It was a dark and stormy night

                               
There was a huge storm all over the south last night. I managed to drive through it. Over and over.
The storm had come through over night Sunday into Monday, When I left yesterday I thought I had it in front of me and, that it would move out before I got to it.  Unfortunately, I managed to catch up to it last night and ended up travelling into driving rain and huge lightning strikes.

The radio kept issuing storm warnings including tornado watches, flood warnings, power outages and trees down in the road.  My car was buffeted by the wind and it was hard to keep the wheels from moving all over the road.

I was headed east along with the storm and knew that I was due to make a turn to the south within an hour of the 6:00 PM report last evening.  As I approached the intersection where I was due to start driving south, the storm had started to let up and I breathed a sigh of relief that I could leave the storm behind.  I turned south and drove for about thirty minutes when signs of the storm reared their heads again.  The rain increased along with huge streaks of lightning which lit up the entire sky.  New reports on the radio indicated that I had somehow managed to turn back into the storm.  New reports of tornado watches and flood warnings were being issued from the radio.  Crap! This storm was sticking to me like a three year old hanging on his mother's leg on the first day of pre-school.

I decided to stop and eat dinner hoping the storm would blow out by the time I was done.  A Shoney's appeared up ahead and I stopped to satisfy a craving I had been having for pancakes and bacon. Nothing like comfort food after a few hours of tense driving.

By the time dinner was done the storm had moved on and I gingerly stepped over puddles in the parking lot to get to my car.  Aha, I thought, now I can drive a few more hours to make it to the half-way point in my trip. I hopped in the car and proceeded to drive south again. About an hour into the drive, the rain started up once more along with the lightning.  Renewed radio reports now indicated that the storm had tracked south and I was going to drive right into it-again!  The wind picked up and the rain began to really come down hard.  I gave up and decided to call it a night with a plan to stop at the very next decent hotel to come along.

This morning's news reports showed the devastation caused by the storm and made me glad I had stopped. The sun is now shining and today's drive should be fine.

Wiki Wacky

It's amazing what you can find when you have unlimited amount of time and a computer.  I recently discovered that there are just a ton of sites inspired by "Wikipedia".  Of course, due to the many recent news broadcasts, we are all probably aware of "Wikileaks", but did you know that there is a whole website devoted to the multitude of Star Wars fans known as "Wookieepedia"? 

Or how about a site devoted to the nerdy fans of the now defunct television show "Lost"?  Yep, you got it there is "Lostpedia".

And speaking of lost, if you happen to get lost there is "Wikimapia" to help you find your way.  If you have trouble figuring out how to do things you can always visit "Wikihow" which in case you don't find what you are looking for there, you can visit "Wikianswers".

Maybe you might want to visit Weeki Wachee Springs, Florida where I went one summer to see the mermaid show. Ok, that might be a stretch but I am getting a Wikiheadache.

Brain Fake Cupcake

I HATE scents that smell like food. There is a very simple explanation for this: my brain cannot differentiate between actual food smells and the scent of candles, oils or other "home" scents. Personally, I think there is a conspiracy between the manufactures of scents and bakeries and coffee shops. They are in cahoots to create these enticing fragrances that make us yearn for the actual thing so we will go out and buy some.  This happened to me just yesterday at someones home where they were burning a scented oil called "Cupcake". I had to have a serious discussion with my brain to ignore the diet breaking scent of freshly baked cupcakes piled high with fluffy frosting.  It went something like this (with my brain sounding much like cookie monster):

Brain:  YUM! I smell freshly baked delicious cupcakes!  YUM!

Me:  No, brain, that is not the smell of cupcakes--it is just a pretend smell of cupcakes.

Brain: NO! It is real cupcakes and I am ordering the mouth to start producing saliva so we can eat some cupcakes.

Me:  No, no, no. We are not going to be eating cupcakes. There are no actual cupcakes here! Stop it~!

Brain:  ME WANT CUPCAKES! ME WANT CUPCAKES NOW!

Me:  Absolutely not. We are not, I repeat, not eating cupcakes!

Brain:  I don't care what you say, I WANT cupcakes.  I will make you get me cupcakes.

Me:  NO! You never listen to me! Every time I say NO to cookies, cupcakes, ice cream -- you insist that we get some. And then when I say we must ride the bike and go to the gym you whine that you don't want to. It isn't fair!!!

Brain:  I am NOT listening to you I don't care what you say. I WANT the cupcakes. Nah, nah, nah, nah--not listening to diet and such. GIVE ME CUPCAKES.

END RESULT: yep, you guessed it---ate delicious cupcakes with wonderful icing. Arrrgggh! I never win.

So, please, if I am coming to visit you, I beg you, don't use scents that make me want to break the diet. It is hard enough as is with a brain that won't listen. Oh, and you probably don't want to use those ones that smell like margaritas or wine or daquiris either because God knows what I might do with those things!

Necklace and Breadbox

This getting older thing really stinks.  Now it seems that I am losing my hearing. Or maybe my ability to multi-task.  I was sitting at the dining table working on the computer with the tv on in the background. Was only partly listening to it as the 'free on demand' movie I had been watching had ended.  You know what it is like when you are only halfway paying attention to something but then you hear something that seems to register but not exactly in the right way?  Well, that's what just happened.  An ad came on for a new movie that could be rented on the cable Pay Per View movies and this is what I heard:

"And it's available at the same time as necklace and breadbox"

I raised my head up from the computer with a confused and quizzical expression thinking "WHAT was that?"
After a second I realized that what the announcer actually had said was: .......same time as Netflix and Red Box.  OMG! Someone get the room ready for me as I am sure I need to go to the home soon!  Good Lord! I am starting to understand my aging parents.

Friends, Memories and Sex and the City

I lost a dear friend this past year. She died before I had a chance to say goodbye.  We were friends for over 30 years and I will truly miss her.  I attended a memorial held by her sons at which they asked everyone to fill out cards with memories of their mother.  We had become friends when we worked together, (there was a gaggle of us, all around the same age and all single mothers) at the same company. One of the other ladies in our group attended the memorial with me and when asked for memories of their mom, we looked at her sons and said "Our lips are sealed".  We were a wild and crazy bunch and there are stories about those years which I will take to my grave.  I did tell them that we were the "Sex and the City" girls long before anyone had thought to write about it. They asked which one their mother was but I declined to answer. It was better for them to remember their mother as the loving, wonderful lady she was.  Besides, I didn't think I could explain why she was the Samantha Jones of our group. Just didn't seem appropriate.

I had lunch with one of the sons recently and he kept pushing for a story.  He knew all the characters involved as we had all been to each other's homes and had babysat for each other when needed.  I finally did tell him one story, and here it is and it's an honest to God true story.

We all worked for a company that managed apartment communities.  A couple of the ladies in our group were chosen to manage a brand new complex and had moved into the apartments and begun working on leasing up the community.  One evening the group of us had gathered together at the rental office in this community for a little get together.  As I recall there were several adult beverages consumed that evening and at one point the new manager exclaimed "Hey, the pool was finished and filled with water today---Let's all go take a swim:".  Of course no one had brought their bathing suit so we decided to go skinny dipping. We shed our clothes and ran out to the pool which was situated immediately behind the rental office. As a brand new apartment complex, there were not many apartments occupied at that time, but there were a few.  Of course we were all laughing and shrieking in the pool and making some noise.  At one point we heard sirens coming into the complex and we all jumped out of the pool and ran back into the office via the back door.  We had quickly thrown our clothes on when there was a knock at the door. It was the police responding to a noise complaint.  They had seen the lights on in the office and thought they might find someone in charge to speak to.  The manager answered the door and explained to the police that we had not heard anything and that they could leave as there was nothing to worry about.  Of course she was explaining this with wet hair dripping all over.  The rest of us hid in the back office and peeked around the door. The officer gave her quite a look but decided that he and his partner could leave.  They left and we all collapsed into a heap of wet hair and giggles.

No one was arrested, well not that night at any rate, and we all went on to have more adventures and get into and out of all kinds of trouble. But, my lips are now sealed, and those stories will not be repeated to protect the innocent, and not quite so innocent.

P.S. Don't ask me which "one" I was. I'll never tell!

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to School

As I think I have mentioned, funny things happen to me. For no particular reason.  I guess it runs in the family and sometimes there are even stranger coincidences.

My cousin told me this story when I saw him recently:

Back when Clinton was in office he came to visit the elementary school my children were attending.  It was my day to pick them up and when I arrived at the school it was all on lock down as the President was still there.  I drove around and around and couldn't find a place to park.  Then I remembered that I could drive over to the neighborhood next to the school and park there and walk back to the school. After I parked on the street nearest to the school, I had to walk through a little section of woods to get to the building.  As I was walking through the woods I heard the unmistakable sound of a growling dog. I stopped walking as I didn't want to be attacked by this mean sounding dog and suddenly there appeared several armed men wearing bulletproof vests and looking very official.  They demanded that I accompany them back to their command unit where I had to explain that I was only there to pick up my kids. I had also just come from work and was wearing my usual suit and tie and had my work issued ID on me, but that didn't seem to impress them.  After several calls to confirm that I was who I said I was, they finally let me go, but my family was embarrassed and harassed me about it for days. Needless to say, I did NOT get to meet the President.

And here is my story:

When Clinton was in office I was selling real estate.  One day I received a call from the local high school asking that I come by the school and pick up one of my "For Sale" signs that some of their students had apparently appropriated from one of my listings and decided to place in front of the school.  They also requested that I come to get it right away as the President was visiting the school that day (POTUS seems to have visited a lot of schools back then). My office was about 40 minutes away and by the time I arrived at the school, there were lots of guys hanging around with earplugs in their ears.  They stopped me at the entrance to the school and asked me to explain why I was there. Did I have a child attending the school? No, I explained, I was there to retrieve a "For Sale" sign.  They looked at me like I had totally gone over the edge and I had to explain the whole story of how the school had called me to come and get the sign.  I was escorted to the office by one of the agents who then escorted the school secretary and myself to a closet where they had stashed my sign.  I had to lug it out to my car by myself. And, needless to say, I did NOT get to meet the President (either). 

I guess it is lucky for us that the Secret Service did not connect us as I'm sure we would have been investigated for some kind of conspiracy.