ROCCO AND THE huh?

Rocco the wonder dog was stretched out on the living room rug chewing on an already chewed on bone that he unearthed from the basket of previously chewed bones and bits of torn apart toys, that is a mainstay of his life. Rocco lives to chew and puts such single minded intensity to it that I swear a bomb under his backside wouldn't interrupt him. Perhaps not a bomb but we have this big mother of a self watering thing for the animals that we bought at wal mart and only fill half way because if you fill it all the way, it starts to sprout algae before the animals empty it. Well there's rooco chewing away when for no reason the self waterer starts glugging and Rocco being Rocco had to get up and check it out. There her stood peering at it , nose nearly in the water. First he tilted his head to the right but that wasn't the right position and then to the left because, hey, maybe he can hear better that way and then when that didnt't help he did his long lazy stretch on the kitchen floor, eyes never leaving the waterer and there he sat till it stopped glugging. Then he got up and now he is staring at me as if he knows I am writing about him. After all he was only doing his job. It IS HIS DUTy to investigate everything and heaven help us all if someone dares to slam a car door, or even thinks about stepping out into their yard without notifying him first. And trucks...how dare they come up his street and A) steal the trash B) take oldest son away to his job and or 3) Dare to deliver packages to anyone but he. Oh and for the plane now flying over the house... that only gets growls. I used to call Rocco the mayor but am now thinking maybe he ought to run for president. I wonder if they's put a doggie door in the white house front door and would I have to get him an oval basket of prechewed bones and torn apart toys to fit the oval office?

I haven't been funny lately

I haven't been funny lately (but I have been redundant...redunadant). I used to be funny, hysterical, roll your eyes at what I said and waiting till you are alone before laughing out loud because what I said was SOOO outrageous you really shouldn't condone that behavior funny.
I don't know what happened exactly but I have become sad. As if something had broken my heart. I don't like being sad but I am.

HOWEVER

I am going to try and put on a funny face. It may take time, since I'm out of practice and it may be at someone else's expense but I need to get my funny muscle moving again, otherwise... well I wouldn't want to be around me otherwise. So bear with me and let me see if I can find something humorous.

Oh yes. International market. Suddenly I love that place though I wish it didn't smell so strongly of some sea creature that's been living at the bottom of a sludge filled canal for a bit too long. No pig or cow heads yesterday ... I guess all the heads were sold over the weekend... why heads? Do I even want to know.

ANyhow I was in produce this time. Me and a number of lovely hispanic or is the proper term latino people. And I do mean lovely. Children with huge dark eyes, babies with a fluff of dark curly hair, buxom mamas followed by smiling fathers. t There I was wondering HOW to cook cactus and why you would cook cactus and marveling at how yucca looks remarkably like a ... well... bull pizzle and is it really coated with wax? The yucca not the pizzle. There was what I thin was a fruit that had hair and spines AND was green when I spotted the good old fashioned I know what to do with it green peppers that I had been looking for but hadn't reckoned with the... cue dum da dum dum music... the plastic bags from hell. SOmeday I want to meet the guy who designed plastic bags from hell and make him open one, to be used as a parachute, and kick him out of a plane. I have a problem with opening ziplock bag with my fingers who occasional feel as if I amd sporting cucumbers on the ends of my hands, so pbfh are the bane of my existance. Ripping them from the roll is easy but then trying to get it open.. I try to pick the sides apart, then roll them between my fingers, then start flapping it like crazy till I realise that I am trying to open it from the bottom and then turn it right side up and have no better luck. So I'm shaking the bag like mad, muttering to myself when I look up to find a latino man smiling at me gently. Without a word He offers me his open plastic bag and takes mine. I felt like bursting into tears. Silly, isn't it that a plastic bag can reduce me to tears. MY plastic bag superhero

things just keep getting better

We went to see the State Attorney today. First of all I was made to feel unwelcome. It was a small room we'd be meeting in, I was told and the quarters were tight. Well yah, if you put a big goddamn conference table into a closet sized room, the quarters are going to be tight. Then, once we settled in this room, the state attorney peered at me and wanted to know what I was doing there if I didn't SEE anything. Uh duh. First of all I'M THE WIFE and secondly, I HEARD things. It got better when we were told that the threat and the subsequent breaking of the windshield didn't count because they could only focus on the breaking of the side window and can't do anything about the breaking of the windshield because we need a PREPONDERANCE of the evidence which translates into... you live in the poor section of the county so screw you. But wait..there's more. The King of the Knuckleheads did not show up for court on Friday because he wasn't served and UNTIL HE IS SERVED we just have to keep going back to court friday after friday until the end of time. And why wasn't he served? His town has one cop. That's it. Of course then the state cops can serve it but.... as you can see I have a lot of faith in the judicial system. So nothing is going to be done. Good luck and goodbye.

And if that isn't bad enough, I ran out of my meds. I take flexeril that is a muscle relaxer that makes me sleep. I have fibro and for some reason a muscle relaxer works better than a sleeping pill. I was running out, called in my refil and when we went to pick it up on Friday the pharmacy didn't have it... and it was after doctor's hours so I Had to wait till today to call it back in. Now my nurse practioner is so good to me and I knew the screw up wasn't on her end. Sure enough she had faxed it but they never recieved it so they ordered it again. The husband went to pick it up (he has money, I don't) and was told the bill was $900.00 plus dollars. You read it right. $900.00 for flexeril and prozac, one month's supply. It seems that our health insurance dropped us because we paid the bill late. In fact, the husband paid it on Friday over the phone AND has a confirmation code. Which does me no good for tonight and since I've had no muscle relaxers since Friday, every muscle in my body hurts and I haven't been able to eat much because it hurts to chew and swallow and all the rest. And now I itcha nd my nails are ragged andf I look like I got into a fight with a rose bush and the bush won.
Can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. A tornado probably. Oh and today's client was a no show. Yah,

juice on the king of the knuckleheads

The husband and I are going to the State Attorney's tomorrow to give our statement on the ex contractor, king of the knucklehead's assault. the old chinese guy across the street who said he saw it suddenly didn't so we can't use him. I went with the husband to court on friday but since the police hadn't served the restraining order on the kok we have to go back next week. the husband started to piss off the judge because he just wouldn't hear what the judge was saying so I sent him my evil woman voodoo vibes to shut him up before I had to bail him out of jail. Me with a whole $1.21 in my purse... in change. Unless they would also accept half a roll of certs and a tin of some terrible ginger candy that I bought just because i liked the look of the tin. So then when we got home I had a brain storm, fired up my trusty laptop and did a judiciary casesearch on him. Whooo nelly. I found 10 count em 10 cases he was the defendant in. Two malicious mischiefs, one peace order (what they call a re3straining order) two assaults, one dui, one deer hunting out of season, one not cutting the grass and two that I couldn't make heads or tails out of. So even though we may not have a witness the guys history speaks for itsself. We hope. And while we owe the guy money, we did pay him what his estimate was and still owe him (he thinks) the remainder, So it isn't as if we stiffed him altogether, I just wish this was over and I could get back to my life. With all the data entry I have to do lately, I have no time for court and crap like that. I haven't even been to the international market with its disturbing beef head with the teeth, though we are out of fresh veggies and dog bones. Wait. Bones for the dogs to chew and not the bones OF dogs. Whew.

How can it be?

With all the crap going on with vandalised car and the like, the husband and I actually forgot that Monday was our wedding anniversary. Our 35th. I have been married far longer than I was single, and while life hasn't always been rosy, it has been interesting. I should have suspected something, considering where we met.... at a funeral. Now before I sound like a) a brazen hussy who hangs around caskets picking up men or b) so cold hearted that I'm checking out the guys while some loved one lies in a casket, let me tell you that the funeral was for a friend's grandfather and I was there since she was my friend and the huband was their because he and my friend's cousin were roomates. The minute I clapped eyes on him, I had the oddest sensation in the pit of my stomach, as if I had swallowed feathers or bubbles or something. How could I have resisted him, him so dapper in his wide lapelled suit with his flowered shirt and equally wide tie, hair hanging in his eyes, sideburns and a fu manchu mustache... it WAS the 70's after all. He says it was my legs he noticed first and since I have always been rather uh ah buxom, to have a man notice my legs first was a change. We went out the night we met.
Now meeting at a funeral wasn't quite odd enough for us. He proposed the night after the bank robbery I was in. He proposed in a Spencer's gifts between a poster of Raquel Wells in her cave woman bikini and Mark Spitz and his gold olympic medals. Ah romance. BTW I lent him the $10.00 he put down as a deposit on the engagement ring. He did pay me back.
And so life went on. We bought a house, had kids and rubbed along the best we could. Somewhere along the line we developed an esp between us that I had assumed all married couples had. It was handy in the time before cell phones when he was out evenings tutoring. If we needed Milk or something I'd just think it and the majority of the times, he'd walk in the door with it. Or he'd stop at a pay phone and call before he came home, asking me what I wanted. I discovered how odd it was when one day when I worked at the library< I wanted him to get something on his way home and I mentioned something that I was going to think at him and get him to call. A few minutes later when the phone rang I said I would answer that it was for me. It was and it was the husband. After the call was over a coworker was convinced that I was pulling a priank and the husband and I had prearranged it. I was just as convinced that all married couple did that. In fact today, the husband got into the office before me and as I was packing up my stuff to head for the office, I picked up the camera then answered my cell phone. It was the husband asking me to bring in the camera. I still am convinced anyone who spends that much time with another person can do the same thing.
My mother once told me she wanted a better life for me> I got a life with a man who encourages me to stretch my wings and my mental muscles, who gave me two great sons and turned out to be an equally great father, who accepts my crafting even if he doean't quite understand it and who can still make me laugh. We've had our black times too but all in all I doubt that I could really have done better. Hey the man stood up to my mother, a woman who could render me a gibbering idiot with one look, for me and if that ain't love try this....HE GOES GROCERY SHOPPING WITH ME, at a bag it yourself place no less. Enough said.

Pissing and moaning because I doo it so well.

AND dOO IS RIGHT. Up to my armpits in doo.
First of all the husband owes a guy money. Hell we owe everyone money. Anyhow this particular guy who is going down in history as the king of the knuckleheads, did some work for the husband on rental properties he had at the time but have now been sold. Knucklehead gave the husband a quote of $400.00 and when the work was done, the bill was 4 times that amount so even if we had the money we weren't going to pay his whole bill. So yesterday at 9am ther's a pounding on the door and when I answered it... I swear it looked like one of the sons' friends, it was knucklehead wanting the husband. Who was in bed asleep. Ok so I lied and told him that the husband was at work, ya na ya na and then he went away but came back. By that time the husband had put on a pair of shorts and his shoes so he talked to the guy. I went into the bedroom to change, heard the husband cry out and a strange sort of whomp of a noise. Seems that the king of the Knuckleheads grabbed up a hoe from inside of our yard, the husband got shoved,his nglasses went flying and the whomp had been the knucklehead smashing the window. Then the guy left, taking the hoe no less and today when he called thr office to threaten the husband, he acted as if he knew nothing about a broken window.

Ah HA! but we have a witness, albeit the really old chnese guy from across the streert who wears a sarong while in the garden and speaks little english.

so now knucklehead's merry band of men are supposed to show up here on saturday to beat the money out of the husband. The husband had the call on speaker phone so I could hear it all. Yippe yah, now I have something ELSE TO WORRY ABOUT.

BUT maybe not. Knucklehead is in his 20's. The husband will be 60 in August, and very out of shape. SO needless to say, the sons were furious but, even better, the sons' friends are furious and plan on doing some ass kicking of their own if the merry men show up. I guess thenn they wouldn't be so merry. I told the husband that he should be flattered that the various young men in the neighborhood are so angry.


So with all of this going on my head has been spinning and my mood low, until we get an env elope from an old client with a $500.00 check in it as a token of his appreciation for services rendered years ago. This client is a doctor who is working on a cure for aids ans says that he is close. He has now gotten funding from the Ivory Coast and will be flying there next week. I would like to think that if this guy does find the cure that in some little way we helped. After all the husband did cutthe doctor a break on the fee. So while life sucks ther is, sometimes, a glimmer of light.