Who will be next to unfriend this freak me? Go ahead, I dare you.

Poor choice of words. Let's get this over with now. Do it now, Unfriend me now. Don't drag it out over weeks, months. If you can't stand reading what I write, do it. Let's rip the band-aid off all at once. Open up the wound that's already there. Screw it.

It was summer. So, there's only like, a few weeks where it was actually hot there. Jay was looking to buy a motorcycle. Or maybe just a really fierce scooter. So Dan took him (and me) down to RaZee to look at their inventory. They've got a selection int he parking lot, more in the showroom, a whole section up above of helmets, jackets, boots, stuff for racing, ATV'ing, you name it. And then across the street they have the sales area.

So we get there and park the car, and I look over at the car next to us. It's One of those big old fancy cars, an Olds or something, oldskool, with what used to be a soft top, except it's been peeled back and left to get all moldy and skanky and gross...

Sitting in the backseat is this old woman. She smiles and waves me over. She says she's having trouble with the lock, so I reached around from the front seat and helped her unlock the back door. Because the back windows were both rolled up. She starts talking to me, very low and quiet, and I'm being polite, and smiling and nodding, and I tell Dan and Jay to go ahead, I'd be right in. But she doesn't stop. She has me open the door. Then I had to help her climb out. Then she asks me if there was a house behind the shop, which there wasn't, and I told her so, but she went to look anyway. Then she started asking every man that went by if he was her son, or if he had seen her son. Tommy. Tommy Ciccone. I assume that's the way it might be spelled? Sounded like Chi-coney to me.

I tried to get her to go inside, because hey, old woman wandering around outside in the heat, maybe she's delirious from sitting in the car? Eventually convinced her it was ok to go in and look for Tommy inside. The salespeople didn't know her, didn't know if there was a Tommy in the store, or if one had even been there today. Shit. What can I do?

I get her back out to the car, at least she can sit down. As she's getting into the car, I notice that the back of her leg is bleeding. And looks like it had been for a while before I got her *out* of the car. What the hell is going on here? Dan had come out to check on us, and got the salespeople to page Mr. Ciccone, and he and his entourage finally were on their way. This well-dressed woman stalked towards us and started scolding her. Tommy was in a suit, with gold chains on his wrists and neck. I swear there was one other, a kid, maybe. Snappily dressed, too. All uncaring. Whatever. Grandma ain't ruining my day. She can sit in the car and dehydrate, the old prune. I'm getting a Ducati..

When we left, The old woman was sitting in the car, still, but with the door open, her feet on the ground, and the rest of them, starting to get back into browsing mode again. Right before we drove out of sight, I saw the old woman get to her feet and take a couple of tottering steps away from the car and slightly towards the road..

The above lyric from the Dance Hall Crashers. :) Got to listen to that while driving home from jennifaerie's last night. Had a great time, Jen, thanks for having me up! :) Hope the Aqua Teen movie was okay.. We could have shut it off after the singing snacks at the beginning, that was really the only part I thought needed to be watched. :) Too funny. "Indecent exposure is a class two feeeloooonyyy!!!" *lol*

So My brother in-law in-law (does that work? Dan's sister's hubby) posted a pic of the two of us from when we were in Disney up on his Facebook page, and it's a good one. Click here to see it! :) I'm not sure exactly where we are, but I know we were in the Magic Kingdom, given what shirt I have on. I got a high five from a dude at It's a Small World for wearing that shirt, and another positive feedback from somebody else at the Jungle Cruise. :) I have to say it was definitely a better trip than our honeymoon was. There were no tears. There were blisters on the feet, but no craziness like last time. Not on my part, anyway. *lol*

And we found out that Dan can just join the Masons! His Grampy was a Mason, and his Grammy was in the Eastern Star(s?). He thought you had to be approached by them, because they're all about being a secret society and whatnot. But they had an ad on TV a few days ago, and it was all, "Wanna be a Mason? Ask a Mason!" So that's cool. He's been talking about this for years. Good for him! :)

I haven't heard anything from the chocolatier place. Mom says I ought to call them. I put in an online application for Retail Data LLC, which Dan works with some people who work with them as a secondary job. It's basically price checking for different stores. If one store is selling vacuum A at a certain price, I'd go around with my scanner and hit a bunch of other stores selling the same vacuum and see what other prices it might be going for, see if they're being competitive, send them the info so they can decide if they need to lower or raise the price. I put in for that on Thursday. Haven't heard anything there, either. It would be cool. Shopping, but not really.

When we first joined Dayspring (a small storefront church, before it was absorbed into King's Chapel), I was seven years old. I remember a going to one meeting of what they called "Children's Church" back then. Basically, getting the kids together to hang out and fool around and maybe learn something about Jesus while we're at it.

Well, they sat us down at one point and taught us about being Christlike. That Jesus laid down his life for the entire world, for people who hadn''t even been born yet! Wow! That we need to be like Him, willing to lay down our lives for others. Putting others first. Humble ourselves. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, you know. Some of this may have been learned over the whole time we were in KC, I'm not 100% sure. But the initial messge- Be Christlike, be willing to knock somebody out from in front of a bus even if it means you yourself get killed, that happened that day.

Not to mention that my father was an alcoholic. I grew up as a codependant. Life revolves around the alcoholic, walking on eggshells so they don't lash out at you, You're constantly trying to control yourself so you can control them.

Between the two teachings, I put everyone else first before myself. Everyone. I couldn't make a decision because what if the other person wanted something else? I couldn't just get off the schoolbus in a normal fashion, because I'd be cutting in front of all those people who were sitting behind me and were better than me and deserved to get off the bus first.

Everyone else came first. I selected my clothes based not on what I wanted, but mainly on whether they would take attention away from other people and focus it on me. Sequins? Never. Never never. And if I did do or wear something outrageous, it was only for a manic minute before I felt tortured by it and put it away and went back to hiding so others could shine.

When I was in the process of getting divorced, there was just me. I had only myself to rely on. I had only myself to worry about what I thought. It was extremely freeing. I took myself shopping. I planned what I was going to buy for my new apartment. I decorated my car with stickers, inside and out. I started to learn who I was. And then this nice young man asked me on a date.

12 years later, and he's always been first. My online friends have been first before me. And right now, now that I've been getting therapy and really waking up to the nightmare that was my life, I'm realizing this. How deep this really goes. How much damage it's done. But now that I see it, I can start to heal it. I can choose better for myself.

This doesn't mean I have to be a selfish bitch. It just means that I'm free. I can go to the store and look at the sequined tops and buy one if I like it. I can take that bigger piece of cake if I feel like it. I can say what restaurant I want to go to, because it's okay to have an opinion and if my husband doesn't want to eat there, we can make a compromise. I can put myself first and have him as a close second, but not like it was.

I can be happy. :)

I think I may really be getting it now. All those years of fighting, going against the grain, being weird for weird's sake, rebelling, rebelling, rebelling... That was from the brainwashing. Rebelling against it.

I'm finally working on creating the real me. Deciding from the core of me who I am and what really resonates with what I believe and feel to be true and right. If that's as simple as "Yes, my earlobes must be stretched to 12 gauge!" then dammit, that's what I'm gonna do. If it's as complicated as remembering childhood crap and seeing it from an outside view and reintegrating the information from it in a new and more helpful way, then damn skippy I'm going to do it. If it'll help my marriage, if it'll make me more normal.

And now. Because when adults join cults, they have their pre-cult identity to fall back on. But us cult kids, we've got nothing. Me? I was seven. I'm not light or limber enough to go back to wanting to be a ballerina again. I do love books still, so. I go back to that point in time. I attempt to ignore the intervening years, and apply for jobs at local bookstores, at the libraries. I may not make piles of money, but I would be so happy.

I remember how empowered I was when I stretched my earlobe that time, all by myself. And when I bought the blue Niobium horseshoe to replace the stupid one I had in from when Dave had his nipple done. So I may have to save for it, but I would get my earlobes stretched. All the more empowering if it cost more, eh? Then I looked and saw all the pretty earrings I could get at 12 gauge. Surprise! It's a girl! *lol*

And then the day came, after all the fighting with Dan over the housesitting $300, after the trip to Disney, when I had like $80 left in my pocket and we happened to be at this head shop in Wakefield and I asked the guy behind the counter how much he wanted for a couple of straight barbells. 12 gauge. And this guy is awesome, he said normally they're $8, but he'd only charge me $15 for the pair, and when he broke out the tacklebox they were stored in, the stickerprice on the box said he should have been charging $14.95 each. Duude. :)

And so I brought them home and stretched my earlobes that night and the next day! And then found a pair of nice hangers on ebay and willed myself to not feel guilty about buying them, and made sure with Dan first, and got them in just in time for my cousin's wedding!

I'm doing so much better lately. I feel better. I've been wearing my work tops paired with jeans, and this green corduroy jacket my sister had given me for xmas like two years ago. I had looked in my shirt drawer and just saw plain tshirt, plain tshirt, plain tshirt and got so sick of it, day after day after day after day...

So yes, there are things changing with me. Also, until now, I haven't actually had much of a political view, it was pretty anemic and mainly steered by my peers. I didn't pay attention to anything, let alone vote until the Bush/Gore election. I felt that my vote didn't count. :(

Now, I'm paying attention. You may scoff because of my stance or where I get my info from or because I'm with the Oathkeepers and want to defend the Constitution, but I'm informed of something, at least! You can't, can't, can't say that of the me a year, two years ago.

I'm trying to make more benign, happy-clappy posts here. I'm actually making some kind of effort with my appearance. Hell, I even broke out the Oatmeal & Avocado face masque tonight. Of course, it *does* still have the price tag on it from a store that went out of business in 1998... But I'm sick of just letting my skin go all the time. I'm tired of dressing as depressed as I feel. I'm tired of being tired. Dan said to me that I look happier, that I'm glowing lately. (no comments from the peanut gallery, I just got done bleeding, TYVM) I can feel it, like the clouds are finally lifting.

It's a crazy feeling. And really kills me when stuff like today happens.

They have a whole separate section for "hanging styles", which is mainly all I'm interested in right now, apart from maybe getting a matching pair of curved barbells to sleep in. They have a sale section, and if you order over certain amounts, you can choose what free thing you want. And if you don't see anything you like on the list, they have a dollar off your order amount that you can choose instead! Then, then!! When you find something you like, like the earrings I just got, you can click on that item's page, and see user-submitted photos of the items in action!! It's brilliant!!!! I'm sorry, I got excited, I had to share. :)

Check it out, this is the page for the earrings I just got. How awesome is this?!?!?! It even tells you the manufacturer of the item, which I hadn't seen on any other site so far!!

And OMG, body jewelry has gotten so cheap lately! I can get a pack of four horseshoe barbells in the size I need, with interchangeable balls and spikes, one set in plain steel, the other in lavender, and all for like $16. WTF?!?!? Like I said, my *one* Niobium blue horseshoe cost me $80 back 11, 12 years ago.

I so need to get a job. I did put in at the Chocolatier. Haven't heard anything, though. I asked at two libraries, and at one, I was given this website, which is where they're supposed to post help wanted ads. Sooo... There's one there for the Westerly Library. It's outdated, though. But. They are going through a rather major renovation right now. If I can find out how many people they let go, that they will need to hire on, that can just be assistants, nothing fancy... Just hand over my resume. Have them hang onto it until they start taking applications. I'll stand out because I took the initiative before they even needed anybody. They'll think of me, pull my resume from the drawer, call my number, and say, could you come on in? We're taking interviews for such-and-such position... Yeah. :) That or it'll get lost and they'll forget all about me and I'll find out that they hired Maize or somebody like 6 months from now.. :P *sigh*

I wish I could work up at Bugbee. But they moved out of the actual Library and off to where Big Y used to be. That freaking breaks my heart. You don't put books in a grocery store. They belong in a library, among the marble and wood and the dust of ages...

So but anyway. I need to do that. Go case Westerly Library before they move into a strip mall.

But just in case you did... I think I may have been watching either The Soup on E! or Web Soup on G4. This was several episodes ago, so a couple of weeks, at least. Something about a new service where a cell phone company is hiring people to take text messages and call the people they're addressed to and speak them as voice mail instead. The skit was very silly and had the voices of some yuppie-sounding people reading these texts. "Yo, G. Meet me at the pizzark by da skizzool. You gots da stuff?"

But I'm not 100% if it was a real service, like KGB, if it was all just a joke, what show it was definitely on...

Just because that would be pretty fun, wouldn't it? Call people up and read them their texts..?

I thought it was for AT&T, but my Google-fu is weak tonight.

So.. did anybody see that? Or have any idea what I'm talking about?

If you love Star Wars (and who doesn't?), if you love The Mighty Boosh (or have at least heard of the show), you have to check this out, it's fricking hilarious!!!

Back when I was house-sitting, I made a couple of decisions. I figured out a couple of things that I want. I realized that all of my clothes are just.. ugh. Plain tshirt. Plain tshirt. Plain tshirt. Plain tshirt. Sick of it. I want to start wearing nicer things. Hippie-type clothes, maybe. That's going to have to wait a bit, though.

For more instant gratification, I also decided that I wanted to bring my left earlobe back to 12gauge size so I could wear my blue horseshoe barbell again. And bring my right earlobe up there, too, so I could get another and have a pair. I knew that the first one had cost me $80 back like 12 years ago. So I was willing to wait until I had a job.

I started looking at hangers- these cool piercing earrings that are out now that can come in metals, or organics like horn, wood, shell, and bone. They can be very intricately carved and quite beautiful. So I really wanted to get that going. And when I got paid for house-sitting, it looked like I got my chance!

Long story short, we wound up in the local head shop last week, and the guy had regular barbells and sold me two 12 gauge barbells for $15 total! Soo cheap! I had no idea that prices had gone down so much!!

So I spent that day with some ice, pulling at my left lobe, pushing the barbell through. It eventually did. Didn't take nearly as long as it had back when I was 18, either. :) The next day, I had a heavy earring my dad had made me out of an arrowhead hanging from my right earlobe for a while, to help with the stretching. Then on with the ice and the pulling and pushing and it popped through even quicker than the left had.

I took a picture! :) They're both still a little sore, and still healing, but coming along fine.

And I found a pair of hangers for less than $16 on ebay that Dan was ok with me getting, and so I bought them! :) Can't wait for them to come in. :D

But I had an upper endoscopy & a colonoscopy the week before we went to Florida. I was told that I wouldn't remember anything, I wouldn't remember going home, I'd wake up much later in the day and be like, holy shit!! So I was very nervous. ( more on that.. )

So, the results. My esophagus is mildly irritated, I have a small case of GERD. Which is not what I went in for. So hence the new prescription. I need to ask my doc next time whether I definitely need to be on the GERD diet and give up chocolate, OJ, pasta sauce.. All the good things to eat. *pout* Especially since it's not a terrible, horrible case.

They found a 6mm (almost half an inch) polyp in my stomach. It came back benign. My colon was tested for Crohn's, and was found not to have it. I have five pictures of various parts of my insides now. It's interesting.

So. My doctor is not giving up on finding out why I'm having problems. Tomorrow morning, I get to go to the Radiology area of the hospital and drink some Barium and they will XRay me every half hour and see how my small intestine looks. The worst part of that is that I have to be there for 8:30am. Oh, plus I recently bought 12gauge barbells and regauged both of my earlobes myself (read: used ice and sat there for hours just pushing and pushing until they popped through the old normal-sized holes), and they're still healing, and I don't think they'll let me wear them while being XRayed, and I don't know if they'll be ok through 2+ hours of not having anything in them. They'll probably be fine, but I wish I'd done this a month or more ago..

And they have this new thing where you get an automated phone call when your lab results are in, and you can go online, put in your patient number and pin number and get your results yourself. That's pretty spiffy. Instead of them just calling and saying "Everything's fine!" When you're not sure what they were even testing for in the first place.

I think I may take a shower tonight instead of getting up at the buttcrack of dawn to take one. That always sucks.

Oh, and this new avatar/icon is my troll keychain that I got at Epcot, that I wrote about in my last post. If anybody read that.

So you know how we had solar panels put on the house in July? We finally got the first bill in since then. I don't know why it took them so long. But. We also had the Geothermal installed as well. We were told that it would increase our electric bill, because it was running on electricity. And it's our air conditioning. So it's been a rather cool summer, all in all, and hasn't really needed to run a whole lot.

But this I didn't expect. Now we had a mixup with the company. When the panels were installed, the meter was turned off so the whole thing could go live. They didn't come out to turn it back on until late August, maybe early September. We were generating electricity and feeding it back into the grid for them for free. Niiice. So they finally did come out, and said it would be a few weeks before everything got straightened out.

So anyway, here we are. The last bill we had in, for June, was just over $100. We'd done a lot of unplugging things, shutting lights off, the whole nine. This bill? $2.86! Seriously!! That's just insane!

I almost wonder if they didn't make a mistake and we'll have to pay for it down the road, but for now- WOW! This is what we did this for. :) No more oil, too.

We even overhauled our car insurance, went through the people that advise us on what homeowner's insurance to go with. The new car insurance people are saving us around $1000 a year over what we were paying to Geico.

It doesn't excuse me from finding a job, which I know I need to do. But it does make me a little less nervous. :)

I have something so effing awesome up my sleeve at the moment. But I can't talk about it. For one, you guys wouldn't appreciate the awesomeness, and for two, the internet is evil and I don't want my idea stolen like Snowman Kits. But rest assured, when it's actually happening, you'll know. I'll crow. And I won't care who poo-poos because it's just THAT awesome. It's gonna be Legen..


wait for it..



and I hope you're not lactose intolerant...



DAIRY!!!!

Comment and I'll give you a person. Find a picture of that person for each category. Post the results in your journal.

anonymous_jones gave me Batman! ( some screencaps back here )

This is Jack. We just got a new teeny little camcorder, and I used it for the first time to get a video of him and his gravelly little voice. I kept it rolling because usually when he's eating the softer treats, he makes this "YummYummYumm" noise as he chews. :) It's so cute! You can kind of hear it when he starts, but it fades. He's our boy. :)

So apparently someone was sitting on the wikipedia page this morning, same as I was. Because no sooner did I fix it, than they un-fixed it. I appealed to the wiki gods. They came in and held a smackdown. They tore apart my page, because it had to do with living people, and plus because there were no sources cited. But they said that if I straightened that out, I might be able to re-submit and everything would be cool. While they were taking things out, the freaking wankers kept coming in and posting their drivel. So the Wiki people saw what I was up against. They put a temporary block on the page, so no new edits can go through. Not even mine, but at least there's no drivel on there right now.

They changed it thirteen times just today. Thirteen times!!! Whoever they are, they've got a warning on their talk page, telling them to knock it off or they may be banned from editing. Nice. :) Funny, though, I just looked on the discussion page for the article, and the person doing all the tweaking today, had posted as "Church Minister" there in the past. Huh. Betcha it's Chris Jenkinson. He's around our age. He's the one who supposedly raped a girl in the church and got away with it because he's Syro's grandson. He wasn't even going to church at the time. He didn't *have* to, because he's Syro's grandson. And now he's a freaking pastor. Such bullshit.

But we may be winning, and that's good. :)

The offending wiki article. I've added some new info to it. And of course, had to fix it again this morning. Since I've been housesitting, I've fixed it 8 times. I've only been here since Sunday. That's not cool.

If you click on it, and there's a short paragraph and that's it, they've been there and sabotaged it. If you see a long page with Contents and five different Items in the Contents box, that's the correct one. But that's *if* you click on it...

I wish I had pictures to add. Just of the buildings, at least. But there's no pics online. And I've never been to Bethel, never took any of the outside of KC, and don't think I can stomach a drive-by photoshoot. Pics of the people involved are scarce, too. One of the pastors wrote a book, so there's an author photo of him online, and another one is on Facebook. But I'm not sure how well that would go over. And there's no pictures of the real baddie, the Prophet. Or the main pastor here, Sam.

I don't know. It would make the article that much more solid, when they lock it up.

Not that I want a room apart from Dan, I just want a room of my own. I want a room to decorate as silly, as crazy, as whatever as I see fit. With whatever furniture I feel like, whatever colors, whatever posters, whatever on the floor..

I never had that. ( blah blah whine whine )

....don't tell Dan. :D

Got a bloody migraine. All that blubbering at the therapist today didn't help matters much. Probably caused it. Cleared out the sinuses, though. The usual. Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think I'll go eat worms. Ought to take some Imitrex and shut off the laptop, clean the parrots' stand. Effing birds.

Had to re-undo another edit on the wiki page this morning. So far so good. I hear they may be stopping with the user-modifiable content, just because of situations like this. I hope they keep the correct version of the page if they do lock it up.

Attempting to get RSS feeds onto a Page on Facebook. Not easy. No real instructions, just "install this application". Actual Page owner wants feeds to publish as Wall posts... *shrug* Maybe one of the apps I've tried will work. One is a workaround, but not perfect. Doesn't tell what page it's coming from. Kinda sucks. Oh well.

Fucking head hurts.

Tired. Went to the cult church's Wikipedia page and it had been reset again. Someone had put some benign drivel in about how it was all happy-clappy nice-nice. I went back to the last time I'd brought the truth to the fore, and brought it back up again. Found out that they had completely blanked the discussion page, where I'd vented my spleen at someone who'd again been all "Ooh, this church is so nice, and wonderful and blah blah.." So I undid that, too.

That was last night. Today it's reverted back to the stupid fucking benign crap again. Getting sick of how they want to cover it all up and make it go away like they had nothing to do with so many people's lives being ruined and at least three suicides that I know of. Fuckers. I wish there were a way to lock Wikipedia pages. Guess I'll just have to keep going back again and again and again. Feels like an uphill battle.

The funeral was today.

I've got a stupid summer cold. I drank half a small flask of JD last night trying to knock it out. At least I'm not as achey as the other night.

Went to the Gastro today on a referral from my new doc. That went ok, but he wants me into the hospital on the 18th for an Up-Periscope and a Down-Periscope. *lol* Not really *lol*. I think I'm ok with the preparation and the idea of the procedures, but I'm nervous about going into the hospital in the first place (I never have before), getting an IV (never have before), being knocked out, even if it is just "twilight" anesthesia (never been knocked out before)... It's the whole loss of control thing, too. Not the most keen on that.

At least I'll be going home afterwards, and not staying in.

But before that, I'll be housesitting for my cousin Susan as she and her hubby go to Gordy's Army graduation for a week. And then afterwards, Dan and I will be going to Disney for like 5 days with his entire family. Should be interesting.

I just want to not have this cold anymore.

I'm in bed, sleeping. As I normally would do at 10:45 in the morning, if I'd been awake till after 4am, which I was last night. Dan is running late coming home because he's looking at office space for the Tea Party with Gina, so that's fine. I'm in that half-dozy state where I know what time it is, and that I probably *should* get up, but until Dan gets home, I'm not gonna.

And then I hear the car horn honk twice, in what sounds to me like an alarmed way. It sounds like the smart car's horn, which would be odd for Dan to do.. We *are* going someplace today, but that's later.. I'm thinking this and waiting to see if Dan comes in when I hear rapid knocks on the kitchen door. Oh shit.

See, the kitchen door is blocked. We've had Dan's desk with his Mac on it in front of that door for several years now. Before that, we've always kept our spare shoes. So it's never been in use. People who know us never use that door.

I jump out of bed. Run downstairs. Out the front door, and I see a red pickup with a cap, very similar to what Dan's dad drives, stopped in front of the house, with the passenger door wide open. (But they know we don't use that door! OMG, what if one of the cats got hit on the road? But Jack and Robert are still in, and Steven's usually too quick for that.. Ack!)

I go to the kitchen-end of the porch and call, "Hello?" and this woman, wearing a visor and sunglasses and shorts and a colorful shirt says, "Oh! There you are! I had a box for you. Here." And picks up a First-class mail box and a bundle of mail off the kitchen stoop where she was about to leave it and comes over and hands it to me instead.

It was the freaking mail carrier!! She nearly gave me a freaking heart attack!! Why the hell didn't she ring the doorbell? Why didn't she go to the front door? Why didn't she put the box in one of those Post Office bags and hang it from the mailbox?

So yeah. She gets an F for today. :P

Or a hole in the tire, anyways. Which throws off all of our plans. Friday we were going to go see District 9, and just as we turned a corner on Burdickville Rd, we ran over something in the road. Didn't think much of it, didn't sound like anything, really, and didn't look like anything but a pile of weeds. They had been mowing the weeds on the roadside, apparently, so there was a bunch all over the place. But very shortly after that, the car made a weird noise and Dan had to pull over because it was also acting weird and lo and behold, we had a flat!

We've never had a flat on the smart car before. It doesn't do that WHUP-WHUP-WHUP thing you get with a normal car. And it was a bad blowout, too. The rim is bent, and the sidewall was sliced. Dan went back to see what we ran over, and it was a rock with sharp, squarish edges. When they were mowing weeds, they must have knocked it loose from the exposed bedrock on the side there, and not bothered to clean up the road afterward. Assholes. The rock was broken into many small pieces, so we had our revenge on it. But still.

So we called smart's roadside assistance, because they're supposed to be specially prepared to deal with our car. It doesn't have a spare, and we found out that it doesn't even have the can of tire goo that we were led to believe it had. Weird. Not that it would have helped in this instance. So we broke out the towing hook and screwed it into the front bumper, and Dan's dad stopped by on his way home from work, and gave me a ride home so I could get the Prius so we could go to the dealership and back afterwards.

Tow guy got stuck in traffic, and by the time we got up there, they were just about all closed. The Mercedes dealer door was open, and I got one of the guys inside to take our car key and a note for the service department in the morning. Except when we finally heard from them on Saturday, they said that they needed to order a whole new wheel and tire, and the ordering website was down, and they wouldn't be able to access it until Monday at the earliest. *headdesk* Why they don't at least keep the tires on hand, I don't know. I mean, sure, maybe the rims are another thing, but why do you have to order a tire? Wouldn't you think that the dealership might be dealing with flat tires often enough that they'd want to keep some on hand?

So anyway, even if they order Monday, there's no telling where they're ordering *from*, how soon it can get here, when we'll get our poor little car back.. Meanwhile, I have a first appointment with a gastroenterologist on Tuesday morning at 10am, before Dan gets home from work. I also have that therapy homework where I need to buy myself something. I wanted to go out and maybe go store to store and just buy something that struck my fancy, but if I'm stuck waiting to hear what's up with the car on Monday, and Tuesday Dan also says there's some Town Hall meetings we are supposed to go to, and then at 4pm is my therapy session, then how am I supposed to get around to it? Plus, the gastro!

I'm going to have to call them in the morning and ask to reschedule. I don't think we'll get the car back on Monday, and Dan doesn't think he'll be able to get out of work early enough for me to have the Prius and get there by 10. *sigh* Oh well.

Oh, plus, I need to go have lab work done again, to see if the iron pills I've been taking have been working, and then on Friday, I'm giving blood... And I think there's another Town Hall meeting on Thursday? Or maybe Wednesday? I forget... I'm tired.

Last week, we were camping, and this week, my parents are up visiting (yay!! :D ). I will probably get a chance to read through some of my FList on Friday after they leave... I hope... But it's been good. :) I hope you've all been well!! Love you guys!

So there were about 40 people who had said they were coming to the class 15-year reunion. Of them, only 9 sent in the money that was needed to rent the KofC hall, the DJ, and the "carter". I'm sure Christie meant caterer.

But so I posted on my Facebook that we were having a cookout on Friday, everyone come on down- that means you! So Christie responds by saying, "this should be our reunion lol". Then responds again saying "Make it Saturday?????"

And at first, I was like no way. Eff that. I started responding to her, saying that we live out in the boonies, and that people's GPSes get them lost, trying to come visit us. It's true- it has happened! And then my mind changed. My house full of people *I* know? I mean, if Dan's friends can make it, too, then sure, cool. But (now I learn that it's) 50 people, that I knew from grade school, in my freaking house?!?! In my yard?!?! Homg. How cool would that be. I gotta talk to Dan about this! He has the night off anyway! We can make it a BYOB, and bring your own whatever.. We'd supply the burgers and dogs and buns and basic things, and people can bring their own salads and desserts and things.. This would be so AWESOME! And Brytne can come, because it would be free!

And then I start thinking.. I was "the poor kid" in high school. Or one of them, anyways. I had some friends, but I'm sure the majority of the kids looked down on me and my family. And now.. I really don't look like the poor kid anymore. I'm not flouncing around in Chanel and Louis Vuitton and Burberry (), of course, but I'm like Virginia Slims. I've come a long way, Baby. It would be kinda boastful to bring them all here and be like, "Yes, this is *my* lovely house..."

Bah! Bah, I say! We still have that whole monstrosity on the side of the yard where the Geothermal trench was dug, and filled back in, where it's just bare dirt right now, where I went out to get Jack a couple weeks ago, and wound up ankle-deep in the mud in my nice good new sandals. If we get any rain at all, that section of the yard is going to be all gooey and we'd have to cordon it off. And that would suck.

But Oh! How effing cool would it have been? To have all these people at my house!?!?!?

Apparently, I didn't have a first word, I had a first sentence. I don't know. Maybe I'd been going Mamamamamamama for so long that it just didn't count or something.

But anywho, my first sentence was: "A bee... My Daddy kilt a bee..." Because he must have killed a wasp or something. He was always doing that with his bare hands, too. :)