It has been determined by an expert that Tori has Tourette’s Syndrome. Now it all makes sense and all it took was a casual visit by a friend to diagnose this issue. Thank you Dennis!

. . . being my fault according to Erin, we had a great 4 days together. She and I did the Burger King thing again on Wednesday and hunted down a new playground for her to explore. We found one that borders I-25 and there were kids for her to play with, both there and at BK.

A house that I always had an interest in finally sold. Originally listed at $275K, it sold for $100K lower than that. Oh well, the time was not right at this time and while it would be nice to live off-site of the business, it’s better for me to live on-site.

The news reader is telling me that we will have a huge tick season this year and lime disease is a real danger this year. We need to kill more deer for this reason. I’m sure Nina will be spraying herself hourly to avoid ticks, one of her greatest phobias. Ask her someday of the tick I removed from her when camping one time. She loves to tell that story.

We’re planning to remove the center island from the kitchen this summer and replace it with a tiny table just big enough for  2 or 3 people. Don’t ask. I’m also planning on replacing the flooring when I tackle the island removal.

Happy birthday Carl.  I hope you get some today. Everyone should get some on their birthday, right?

I’m off. Going to Santa Fe to have my Jeep service. 7100 miles so far and it’s due for it’s second lube and first tire rotation. I do a 5 tire rotation on my Jeep. When it comes time to replace the tires, I have to buy 5 tires but on my last set of tires I got 72,000 of very good service because of the 5 tire rotation. Also, when you wear out all your tires and have to buy 5 tires, your spare matches the 4 on the ground. Not an issue for car owners, but when your spare hangs out for all to see, it’s nice that they all match.

Later people.

Erin told me that everything is my fault. When she told me this, I went through a list of things that I felt I was blameless for, but she told me that they were ALL my fault.

• Sneaking things for Erin from Tori, my fault.
• The dogs pooping on the rug, my fault.
• The tornado in Oklahoma, my fault.
• Wars, my fault.
• The drought, my fault.
• Justin Beiber, my fault.
• Dogs barking, my fault.
• Car alarms, my fault.
• Bird poop on my windshield, my fault.
• Shirley, my fault.
• Death, my fault.
• Canada, my fault.
• Bad tempered customers, my fault.
• Obama, my fault.  (That one hurt.)
• Uncle Andy, my fault.
• and finally, “Pake, everything’s your fault.”

She’s mean to me.

Erin

Nina and I are heading out for a shortish drive today, after which we will pick up Erin. Tori hates going there and since we’ll be in the general area, we’ll do it. Besides, I enjoy the attentions that Erin gives me in their presence. It irritates them.

This past week

Busy week last week. With the class I was forced to take and all the business items I was part of, this week wore me down. Yesterday Andy and I took a trailer to Santa Fe and bought some new shelves for the store and some table tops to replace the nasty looking tops that we have now. We spent almost 2 hours setting the shelves up when we arrive back at the store and another 2 hours, after we closed, stocking the shelves for the store. Looks good if you ask me.

Illinois

Nina and I are scheduled to leave for Illinois on 06/09 for a week. This is not carved in stone because of Nina’s busted foot. I’m not allowing her into that condo if there’s the possibility of any additional damage to her foot. All it would take is a bad twist or something to drop on it to require surgery to reattach the tendon and I ain’t taking the chance.

Utah

I’m thinking of going to Utah for our next trip. I was viewing pictures online from the Moab area and I was wishing I was there NOW. So much beauty in one place, it just don’t seem fair to places like . . . Illinois.

Marylou

What a whiny old broad. She had the staff at Vida call Nina and tell her that she was sick. Bullshit. She was just missing us and wanted or needed to see us. Next time I’m going to send Erin in alone to just talk to her about her dolls and stuffed animals. That should stop that type of thing. We have a plan of action in regards to her and at the moment it’s top secret. Shhh!

We spent about an hour there and she was very chatty. She is a wealth of old family stories and history. This is all stuff that Nina should be interested in since it’s her family, buts she’s really not all that interested. I know I’m not interested either. I faked a store emergency  to leave after that hour.

Shirley

She’s not very active as of late. Works for me. Yesterday she was in bed for probably 80% of the day. She’s been glaring at Nina lately. Not sure if it’s because we placed her at Vida when we went to London or if there’s a different reason. Doesn’t matter, it makes Nina uncomfortable. She’ not eating much anymore and she’s also drinking the bare minimum. Her doctor says that since she has a DNR in place and is aware and can function, we should let her do what she wants.

She listens to everything. She has amazing hearing. Oh well, She’ll do what she does. It doesn’t change the fact that out of the 2 old ladies, Shirley is the one like and it does make me somewhat sad to see her just sitting there wasting away.

Dat’s all.

Erin has toothpicks saved away someplace and every day she brings me one and throws away the old one sitting on the table next to me. Not sure why this is happening, but it is. She just arrives, gives me a toothpick, walks around me and grabs the old one and throws it away. No talk, just does it.

Dennis Miller

I’ve been listening to Dennis Miller podcasts lately. I have to say that out of all the political commentators that populate the media cesspools, he is the one that makes the most sense. I just finished listening to his chat with Donald Rumsfeld. It was an enlightening and fun listen.

I found out that if I’m walking alone, I can do 1.25 miles in less time than it takes to listen to one 15 minute podcast. Not a bad pace I’m thinking. When I walk with others I walk at a more leisurely pace and it’s more of a social thing.

Yesterday, May 16.

I was mandated by the federal government to attend a class because I own an AST or an aboveground storage tank. One of the things I learned in this class was that aboveground is actually one word and even though it’s one word, it’s not incorrect to break it down to above ground. I’m pretty sure that the above information was not what the facilitator hoped I’d learn in his class, but then I’ve always been a poor student. Actually I did glean some things from the class. I’m having D & H Petroleum come out to do a site assessment after the holiday. Don (from D & H) and I had a nice little chat about the things that have changed since they did the install of our pumps and tank 10 years ago. It’s a bit disheartening to find out that the government can just mandate changes that cost me a shit load of money. Bastards. By the way, shit load can not be combined to shitload without showing as an error. Not germane to the topic, but yet I’m writing about it anyway. That’s what happens here folks.

Weather

Nice weather here lately. I’ve started walking early in the day again rather than waiting until later. It’s warm enough early to allow me to walk without a jacket early. The weather here has been abnormal this past fall, winter, and spring. I’m glad that spring has finally arrived.

Me

Today I feel really good. Nice walk at the national monument. Had a nice chat with a customer from Colorado named Adonis, who happens to be the regional director of the mountain states Rent-A Centers. I also got to ask a perennial pain in the ass to leave the property, again. I talked to Dennis this morning and we had a nice chat. Had a great email conversation with Donnie Kleyweg earlier this week. He’s doing well and he’s pretty happy in life, but he questions if all the hard work is worth it. I didn’t have a real answer for him, but I asked if there was an alternative. Nice kid.

Piece.

Had to run to Santa Fe to get a new flush handle for one of the downstairs toilets. Someone broke the original handle that came with the toilet when we replaced the toilet. We took Erin with us to Lowe’s for this little chore and did a picnic in a park with a Wendy’s meal. She had a nice time playing and Nina and I sat in the sun.

Dropped Erin off afterwards and continued on for a ride. La Liendra, a ghost town, was where we ended up. We couldn’t get to the cemetery because the gate was locked, but there are some cool headstones there that we’ve seen from previous trips.

We also did a bit of 4 wheeling since the river was dry and we drove down the riverbed for a bit. That was nice and there were some areas where we had to hit low range for rock crawling.

Nice driving day.

Well, the weather liars are predicting rain again and while they were right in the guesses earlier this month, can we trust them enough to get it right twice? We need the rain. I’ve had Henry watering our trees while he’s here to ensure that we don’t lose any of them during this third year of drought.

Things are leveling off here after Debra’s brother’s death. It’s a sad thing to lose a sibling and Debra seemed to have handled it well. I can only guess at her mother’s grief. No parent should have to bury a child.

Things here have been somewhat quiet so I haven’t been posting much about what’s happening. I graded the lot the other day and it looks nice again. I did it right after a rain since I didn’t have to eat 3 pounds of dust an hour while doing the work.

Business has been steady, but nothing to brag about. Customers still are driving Tori nuts, so nothing has changed in that arena. For some reason, she attracts the whack jobs that always feel they need to make a statement. That statement could be a complaint that is skewed to the limits of insanity, or a vocal and aggressive suggestion of how we need to run this business, or just some dumbass complaining about our gas prices. No one ever wants to talk to me about these issues. The latest was some lady that said we needed to post the phone number for the newspaper boxes on our property because we’re responsible for them. Stupid.

Oh well, that’s it for now. Have a great weekend everyone.

Got the above in an email this morning and I thought it was funny.  I hope you do too.  It falls into the other stuff portion of the title.

Erin and I went to Sam’s Club today because Nina was too busy to do it.  She had to get her hair done and go to a foot doctor or some such shit. I hate Sam’s Club. I’d rather pay more for the same crap and have it delivered by one or more of our regular vendors and then charge more for it in the store. I guess that’s just the whore in me coming to the surface again. Since I had to pick Tori up at the dealer too, I decided to bring her along to Sam’s to expedite the unpleasant task.  Nina drags her ass around the store for a couple of hours doing what Tori and I did in under 45 minutes. Shopping! Can’t stand it.

After the unpleasantness, we went to Burger King and picked up lunch and I forced Tori to watch Erin with me play at a playground. Terrible things I do to that child. Erin loves this park and while there were no other children there, she still had a great time today.

The dealership was loaded with foreign sales peoples, peoples that I’ve never met. They swept in like sharks to chum and both Tori and I got the pleasure of disappointing them. The dealership had a big sales push going on and the sharks were a professional sales crew that goes from dealership to dealership working these type of events and moving on. I managed to capture a lot of attention of these guys because I was towing my little trailer that matches my Jeep.

Cute, ehh? Anyway, they sharks thought it was a sweet setup. One of them asked if I’d sell it and I told him sure, for $4K. He passed.

The return trip from London left me with a horrid case of jet lag. Worst case ever. I’m almost over it and I’m sure I’ll be completely over it in another 3 or 4 days.

Later peoples.

Let’s use the liberal’s own ideas to defeat them!