FlipSide:Starting October 15, 2001

A journal of the trials, tribulations, and triumphs in the life of a woman in the 21st century.

Had a productive weekend. John and Todd got together on Saturday and did the brakes on both our cars. Apparently my car (1993 Eagle Vision TSI) was much easier to do since it had 4 wheel disc brakes than John's 1990 Ford Tempo with a more traditional drum and brake shoe assembly on the back tires. It took them all day, with Jack and Rhiannon playing with the Brotherton kids and Maggie and I shooting the breezes as I followed her around as she did her housework. (Honestly, I offered to help!)

Sunday was spent running all the errands that we normally do on Saturday, plus a stop at the library. Every fall we stop at the local library and pay the fines that we accumulated when we used the library the winter before (hey, they have to make money somehow, so we are doing a public service by not getting our books back on time!)

Monday was an interesting day at the office. First of all, the state workers' strike was over, so I didn't have to worry about crossing picket lines to get to my office. At our monthly staff meeting, we were told we would be served lunch, as we had a lot of territory to cover. And a guest speaker . . . Elvis. You see, 3 of our coworkers turned 50 this year, so the senior staff thought it would be fun to have Elvis come in and serenade the lovely ladies (who were "encouraged" to don pink poodle skirts and scarves for the occasion. One of the ladies, Mary, felt the need to point out, for the record, that poodle skirts were in when she was in 5th grade.) Lunch was hamburgers, french fries and chocolate shakes. Not too shabby. Makes me wonder what they are going to do to top this, bring in a Prince impersonator for the 30something birthdays?

I finally got John to download the pictures from our sojurn (sans John) to Iowa to help my Mom recover from surgery. Really, we helped. Jack didn't unplug the oxygen even once. He didn't even bump her sore knee. Rhiannon, of course, hovered over Grandma and cuddled, as she always does.

	While we were at my mother's, Jack went spelunking in her storage closet, which happened to be in the bedroom we were occupying. In it, he found some of my Dad's old Army stuff. Dad served in the First Cavalry in Korea (Company D, I think). I didn't know that Regiments and the 1st Cav had their own yearbooks. Apparently they do. And Jack found them. The kids got a kick out of seeing Grandpa Kenny as a skinny 21 year old. Also in that closet were Dad's old uniforms. In fact, I used to wear them as jackets when I was in high school. I can remember when he caught me going to band practice with his dress uniform jacket on, with his sharpshooter pin still on it. He threatened to skin me alive if I lost that pin. I didn't. However, you will notice it is no longer on the jacket.

Since my mom isn't going to be up to coming up here for a birthday party in the near future, we had one there on Saturday night. The kids are always delighted with whatever gifts they get. (Which always makes the gift giver feel good.) Jack was sooo very happy to collect 2 more football jerseys and a Shrek tee-shirt, along with a toy motorcycle and plane. Rhiannon was equally delighted with a pink velour sweatsuit, an angel bear teeshirt, jeans, and a pink flamingo.
	Bubble bubble toil and trouble . . . baths must be taken, even while at Grandma's.

However, for some, the results were better than others. After her bath, Rhiannon sat down to finish her homework. Jack, however, looked better before the bath.

	And then it was time to go. Rhiannon always cries when we leave Grandma. I kept telling her we would be seeing her in 2 months. We are going there for Christmas. She still sniffled until we reached Wisconsin (about 40 minutes from Grandma's). Jack was asleep before we were halfway to Dubuque (less than 30 minutes from Maquoketa).

Well, this is turning into way too much of a travelogue, so it is time for me to take my leave. Tata.

Okay, I have come to the conclusion that my husband can no longer complain I am dangerous. Or frightening. I have been trumped. I am merely meek and mild. How can I claim this, you ask? You have not met "Martha" (names changed to protect the non-supervisory -- jd). Today, we were discussing our lives at the office and, frankly, "Martha" has me beat, hands down, in the danger department. Allow me to provide some examples.

30 minutes before her wedding ceremony, "Martha" was on her hands and knees, scrubbing out her bathroom tub. When her soon-to-be spouse said that no one would notice if the tub was clean, she simply looked at him and said "I'll know." End of discussion.

"Martha" will wake up at odd hours, say 3 am, and decide, I don't like the bathroom anymore. So she gets up, strips the wall paper, and paints the bathroom a different color. Her husband gets up at his normal time, and blearily makes his way to the bathroom. And says, "It wasn't this color yesterday!"

"Martha" attended a seminar which was serving JOLT cola instead of Coke or Pepsi. (I don't want to know what kind of seminar it was that they felt the need for such a highly caffeinated substance to keep their attendees awake.) She had never encounter JOLT before, and thought it was just a generic form of Coke, so she drank three or four of them. (For those of you unfamiliar with JOLT, their advertising slogan used to be "all the sugar and twice the caffeine of ordinary sodas". We used to use it in place of "No Doze" when we needed to pull all-nighters in college.) So, "Martha" got home and felt . . . energetic, shall we say. So, she decided she would like the family room much better without that pesky wall. Her long suffering husband arrived home to find the remnants of a wall and a doorway in the garage. He cautiously poked his head down the stairs and asked, "Everything okay down there? Need anything?" "Nope, I'm fine." Okay then.

The topper was when she had a bad day at the office. My office. She drove home, and the branches of a tree in her yard rubbed against her truck, as it had been doing for some days. It was the last straw. "Martha" went into the garage, in her suit, and fired up the chain saw. And proceeded to remove the offending tree. Still in her work clothes. Her husband poked his head out the door and, wisely, again asked, "Everything okay? Need anything?" No way he was confronting an angry woman with a chain saw.

I can safely say that some people in our country have gone completely off the deep end. We have all heard stories of people harassing Arabs in the US after September 11. And, of course, now everyone is afraid of their mail since the anthrax cases have popped up. However, be careful who you mail your panties to. Apparently they can be perceived as a threat and a biohazard. Somehow I don't think this couple is going to make a love connection after this. (I am assuming the panties were unworn, but one never knows with some people. Maybe that is where the biohazard stuff comes in . . .)

I have perfected "the voice". That special cross between a growl and a roar that sends my children running back to their room before they even enunciate their accusations about each other. I can now add "the voice" to my repertoire that includes "the look". Now all I need to develop is "the touch", as in Midas, and we will be all set.

The major drawback to buying several pairs of jeans at the same time is that all they tend to all wear out at the same time. Like many women, I don't wear my jeans out someplace like the knee, where you can put a cute little patch on and call it a fashion statement. No, I wear them out on the inner thigh. The material just gradually gets thin in spots by the seam and suddenly, pink is showing where only blue oughtta be. So, tonight I had to go "emergency jeans shopping."

You see, I wear jeans to work, and I was done to only one pair of four that I could wear. Now, normally that would not constitute "emergency jeans shopping". But, as fate would have it, the only pair of jeans that didn't wear out was the pair with the large roses embroidered on the hip and down the thigh. You just can't get away with wearing them two days in a row and hope no one will notice. (Of course, John's reaction was, "So? I wear the same pair of jeans to work all the time." Yes dear, but people don't know they are the same jeans unless are so rank that they smell like a waterbuffalo's behind. Sigh. Men just don't get it.)

So, tonight after work, I head to Kohl's. I really REALLY didn't want to go jeans shopping. I haven't been very good about eating for the past few months, and I KNOW I have put on a couple of pounds. And I REALLY didn't want to buy a larger size. But, it was EMERGENCY jeans shopping. With great trepidation I head for the jeans in the Misses section and grab my old standby Lee Riders Relaxed Fit. In my current size 18. (Yes, a woman who admits her size in a public forum. I only do it because it used to be soooo much larger. And I wear smaller sizes in dress pants and shirts. Why is that, by the way? Why do you always have to buy jeans a size larger than all other clothes? I have dresses and shirts that are a full 2 sizes smaller. No wonder women are so screwed up about their body image. Manufacturers are messing with our heads.) I also grabbed another pair of Lees in a new style called Rivets, Loose Fit.

Loose my happy butt. I tried them on first and, just as I had been afraid, the size 18s were too small. They closed, but little things like breathing were going to be impossible in these jeans, to say nothing of sitting. Hard to drive a car while standing and not breathing. Besides, I think not breathing would aggravate my asthma. Sigh. With no real hope in my heart, I take them off and reach for the Riders. God Bless the makers of Lee Riders. THEY FIT!!! Angels sang the Halleluiah Chorus. Birds circled my head singing along. Forest animals came and ate bread from my hands. Life was GRAND.

And to prove that it was not just a fluke and that Lee Riders were the ONLY jeans I can fit into, I found some Sonoma jeans in an 18 too. (Okay, so they aren't Misses, they are Womens, which apparently means they allow for you to actually have hips!) And to make it even better, I spent less than $45 for the whole shebang! YIPPEE.

Weekends are way too short. They need to be increased to at least 3 days. Absolutely bear (ed - ack - her pun - jd) minimum. Then maybe I would get some rest. I swear, most Mondays I return to work more tired than when I left on Friday. This weekend was no exception. A run to St. Cloud on Saturday (where my in-laws forgot that it was my anniversary) to see the in-laws and the Volkmuths, with a late return. Sunday was supposed to be rest and cleaning. We were going to just lay low. But a friend needed company, so we ran up to Plymouth (a north western suburb, Burnsville is a south suburb) and, even though it was only a lunch, managed to piss away most of the day so that the only thing that was accomplished was some laundry.

I did get a new crockpot on Friday, though. For our anniversary, John decided we needed a programmable crockpot. (Of course I, with my love of kitchen gadgets of all stripes, protested mightily. NOT.) Once the cooking time has elapsed, the pot automatically switches over to "warm". Pretty cool. Our previous experiments in crockpot cooking were minor disasters, as we are usually gone from the house on your average day for about 11 hours. Most crockpot recipes call for a cooking time of 6 to 8 hours. When it goes past that cooking time, you can get some crispy, burnt-on stuff in said pot. Not good for dinner. Now, I just need recipes. So, if the 2 of you who regularly read me have any recipes, please, send them to me.

Well, I have bored you with enough mundane details of my comings and goings for one day.

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Copyright © 2001 Ann Dominik. All rights reserved. Complaints about the technical details of this page can be directed to the abused geek who takes care of it for me, and is grossly underpaid for what he does, he thinks. No reproduction without written permission. The opinions and content of this site are my own, and not the responsibility of this site's host, my employer, my pets, my parents or anyone else you may care to blame. Please respect my opinions and I will do the same for you. I may on occasion publish e-mail to me; if you do not wish your mail to be published, please write CONFIDENTIAL or DO NOT PUBLISH at the top of the e-mail. If you would prefer to remain anonymous, please note that as well. If you're incapable of reasoned civilized discourse but feel compelled to correspond with me, I'll be happy to filter your mail out after a few choice comments regarding your ancestors, upbringing, and the likelihood of your family tree not