Walter Mitty Reimagined...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-09-20/midwest-drought-cover/57816198/1?csp=34news&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+usatoday-NewsTopStories+%28News+-+Top+Stories%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

It's rained occasionally over the last couple of weeks - we've had almost a half inch! I'm only hoping the long-range forecasts for more snow than normal are accurate. I don't think we could take another year like this one.

The last few days we've been hitting the upper 90s and low 100s (F). Humidity unbelievable. Normally our house stays very cool even in the hottest of days, but not now. Hell, my deodorant was getting mushy! So, much as I hate the damn thing, my brother insisted on installing the window air conditioner the other day. It's a monster. And noisy! OMG. Every time it kicks in, the whole house shakes - and I'm not exaggerating. Unfortunately, I'm one of those people who freeze easily, so I have a choice of wearing a jacket in the rooms we have closed off for the AC, or roasting in the rest of the house. Not to mention the window it's in is right next to my desk...

And no rain. We've had just over two inches since May 20. It's so frustrating - the storms go north of us, or south of us, or stop just west of us - but nothing falls on us! It's like a wedge where rain is just not allowed. Gawd. My water bill is going to be gargantuan! But I was kind of expecting it - we had almost no snow all winter, which typically means the dryness carries over to the summer.

I think I could actually deal with the weather better if it had come when it normally does - late July and into August. But now? So I'm wondering if things will get even worse in August, or if we'll have an early fall.

There just doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to it any more...

Got up early this morning to take out the garbage - had done some deep cleaning over the weekend so had extra - damn garbage collectors came early! So I emailed the company, told them to get their fat asses over here either yet today or when they do tomorrow's run and pick it up. I did it nicely, of course, but firmly. We're supposed to have it out by 7:00 am, so I always put it out between 6:30 and 6:45. (I just hate seeing all this garbage stuck outside the day before!)

Hot and muggy again today. Temp's at 82, but feels like 92 because of the 91% humidity and 79 degree dew point. Was going to hang out laundry today but of course it would never dry, which means a trip to the laundromat. And then I have to work tonight on top of it. (Which is okay because it's air-conditioned and I work frozen foods, generally). But the drive up with no AC is going to be crap.

Plus, I'll probably get up there and find they've put me in dairy instead. Nobody likes to work dairy just because it's a little Peyton Place. Got one gal there who is such a racist! The only people she gets along with are the two black guys. Otherwise if she works with you more than a day, you're shit on her list. Add to that that she has all these so-called medical problems. She loves to 'feel faint' whenever she's supposed to do something she doesn't want to. Gawd. I get along with damn near everyone at work (minus the occasional set-to's that are normal when dealing with people - they flare up then disappear) but her? I just try to pretend she doesn't even exist. And the others in dairy - you never know who's going to be on the shit list that day. They keep shifting around - let's pick on this one today, tomorrow it's your turn. Bleah.

I hope this heat goes away soon. Everyone's getting bitchy...

And muggy. It's been in the 80s and 90s the last three days, and humid as hell - the type of weather we shouldn't be having for at least another month yet. God. How can it go from way below average temps to way above average temps in less than a week? WTF?

Found out my son is coming back the week of the 4th (July), which is great news. I don't know if I'll be able to get time off or not, but if I rearrange my sleeping to the mornings, he'll be sleeping then too, so it probably won't be so bad. At least he's getting home!

Does mean not going to Chicago the end of July for the con, though. What with the dental work, the truck repair, the plumbing (did I mention the upstairs bathroom pipes decided to give up the ghost? Had Niagra Falls in the kitchen >: ), and now with John coming back, I just won't have the funds available. So I'll be watching to see what's going on in the fall - if I live that long...

Remember how I was saying how much I loved fall? Well, today is reminding me of some of the lesser 'virtues' of the season. It's only supposed to get in the low 60s (17 C), it's windy (29 mph) and cloudy. A great day to be inside, but... A reminder that I have to get the windows washed (all 29 of them) and start getting plastic put on the ones in rooms we don't use (the rest will get done once it's definitely too cold to have them open). I have to replace the back door as well, as the old one is rotting at the bottom :-(  Oh well - like I told my brother - this time of year it's easier to do the yardwork as everything can just get cut down and cleaned up instead of having to worry about the new stuff coming in. :D

Our oven quit working yesterday - I think. It would light and start heating and then quit. Then re-light, heat, then quit. Sometimes it would run for only a few seconds, other times for a few minutes. Gawd. So depending on how much it will cost to repair, we may be looking at a new one. Which is okay, because neither my brother nor I like this son of a bitch. Way too big, for one thing, and too many gadgets that never worked the way they were supposed to. But we shall see.

Fang, btw, now has access to all parts of the house except the basement and storage rooms. I got tired of fighting to keep her out of the kitchen - but she's discovered it's not nearly as much fun being in there as it was trying to get in. She slinks around like enemies are waiting around every corner - and the stove scares the bejeebers out of her (well, it was clanking and hissing a lot when I was trying to get it going :p). But it's nice not having to have the door closed all the time.

Found a new contest to enter - 2K to 20K word count, top prize $2000 and pub, 3rd prize $700 and pub. Spent a few frustrated hours trying to figure out something to write for it and then things kinda broke open. Have until the end of Sept to get it done. So what the heck - nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Had been thinking of using Nanowrimo to get the ball rolling with the "big" original story (I still feel self-conscious calling it "my novel" :p) but it's been poking me with such frequency (an idea here, a snippet there) that I don't know if I'll be able to hold out until then. Then again, if I keep just jotting everything down and doing research, maybe by the time Nano comes around, I'll be out of the starting gate like Secretariat  LOL

Also going to take an online writing course through Fiction Factor - "How to Write a Thriller". Even though I'm not *really* writing a thriller - well, it could be called that, I guess. Anyway, there are enough things in common with a thriller and an "action/adventure" story that I think it will be helpful. And it's only $31 for the six week course, so not like I'm putting out a huge sum of money.

Anyway - now to decide if I should go back to bed or do some miscellaneous chores... bed, with a warm blanket and three furballs for heat sounds really nice right now. :D

It's been hot (upper 80s) and humid. Humid as in clothes feel damp ALL THE TIME. My skin feels damp ALL THE TIME. My hair is hanging like cold spaghetti ALL THE TIME. Touch any surface and your skin sticks ALL THE TIME. Did laundry and hung it out on the line this morning - sun, wind, heat - and when I brought them in they still felt damp.

So I'll take a shower, which will mean I will be clean damp instead of sweaty damp (for all of five minutes) and then go to work. At least I'll be dry there - cold, but dry.

Oh, and Fang is getting over her little "condition", thank God. She went into the yowling stage Saturday, but is gradually getting down to doing that every 3-4 hours instead of every 3-4 minutes...

The myriad of trials I have had since starting this job, I mean.

Last night I left for work knowing that there was a big thunderstorm on its way. I new this not only because of the forecast but because when I left, instead of the sky being just slightly pinkish with the start of sunset, it was black like midnight. Six miles out of town, I hit the storm. And I mean hit. No little sprinkles and growing breeze to introduce itself. No. It broke down the door. The rain came down in blankets (sheets would be too light) and the wind nearly knocked the truck off the road. Even driving with my brights on, I could only see maybe 30 feet ahead of me. I wanted to pull off and try to wait it out, but I was afraid I wouldn't see where the shoulder ended and would go into the ditch. The only way I knew I was on the road was the occasional glimpse of the white line along the side. Akin to driving in a blizzard.

So - max speed for almost 20 miles was about 35 mph. My knuckles, shoulders and back were stiff when I finally got to work. Electricity was out in one town I drive through - and when I got to work, the entire area where the store is located was blacked out. Including the store. The only lights in the building were the emergency/security lights, so about every fourth aisle was navigable. Apparently they'd lost power some time before, and all the coolers on the floor were covered with cardboard and plastic to try and keep the food cold. We were absolutely forbidden to go into the big freezers (to keep them cold as long as possible). So everybody had to work only in aisles that had lighting, use flashlights to check bar codes (after using them to find where things actually were). The managers were making arrangements to have reefer trucks come to store the frozen and dairy products in - and we would have had to move everything to the trucks (max time the freezers can be without power is 2 hours). If the power still didn't come on, they would have to get an emergency generator (max time in the reefers another 2 hours).

Well, the power did come on about an hour later (just before the reefers were due to arrive). We were able to start working on the frozen foods right away (the freezers on the floor have doors on so they stayed cold), but the dairy had to wait until their coolers had gotten back down to the right temperature. When that happened, every associate (except those of us working on the frozen food already pulled out) had to go and tear off the plastic and cardboard and clean up.

On top of all that, we had 7 pallets to stock - a normal keep-working-or-we-won't-get-finished night is 5 pallets. Soooo, yeah - half again as many pallets as normal and we lost almost two hours to boot. It was really, really fun. (But we did finish them all! LOL)

So got home this morning, expecting to see tons of branches (and possibly a tree or two) down - but apparently the main storm stayed north of us, so we only got about a half-inch of rain and not much wind. Thank God for small miracles.

Gotta love the midwest though - the weather will get you no matter what time of year it is...

Wednesday: 33°; Thursday: 34°; Friday: 37°; Saturday: 39°; Sunday: 42°; Monday: 40°; Tuesday: 34°; Wednesday: 34°; Thursday: 36°

I can live with this. I can soooo live with this! I'm even going to get my truck out, maybe run up to the City for groceries just to get out and moving again. Now the only worry is that things will melt a bit too quickly. Usually it's later in the spring when the big melt comes, which cuts the town in half because of the swollen creek running through the middle of it. Then we have to drive 2-3 miles to get from the south side of town to the north side. :p But I can live with that, too LOL

Had the front porch open for a couple hours today. It's all windows, so warms up nicely when the sun's shining. Having the front door open makes it so much brighter in the house, too. And then, of course, the dogs are lying in the sun on the floor while Fang sacks out on the window sill. :D I think next fall, if I'm still around, I'm going to try and find a good storm door for between the porch and house, one of those that's clear top to bottom, so I can have more sunshine during the winter.

Got some more work done on my original story - the one for the contest. Deadline is coming up, but the plot is laid out in my head. I also got it into my thick skull that I'm really only writing a 25-page story, not 50 pages. That's because I always single-space as I'm writing it up, but it has to be double-spaced for submission. So that's not all that bad at all! Nothing like quirky logic to make things look better, right? LOL

Anyway, "Lost" tonight. Last week finally got things moving a little faster - I'd been getting just a bit impatient with them until then - so hopefully tonight's new ep will continue with that.

Fang has found two new places to sleep now - as the sun moves further north, she keeps searching for the sunniest spots, of course. She knocked over a little styrofoam cooler and pulled everything out of it  (including some of the styrofoam, which she was covered in, along with the couch and both dogs by the time she was through :p) and now stuffs herself inside so the morning sun through the east windows warms her and the styrofoam keeps the warmth LOL (Nothing dumb about that cat!) Then in the afternoon, she slides through an ever-growing hole in the plastic of a south window and sleeps in the sun there (again, letting the plastic keep the warmth). She still thinks the best place to sleep is on my keyboard, though...

Found a place where I can order some cleaning "dough" for our books. I'm getting ready to move them all upstairs to a spare bedroom and decided to get this stuff so I can clean, repair and inventory them as I move them. A big job but I figured I might as well do it this way and then it's totally done. I'm hoping they'll all fit on three walls - which would just leave enough room for the bed and dresser LOL

Next chapter of Covenant going in fits and starts - I know exactly how I want it to work, but the words aren't coming as easily as the pictures in my head. And of course as soon as I get one bit written, I discover something else that needs to be covered and it has to somehow work itself into what's already there - which changes something else... OY!

Supposed to hit the freezing point a week from Saturday, according to the 10 day forecast. Spring is coming! LOL

Fang is a girl.

I know this because she went into heat this morning. So now have to make an appointment with the vet and get that little problem taken care of. At least she isn't yowling - yet, anyway. So far more a meow/purr combination, along with the other typical behaviors. At least there's no more waiting to see if "his" little nubbins show up LOL

Still no word on my website problems - well, I've gotten a couple emails from their "support" people (and I use that term loosely) basically telling me to do the same things I've been doing to correct it - and it's still nowhere to be found. Gawd. So looking at GoDaddy and warped.com to see about moving it there. Main concern is finding a place where I don't have to be a computer genius to get it up and maintained.  As long as all I have to do is code the html and upload it, I'm happy. :D

Weather-wise, the near 40 degree temps that were forecast never materialized - low 30s, upper 20s for the coming week or so. And last night we got an ice storm - law enforcement for the area was "strongly recommending" no travel on secondary roads and main highways weren't much better. Intermittent rain/sleet today - walked down to the store a while ago and got soaked, plus came close to some near disastrous tumbles. But now I can cocoon for a few more days :D

My writing has taken a beating with all the tech problems - but I'm getting my psyche settled now so hopefully will be getting productive. I have been doing some holiday pieces and quick picks - about all my attention span will handle at the moment - but at least it's something.

Ah well. Tomorrow's another day...