Mohawk Squirrel

This guy's been hanging around my yard lately. I love his sense
of style!!

Consumer-Proof

Oh, no! Another rite of passage into old age!

Today I bought a new CD. When I left the store
and got into the car, I figured I'd give it a listen.

I had to fight with the plastic wrapping. After I
got past that, it was the curse of the "digipack":
the disc was locked so tightly into the package
that it seemed as if I'd have to break either the
package or the disc to remove it.

In fact, I couldn't get it out until I got home...
and even then I had to crack the plastic to
get the disc free. Nice.

It's the modern audio equivalent of the safety
caps pill bottles that only kids can open. How
many times did your parents/grandparents ask
you to open a bottle of pills for them?

Soon I may be asking my son to open my CDs
for me.....

Coincidentally....

This local gas station went out of business in the spring of 2001,
but the sign remains. Has your income gone up 150 - 200%
in the last five years? Someone's has......

Staking the Claim

In my quest to have more income (other than
what I can pry from the claws of club owners by
playing music), I decided to apply for....a...."real"...
don't panic now....JOB. Oh, my....

[**Did you know?....Sitting around the house making
cappuccino is not as lucrative as one might expect!?!**]

Well, the first order of business was to get my job
history in order, so potential employers could call
and find out that I really DID have some other work,
even if WAS in the dark, distant past.

It wasn't that easy. The last company where I had worked
had changed its name slightly, just enough to throw me off the trail for
a day or two. I think changing the name of your company was
"required" around the year 2000, to give the illusion of being
"modern". As if the name change wasn't enough to hide the place
from me, it was also government work, on a government property....
so the address wasn't exactly "out there" for public consumption.
I think they started doing THAT around 2001.

I actually NEVER found it listed anywhere. I did find a branch
office about 800 miles away....I called them to tried to get through
to personnel, but they wouldn't talk to me. Hmph. Talk about
security...

Then, suddenly, I remembered one of the phone numbers.
Wow...how was THAT still floating around in my head??
I called, and of course got the wrong person...but I was
in the building, so they transferred me to personnel.

So now I know where I used to work.

The woman I talked to actually remembered me, after almost
seven years. I had only worked there three. I told Mrs. L,
"Becky from the Personnel Department still remembers me.
Apparently I made quite an impression."

Mrs. L replied, "She probably had a 'thing' for you."

Ah, Mrs. L.....still aggressively staking her claim after 17 years.
You've gotta love that!

Once Again, Nasty?

My brother's 51st birthday was earlier this week.

On Saturday a bunch of us went out for dinner.
I handed my brother an envelope with a birthday card
in it.

It was a golf-themed card that said "Welcome to the back
nine."

I had crossed out the "nine" and written in "five". Mrs. L
said "that was just.....nasty".

The phone rang yesterday. I answered it and my brother
said, "FIVE?? So you you're saying I've only got about
25 years left?"

I said, "Hmm. It took you until NOW to notice, and
you're still off...? I guess the math skills are the first
thing to go."

But....I'm not nasty.

Familiar Story

I watched a documentary called "Venom" the other day.
The show talked about the harvesting of snake venom
to create medicines.

During one segment, the researchers
were out at sea on a small boat, shining a spotlight on
the water. When they spotted a snake in the water,
they would net it, get it to bite a venom-collection tube
and then release the animal back into the sea.

It made me wonder about the stories snakes would
tell.....

"I was just skimming the surface of the water, minding
my own business. It was very dark. All of a sudden,
there was a blinding light from the sky. Before I
could react, a giant net came down from the sky
and transported me to some kind of alien craft.

The aliens were very strange looking - they had multiple
extensions on their bodies. One of the aliens used
one of these "extensions" to hold me tightly by the
neck as it forced me to give a venom sample.
When I had no venom left to give, I was suddenly
transported back into the water.

The bright light moved away, accompanied by a
loud whirring sound."

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