This is why I didn't date as a teen

Pioneers don't make hot dates

Often as a teen, I wondered why I seemed to be un-date-able. Why did it take till age 17 for a first kiss and date? Why did I never go to prom? Why didn't guys check me out?

I now ask myself....why did I even have to wonder? Granted I did not dress like a pioneer at school. However, barely brushed butt-length hair, no make-up, overalls, boy's shoes, un-matched patterned socks (it's September...one pink Easter bunny sock and one rainbow polka dot sock? yes please) and a shimmery silver velvet top...geez was I too hot for the boys? Yeah. Add in painful shyness and my fate was signed, sealed, and delivered into high school social outcast. I just did not "get" it.

Sure I had friends, and every person who ever knew me said I was a smart, sweet, wonderful girl. But in high school, being "weird", creative, smart, sweet, are not dating qualities. I refused to stoop to the level of throwing myself at guys and wearing a pound of makeup and scanty clothing. I just did not see a middle ground there.

You might think I'm looking back at myself here in a negative light, like, "what a lame freak I was" but not quite. More just, "here is the reality of why you didn't date" and the other reality that the super cool kids, the cheer and football captains and stuff, their highlight of life was high school. It still is. They are still acting like it is 10th grade in their 30s, which makes them to look like the "lame freaks" nowadays. I had a student back when I taught elementary who was the social outcast, very creative, wore weird clothing and came from an odd family dynamic. She of course was teased a lot, and I wrote all my students a "you will do great in middle school" letter at the end of the year. I told her that her unique personality would likely not be accepted until college or later, but to not let that kill her spirit. She would become someone amazing as an adult and the world needs more "hers" out there. A lot of bloggers are these "weird freaks" that take a creative unorthodox approach to life and just imagine guys, if you lived a normal life. If you still pined away for the crazy drunked party at Ashley's house 15 years ago, you still looked at pics of Brock the high school stud muffin, imagine if you placed this high school world energy into your children like those dance and pageant moms on TV. Just imagine if in your own little head, life was still solely about looking hot (as wrinkles appear), listening to cool music (Bieber? No.) and knowing all the celeb gossip and...that is all. Nothing more. How....lame. I'm glad I'm different. Were Thomas Jefferson, Einstein, Rosa Parks, etc the most popular of popular teens/ I bet not. It is us weirdos that make the world awesome.

Oh and hubby saw this pic and was not repulsed. That is why he is awesome and I love him very very much.

heil homeowners ASSociation

I hate our HOA. HATE IT and so does my husband. But he likes to mess with them, tee hee. I think we get more violation notices than the rest of the community put together. We are the bad boys on the block, with our trash cans out an extra day, a dandelion on the lawn, an unpainted satellite wire, and an RV parked for teo days. I know. I am such a rebel and bad influence, you should stop reading my blog since I just provided some terrible neighborhood degradation ideas.

When we got a letter (or three) about our satellite cable not matching the house, we knew it could just be painted with the house paint. Hat is the fun in that? So hubby calls them, worried about the environmental impact and structural integrity of house paint on a wire. The HOA went and spent months researching this sh1t. So we got away with a mismatching cable and made them waste time and money. Hubby also asked them about their constitutional right to tax us without representation .so they created a board of local residents and asked him to join, which of course he didn't.

We just got a notice for our lawn. Our renters decided to not water the lawn for two months, in the SW USA blazing death summer sun. They are gone and left us with a dead lawn. It is mostly perfect now albeit for a few patches of moist soil where the watering alone could not remedy, so there is grass seed. You can see seeds and sprouts but guess what? We have a threat of a lien and hearing date on our property. Seriously. Over maybe enough seedy dirt to be the size of a door mat, in an entire yard. No joke

You cannot have an RV, boat, trailer, quad or vehicle with a sign (ie Joe Bob's Construction) on it. We live in the white trash mecca of the state, most every female resident has skunk hair and a tramp stamp and every male a jacked up pick up ,quad, and 24 pack of cheap beer. Did the HOA not do a study of the surrounding area when coming up with these laws? And then.....more about landscaping. We are told which plants to plant, to create a "local mountain feel". You know, with Kentucky and Bermuda grass, Australian pines, Indian pepper trees, and African daisies. Local mountain my arse. Where are my live oaks, junipers, ragweed, and thorny bushes? They did not have an answer to that. I just planted some cosmos and I am waiting for that letter. Hey HOA b1tches, cosmos are native to the foothills of Mexico and SW USA so there. And besides  back to my lawn here....the many foreclosed homes have dead lawns, no problem. The golf course is riddled with dandelions. No problem. But if a paying resident has the slightest issue, it is like WWIII. With a million in funds just sitting there, the HOA can afford to weed the golf course or lay off its residents.

See, I hate illogical-ness.  Why should I have to fix my yard but the HOA property is exempt? Why is a African daisy considered mountain local and cosmos not? Why can't I ride my bike on the course? See, a few years ago I rode my bike on the paved paths through the golf course. Suddenly a cart was coming up on me like nobody's business, yelling and shaking fists. Sigh. I had broken the code again. Apparently I could not ride the bike because "you could get hurt by a flying golf ball." I pointed out that I paid my dues which include the golf course, and what if I had had golf clubs with me? The angry man just reiterated his golf ball scare tactics at which point I asked, how is it any different, a golf cart, or on foot, vs a bike? Don't you care for the safety of the golfers? Are the flying balls going to swerve past the golf carts and on foot golfers just to hit the biker? Thr angry man did not seethe logic in my questions and it served only to infuriate him even more to where he threatened to call the cops and began herding me like a sheep to the exit, as I screamed, "the cops eon't do a thing, I paid my dues,I belong here". Why then, did I leave? I had been engaged to hubby but a week or teo and decided if an angry horde of golf carts surrounded his house, golf clubs shaking violently, calling for my head on a stake, he might not wish to marry me.

Hiring Sald Tossers ROTFLMAO

I was looking for jobs and found this:

That is all. My South Park sense of humor is happy. Salad Tosser. (sorry it is such a small pic)

They make me stabby

I want to like Australians. I even have a long-time pen pal who now lives there I probably have distant relatives there, since the prisoners and like of the UK (ie all my family) often got shipped there. Why the hate? The F%##ing Wiggles. They make me exceptionally stabby. Their songs get stuck in my head at the worst times, ie 3am insomnia, or "hey honey want a little wink wink nudge nudge" or other time...well, all the time. ALL THE F&##ing time. The music.... Fruit salad, yummy yummy, fruit salad, (stabby stabby), that Teddy Bear song (dude stop waking the teddy or he will go feral!), Toot too chugga big read car, (hope you get encased in tar...)

The characters, The narcoleptic guy (what is the point of this...to poke fun of a disability, or encourage toddlers to constantly wake your arse up?) what gives? The supposed "hot' guy who looks like he wears eyeliner (and sorry I cannot get hot and bothered to a man in a colored leotard who acts like he ate a bottle of prozac and had a lobotomy). And Captain Feathersword? I have nothing against gay people, but seriously that name has got to be in gay porn. The cheesy 1950s colors and dances and a reality...I never ever ever want to be a part of. I hate the Wiggles. And for that, I'm trying NOT to hate Australia or Australians but the Wiggles are ruining it for me. And don't get me started on bald Canadian kids, with whiney entitlement issues (Caillou), and thank God there aren't any real purple dinosoars to add to my list of misanthropic banishment.

does this make my feminazi look big?

So I have been called a tom boy. As an insult. I rarely wear makeup, never have had or desired a manicure, care less about celeb gossip, and as a kid, preferred playing war, trucks, and climbing trees to barbie dolls and makeovers. Although I suck at and don't understand sports.

Anyways, I was putting my son's crib together and my niece says, "good job aunty, for a female". I about sh1t myself. A nine year old already believing women do not put stuff together, apparently. Oh and I shock that side of the family cause I not only assemble cribs, but wiis, and shovel snow and mow the lawn, take the garbage out, paint walls, and garden. I know, like, and Im a woman right? F$%king amazing huh.....sorry, had to rant, call me a feminazi if you like but I believe in equality. Don't sit watching soaps while the men sweat their arses off, I mean, really .

I caught stupid

So we are pulling into the grocery store and a BMW pulls up full of young guys straight out of Jersey Shore except that I live nowhere near Jersey. One says, in a wannabe Jersey accent "yo yous gonna get some alcohol? Get me a bottle, huh, was gonna drink tonight but yous better drink wit us". Again, straight out of Jersey.

So my family and I walk into the store, past these fine examples of humanity and I start coughing. Being asthmatic, I know hubby is about to tell me to use my rescue inhaler  so as he begins to open his mouth, I blab out, perhaps a bit too loudly between coughs, "I think I just caught stupid". This is why my hubby loves me.

Adventures in Employment and Wow! I can do that.

So. I went to the temp agency today and I feel good about myself, as they WILL have a job for me. After almost a year and a half without a job or really any promises, you don't know how great that feels.

However, while it was a positive experience and I have not felt this positive, happy, yeah me since God knows when, it was an interesting, foreign experience.

I applied to teach pre-school. Sure, it was my first job ever, at 19, as a summer job. So I would have done every bit of education, training, money spent, jobs performed, just to go back to doing what I did, not needing all that I, well, did. But it turns out I need 24 ECE (Early Childhood) units, of which I'm shy some. Heck, sure, I have a freaking Master's degree in education, a credential that authorizes me to teach Pre-K (plus two more) and experience buuuuut without those units, since it is federally funded pre-school, too bad. Not qualified.

So anyways, I walk in and some kid in line (ok probably in his early 20s. Kids these days! Get off my lawn you whippersnapper). His interview is before mine. Good luck, dude, with your backwards baseball cap and pot-leaf t-shirt. Really? Seriously?


I took some competency tests and felt like one of my students, taking some "stressful test" along with students....weird...I was suddenly 18 again, felt weird suddenly doing stuff my past students do, along with them. I took an excel software test and got very frustrated and wanted to shake the pc violently because it allowed one way to do something. In excel, there is almost always more way than one to some something, so a program that only accepts one way is annoying, I got a crappy score but know I can do what it asked me, just differently. Grr.

I impressed the heck out of the staffing agency, but it was kind of depressing too..they said, "wow...a BA? Oh, my and a MA degree?" Yes. Yes and I am looking at jobs that do not pay $50 an hour or what have you because I need a job and, well, my ideas of education do not go well with the education industry since I go against the grain, think outside the box, to help kids.

Then they asked these confusing questions like, "do you want full time, part time, temporary fill-in or temp to hire?" Umm, all. All. Because jobs are awesome. Experience is awesome. And "do you want a job that is casual, business casual, semi professional or professional?" Umm, again, check all. But they wanted just to check one box. Having only really worked in the bubble world of education (minus 4 days at a restaurant, the only job I was ever fired from, 5-8 hours a week for a year as a secretary/archivist in college, and a few weeks, here and there hours stocking books...) its like, I don't know what I want. I'm a quick learner and want to see what the world has to offer.

So we will see. It takes about a week to find out anything. I can accept or decline any job they suggest, but of course it is best to not decline a bunch.

I liked the staffing organization and felt so good about myself.

I do not want to leave my sweet little boy in day care, but he is nearly 2 years old and I'm ready to be a grown up in the world of work again.

Oh and today I  learned I can type 58 wpm if I really try, and walk/jog 5k, in 44 min, without having done any exercise for 5 years. I mean 44 min isn't that great but with no prep? No exercise really, for 5 years? 44 min is darned good. I don't really even want to set a goal, "5k in 25 minutes" or whatever cause I despise running and really, my goal was, can I do it? Not, "how fast?". It's more..a baseline....okay I can do it in 44 minutes, can I do that at least once a week? That's the kind of goal I'm going for. I just want to tone some had-a-kid-gravity-after-30 flab (girl, you are not flabby, you look like you never had a kid! Well, what, a skinny0ish girl can't want to be fit and healthy?) and for cardio (I mean, cardio is good for you). I also need to do some weight training crap to strengthen my chest and back to help with my scoliosis and asthma. I am NOT looking forward to that. The treadmill was kind of fin. Lifting weights is soo boring, it feels like...doing laundry....too methodical or something, I dunno.... I can space out, rock out to music, whatever on the treadmill. Lifting weights, I have to focus on counting reps and breathing through the pain and standing correctly and I can't rock out or space out which removes any bit of pleasure or motivation.
But never the less, Go me! Today is a good day.

The crazy neighborhood superhero

So we drive home today, pull into the driveway, and hear, roooowr! A cat screech. OMG I think, did we run over my little stray kitty, Gypsy?

Turns out,thank God, we didn't. But I saw some huge black and white cat on the fence across the street, cornering poor little Gypsy. He had to be twice her size, and MEAN. I ran towards them, trespassing on lawns, screaming at him, my son in my arms, and he didn't even flinch. I found a teeny pebble and threw it his direction (of course I'd miss, I'm so blind I can't hit any target) and he moved, and Gypsy jumped off the fence towards me. Then he comes all kung fu style, flying over the fence at Gypsy so she runs across the street, him literally biting her tail, my son and I right behind. It had to have made a sight, two cats chasing each other, followed by a lady and her chocolate-ice-cream bearded infant son (who was incidentally cracking up about it).

I chased them back and forth, through people's yards, till Gypsy hid in a bush and Mr. Bully Cat ran across the street to try and pretend he was gone, but he was behind a bush....watching...until I screamed, "I see you! Go away" at which point I got on all fours and crouched in a bush making mew mew sounds.

Yep, I'm nuts. Or just being the neighborhood superhero again, having saved two dogs, a cat, and a baby.

Yes, a baby. So one day we're driving home and come around the bend and see something pink in the road. We drive to it since, well, we live past the pink thing. It is a baby. A baby. Well maybe....12,13 months? Just learning to toddle and walk but not steadily, walk, walk, fall, repeat. A Baby. In the street. So hubby stops the car sideways to block the road since a construction truck is hauling arse our way and I jump out and grab a little pink footie pj girl. I then think, great, what do I do with a baby? I mean, when you find a lost pet, you grab it, check its tags, put in your garage with food, water, and an old towel, and hope the owners answer their phone or respond to your "found pet" signs in the neighborhood, and you call the local shelter to see if anyone reported a lost pet. But a lost baby? I think CPS would come if I put her in the garage with an old towel and put up "found, baby" signs.

So I decide to go door to door, I mean, babies aren't like migrating whales, especially if they are just beginning to walk, they cannot go far. (Toddlers on the other hand....cheetah fast whale migraters). I don't recall if it was the fist, second, third door I came to but someone answered their door and here I am, holding a strange lost baby. "Excuse me ma'am, is this yours? I foud her in the street."  Ha ha ha. That might be one of the oddest lines I have ever spoken. The mom is on her cell phone, looks quite young, and seems more interested in chatting about American Idol or other pressing news than her child, but she kind of nods yes and then nods at me to say, put the baby over here. I stand there, dumbfounded, and she says, "oh, the garage, it was open."  (So apparently people do keep their kids in the garage with an old towel after all.) I wait for a tearful "thank you, you angel" or a panicked, "oh my freaking God you were in the street? I am sooo glad you didn't get hit, Oh my God oh my God". Nothing, Nada. I just placed the baby in the direction of her nod, mommy goes on chit-chatting, and I close the door.

Whoever the lost baby's family was, they moved out shortly thereafter and I never even thought, at the time, to call the officials to explain the baby in the street. I mean sure, it could happen, the baby walks out of sight and into the street. Trust me. I sadly know a baby that died that way. It happens in a split second no matter how careful the mother. But for the mom to not even bat an eye? That's what bothered me. Hell. I should have kept that baby because I seemed to actually care for her well-being.

And with that, I'm off to look for Gypsy and that mean cat again.  I need a cape darnit. A cape!

another not so funny but, good news maybe? ramble

I had a rant-filled post of unemployment and decided to rid of it.
I have applied for jobs like mad lately and applied to some temp agencies.

I I have an interview TOMORROW! woot woot! Pre-school...not my dream job but a job and something I can do as I have done it.

Remembering nine-evelen

I know most every American has thought back to where there were Sept 11 2001. So here goes.

I was in college and like any good college lop, I was in bed till....who knows, but I think I was up "early" that day, you know, 9am or so.

I think I went to the cafeteria for breakfast. No news, no mention of what had happened.

I came back to my WWII bunker (no joke, I lived in a bunker used for military housing in WWII) and my friend Amber (at http://getoffmyroads.blogspot.com/) had called me with the news. It seems kind of unbelievable, plus, I was still waking up.

I wanted to check the internet but my bunker only connected through much coding and geeking to the phone line and would only work maybe 1/5th of the time (since it was kind of an old fashioned not quite legal legit connection that the computer lab hooked up for me) and so, no internet. I also did not have TV except for the occasional Korean channel that would come in with much static, if I moved the bunny ears just so, and today was just static and no Korean. I went to get a newspaper and found the last one, but it seemed so unreal that I just stashed the newspaper in my dresser as a weird keepsake of a historical day and then forgot about it.

I hadn't seen an image or photo of 9/11 for a few days because then, everyone would snatch up whatever newspaper was available in the dorms before I got to them. We had students from around the world, so many were from near NYC. My internet was refusing to connect for some time, while the rest of the campus got a speedy high-tech T-1 connection.

I recall just last year watching a special on 9/11 and it gave me chills. See, after a few weeks of no real exposure to 9/11 right after the fact, and not knowing anyone involved (not even "Sally's brother's neighbor" or anything) and being so far away....all I kind of was exposed to was patriotism and the like. So when I watched the special and saw the planes hit- the first time I had EVER seen it (remember, after 9/11 people censored things, such a sensitive subject, with thousands dead, no one really wanted to show the footage) and hearing people's accounts...seeing rubble and maybe even people fall from the collapsing building, the people filming screaming and running, utter chaos and devastation... it was scary. But then I felt guilty for just now being really affected (effected? Might it be both?) by it, you know, ten years later.

Either way. People died then, people die now of hunger, war, etc and it isn't much fun. Geez that sounds trite but I just want to say, I have a unique memory of 9/11 and so...it is. It was a sad day for America and now we have people dying to fight for our freedom. Ignorance and power fuel evil and corruption and..I am rambling so I will stop typing and will be back to my regular, silly blogging soon. I just thought I had to tell about my 9/11 story because it just feels like the right thing to do.

when plants attack

I look like someone beat me up. I was attacked by a thorny rosebush, power drill, and a baby this week. Oh and a substitute phlebotomy person.

killer plant and leg o'shine

I have a nice huge scratch from the roses. I was trying to shut our possessed garage door when, in attempt to click in the code, I fell out of my shoe (don't ask. I'm the queen of clutz) and into a super thorny rose bush. I didn't feel much pain and so we drove to the street market 10 miles away and as I got out I was gushing blood. I took a pic post-op, hubby wiped off the blood with alcohol wipes and slathered enough neosporin on me to make me as reflective as a satellite, so if your tv went out last night, it was my leg. Sorry.

Then I don't have a pic but I was out in the garage, barefoot (cause why wear shoes in the garage? Carrying my son, when I grabbed the power drill and some duct tape. I came in and decided to exhibit my wacky sense of humor and look like some white trash armageddon chick, barefoot, baby, duct tape, power tools. As I went to brandish my tool (oh that sounds wrong) I stabbed my thigh with the drill bit. Ouch.

my ugly chin (yay for pink-white Irish skin!)
I circled where it is beginning to swell
and droop and get red(der).

Then today my son decided to head-butt me in the chin. It had barely swollen in the pic and it resembles something more umm private than a chin but I assure you it is my chin and you can see the beginning of the swell which I conveniently circled for you.

my green bruise from when my
vein tried to vacate my body
is fading, finally

Then I got a food allergy blood test and the phlebotomist (blogger does not know this word and my spelling prowess has weakened) was not..a phlebotomist. She was some kind of nursing assistant in optometry or something, they were short phlebotomists this week and I was her victim. I didn't feel much pain until the needle came out of my skin and MY VEIN ACCOMPANIED IT. I could feel this sluuuurp feeling as my vein attached to the needle and tried to leave my body and now I have a bruise. It is almost a week old so it is faded but it was a sickly creepy deep green.

And honest, I am NOT a hypochondriac but this month has just been full of medical oddities and the like. It's a Mayes family curse, as my mom was diagnosed with glaucoma this month, my grandma fell and laid on the floor bruised and worse, for 14 hours before someone found her, and my aunt has blood clots in her lungs and is in and out of the hospital. Argh.

There's a Shooter

A quote from my favorite social commentary err I mean reality show I mean....? from that gator huntin' show, "there's a shooter". Yep. Ima goin' ant huntin'.

 So here I am, nursing some two-buck chuck fine wine (yay for ear infections.....yes....adults get them, lucky me. alcohol might kill the pain or make me forget about it) and I see an ant in my kitchen. You bastards! I HATE ants. I used to have nightmares as a child of a wall full of ants. In high school I had a pile of girl magazines, you know, Cosmo, Teen Beat, in a box. I went to take some "does that hot hunk think your totally awesome flannel and bonne bell chap stick makes you date-able  quiz and holy f*#k ants. Not just ants but a NEST of CARPENTER ants. My dad, an ex biker, had to crush them between his steel toed "sh!t kickin'" boots...TWICE to kill those suckers. A nest. Full. of. huge. non-killable. ants. I screamed, threw the box out my two story windoe (nearly killing my dad who was outside in the process) and ran downstairs screaming and crying and my mom said "umm there's something on your shorts" and I whacked my newly shorn jeans-gone-shorts violently like a mad woman (it was only a loose string.) So today...back to today, well, tonight. I am nursing my glass of wine and see an ant. Then two. Where do they live? I have been putting down ant bait for two days, religiously, dawn and dusk outside, going out every few hours to relish in them stacked up like a creepy moving block of black exoskeleton nightmares, lapping up poison...yes...drink it...chug it!! die! And so I try and figure out, where do I leave poison in my kitchen? I watch them intently, stopping to itch myself, yay psychology, every few seconds. I sip my wine and watch. For 20 minutes. The same two ants wiggle around the same damned counter tile. For being intelligent creatures that leave scent trails and all, I found the village idiots. One wiggles with his butt to the tile in circles for ten minutes before joining the other, clicking antenna, and going back to the idiot dance. Then! Then! A new ant pops up and dashes to the florescent light. I think, you must live in there....but I'm too scared of a nest to open the light fixture, so I pour some poison nearby and wait... I pour another glass, realize I'm an alcohol wimp, pour it into the sink, check my bait (no ants, boo) and go off to blog.

crazy cat lady

Why yes, in my golf course, little boxes (song reference...look it up...little boxes....now!) Super strict Homeowners Ass. There was, at sunrise, a lady in monkey print pj shorts, a pink shirt smeared in old yogurt, barefoot, standing in the driveway meowing with her hands cupped like a megaphone, looking frantically (person not the megaphone hands)every direction, reeking of salmon.yep. that would be me. But my most likely stray kitty who comes to our door every night and morning and scarfs down all that we give her, was not at my door at sunrise and she has yet to learn her name (Gypsy, long story....) so meowing works. And you may now officially call me the crazy cat lady.