Why did I eat it?

Because it was there! They brought in doughnuts to work today and I did not need to be eating one, but oh well. I made plans with myself to go running tonight anyway, so I guess that'll be an extra lap (or 2) I get to do.

Trying to decide if I should go on patrol tomorrow or not.

• PROS: I need to, since I have one makeup shift I need to do. The more I do it the better I get at it. I have the free time and should be taking advantage of it. I always have a good time and enjoy every minute of it.
• CONS: I fell asleep at 10pm last night meaning my body and mind are wiped out. I have several breakouts on my face meaning I am severely stressed. I would rather sleep in and relax all day instead of waking up at 5:30 am and getting all that gear on and driving 30 miles to the substation.

I'm sure I'll decide at the last minute.

S didn't even get home until after 10 last night. He went hobnobbing after work with the motorcycle sales guys to try to convince them to hire him on in that dept. where he has a chance of making some decent money, or at least, more than he's making now in the parts dept. He says it's pretty much a go, so hopefully he will make that transition very soon now! I didn't even get to spend any time with him last night since I was passed out when he got home. I haven't even seen our new digital camera yet. It probably didn't help that I had made a huge penne pasta cheesy beefy casserole for dinner and ate a whole bunch--S can't eat stuff like that! I had to freeze 1/2 of it b/c I can't eat all that by myself very fast.

I am feeling kind of excited b/c on Tuesday we go to court for Enforcement Hearing Part 2! I love facing the whore in court although seeing her ugly face always, as Tito J. would say, makes me throw up in my mouth a little bit. But when we are in court, that is MY territory and WE are the winners!!! I am praying so hard for the judge to throw her in jail like HE threatened to do and also, that we get immediate custody of the baby. I read Psalm 31:9-16 last night b/c it was my daily assignment from a pamphlet I got at church and man, did it hit home hard. We've all heard the expression "The Lord works in mysterious ways" but I am always surprised at the little signals and signs that He sends down to me all the time. Check it out:

9 Be merciful to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief.
10 My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning; my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.
11 Because of all my enemies, I am the utter contempt of my neighbors; I am a dread to my friends—those who see me on the street flee from me.
12 I am forgotten by them as though I were dead; I have become like broken pottery.
13 For I hear the slander of many; there is terror on every side; they conspire against me and plot to take my life.
14 But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, "You are my God."
15 My times are in your hands; deliver me from my enemies and from those who pursue me.
16 Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love.

Man, that's poetry! Now, I'm no bible-thumper; in fact, I am embarrassingly unfamiliar with the Bible. (This from someone whose heathen father wrote an actual book report on the Bible when he was in high school.) But I swear, this stuff always makes me feel so much better. It brings about peace to me every single time. The last time I went to church and heard the sermon, it almost made me want to try to make peace with the whore and dickhead! But I won't do so, b/c you cannot reason with insane minds, and also, I am definitely not capable of being Christ-like in a lot of ways--yet. God's still working on me though, I feel Him, but I can't go there 100% yet.

For those friends of mine who might read this post and wonder what happened to the sinner Adela that they used to know and love, the one who used to smoke, drink, and dance the hootchie-coo, don't worry y'all, it's still mostly me. I'm just saying, there's a power out there that is available for all of us. And it's about the best deal I can think of!!! Like Keb Mo sings, "Hand it over, give it up, give it over/Hand it over, get on your knees and pray!"

I was watching one of my favorite movies last night, Glory. Even though I have my own copy, it came on tv and there was nothing else good on so I watched it for the umpteenth time. It's amazing, the power of the Lord: these guys are going into battle into almost sure death, and they are singing and praying and saying that b/c of the Lord, they have no fear! They're going to fight with the rifle in one hand and the Good Book in the other. And that if tomorrow is their "Great gettin' up morning", it's ok! Come on... that is awesome.

Murder, Death, Kill!

That's what S calls me whenever I am reading whatever latest true crime book has currently engrossed me. Lately it's this story. I've watched the 2-DVD documentary of it, read the Dateline transcript of the show they did on it, and am now reading the book about it, Written in Blood. I even found a neat website that tries to discredit the Oscar-winning makers of the documentary. Oh, it's a bloody mess. And yes, I firmly believe this guy is guilty. It just makes no sense for someone to fall down the stairs and create a pool of blood like that. And that's just the beginning of this sordid story.

Got yet another busy weekend ahead. I am going to spend some time being jealous of R., who is in Baltimore getting to see John Waters speak in person; tomorrow I have to work at Job #2 in order to make up some of my hours in April when the library is going to be closed for Easter and San Jacinto Day; Sunday I'm going on patrol with my "Coffy Brown" partner; then Sunday night M. and I have to head to the sports bar way early, like 4:30, in order to get parking and seating for Wrestlemania! S and "his" M. will meet us there. We are going to sit on our butts for over 4 hours and eat and drink a bunch of unhealthy yet tasty stuff!

I'm excited b/c today S bought us a digital camera. Finally, we have one! Are we the last people in North America to get one? Anyway, it was waaaay on sale for $88. I'd been waiting to find one for less than $100 and at long last we did. I can't wait to start playing with it and posting more pic's to this blog.

Accidental discharge note: The Sgt. called me yesterday just to check up on me, which was nice. He told me some bizarre news: my ex-Major from when I was on Marine shot himself in the foot! And he did it while he was at his day job! Fortunately it was only with a .380, or what I call a mouse gun. The Sgt. says they Life-flighted him--oh brother! I can't stand that Major. He threatened to tow my car one time and I barely escaped a violent tongue-thrashing that day. I was wondering why he was in a cast and crutches the other night at the monthly meeting. That was a good meeting, nice and short! The Lt. brought his 2-year old with him. The Lt. pointed at me, told his son what a cool name I have, and said, "She's the Man!"

A Night of Shopping

I have not gone shopping the way I did last night in a loooooong time. Ooooh, and it was at Target! Although I hated to do it, I got me one of those Target store cards (not the Target CC) b/c of the 10% discount. Well, we already shop at Target, so I thought we might as well be taking advantage of the discount. The only thing is that I WILL be paying off the balance every month so we don't pay any finance charges on top of that, which would render the discount null and void, duh! Why don't most Americans get that part of it?

Anyway, I was there for like, an hour and a half and I got all kinds of needed household items and got them on sale in addition to my 10% discount. I even got me some new clothes (clearance rack only!) since I almost never buy new clothes for myself anymore, and the truth is that some of my work clothes are indeed starting to look a little ragged around the edges. I spent no more than $8-9 per item and today am wearing a nice new black sweater which is making me happy! I even got 2 cute shirts for summer at less than $5 each. I bought the baby some panties and socks, got S 2 of those funny logo t-shirts for his upcoming b-day, and purchased a baby shower gift off the Target registry for my friend's upcoming shower. So these were things that I definitely needed anyway, and I was happy to see that my discount got me over $17 knocked off the total bill!

S got himself an early b-day present this week: a Total Gym 1000 that he bought from his friend for a whole $25, so it was a GREAT deal! Now we just have to figure out how to use it. It's set up in the bedroom and I plan on using it too once we figure out how. I sent off for a free DVD/brochure on it. I'm not going to lie and say that it was a nice experience trying on clothes last night in front of the 3-way mirror! I really need to keep to a regular running, situps, and pushups schedule like I had when I was in the academy.

I had a good skin care class at the library yesterday. Hopefully I'll get my $75 in a timely manner. I decided last night though, to quit letting each participant use an entire syrofoam tray, and I cut them all in half. I'm just reducing my business costs, increasing my profit! Why didn't I think of this sooner? BTW, I recently found this website which is a real eye-opener. There were lots of great things about being in MK, such as the friends I made, the positivity of everyone involved, and the products, of course. But it's true that the odds are against you succeeding, as in, making any real money. I had losses every year until I started teaching classes at the library, making my $ that way.

Ok, back to work.

Ouch. Car repairs

Well, the good news is that our handy mechanic apparently gave us a heck of a deal on the repairs to S's car. Other good news is that S swears now he should be able to get at least another year of life out of "Charlie Murphy." The not-so-good news is that we are now $555 poorer! But even more good news is that I did have an extra paycheck this month so I did have the cash on hand and can continue to avoid using my hated credit cards. And like I said before, our great mechanic did a whole bunch of stuff and gave us a good price, especially when compared to those ba$tard$ at Firestone, who quoted S $1800 to make the repairs!

Meanwhile, I have been booking MK teen skin care classes so that's gonna be wonderful extra $. I charge $75/class and do this every year at the public library. So far I've got 9 classes booked. Tito J. had called me though, and warned me that the library recently hired this woman to try and get us vendors to cut the library deals on our rates. Tito J. was scornful and indignant of her and told me I didn't have to make any deal I didn't want to! Actually, I did make a deal but here it is: I told her that if the library hired me for 10 classes, I'd cut my rate down to $70, saving them a whole $50! I actually didn't think they'd book me for that many. I have the first class of the year tomorrow and we definitely need an extra $75 at this point for sure.

S got the idea to take on a part-time waiting job. He's been a waiter before, at least at a couple of places. I thanked him for coming on board with the working-as-many-jobs-as-you can program that I've been doing, well, my whole life but even more so as of late. M. and I went out to dinner last night after our sheriff's meeting; he agrees with me that S should work for the sheriff's dept. too but doesn't think he can convince him to either. Well you know what, that's ok b/c I told S that thanks to these car repairs today, unfortunately he is just going to have to forget about getting the PSP he wanted for his b-day. He agreed, but he had no choice. Numbers are numbers, and we simply don't have the $ for stupid, extravagant gifts like that!

Still, I do have some gifts planned for him already. I got together with my friend here at Job #2 and we placed an order together for wrestling stuff so we could get to the $60 minimum for free shipping! She got a bunch of stuff for her grandson; I got S a double-DVD of one of his fave wrestling teams, on sale, natch! Also, I think soon I'm getting a $25 Target gift card from one of my credit card rebates and I'm going to let him have it to spend however he wants--he loves Target. Not sure what else I'll do at this point, but I've got almost another month yet.

Dearth of photos lately

I've posted way too few photos lately so here's one of me and the Man Who Would Be Governor, taken at the party last spring he threw for those of us who pounded the pavement and collected signatures for the petition to put him on the governor's ballot.

I don't think I have a single picture of me with any famous women, besides a couple of authors. I seem to gravitate towards the famous menfolk only!

My new favorite website is...

This one. I was laughing so hard at it on Sat. at Job #2 that I had to excuse myself from the ref. desk and go behind it to get a hold of myself. Tears of laughter were streaming down my face! The posting that did it was where he decided not to renew his magazine subscriptions and instead is going to read them at the public library. He was being intentionally humorous about this and said something like, "Now, I could expound on how much $20 a year saved, invested at a compound rate of 8% over the rest of my lifetime will be, but..." Man, his poking fun at himself and other frugal penny-pinchers such as myself really hit the spot. That is exactly the kind of extreme, sometimes ridiculous, thinking we do every day!

I recently discovered a whole bunch of personal finance/money saving blogs and I am now addicted to all of them. One of them is even run by another librarian. I've found some great coupons off of them, too!

All this obsessive thinking about money works, though. For example, we got our latest electric bill and it is only $75, or $81 cheaper than last month! I believe this is due to a number of reasons:

1. I have started unplugging items when they are not being used b/c even though an item is not technically turned on at the time, just being plugged into the wall does drain a small amount of electricity that, guess what, you do have to pay for!
2. I am trying to do things like laundry and running the dishwasher only at night when electricity rates are, in fact, cheaper.
3. I am very big on turning off lights when I exit a room. Same goes for ceiling fans.
   
4. As cold as I've gotten in the past couple of months, I refused to turn up the thermostat and just slept dressed in layers.
   

This past weekend I was generous with the A/C b/c of the baby. My chicken pox instructions said to keep her cool and comfortable, so I was fine with that. Fortunately she was not feeling as itchy on Sunday, although her cough sounded worse. And she slept 12 hours on Sat. night, which was great since she usually doesn't sleep that long. Her appetite seemed fine, and she ate 4 bowls of baked beans yesterday (we don't know why she loves baked beans so much, but whatever). After that she and I walked over to the sno-cone stand behind the house and got sno-cones although I made her stand about 20 feet away from everyone since there were other kids there. She was upset that I wouldn't take her to the zoo, but I told her that we could go when her cough was better and she had no more pox on her.

Later we picked up Uncle M. and played with the rottweiler, Lucy. (I made him lock the psychotic cat Luke up before we came inside, though. My ankle is still scarred!) We picked up DH from work and went to get ice cream at Sonic, since McD's and its playground was off-limits due to the pox. I had told the baby she could eat all the popsicles, sno-cones, and ice cream that she wanted when she is sick.

DH career note: DH has refused to work for the sheriff's dept. if they give him the night shift, i.e., 10pm-6am--and they likely will. We had a big fight about this. He says he cannot sleep during the day or take naps and so he refuses; I countered that my mom did it for her family, and he is selfish for being unwilling to do the same. I told him then he better figure out something else and do it soon. I've already taken his credit cards away; I'm on the verge of taking away his debit card too and give him a strict cash allowance to live on if he does not get better employment NOW. We had to take his car "Charlie Murphy" into the shop today. I told him that it is coming down to either he gets a birthday present next month, or we fix his car.

The pox!

Our poor little baby has the chicken pox! Since we don't communicate with the whore, her fool lawyer called our lawyer yesterday to tell us the news. I called the daycare to get more info. and they told me that they've had about 20 outbreaks since Christmas and even the kids who are vaccinated are getting it! Baby got sick on Thursday. So since the judge that gave the whore jail time told her that we are to get our visitation, NO MATTER WHAT, that even if the baby's sick we're her parents too and we're perfectly capable of taking care of the situation, I was told by my lawyer to just meet the whore in the parking lot of the daycare. I was not happy about having to see her ugly face--2 times a month is 2 times too many already--but figured I'd just ask the daycare owner to come out in the parking lot with me, which she did.

I had already done my chicken pox research in the form of asking Ma what to do and buy, and of course looking in the appropriate places online, so had already planned to get Calamine lotion, baby Tylenol, baking soda for the bath, etc. But dickhead actually handed over a bag full of the stuff when he handed over the baby. How nice! (I'm keeping their Calamine, though, ha ha!) There was also a handwritten note in the bag from the whore full of misspellings and grammatical errors in her broken-ass junky English along with her cell phone #, finally! Although I generally despise litterers, I took great pleasure in throwing the letter out of the car window onto the freeway where it was run over and ripped to shreds!

The baby slept for awhile and I kept her downstairs so I could keep an eye on her. When she woke up I picked her up and cradled her and told her about when I was a little girl and had the chicken pox too. She started to cry, and wouldn't take her Benadryl and raised a big fuss. I asked her if she wanted a popsicle, and told her she could have one after her Benadryl. She bawled some more and had a fit when I wouldn't let her scratch. I just let her get it all out, holding her, rubbing her back, and telling her to tell me when she was ready for her popsicle. Finally, after crying it out she took her Benadryl and got her red popsicle. Later, S got home from work and we had salad and pizza for dinner. I ordered a large pizza to be delivered so he and the baby could have leftovers today if necessary.

Unbelievably, my 91-year old grandfather has never had the chicken pox!!! So either S or I was going to have to take today off from work since there would be no dropping off the baby at Ma's house. Well, my salary at my part-time job is twice what S makes at his regular job, so that was pretty much a no-brainer. However, S had told me that M. had noticed S's car had an oil leak when S was over at his house the other night. So it seems S barely got his car home last night. I told S that this was the last straw. I can work no more and I can make no more money than I already am at this point. He needs to step up and get a decent job that pays decent, non-poverty level wages and NOW. No, YESTERDAY. (To be fair, it's not entirely his fault we're in this situation. We had to get him full-time employment asap last year in order to look good for the custody battle. And he did move down here to Houston away from where he was already established in order to be with me! But now that we're winning, it's time to start looking ahead at the bigger picture.) I happened to be on the Sheriff's website looking for Taser requalification classes that I will have to take soon (thank the sweet, good Lord I do not have to actually get Tasered again though!) and saw that they are having a Career Opportunity Day at the Academy next week. I told S it is time he seriously considered being a jailer--sorry, Detention Officer. They pay very decent wages and with all the overtime they will surely want and need him to do, he could definitely roll in some excellent bank. I personally know jailers who have doubled their salaries just from the overtime. He agreed.

I think it'll be great. He'll be employed with the Sheriff's Dept. just like me, he'll be working downtown so his commute will be better, he'll be working alongside other law-abiding citizen coworkers instead of the trash he now works with at Harley-Davidson, he'll have good benefits, and like I said before, the money is darn good. And he'll be great b/c he's a big, strong, martial-arts-trained guy who turds will probably think twice about messing with! Downfalls are that he'll probably be working the night shift at first, but you know what? My mom worked nights at the ER! You do what you have to do for your family! Also, in my opinion, the smell of the jail. Blecch! Showers are taken very minimally there it seems. But hey, these are things that can be gotten used to.

So that is the plan for now and we need to stick with it. We cannot keep fixing up this car every month, and I refuse to get another car loan. I would have to be the one to get it, too! He and the baby are marooned at the house but that's fine since she's highly contagious right now and needs to be isolated anyway. I can't believe last night he was talking about taking her to the movies today!!! I couldn't help it but I blurted out, "Are you crazy?" Bless S's beautiful, well-meaning heart, but men are so clueless sometimes.

I found 4 picture books here at work about the chicken pox, so we will have fun reading those later. Tomorrow we have to take S to work and then I have some fun, educational activities planned at home for us. I've been wanting to get her started on piano lessons for awhile now, so I will attempt that tomorrow by dragging out the keyboard! C-scale, here we come!

Rolo Tomassi

Last night nothing good was on TV and S was not in the mood to watch our latest Netflix send, Jarhead, so we just watched an old fave of mine, L.A. Confidential, or as I pronounce it, "La Confidentialle" (french accent). I love the Rolo Tomassi scene between Kevin Spacey and Guy Pearce. Rolo Tomassi is the reason I became a cop, too.

This in the news today: "Harold Dutton (D, District 142) is the author of House Bill 782, which mandates D.N.A. paternity testing on all children who have a mother seeking child support in a Texas Court." I sent Rep. Dutton an email of extreme support. Generally, men are rejoicing in this bill and a lot of women are against it. I withdrew my support of N.O.W. awhile ago b/c of their short-sightedness when it comes to logical issues. Yes, it is sad that there are going to be kids with no means of paternal support, but you know whose fault that is? The SLUTTY WOMEN WHO SPREAD THEIR LEGS--not the men, and the men should not have to pay if they are proven to not be the biological father. Period.

Man, I can't wait until I don't have to make the drive up north anymore to pick up the baby. I hate that part of it every 2 weeks. It's just so long and tedious. Soon, the whore will be the one to bring her ugly old fat ass down here on OUR turf! I also can't wait to start collecting child support from her! That'll definitely help pay off our legal bills sooner.

At least tomorrow is the last Saturday I'll have to work on the baby's weekend for a long time. I'm so glad the warm weather seems to be here to stay. That means the park, the zoo, sno-cones from the sno-cone stand right behind the house, etc.!

Hmmm. I like her

We interviewed The Candidate today and also saw her give a presentation. She's outgoing and an extrovert, is a Methodist/Catholic like me, and gave us all the right answers to our tough questions. Hmmmm, I liked her. To be continued...

Dr. H, yer killin' me

Dr. H has wanted 4 literature searches from me in the past week and a half. And they're always so depressing!

I'm at work and it's consuming me. We've also had 2 fire drills in the past week. Last night's happened right at 5pm. Today we are interviewing the ONE candidate that could replace our amazing ex-boss and my dept. gets to meet with her this afternoon. We have lots of questions for her. In short, we're gonna grill her!

Last night my Dear Hubby and I had another philosophical disagreement. He does not want to try to get pregnant until after the custody battle is completely over. I argued that we are seeing the end in sight here this summer, according to our attorney, and that at least we can start trying here in a couple of months, since I already will be 35 in May. He stormed out and "my" M. called me to discuss something else. I asked M. to give DH a call and talk some sense into him, and DH went over to his house where I was fine with him staying all night if he wanted. DH eventually came home in a better mood from talking to M., and M. had called me and given me the report. DH and I compromised (what is marriage all about, anyway, if not compromise???). DH says that once the custody battle is over--and hopefully it will truly be over sometime this summer if not before--then I can have as many kids as I want, 6, 7, etc.! The other part of it is that I am still going off the Pill in a month and he is in charge of birth control after that.

For the record, I'm thinking 1 kid. After that, I don't know what I'll think.

Tonight I have to go get a wedding gift for the wedding the baby and I attended a couple of weeks ago. Bed Bath and Beyond gift card and coupon should do the trick! This is b/c I want to give it to her when I see his this Sat. a.m. at Job #2. She told me the amazing story of how she got her wedding gown for $50, yes, $50 from a boutique at the Galleria. The saleswoman, we all believe, was a true angel sent here from heaven. No kidding. It's a great story, and made me tear up when I heard it!

Black Toy Handcuffs

L. just gave me the biggest laugh of the week. She called me from Seattle, where she has escaped to for a couple of weeks. Although she got a one-way ticket, she will be back next week already. She misses her kids too much!

Anyway, 2 years ago someone gave me a gag gift of black, metal toy handcuffs for my birthday. I threw them in my trunk and forgot all about them. Recently, I found out that the baby likes to play with my real handcuffs, so I thought I'd drag out these toy ones and give them to her. They were laying around the house one day that S decided to tidy up. I was going on patrol a couple of weeks ago and I found that he'd put the handcuffs in my patrol bag, which is a bad place for them to be! God forbid I grab them, thinking they are real, and actually try to use them on a suspect! So I yanked them out of my patrol bag, thankfully noticing them before I actually went on patrol, and hung them around the hand brake in my car.

So L. and I go out a couple of weeks ago to eat, drink, and raise a little heck. She saw those stupid handcuffs in my car. So she, as a slightly drunken joke, cuffed them onto her purse. Or, I should say, her mother's $500 designer purse! And I have no idea where the little toy key for them is. Today L. told me that because of those handcuffs, she couldn't take the purse with her to Seattle and had to settle for taking a dumb little Dooney and Burke. Also, her mother is demanding that somehow we figure out a way to get the cuffs off. I told L. to tell her mom that I would take the purse out into her driveway and shoot the cuffs off.

Saw my "female" doctor today. I told her that in about a month I am going off the Pill, so she took blood so they could test my thyroid and she also gave me a bunch of prenatal vitamins that look like horse pills. I don't know how I'm going to swallow them. She taught me how to check for when I'm ovulating. This is going to be kind of fun, like a science experiment! And S and I will see what happens. I'm 34 though so I need to at least get started seeing what happens. Hopefully the custody battle will be close to ending soon, so I can concentrate on US.

A Much Needed Mental Health Day

...was taken by me today. It's only a couple of weeks overdue, but better late than never I suppose. I probably need some more days off but I do have to get back to work this week as there are several pressing issues I simply must attend to. Right now I'm at Job #2 so this day was not completely free anyway.

Last night we went running/walking with Tito J. and then S just had to go eat at the chinese restaurant near my work, so the 3 of us did so. I ate way too much but it was great! Then S and I went to Blockbuster since we always have free rentals from there, and spent a long time trying to decide what to rent! We went home and tried to watch Fast Food Nation but I conked out. It was glorious to sleep in today.

We went to eat at La Mad. and I got cookies for our lawyer and a mini-tart for our mom (S and I only have one mother as far as I'm concerned). Then we ran a few errands, went home and played Jeopardy, and then S went to meet "his" M. Tomorrow a.m. I have a somewhat lazy morning as I have to go see my OB/GYN who is a good drive away.

Other health/doctor note: I cancelled the procedure I had scheduled for them to shave down my turbinates. It was going to be a pricy procedure that was going to definitely get me to my high deductible. We will hold off for now. I will investigate other anti-snoring measures in the meantime. There's several in the drugstore, so let the experimenting begin!

Hee hee hee

Our neighbor came over last night to collect my signed proxy giving him rights to represent us at the next Homeowner's Assoc. meeting on the 31st. He is older and gay (well, that describes 75% of our fellow homeowners). He told S that while walking out to get pizza one day, he glimpsed S's naked butt through a window, and that it was a nice butt! I agreed. This is what we get for walking around the house naked! (S does it more than I do.)

Another hee hee hee for the weekend. We got the latest allegations from the whore. She has filed a motion for contempt on us full of a bunch of more lies. However, this latest one is truly laughable, as she apparently has grown tired of attacking S and now wants to accuse me of doing terrible things such as, showing up late to drop off the baby all the time, screaming at her and shaking my fists at her and threatening her, and bringing my fellow law enforcement officers with me to intimidate her and search her vehicle. Here's the kicker, though: of the 7 dates she's alleging that all of this happened, 5 of her dates that she cites are dates when we didn't even have the baby! In other words, NOT even our visitation weekends!!!

In the words of Bugs Bunny, "What a maroon!" She's either that stupid and/or she's crazier than a shithouse rat. Actually, we have come to realize that she's both. Our lawyer says not to even worry about this crap, that it might not even go to hearing b/c it was also improperly filed. It's just sad that the whore can attempt to even cause all this grief and get away with it. Of course, if they have the gall to want to go to hearing then that's fine too, I'd love for her to get stuck with paying a whole mess of our attorney's fees b/c that's what WILL happen.

We had a groovy weekend besides having to hear about this latest round of B.S. Friday night we went out to eat with M. and then he came over to our house and hung out for awhile. S actually got Saturday off from work, which has never happened. I was supposed to patrol but I cancelled so we could spend the day together. We went to see Daddy's Little Girls. I give it 2 1/2 stars for effort. We went to the library and later, went walking w/Tito J (I was feeling much too lazy to run). We played a game or 2 of Jeopardy!

Sunday I patrolled and we made an arrest that was just plain sad. I don't see too many arrests like this. We did everything we could NOT to arrest him, but we had no choice. This poor middle-aged guy almost got sideswiped by a knucklehead, smartass teenager. Unfortunately, the older guy then did something incredibly stupid, but I can't say I blame him too much b/c I certainly know the feeling of snapping when you've just had it!!!--see my road rage blog entry from a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, the older man then pulled in front of the kid and blocked him with his car. He got out and asked the kid where were his parents b/c he wanted to talk to them about their kid's reckless driving. The kid gave him some smartass answers, so the man angrily reached into the kid's car, pulled out the ignition keys, and left. Unfortunately, when he did that, it became a Burglary of a Motor Vehicle, a serious offense in TX. In other words, just by reaching into someone else's car and taking anything, is serious in TX. Texans take our vehicles and our houses pretty seriously, and you can pretty much legally shoot someone for messing with either and probably get away with it.

We got the call after the kid followed the man to his car and somehow, a physical fight ensued. When we showed up I went to talk to the man and he gave me the kid's car keys back. He had scrapes and blood on his legs, but admitted putting the kid into a headlock. By then the kid's parents were there and the kid's girlfriend, who had witnessed the whole thing, was crying. Sadly, we had no choice but to arrest the man, who was such a solid, upstanding, good citizen that when we ran his license, absolutely nothing came up. He was clean as a whistle, again, something I don't see very often when I patrol! He admitted he had done something stupid and had just snapped. I told him my road rage story and told him that I had called HPD to come and deal with it, and that's what he should've done too. My partner had tried to shoo the kid and his parents away so we could just write the man a ticket for "Assault by Contact" and let him go, but they weren't having any of it--they wanted to press charges. I felt so sorry for the man. I was very gentle when I handcuffed him, and even double-cuffed him so he'd have more room to move.

We ended up taking him downtown instead of to the substation so that he could be processed and bond out asap. So we did what we could for him. I was just thinking today that I wish I had thought to chew out the kid when I had the chance for driving like a damn fool. I wish I had.

To celebrate that we'll be getting custody of the baby, I bought her some new clothes last week since I saw a good sale going on. One t-shirt says, "Good looks run in my family", which they do on S's side, thank God. Another t says, "Everyone loves a brown-eyed girl" or something like that. I got her 2 pairs of shorts and pretty sandals that light up with those blinking red lights. All on sale!

GREAT, GREAT NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!

I just got the social study from the county lady, via our attorney. S is recommended to have primary custody of the baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, happy day. The report is 17 pages long. Our attorney says what this means is that a jury will most likely agree. Our attorney is going to use this as leverage to attempt a settlement. If the whore is stupid enough to not accept settling with us (likely since she's, well, incredibly stupid) then we are still going to attempt getting temporary custody at the rescheduled Enforcement Hearing on April 3.

Looks like what it came down to was:

1. The whore's lies and malicious, insane, SELF-SERVING untrue allegations towards us
2. The whore's repeatedly refusing to let us have our court-ordered visitation with the baby
3. dickhead's very recent criminal offenses, including his 2nd DWI just in March 2005
4. The fact that I am an excellent mother and keep pushing education on the baby--this was mentioned several times throughout the report.

Nice county lady said that although it seems extreme to remove the baby from her current environment, that is what she is recommending.

Glory, glory, halleluiah. Thank you, Jesus!

2 cookie day

I had to have 2 cookies at the lunch meeting today. However, I did not require 3 cookies. That would be ridiculous!

Poor S. I made salmon patties last night for him, which he'd been requesting for awhile. However--the recipe I found on Allrecipes.com called for "seasoned" bread crumbs, which I used. Whoo-wee! Them patties was spicy hot! Even I could only stomach eating one, and they turned out pretty good otherwise. Anyway, because of them, he was up from about 3am on. I could hear him wandering around the house, unable to sleep! (In contrast, I slept for 9 hours.) From now on, "regular" bread crumbs will be used.

Salmon note: there were some gross little round bones that were in the canned salmon I used. I picked them out. Then, as I was frying the patties, I saw a bunch of tiny white bone slivers. Oh great, I thought, we'll be picking bones out of every mouthful. However, when the patties were nice and done, I picked one of the bones out and bit it to test it. It was perfectly edible! We ate the patties and didn't even notice them. Questions: Why/how does this happen? Were those even bones???

Now I'm packing up for tomorrow. I'll be all day in Montgomery County, TX. Looks like I have to leave the house around 8am (ouch) to get there in time for my 10am class. Dang, I'm going far. I'm getting almost $70 in mileage, so that should be a clue. Now, where can I have a $15 lunch up there?
Silly picture taken summer 2005, for no reason at all.

No free lunch today but...

"free" lunch tomorrow. Today I hadda meet with the board of the High-spanic Health Coalition at a local Italian restaurant. I'm not real happy about having to spend my own $ to attend these lunch meetings when I'm trying to be frugal and save lots of dough, but there's not much I can do about it since when you are a board member of something, they rightfully tend to expect you to do stuff like this. Oh well, it just means I gotta cut corners elsewhere. However, tomorrow is our general membership meeting and I do get free lunch at those.

Anyway, I like all the other board members lots, and I got some good news today. They voted to have our annual board member retreat at this silly condo in Galveston. My vote was no but I think I was the only nay. The reason I voted no is b/c it falls on the 2nd Saturday in April and that's when my work/baby schedule shift again due to the 5 Saturdays in March, so beginning in April my weekends off from Job #2 are the weekends w/the baby again and I was looking forward to having our time together back. I certainly didn't want to have to spend all day down in Galveston away from her. So today I mentioned that I didn't know what time I could be there b/c I was going to have to figure out what to do with my daughter (my mom of course volunteered to watch her for me but I just didn't want to have to do that). They all said, "Bring her!" "Really???" I asked, and another board member said if I brought my daughter, she'd bring hers too! Oh... I was touched. Then me and the baby could check out the pool onsite, or even make it down to the beach. S says he doesn't think the baby has ever been to the beach before. So that's the plan now, and I'm happy!

Something dumb happened this a.m. Once again I had the right of way and this knucklehead in a Lexus honked at me b/c he was being a jerk. I shouldn't have done this, (at least it's better that what I did the other day) but when he passed me I looked over at him and stuck out my tongue. He braked and slowed down as if he couldn't believe it or something, and when I passed him I refused to look at him and gave him the ol' stare-ahead. Jerkoff!

M. came very close to being a witness to a robbery last night! He was going into a Dollar Store and everyone there was freaking out b/c they had just been robbed. M. had his little friend with him--in the car. Not a lot of good it does there. I implored him to start carrying it on his person, and gave him all my tips for doing so. Better to have and not need, than need and not have!

Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

We had dept. meeting Part 2 today as we had more information on the candidates and interview process to replace our excellent ex-boss. We found out some pretty appalling information. Basically, the reason they are only interviewing ONE person is b/c psycho jerk director has already predetermined that that's who we'll hire. Never mind that there was a much better candidate whose resume we all saw, and the candidate that they're bringing in is simply not qualified for the position! According to her own resume, she has minimal experience supervising librarians , none managing an entire department, and no experience writing grants--3 allegedly REQUIRED qualifications for this position that is an Associate Director position and will pay $65K-$75K/year. However, she is friends with a$$hole Deb. H. and she works at our "rival" health library in San Antonio so it would be a fun coup for jerk director to "get" her away from the rival library and rub their nose in it. That is really, truly what's going on here! Appalling.

When we hired Dell, my wonderful ex-boss, we interviewed 4 candidates and had lunch with each of them. Pre-hiring someone like this, for a high ranking position like this, is unprecedented. But here's the possible (oh please, Lord!) good news: I made the comment today that I'm amazed that administration here is not even interested in making the appearance that they're taking the recruitment process for this position even remotely seriously. I also wondered, jokingly but not really at all, when jerk director might retire and spare us from her idiocy and jerk-ness forever. My coworker said that she suspects the director, who is age 65-ish but who got married right before I did, might actually retire once the house she and her husband are building is finished!!! Also, that maybe that's why she's not interested in keeping up decent appearances anymore, b/c she's planning on being gone soon. Can it be??? Oh, man... Dare I hope???????????????????

Talked to M., last night, who I have decided is my BFF. Actually, this came up in a conversation a few months ago when I was talking to S about someone who used to be my BFF, and S wondered who my new BFF is. I ran down the list of possible suspects, and realized it was M.!!! Last night just exemplified this. He was asking me how my job troubles were going and I said that I was thinking about taking the civil service exam at a certain local police department, but that the next testing is not until July. He said that if I decided to go and take the test, he would come with me! I asked what if we got accepted, what would he do? And he said he would definitely consider it, that he can always do what he does now (computer/IT stuff) later on in life! I believe him too, he keeps flirting openly and vocally with the idea of being a cop full-time. Well, let's see what happens between now and July.

Life insurance note: I got my policy in the mail finally after 3 months. The only glitch is they want their year's payment in full now! It's really not that much, b/c I'm young, healthy, and only insured myself with a term policy for a low 6 figures for 15 years, but I'm currently trying to save up for the $700 tax bill we will owe soon. (I just don't want to deplete the emergency fund any more than I have to.) I insured myself for just enough money that if something happens to me, S will not be set for life but rather, will have just enough to get a fresh start somehow somewhere. Then S went and got in to see the eye Dr. today since his last right contact ripped, so that's $95 I wasn't planning on spending this week. But since I'm so amazingly frugal (got over $4 taken off the grocery bill last night w/coupons!), I can cover all these unexpected expenses. And that's the trick to a financially secure life, it seems. S is so funny. He was complaining about when they blow air into your eye and how much he dreads it and hates it. I said, "But it's over like that! POOF!" He said his eyes are incredibly sensitive and he hates it anyway. I said then he won't like getting Lasik surgery if he ever decides to do that. I told him how they draw on your eye while you watch! He doesn't think he wants Lasik after all. I can't imagine why not, it's some of the best money I have ever spent in my entire life!

Speaking of groceries, I was going to attempt to make salmon patties for S last night, but his stomach was bothering him, so here's what I made for dinner: grilled cheese sandwich for S, toasted turkey/cheese sandwich for me, Doritos, and chocolate milk drunk from our crystal glasses that were a wedding present! Later, I made walnut brownies but I used the wrong size pan so they took longer than they should've. I can't imagine a more newlywed kind of dinner to have!

S gift note: Last night he gave me a gift, a cute little purse made out of denim shorts. I actually used to have a purse like that when I was a kid/teen. The only thing wrong with it is no holster! But a sweet thought nonetheless.

Not feeling so bad today

Although there is no good day for me to take some much-needed mental health days off this week b/c I just have too many events scheduled (some I actually want to attend), I'm hoping maybe I won't need a mental health day after all. This a.m. we had a dept. meeting to discuss the candidates to replace our wonderful ex-boss. It came up that one of my colleagues also had her job threatened about a year ago when Psycho Director got mad at her too. Now, I doubt she was screamed at the way I was, but still, it helps to know that I'm not alone in this boat. And my colleague is still here, a year later. Today makes 2 weeks that I sent off my resume to another job that I really do want, but as R. said last night, these things take time. I know they do, but my resignation letter will have more impact the sooner I can send it off. Still--maybe it won't be so bad to bide my time a little longer here until I can get gone! Maybe. I'll be gone all day this Friday anyway; they're sending me up north to another county to teach 2 classes at 2 separate libraries. I'm getting mileage and a $15 per diem for lunch. I'm going to eat somewhere groovy AND order dessert!!!

Had a pretty good weekend w/the baby. After work on Sat. I picked her up from my mom's and we went to the hospital to see my grandfather and bring him a balloon. Then on Sat. night when S got home she was preferring to be with him b/c that's some kind of little ploy she pulls--especially after I made him only give her a few chips and queso with her dinner b/c if you give her the whole bag that's all she'll eat and ignore her chicken quesadillas!!!--but that was fine w/me since I knew I'd be dealing with her all day on Sunday. While they played in her room, I did laundry, read my book, and hung out in my bedroom and watched tv.

Sunday morning she was being bad, not coming upstairs and deliberately dawdling getting dresssed, and I had to lay down the law and threaten her with not going to the zoo. After she's bad I always make her apologize to me and S. I demand good behavior in my house. S went to work and she and I went to church and she got to go up the altar with all the other kids for "Children's Time." Then she had to give the pastor a hug after service like she did the last time. We went to Shipley's, got provisions, and headed to the zoo, which was insanity since this weekend was the beginning of Spring Break. I just ended up parking my car at work since the Med. center is right next to the zoo, and we walked over. In fact, a lot of folks were paying to park at the Med. center since parking was at such a premium due to the crowds! There was a looooooong line at the zoo entrance but fortunately, since we are zoo members (one of the smartest things I have ever done!--that membership has well paid for itself several times over) we just waltzed on it! And we just had so much fun. The water park has reopened for the season and I had brought her bathing suit so she suited up and frolicked away. Auntie R. was supposed to meet us there later but the traffic madness sent her home in defeat!

After 4 hours of zoo time, my dogs were barking loudly. We went to pick up R. and meet S and drop off the baby. I didn't even have the energy to get out of the car so R. handed the baby over to dickhead for us. Then we took R. to eat seafood to celebrate her birthday, just a couple of weeks late.

When S and I got home we tried to watch a stupid movie, Let's Go To Prison, or something like that, but I passed out, exhausted.

More bad news

...but what else is new as of late??? Ok, this phrase has gotten me through many a tough time in the past: "This too shall pass." I believe it, and I'm trying to remember it now even more.

Yesterday at about 4:45 pm, our lawyer called me to tell me that our enforcement hearing that is scheduled for this coming Tuesday--the one that we were so looking forward to b/c we had high hopes that the whore would be thrown into jail where she belongs and consequently we'd be awarded emergency temporary custody of the baby--had to be rescheduled yet again, for the 3rd time. I don't even want to get into the reasonings, though they are good ones, I'm just frustrated AS ALWAYS. Like I said, WHAT ELSE IS NEW. It's rescheduled for April 3 which, of course, was the absolute soonest date the court clerk could give us.

I'm not doing too good on this not cussing during Lent.

Here I sit at Job #2. This morning the baby said she didn't want to stay with my mom. I said that I didn't want to go to work and S didn't either but we had to so we could make money. (And I certainly don't want to be working 2 damn jobs so that I can pay for a custody battle!!! Oh yes--someday she'll know.) I asked her if my mom was nice to her or mean to her. The baby said, "Her's nice to me." Ok then, I said. Knock it off already. I reminded her that tomorrow I don't have to work and we are going to church and then to the zoo with Auntie R. I called my mom a little while ago and everything was fine, as always. The baby was happily playing and dancing "The Chicken Dance." She is behaving a lot better this weekend, which is good for her b/c as we all know I am at my absolute outer limits these days. Maybe this time she'll even get to keep her toy from the kids' meal I'll bring her at lunchtime in a little while!

Nutty times

I met L. immediately when I got off work last night. She is staying at J.'s house for the weekend, which is in central Houston. We went to Candelari's, a very nice pizza place owned by the uncle of a drummer friend of mine, that I have always wanted to check out AND is literally across the street from J.'s apartment! It was worth the wait. I had a big frozen peachy bellini and the 12" Chicago-style sausage pizza. I ate 3 1/2 huge slices. Later L. ordered me a big frozen strawberry daquiri with a shot of rum in it. She was drinking double southern-comforts-on-the-rocks. We had a great time!

Next, we decided to meet M. over at the Continental Club to see Beetle, my friends' Beatles cover band. The guy who runs the parking lot recognized me as G.'s friend and did not charge us for parking, which was very cool. The CC was packed for a Thursday night, but the band is awesome so no wonder. We sang along and danced and had a hoot. L., who is newly divorced as of 2 weeks ago, talked to some guys and gave out her number. Mr. B, the father of 2 musician friends of mine including one of the members of Beetle, was there and we hugged and caught up a little.

After Beetle quit playing at 10, M. said we should go to the blues jam at Dan Electro's, which is where I, in fact, became a blues musician lo these many years ago. I hadn't been there in eons so we headed over there, singing along to The Band, natch, in the car at the top of our lungs. (As we were leaving the CC in the parking lot, El JP [see his blog link at right] was arriving w/his friends! Small world.) Dan's had a pretty good crowd going there as well, and I saw several old friends which was nice. Someone put my name on the list to play (I knew they were going to do that) and I figured what the hell, and we settled in to watch some blues jammers. L. met another guy and brought him to our table. Around midnight though, after the same bassist had been up for 3 sets in a row, I decided not to wait around anymore and bade everyone goodnight, making sure L. had a ride home with a very decent guy. The jam nazi begged me not to go, and promised to get me up the next set, but he had his chance and blew it. M. had wandered away by now but I made sure to tell her goodbye before I left.

This a.m. I was pretty tired but last night was worth it. Now I've got another full weekend ahead of picking up the baby today, dinner tonight of leftover Candelari's pizza and tuna casserole that I made 2 nights ago, work tomorrow, and something fun on Sunday, either the zoo or the Chirren's Museum, spring break crowds be damned.

Hey everyone

Don't do what I did in the previous post. That turd could've shot at me, shot me, whatever. You never know, and I did not have my gun out and ready at the time. I'm not mentally well these days. I probably should call in sick for about a week. Don't let road rage get to you at all. It's not worth it and like I said, it's their karma, not yours.

OK, that's it. I've had it!

...but rather than spontaneously combust all over the place, I will blog and get it off my chest. Then tonight I will meet L. for pizza and a beer. Seriously though... I am OFFICIALLY at my limits now.

I had a bad road rage incident earlier today while I was out after teaching a class at the bookstore down the street. I was on the phone, talking to L., and the 2 road lanes merged into one. I was in the right lane, just minding my own business, when this old white Buick behind me and to the left ignored the merging lanes and ignored that I had the right of way and came veering almost into my car so he could squeeze past like a total asshole!!! I couldn't believe how close he came to my car and I had to brake or we would've collided indeed. I was so incredibly pissed I leaned on my horn and shot the finger at him for about 10 seconds. I never do things like that b/c traffic morons are everywhere and as long as they don't hit you, it's best to just let them go. After all, it's their karma. But I am not in a mentally healthy state of mind these days, as we all know, and that was the last straw. So asshole pulled over to the right and opened his door. "Oh, good," I thought, "Let's get down! I'm armed!!!" (And I'm a much better shot, I guarantee.) I drove closer thinking I could at least squeeze past him, but he leaned out and looked at me. He was young, black and had gold teeth. I put my hands up like, "What???" He got back in his car and we moved forward. He moved in the left lane and I drove up past him to the red light. As I passed him I looked over at him. He had his window down and HE THREW SOMETHING AT MY CAR which hit and bounced off. Oh, that was it. I called HPD to report a road rage incident, ID'd myself as a sheriff's deputy, and started following him, giving the dispatcher his license and description. I followed him for a couple of miles to the freeway. He threw more trash out of his car behind him towards me. Then he pulled into a McDonald's parking lot. I stayed a little bit behind in case he did have a gun--you never know in Texas! He stopped for a minute, then reversed so we were side by side and rolled down his window; I rolled mine down. He said, "Why you followin' me?" I showed him my badge and told him he'd thrown something at my car and that I'd called HPD and they were on their way. He said he didn't throw anything at my car. I said yes he did, and he could either stay here and wait for HPD or he could run. He thought about it for a second, then rolled up his window and headed down the freeway feeder. I followed and dispatch called me back and I gave them our new location.

He headed toward the freeway ramp, but then changed his mind and stayed on the feeder and took the next right. By this time he was pretty far away and I was more calm and was losing my will to fight so I pulled over into a gas station and waited for the HPD cop to show up. While I was waiting a tow truck driver pulled up to me and asked if I was ok. I forget that all those guys have scanners and listen to everything! I said yeah and sent him on his way. The truth is I had called L. to give her an update and I was about to totally lose it. But I knew I had to be calm when HPD showed up so I sucked it up and stayed strong. When the HPD cop got there I told him everything, and he ran the car's license plate. It came back as being owned by State Farm, so there were a couple of things wrong there. In the end, he asked me what I wanted done, but there truthfully was nothing to be done at that point except to go looking for the guy, and HPD has better things to do since my car was not, in fact, damaged at all. The cop, who was an older man, kindly and nicely warned me about the hazards of flashing my badge like that, which I will not list here b/c I don't want to just give information like that out to everyone, and I realized I better take his advice in the future. I guess I was thinking that since it is a crime to flee when detained by a peace officer who witnessed you in the commission of a crime, they could do something about that, but like always, these things are so pick-and-choose.

Anyway, looks like I will not be seeing L. for awhile as she has a 1-way ticket away from here and is leaving next week, so I am going to meet her tonight at a pizza parlor that I have always wanted to go to. Although I hadn't planned on spending any $ on eating out this week--I better go b/c I've got to have at least one sliver of light in this current dark nightmare that is my life lately.

Ok, maybe it's not that bad. But I really don't know how much more I can take. I was thinking today though, after leaving the HPD cop, that someone possessing less fortitude than I have been gifted with would've snapped by now for sure. And all I've done to deal with it all is eaten lots of ice cream, cake, chocolate, and I had to have an Icee yesterday.

Weary

I have felt weary and worn down all week and it's only Wednesday. I should've gone running with Tito J. on Monday night but S didn't want to go, so I decided to stay home and play Jeopardy with him instead. Unbelievably, he won. This just goes to show how I'm feeling lately. Most of my bad mood is due to mental distress, thanks to me feeling like I'm on the verge of leaving Job #1 and trying to figure out what to do about it--and when. Our court case looms large over the next few months and if I only had some dates that we could work with I'd feel better. Our lawyer says we should be able to get the dates on Tuesday when we have Enforcement Hearing Part 2, so we'll see.

Yesterday before going to Job #2 I managed to swing by the hospital to see my grandfather and I brought him a get well card. There's a certain dollar store nearby that sells very nice greeting cards, 2/$1.00! Man, I'll be going back there. He seemed to be doing ok and said he wasn't in any pain.

Last night I wanted to do something nice and told my immediate colleagues at Job #2 that they could leave as soon as the last patron exited the building, so they all scrambled away by 8:35! Meanwhile, I was stuck there until 8:55 b/c the circ staff always dawdles around, but who cares. I spent time in the biography section, mentally making a list of the books I'll read next if I ever finish up these O.J. Simpson trial books, of which I have 4 or so left. I did recently interrupt the O.J. books to read Out of Control, a badly-written paperback of the Clara Harris fiasco.

S got a voicemail from someone yesterday claiming he needed to call him regarding a legal case. He sicced me on them, and when I called the 1-800 number back, come to find out it's a collection agency following up on one of his many old debts from years ago. They told me they were going to take him to court unless he took their settlement offer. I asked them if they were in Texas and they said no, they're in Cincinnati. Ha ha! Good thing I listen religiously to Dave Ramsey. They said he could pay off a much lower amount but that the only way they could do that was if we gave them access to our bank account so they could take payments automatically. I said, "Oh, that won't be happening. We'll get back to you." Which we won't!!! Not that I'm being evasive, but they can't get blood from a stone and S has no funds to pay this off. And I'm not liable since it was not my debt! And they can take him to court all they want but in Texas, wages can only be garnished for 3 things: child support, spousal support, and student loan repayments. Also, your home cannot be touched in TX either. Good thing I know the law, huh? Dave Ramsey says these people are all full of hot air and lies anyway and yes, they pretty much are.

I must be tired. I usually enjoy a good fight with idiots, but these days, I am just so tired of fighting with so many idiots. Honestly, I don't know how much more I can take. I need some kind of rejuvenation. I will admit, it has been very therapeutic to write my letter of resignation to Job #1, so it's ready to go, and clearing out my office of personal items more and more each day. Also, I sent off another resume yesterday to another job that caught my eye.

I'm also bummed out to hear of a really bad divorce one of my best friends is going through. Now it seems they are going to go through a nasty custody battle, too. He is going to do this to her just to be evil b/c he has a criminal record including domestic violence but his wealthy stepdad is going to fund him just for the fun of it. Sick. Sick. Sick.

INSOMNIA

It strikes again. My mom called me around 2am to tell me that my grandfather had fallen down so my aunt was taking him to the ER. So then I couldn't sleep anymore, thinking about what a miserable experience a middle-of-the-night trip to the ER is. I've had one of those myself. So I was up from 2-5. Fortunately A Fish Called Wanda was on, so I watched that. Arthur was also on, one of my all-time favorites, and I clicked back and forth even though I have my own copy. Arthur is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen. I always laugh out loud when he says, "He's taking the knife out of the cheese. Do you think he wants some cheese?"

This a.m I found out my grandfather was being admitted. I might try to swing by the hospital tonight before Job #2 if I can. I just hate that my hated aunts might be there.

Spoke to S yet again about what does he want to be when he grows up. I just have a hard time believing there's a real future with any decent salary at Harley Davidson. They have said they're going to do 3 things that would benefit us, and none of the 3 things have happened so I'm burned out on them. We had thought about massage therapy, but that will not be good for S's body, as bad as his back and neck are. Firefighter will also be rough on his body. Today's new idea is for him to get a degree in Kinesiology and be a gym teacher. I looked at the course outline at UH and it just made me tired, thinking of all those classes to take, English and whatnot. Of course, I'm not the one that's going to be taking them, but still.

I'm considering applying for a job at the Constable's office. Well, I'm really considering applying for cop jobs just about anywhere. I'm even considering the school librarian route, but I will need state teaching certification and I don't know how to go about getting that. And L., whose mom is a school librarian, won't call me back so I can ask her and I'm pi$$ed at her now!!!

As Delbert McClinton sang, "I'm having a real bad day."

Oooh! Today I saw my vocal cords

I saw the ENT this a.m. and he put a long, skinny tube with a camera at the end of it into my nose and all the way down to my vocal cords and trachea! While he was doing this I got to watch the whole thing on a big tv he had wheeled over next to me. Man--medical science is wicked. I got to see where my tonsils used to be and also my soft palate and when he got to the vocal cords he told me to say "Eeee" and I got to watch them vibrate. I cannot tell you how fascinating it was!!! Also he told me to snore and I watched the soft palate vibrate like mad.

So it seems I am indeed a candidate for getting the pillar procedure done. HOWEVER... this is not covered by insurance. They seem to believe that habitual snoring is a cosmetic issue and so I will have to cough up the $1500 fee all by myself. Not happening, at least, not this year. But while he was snaking that long tube through my nose he pointed out that my septum is slightly deviated, and he also pointed out my humongous turbinates. He even had a hard time getting the tube past them! So Option B is that they can shrink down my hideously large turbinates, which is an in-office procedure, covered by insurance, and will also help me breathe better through my nose. Option C is a mask that I can wear while I sleep attached to a machine, but it may not be covered by insurance and also, I will need a sleep study for that. I chose the turbinate procedure for now, and hopefully that might help the snoring a little bit. It's scheduled for April 2.

If not, maybe I'll look into those Australian drops that J. used on her hubby!

I had a great time patrolling on Saturday. I was with this fun deputy whom I'd met a couple of years ago. I remembered him b/c when we met, he called me "Coffy Brown." It wasn't until later that I saw the movie Coffy and got it! But anyway, we had one arrest which was highly amusing, a POM (possession of Marijuana). I will probably ride with this deputy again in a couple of weeks. He does the 7am-3pm shift which is not too bad.

After patrol, I went straight to J.'s house for her fiance's b-day party. I let myself in the back gate where the party was being held in the backyard and someone said to J., "Are you getting raided?" Hardy har har! I had a change of clothes with me so I slipped into something more comfortable, then ate a bunch of chip/dip, hot dog, hamburger, cupcake. I met a lot of people who will also be involved in the upcoming wedding, so that was nice.

Bad tax news: As bad a week as I had last week, you'd think I coulda left well enough alone, right? But no, I had to do our taxes on Friday evening after work. According to TurboTax--where all I do is enter #'s--we owe $737. Too bad I'm not supposed to be cussing during Lent. I don't know how this happened, but I suspect Job #2 has at least something to do with it since they did not take out any taxes. Oh well, that's what the emergency fund is for. And another Mary Kay class got scheduled today, so that'll definitely help replenish the EF.

For real, TGIF

And not a moment too soon. This week has been lame. Fortunately, I had an enjoyable time last night attending the authors' reading at the Barnes and Noble from hell. This was for the new anthology Hecho en Tejas, or writings of Mexican-American writers from Texas, and it was an SRO crowd and the readings were followed by music from the Conjunto Aztlan. My mom and stepdad were there, and we saw several friends in attendance as well. On the way home I had a nice, brief conversation with my long-lost pal L., who lives in Austin. When I got home S was watching wrestling. I marveled at how funny it was that I had just attended a cultural, erudite, high-brow authors' reading and now I was watching wrestling.

Tonight I get to attend a Pampered Chef party at Tito J.'s house. I love their products, and I'm sure will be tempted to buy something especially now that I'm getting more and more into home-cooking, but S's car cost us yet another $250 yesterday (bad water pump). And now that I'm trying to find another job, I'm especially concerned with keeping reserve finances. (On the other hand, I did get $3 knocked off the grocery bill w/coupons the other night!)

Tomorrow I have to patrol but I don't know what time yet. I'd like to go to a party at J.'s house, it's for her fiance's b-day. She called me yesterday so we could compare notes on being "Alpha women" and the challenges that it brings.

On Monday I am going to attempt to give S his next anniversary present. I am going to see an ENT who does a procedure to stop snoring. He inserts 3 little pillars into the soft palate to stiffen it up so there is minimal vibration that causes snoring. I hope I am a candidate for this procedure and my allergies do not complicate anything.

My nice coworker gave me some old toys that used to belong to her daughter. She brought them in today and gave me a big train set that S will have fun putting together, and some miscellaneous little things. That made me feel pretty good!

Selling Woodrow note: So far lots of inquiries but no one has bit. We had our monthly sheriff's meeting the other night and 3 more folks asked about it. M. suggested taking him somewhere to put up on consignment. That will be a last resort. Meanwhile, me and Esteban gotta get ourselves to the range.

She is so stupid

P.D. (psycho director) just sent me a long, nasty letter saying that I let her down and to never do that to her again. Then she sent me copies of 4 letters to 4 potential project partners. They are the same letter, just name/address changed. One of the people is named Nora. One sentence in all the letters says, "We will be happy to work with Nora." Well, dumbass forgot to edit that sentence in the letter to Nora! Fool!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have gotten 3 calls so far to schedule Mary Kay classes this summer at the public library, which is awesome b/c I need the $ now more than ever, that's for sure. I hope more come in. Yesterday I submitted my resume to Rice U. with their police dept. Don't know how seriously I'm taking that one, but if they call me then I will definitely investigate the possibility.

I can't take care of M.'s dog anymore if that evil cat is going to be there. I had to do Rottweiler duty last night since M. had an overnight trip to Dallas. The cat was sitting in the foyer, waiting. I had my leather jacket as a weapon, and I shook it at Luke to shoo him away, but he did not budge and hissed and swiped back. I slapped the jacket on the floor near him to scare him away, and he, I swear to God, leaped through the air at me to attack me! I backed up, got the jacket between us, and slammed the front door shut between us. Meanwhile, M.'s house alarm was beeping and then it went off, so I just had to rush in there and pray that the cat wouldn't jump on me and bite me on the jugular. S says that M. likes Luke being a security cat. Well, I'm not dealing with him anymore.