Can we exchange Monday for another day...

Could Monday be the new Friday, at least this week and then when Friday comes around, I'll switch them back and that way I'll get a weekend in the middle of my week and a weekend at the end and that means I'll only pretend to work for three days instead of five. I'm running out of convincing ways of appearing to do my tasks. I have learned that I can almost go into a trance while seated at my desk staring at my computer, but the give-away is that just as I am passing into the netherworld of unconsciousness, my head droops, I drool a little and the sizzle from my keyboard jerks me right back into the real world. There are only so many excuses I can give for why I need a new keyboard. I have no children or errant pets at work, so I can't blame them and no one else uses my computer or my office, so it looks like the finger of blame is pointing straight at moi! That's why I need four days off every week--fewer opportunities for shorting out keyboards and more time to do what I really want to do with my time. Number one on that list is DO NOT WORK TOO OFTEN OR TOO LONG OR TOO HARD! Number two is DO NOT GET COMFORTABLE AT WORK AND START TO LIKE WHAT YOU ARE DOING--IT COULD BE HABIT-FORMING AND PEOPLE WILL GET THE WRONG IDEA ABOUT YOU; THAT YOU ARE A CONTRIBUTING MEMBER OF SOCIETY WHEN WHAT YOU REALLY WANT TO BE IS A LAZY, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING (SOMETHING MY MOTHER WARNED ME ABOUT MY WHOLE LIFE). Thanks Mom.

second childhood

Not that I ever left my first childhood--why abandon something that allows you to play, to get dirty, to eat what you want, to take naps, not to have to hold a "real" job, to get an allowance just for making your bed and putting your clothes in the dresser--but this evening I was re-united with two friends from my high school days. We still feel 16 even if we don't look that way, and, when we get together and talk about the "good old days", we mostly remember the good things and what it was like to be a little naive, a lot hopeful, and ready to challenge the world, make it a better place and make some memories in the bargain (whereas most full-blown adults over 60 often spend a lot of time talking about memories instead of making them or expecting to make them in the future). We hadn't been together in about 20 years, but the years melted away as we strained to remember names and faces and where people were in the here and now of 2007. We talked about classmates who were no longer around--most of the Class of '62 now are 62 and it just seemed a little young to have lost a few dozen friends. We talked about teachers and principals and vice-principals (why are vice-principals always the disciplinarians--does it have something to do with their having a title with the word "vice" in it?), coaches and driver-ed teachers (now there's a group that might experience early death after what we put them through driving around town in the dual-brake school vehicle, turning without signalling, backing into trees or other cars, and trying to run over pedestrians in the crosswalk--who'd have thought they had the right-of-way?) and guidance counselors. All in all it was a great evening, a pre-requisite to our class reunion coming up this fall. We graduated from high school 45 years ago, but it didn't seem like such a far-distant milestone as my classmate, Janet Balbutin, and her younger sister, Ava, and I talked through dinner and into the twilight of evening. Some people say you can't go home again and others say it's impossible to recapture your youth, but that's what high school reunions do--they bring you "home" again to those people with whom you shared the growing-up years, the getting-through-teen-age-perils years, the anxiety of who-we-might-be-in-life years and on that one night when we spend time with our classmates, we are 16 again, and the fact that we are in the twilight of our lives, fades into the background as the first song or two from 1962 plays and we look past the receding hairlines, the bi-focals, the wrinkles, and into those youthful faces that we once were...

Checking in at the Hilton

Well, I guess some one woke up (or a job or two was threatened) and Ms. Hilton is now back in jail--rash and all.

Hey, if having a rash will keep me out of jail, I have a plan. Every late spring when the weather here in Northern California heats up and I get a rash just thinking about moving around in the heat, I'll commit all my crimes and then, when I get arrested, I'll declare that I have a rash (and I will have one so it's not a lie), and I'll be set free and I get to wear a keen ankle bracelet too and stay home! Hey, that means I can't go to work. Dang Jethro! That means I can sleep in. Wander around in my jammies all day long if I want. Not have to answer to anyone but my probation officer when he or she calls to check on me--that will make me feel "special". I think little Paris is on to something, but, of course, she does have advantages over me. She's rich. Her parents have mega-buck lawyers. She can whine and cry and fling herself about much better than I can. I just look like a blonde-haired version of the Michelin man whose whine sounds more like a motor that needs oil, and, when I cry, my mascara runs and my eyes look racoon-ish and the last time I flung myself anywhere, my upper torso walked sideways for days. So I guess I'll just continue to obey the law and find some other way to get my 15 minutes of fame... Aren't Paris Hilton's 15 minutes up? Oh, wait, she has the resources to buy lots more time. I wonder how much my jar of change will get me...

Thurs is the day before Fri

Yep. We're back to that old thought--tomorrow's Friday. And because I have been very, very good and put in 41 hours as of today, I'm going to leave work early tomorrow so I can take care of my errands and be home before 5PM. Then I really, really, really will mow my front and side lawns. The lawn has gone to seed and it looks like an ethereal mini-forest. I'll have to wrestle with myself emotionally and be tough enough to cut down the little "trees", knowing that I am ruining the habitat of many little sprites and fairykins. I'm sure they will now gang up with the spiders that I either escort out of my house or accidentally crush or drown (and it really is accidental) and they'll all be after me. I won't be safe coming or going or sleeping. That means I'll have sleepless nights and my work efforts will become even more pathetic than ever and I will look forward to Fridays with even more intensity, which will probably stress me out and I'll have a heart attack while mowing down the fantastical forest known as my front lawn, and I will die whilst the little "folks" are tethering me to the ground just like "Gulliver's Travels". Is it Friday yet...

I can't believe it's taken this long...

It's been four days since I've hit the blog trail and my verbal hiking boots are a little shifty and scuffed. Too much work. Too little life. Too few gray cells at work...

Today's topic is "Why am I on the computer at 9:09PM and I haven't had dinner or done anything useful since I put in an 11 hour day today?" I really do need to get a life, filch it, steal it outright, buy one, trade for one...something!! It's not that I don't find work rewarding. It does put the proverbial roof over my head and food on my table (if I ever get there in the evening to eat something--and cereal doesn't count), but too many hours of work make Jack a dull guy and me a nitwit!! But it is Wednesday (weirdest sounding day of the week name) and that means we're heading to Thursday and the weekend. This is a recurring theme in my life. I'm actually going to thrill myself this Friday by leaving work early so I can get home and...ta-da! mow the lawn!! I may have to take some Valium so I don't get too excited about the prospect of my Friday evening activity. Of course, then I'll not be able to drive "under the influence" and I won't make it to work and then I won't earn any money and then I won't be able to pay my mortgage and then I'll get all depressed and I'll find myself on another night sitting at the computer at 9PM writing about how my life is spiralling out of control.

Well, just because I want to end this on a perky note, I'd like to say thank you to my huge audience of blog readers--those two or three brave souls who check out my blog occasionally because they just can't believe someone 62 can be this strange. Did I ever mention that my mother was traveling through Roswell, pregnant with me, when there was a report of aliens landing? Take me to your leader...earthling. Oh, heck. Take me to the dinner table.

falling off my flip-flops

I wear flip-flops when I water my yard. It makes no sense to wear fancy shoes, or shoes that are difficult to put on or take off since I come inside for the half-hour needed for each section of my lawn. I have sprinklers in one small area of my backyard, so I do manual labor to get water to the rest of the thirsty little blades of grass. But I digress. So, there I am in my flip-flops turning on the sprinkler or moving it to a new area and I always get wet, especially my feet. I set the sprinkler and walk away. I haven't gone more than three steps when my feet go slip-sliding away on my flip-flops (we used to call these items thongs when I was growing up, but if I talk about my thongs slipping, some people would get the wrong image and idea and we do not want that happening). It must be the foot cream I use to keep my feet from looking as old as they are. The water hits my feet, the lotion becomes slime and my feet go sliding. I begin to totter and teeter and I resemble a drunk who is in need of a major sleep-off. I then have to make a decision--go barefoot and risk stepping on a snail and feeling the crunch/squish directly or keep the flip-flops on and risk breaking my neck. The snails lose. The flip-flops come off and I am once again able to walk like the sober human being I am. I've tried several different slip-on style sandals and flip-flops, but they all have slick inner soles. My question is--why would anyone create a slick, slippery inner-sole for a shoe being worn around the water--beach, pool, lake, etc. by a person who will be getting wet and will probably be wearing sunscreen lotion on his/her feet. Someone at Sandals R Us is laughing and probably buying stock in medical insurance.

Did I miss a day?

Yesterday was Thursday, all day. I checked my calendar, the Internet and a few other sources and, yep, it was Thursday. I think I was taking a ride on the Mothership that day, because I forgot to blog. So now it's Friday and I don't want to start a trend--not writing about my strange and sometimes pathetic life every day. Some people might wonder if I've lost control of myself (well, yes, but that happened a long time ago), and other people might wonder if I'd lost my mental stability (well, there's never been a question about that; the only thing stable in my life is the one I occasionally visit that is filled with horses), and a few stragglers might wonder if I've wandered off somewhere (wandering is my specialty and I've been perfecting it for years--my feet wander, my eyes, wander, my fingers do the walking and they wander, and, mostly, my mind wanders).

Friday is the end of the week and, boy howdy, am I glad! That means there are two days I don't have to go to work for someone else. I don't have to keep someone else's schedule, meet someone else's expectations. Saturday and Sunday belong to me, and if I feel like staring at a cloud and trying to figure out what its shape resembles, I can do it--refer to the wandering mind noted above (a perfect mental environment for cloud watching). Tomorrow I am going to lunch with several of my friends from high school--one advantage of moving home to be with my parents was being with many of my high school friends. We're planning our 45th year high school reunion. It takes several of us to remember things--it's kind of a group effort, but eventually we do remember names, places, etc. Our reunion will take place in late October (hopefully the 90 and 100 degree days will have packed their bags and taken a hike by then) and we'll all get together and look through fuzzy-focused eyes at each other, try to remember names (staring at name tags on someone's chest is just a little too familiar for my taste), ask when we either can't remember or read (whoever is in charge of printing names needs to write them really BIG!), and we'll check out weight gains (anyone who is decidedly thinner than when we were last together is not allowed to come), hair losses, pictures of kids, grandkids, spouses, significant others, life partners, and ex-whatevers. We'll sing our Alma Mater making lots of mistakes and hoping our false teeth don't fall out when we hit the high notes, and we'll all remember how great it was to be a Honker--yes, folks, that is the name of my high school's mascot. It wasn't embarrassing when I was growing up to talk about being a Honker, because we didn't know there was anything weird about having a Canadian goose as our "team leader", but, once I went to college and all of my dorm mates and I were sharing stories of our high school adventures, the question inevitably came up--what was your mascot? At first, I was bold and proudly announced, "A Honker!" After the laughter died down and the finger pointing ended, I realized I had shame in my background and I needed to avoid answering mascot questions for the remainder of my life, except among other Honker alumni. Even Readers' Digest published a little blurb about the top 10 stupidest mascots, and Yuba City's Honker made the list. Make me proud! Honk once if you're from Yuba City and the rest of you quit laughing...