUND WITH THIS PENCIL IN MY MOUTH.  WE BETTER GO PICK UP MALLIE BEE.   YOU LOOK LIKE YOU NEED MY HELP DRIVING.  CAN WE GO FOR A WALK?  HUH?  CAN WE?   LET’S MAKE SOME DINNER.  SOUNDS LIKE THERE’S TROUBLE OUT BACK.  I’LL BARK AT NOTHING TIL YOU YELL AT ME.  I KNOW SOMETHING WE COULD DO.  WE COULD GO FOR A WALK. 

A few hours of that and I sat on the couch and fell asleep.  Thankfully, Butters did the same.  A whopping ten minutes later and she was up and at ’em again.  I took her to my neighbor’s house who also has a dog with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and they ran for an hour straight in the backyard.  This will wear her ass out.   No sirree, she still had some deposits left in the energy bank, but, thankfully Teacher Girl arrived on the scene.

I can’t say I’ll never have her over again because her cuteness more than makes up for her ADHD.  Henry, on the other hand, had enough of this little piss ant bugging him and wouldn’t so much as acknowledge her for the most part.  But, oh that Butters, she doesn’t tolerate being ignored and got up in his business until Henry showed her who runs this house.  And what a surprise, the little Butterball didn’t take the hint.

For the last year, I’ve picked up Mallie Bee on the same street.  Every day, 2:45.   Usually around one of these signs posted on the street.  I’ve got the company of other parents, as well, and a new mom asked me if it was o.k. to pick up there considering the signs.  Sure thing, I said, nobody cares.  Nobody cared until a couple of days later when the Popo pulled up next to me and said…..

Ma’am you can’t park here.  Oh, I can’t?

Do you see the signs?  I do, Officer, but I’m not parking. 

Ma’am, you’ll have to move, we’re trying to prevent cars from getting stacked up.  You mean all five of them.

You can park one block over, but not here.  And the difference would be? 

The difference would be that there aren’t any no parking signs there like the one right in front of you.   Duly noted, Deputy Fife.

Eight no parking signs on a residential side street kicking everybody out where a current or former president does not live.  Overkill, City Council, overkill.  I told the Beester we’ll give it a couple of weeks and lay low and then I’ll go back to picking her up in the usual spot.  The Popo may have the stinkin’ badges, but I’ve got my stinkin’ rights and pay my stinkin’ taxes.  Just like the Tea Party, I’m going to start a movement and parking rules are just the tip of the iceberg.