Thursday, January 22, 2009

Great Practice

It's six o'clock in the morning and we are all wide awake.
This morning in the dead of sleep, just before my alarm was set to go off I wake to a large crash that sounded like a combination of metal and glass... In a dead bolt I dive out of bed, run down stairs and am chanting the whole way down, "don't be the fish tank."
Soon Autumn and I are standing face to face downstairs, her in a purple towel and me with all of my clothes on backwards.
it was loud enough to get the both of us moving fast.

Just a practice run, if it had been a real emergency I was glad to know we were both quick to respond.
After doing a quick inspection it seems like we might be in the clear, hopefully it was next door.

I thought one of our cabinets gave out...
Good times...

Monday, January 19, 2009

Early Morning Observations

Throughout the morning I roll over to glance at my alarm clock, seeing small numbers and falling back asleep.
The large windows facing the parking lot do little to muffle the sounds of life outside, so I hear a rumbling engine and assume it must be a truck... After a few minutes of idling I repeat the same practice I have done for the last five years; I dive out of bed, face pressed to the window, scanning my surroundings quickly, searching for the tow truck that has come to take it all away.

This is a slightly interesting practice since I have no reason to think my car would be selected and taken, but somewhere hard wired in my sleep is the function to throw myself out of bed in a dead sleep, smudge the fog off the windows, and peer out apprehensively at the world below.

I do the same for all the cars... Like an antsy dog waiting for company, each rumble drives me back to my post, vigilantly searching for anyone I know. This being said, no one should ever be surprised to find me standing by the door with bag in hand after hearing the faintest close of a car door, signifying my upcoming departure.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Day at the Beach

2009-01-18 14-03-08
So here we have a great example of fine judgment...
I am standing on a rock, taking photos of the waves...
When the tide comes in and leaves me stranded...
I look down and think to my self, gee it sure is a good thing I am up here on this rock so the water doesn't get me...
That was a short lived dream, as soon the next set came and washed over my shoes...
Leaving me standing in the middle of the latest wash of waves, clutching my camera and waiting for them to go back out.

Later, after returning to the shore with my new squishy shoes, a man that watched it all go down asked how the mermaid pictures came out...

Good times, and at least I didn't drop anything, like the three cameras, one in hand and two in the pockets.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

So week in review:
I have been poked, prodded, stabbed, weighed, blinded, xrayed, and billed.
Glad to have that all out of the way and to have come out fine on the other side, apart from being a disbelieving hypocondriac with far too much free time.

I am still lined up to get 5 fillings, 4 extractions, and my first pair of glasses that my doctor insisted I don't actually need. But truthfully I am just getting them for dramatic effect when looking down at the children. An added bonus would be if they stop trying to get me to stay in line for the school buses after school and treat me like a grown up. We will see how that plan works out.

Currently I am grading student writing projects and providing detailed feedback and praise for those showing any effort and skill. I am continually amazed with the writing styles and abilities of students who are so close to heading off to highschool and college and how many of them do not even observe the practice of capitolizing the beginings of sentences and instead choose to use that strategy randomly thoughout their work, which is often the incoherent ramblings of thoughts that passed by that moment, with no connection to previous topics (quite similar to my own style...).

In other news, in the last post you might have seen that the title to my current vehicle just arrived in the mail, further proving that I need to keep track of my financial obligations a bit more closely, as I would have been content to mail them checks for the rest of my life with little thought given to the practice. I suppose it is excellent to have that taken care of in a manner which seems ahead of schedule to me and am thrilled to be dedicating previously mentioned funds elsewhere.

Other observations for the week are that grandma is living with a couple of crazy people. Lately I have had the misfortune to whitness her declining health and her falling prey to needy family members. As of late, a family of distant relatives settled in to her cozy home and truthfully ran it into the ground. They had a large dog, some unemployed less than savory adults, and a young boy that was content to destroy everything within a mile radius of our complex. On more than one occasion I found him wandering the parkinglot unsupervised, like Denis the Mennace breaking what ever items had been left by the dumpster for others to take. The height of this was when he single handedly began dismantling a queen size box spring matress with a hammer. After I inquired as to what the hell he thought he was doing, he just replied, having fun and being a kid.

It set me back a bit to hear that, and I realized that this place was nowhere for a young boy to be spending his time; doing all that he could to entertain himself by lighting things on fire.

Thankfully the parasitic family returned to their welfare program and sought housing elseware, leaving only two misplaced grown ups in Grandma's care. Lately I ran into one of them out walking a small furry dog. I made the mistake of not running away as is my usual practice and accidentally fell into the radar of Grandma's latest guest. She was amidst a full conversation with her dog when she saw me, sparing no expense in thuroughly explaining every aspect of the world to this small creature. "That's a bush. Yes, its a bush... And that's a door, yea you smell all the people don't you? That is where they go to do their laundry..." At the point when I realized she was actually explaining the concept of laundry to a dog is when I took my cue to discretely start backing up slowly in the direction of my home.

Poor Grandma, she is really too sweet for her own good. Though at times I suffer from the same affliction. I can relate that it is easier to bend over backwards in an attempt to appease the masses than it is at times to be more straight forward and tell people how you really feel, or even to lay out the scenario that what they have in mind is really not in your best interest. Instead I take on the role of head Care Bear, showering the people who diserve it least with the most of my time and affection. But that is a simple enough thing to fix, and we will burn that bridge when we get to it.

Friday, January 09, 2009

Just got the title in the mail.
The car is paid off.
So I guess I will stop mailing them checks.
I didn't expect to have this finished until summer, so that is a pleasant surprise.
Of course, now that it is all mine, I am sure it will burst into flames in the morning...

Good times, one bill down, only 12 to go.

Sunday, January 04, 2009

New Camera

Dinner and a CameraYay...First Try with Shoes
Yes it is late and I will resize these giant images later...

I think I screwed up the car.
I noticed it was completely out of water in the reservoir, thought nothing of it and filled it back up... Not taking into account that I live in the arctic tundra, and that the issue had probably originated from not having enough anti-freeze to have prevented a hose from meeting an untimely death. So in hind-sight, I see that adding more water into the tank just before the latest cold spell might, again, not have been the best plan.

I love walking. Can't wait.
Good times.

So far so good on the car...
It seems to be holding together well, so we will see how it goes, but apparently it is running just fine. Which should make getting to work relatively on time a simpler task.

Thursday, January 01, 2009