See you later Lila Mae

My grandma passed on Good Friday, a holiday weekend where everyone happened to be in town already--even her sister she hasn't seen in something like 20 years. Even then she only surrendered once my mom reassured her that the taxes were getting done and her rent was paid.

I can't help but be anxious not knowing where she is. She's not in her body, her body has been cremated; is she watching traffic from her seniors high rise apartment? Is she visiting her sisters or her mother (who is still kicking at 100)? Is she hanging around my mom's playing with my nephew? Has she already joined her husband in the great beyond? I'm on the lookout in case she visits me, I want to know if she's happy.

I feel tired and dried out. I can't be left alone without my eyes leaking all over.


-- Post From My iPhone

I carved a punkin tonight!

I like to take pics downtown

Columbus Day Snow

7am



Midday



-- Posted from my iPhone

Back to School!

Last night I had a dream I was getting ready to go back to school.  Except I was getting ready to go back to high school! I was like, I'm almost 35, shouldn't I be done with school? Won't I be the same age as the teachers?  I have my diploma at home, didn't I ever finish up that last gym credit?? I was so confused, wandering up and down the halls looking for my classrooms. It's been 16 years! Don't these dreams ever stop? I haven't had a naked in public dream for a real long time, is that one up next??

She's a Maniac!!

Who else thinks Sarah Palin is expriencing an unmitigated manic episode?  Irrational, unpredictable, impulsive behavior... Cryptic, rambling messages? Rationalizing her actions citing a "higher calling"?

 

I feel sorry for her family getting dragged through the media.  She claims she wants the media to lay off her family, but every time the media attention dies down, she does something crazy to get the spotlight pulled back in her direction.  We're more than happy to let her and her family slip back into Alaskan obscurity, but she won't go away. 

 

I love the GOP response to her up and quitting as governor: "risky strategy." They assume that there IS a strategy behind this madness.  A cliche beauty queen train wreck is not far ahead ladies and gentlemen; before long we'll be hearing about her visits to the hospital for "exhaustion and dehydration."  John McCain will live to rue the day her dredged her up from the tundra.

Minnesota Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Franken

Hey Norm Coleman--SUCK IT!

I Heart Chicago

I visited my sister in Chi-Town recently and my hubby took this pic off her rooftop patio. I am getting good at this artsy photoshop stuff.

I had so much fun! I got to go to an art fair in the Old Town district on Wells St, and the blues fest in Millennium Park. I would love to live there, provided I made enough money to live where my sister does! Living there in my current financial state is a frightening prospect...

BUT we're still pushing Hubby through his Electrical Construction program so we're on hold basically until he's completed his courses, then he said he would look for jobs in Chicago. Yes!! Normally he hates the big city, but this one has gorgeous buildings and a lot of history. His people are from Chicago... well, Waukegan anyway.

And they have functional mass transit! In Minneapolis it takes 12 years, lots of meetings and a freakin miracle to get any work done!! We have ONE light rail line and one more "in the works" even though people are protesting having the line go by their business. WHO in their right minds protests being RIGHT ON a mass transit line????? I live in an ass-backward state. I think it's because so many people are actually carrying their asses on the front side of their body that I think it does something to their thought process. Either that or they all REALLY DO want it but they are suffering from Defiance Disorder.

For example, the weekend we were in Chicago there were multiple events in a small area--the blues fest, rib fest, and two art fairs--that I knew about, but not one clusterfuck. Just ONE event in either Saint Paul or Minneapolis jams up the freeway for miles. Yes, I said "freeway," as in singular; i94 goes from the west end of Minneapolis all the way out past east Saint Paul going through BOTH downtowns. The bus? Worthless. Full of gun-toting hoods, loud drunks, and it slowly meanders through parts of town you never want to be stranded in! And they don't even go anywhere but to the shopping centers, so if you want to get downtown you have to transfer all over.

The contrast between the two cities' systems just made me so mad when I got back home. I just want to shake Pawlenty until his molars rattle!! But rather than risk the jail time, I'll either move or support the campaign against him in the next election.

This is What We Get

Everything you've heard about Minnesota is true. This is a pic I took this morning. April 5.  No 50s until Wednesday.  Ugh.

In Other News...

It is officially colder than a witch's teat (whose lowest recorded temperature was 5 degrees ferenheit in February of 1972) in Minneapolis.  Today it is 21 below zero, and with the wind chill factor feels like 41 below.  Comparatively then, Barrow, AK is 43 degrees warmer which technically puts it into the "warm vacation spots" category considering you generally will want to go someplace that's at least 40 degrees warmer.  Pack up the beach blanket and sunscreen kids, we're going to the arctic circle!!

Watch out for the post holiday crash!!

Economic Tips for Hard Times OR eat Your Heart Out Suze Orman

Even with the economy being in the dumps and jobs being scrapped in the tens of thousands per month, the company I work seems to be weathering all of this ok (knock wood/laminated particle board). I think all of their "margin improvement" strategies are paying off. Here are some things my employer is doing to save money:

Office supplies? What office supplies? It's BYO from here on out.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, literally.

No need to heat the bathrooms, we're only taking off our pants.

Two sick days have been revoked.

We are doing twice the work with half the staff.

I am doing my best not to drown in a sea of ennui regarding the economic blitzkrieg wrought upon us by deregulation and corruption (aka the subprime mortgage crisis). Here are some things I am doing to pitch in and do my part to shore up the economy:

I am spending (hemorrhaging) money like it is going out of style; new phones, new nails, Xmas presents, a TV, game system, and a massage.

I am taking a class so that I will be certified to take a second job wiping drooly geriatric chins (among other things) so that I can then throw my supplemental income directly into the failing auto industry and buy myself my own car.

I am helping to send my spouse through a technical training program for two years so that in the future he will be able to adequately participate in our spending frenzy.

"How," you ask, "Do you stay afloat with all that spending?" Glad you asked, my friend. It's called "debt," and anyone can get into it if they try hard enough--or even if they don't. It's a process by which you are allowed to take merchandise home that you have not yet paid for, without being prosecuted for shoplifting. My spouse and I, for instance, have in our possession many items that we have yet to pay for and we enjoy them very much. Even so, we do have a tendency to bring home new items before the previously acquired items have been paid for, which appears to be a mild side effect of "debt." The only time this practice becomes dangerous is when a member of the household is rendered jobless, in which case homelessness can ensue. Hence my concern around the financial health of my present employer...

Merry #%!+$@ Xmas! And don't eat the yellow snow!

The Crimiss is Coming!!!!!!!

Viva Pandora!

Is anyone else completely obsessed with Pandora Radio? Right now I am diggin' on some Portishead. I think later I will tune into some Dylan or Beck. This THING, whatever it is, is so smart it can, like, read my mind and knows what shit I like to listen to. Sweet jesus jelly beans I should send a fruit basket to their headquarters. (Mmmm fruit...)

 

Finally something makes me happy...

 

The sweet delerium of junk food is losing its power over me, so it's good to have a backup. Has anyone else gained a shit-ton of weight since around, oh, September 17th?? I for one am packing it on and I feel like a blob, I feel like those Mucinex characters from the snot commercials.

 

I would exercise if I had any ambition, but I am wiped out every day! I have to quit whining and just get back to work.... Easy to say while I am sitting on my ass in front of Facebook. Someone kick me, please.

Creepy Romance

Looks like Queen Hoochie of my suburb finally found a sweaty desperate middle aged white guy to call her own. She's been tossing her hair and giggling like a mental patient at every chubby balding asshole the whole time I've been riding the bus. Last month she honed in on this guy with one leg, and he wouldn't have anything to do with her. She's fairly dense and must have thought one leg=easy prey. But THIS guy, he can't get enough. He was glommed onto her with three points of contact the whole ride home tonight.

I was having fun imagining thought bubbles over their heads. His: "Like the moth to a flame, like the hairball to the carpet, I will hover tirelessly, never will you be able to scrub me off of you." Hers: "I pretend to be interested in you so that I do not drown in the abyss that once was my soul... or was it my vagina?"

I snapped a picture of them with my phone all sneaky and undercover like. Initially I had posted the photo after blurring their faces. I did that mostly so I can't be sued, but I'll tell you that I did it to salvage the last scrap of dignity that they were just going to plunder from each other anyway. Then officer Hubby read my blog and made me pull it down because he was freaking out over the subjects accidentally stumbling over it on the internet. Damn!

A Crass Thanksgiving

I am grateful:

...that I do not have to work holidays schlepping coffee, ringing up rich bastards' groceries, standing in the freezer counting pies, or re-hanging the same clothes over and over in a rank-ass fitting room.

...that I do not have to pay for my big screen TV till next year.

...that my hubby hacked my iPhone and I can modify the crap out of it.

...for my paycheck.

...that there's only 25 minutes till lunch.

 

If today were a person...

I'd punch it in the face!

Two Words...

FUCK YEAH!!!!!

VOTE!

For Obama, of course.  

Presidential elections make me anxious.  They didn't used to, but the last two elections were totally corrupt and left the Democratic candidates looking meek, impotent, feeble, incapable, and chickenshit.  Really, I am still so pissed I could throw the entire thesaurus in there and still not effectively express what I felt about the dems each time they conceded without fighting for a recount.  They didn't want to look like bad losers and hurt their political futures.  Well, Messrs Smartypants, nice job keeping up the momentum. See you soon on VH1's Where are They Now?

 

SO right now I'm a nervous wreck because I feel like the Republicans are going to pull out their bag of dirty tricks to help Maverick the Marionette and his pet Princess Prissy Pants of Weirdotown, Alaska. One possibility I can hope for is that the GOP might not be as fevered about McCain who is running on their ticket and at the same time insisting that he is against much of what they stand for.  But then again, he is still an aggressive proponent of the upward redistribution of wealth disguised in business growth rhetoric that the GOP loves so much.  

Tonight I'm staying up late to watch all the coverage and I took tomorrow off work so I can sleep in a little.  I like to watch the numbers roll in and I hope they run in Obama's favor!