Jerry

On Friday I received a call from the guy in charge the Restart Program (as in, the guy who sent Daulton over here). He had another student in need of some work. I said that I would take him, so he brought Jerry by later that day.
Jerry is thirteen. He is black. He looks much older than fifteen year old Daulton. He was expelled for being "a class clown" (those are Jerry's words). I don't know exactly what he did. So far he has been very quiet, though I did learn today that he is afraid of shower curtains.
James' daughter approached me yesterday, while I was clearing the sidewalks of snow, and she asked if I had heard about the drama. She informed me that Bobbie had been saying stuff that had Beulah in tears. I ended up hearing three different versions of this event, so I will give them in order.
The first account I heard was of course from James' daughter. She informed me that Bobbie had been accusing Beulah of being incapable of cleaning up after herself and that she should be in a nursing home. Apparently, she kept going on about being a "good Christian woman" who keeps her apartment nice and tidy. Apparently all of this was enough to have Beulah sobbing.
Bobbie came by the office yesterday and started recounting to me what must have been the same event. According to Bobbie, an elder from her church was over there visiting her, and while they were talking, Beulah came out and started cussing. Bobbie and her elder asked her to go back to her apartment. Then Bobbie went off on one of her unrelated tangents about people that I'm not entirely sure exist.
I saw Beulah early this morning. She still had tears in her eyes. She told me that Bobbie was saying mean stuff to her and telling her that she was the one leaving the front door propped open all the time. I told her that my best advice was to avoid Bobbie.
George's nurse, whose name happens to be Janet (which is confusing because there is a Janet who lives here), stopped by my office yesterday. I noted that it was 1:25 when she sat down (this is significant). She starts telling me how she loves days where she sees a certain bicycle outside the apartments because on those days she knows that George has a certain floozy over and will just sent Janet home. She then announces that she might go surprise her son at school, and that absolutely sets her off. I hear all about how she @#%$ing hates her son's school and the administration and how they all think she is crazy. I hear all about how he got detention a week into kindergarten and how he has now gotten a detention just two days into the semester as a second grader. I learn that his name is Norman and am shocked that anyone still names kids that. I hear all about this over and over again, and when she finally leaves, the clock reads 2:15.
I smell funny.
Anna and I saw a guy the other day that looked exactly like Charles Manson. What made it even creepier is that I happened to be in a waiting room at the time that contained a TV tuned the History Channel, which at the time happened to be talking about cults and showing pictures of Charles Manson. So coincidence afforded me a side by side comparison, and aside from the absense of a swastika on the forehead, they were identical.
People who read this blog: Person Google blog searching "baseball, underwear"
This Indianapolis resident is fascinating to me. Not only did they search "baseball, underwear," but they did it in blog search. They specifically wanted to find blogs talking about this. Somehow I can't picture this being a girl, but I am creeped out by the thought of a guy searching this. Either they had some specific event in mind, or they are just really creepy. I also find this fascinating because no one cares about baseball in Indiana. Maybe this guy just likes baseball players with tight butts. At least he wasn't searching "baseball, tight butt" or "baseball, pants on the ground."

So there we were...

"My pee tastes funny today"
That pretty much sums up the awesomeness of our trip to Florida. Now get ready for a long boring account of what we did.
We left Thursday morning. We wanted to avoid having a stressful trip down, so we made sure we took our time. We decided to go slightly out of the way and visit the Smoky Mountain Knifeworks in Sevierville, Tennessee. I got a new pocket knife. Anna got a dulcimer (it was her birthday present from me). According to the accompanying information sheet, Anna's dulcimer was hand made by Dolly Parton's sister-in-law.
We spent the night in a motel in Georgia.
Friday, we arrived in Bradenton sometime around five in the afternoon. Jon and Sara were there to meet us (Jon arrived on Wednesday I believe and spent Thursday and Friday exploring Bradenton on Sara's brand new girly bike). Kevin was still working. Sara gave us a tour of the house. They have a nice house. Most of the floors are hardwood. We got to meet Mia. Anna and Jon were fascinated by the orange tree in Sara's backyard. The oranges looked really ugly post-freeze. Anna and Jon decided to sample them anyway. They didn't taste too bad. When Kevin got home, we had a dinner of pulled pork. Kevin introduced us to some of his favorite hot sauces. He had one called Pain Is Good: Garlic Style Hot Sauce. It had quite the kick. We all tried it. We all felt the burn. We played The Game of Things that night. We laughed ourselves silly. We came up with some good catch phrases. It was a good day.
On Saturday morning, Sara was invited to a special get together. So while she ate fancy breakfast and got a pedicure, Jon, Anna, and I went exploring. Jon took us to one of the places he discovered before we arrived: the DeSoto Memorial. It was this little park type place on the edge of the Manatee River. It was one of those places designed to make white people feel bad about what European explorers did hundreds of years ago to the Native Americans. There were plaques with quotes about the horrendous Christians and life size cut-outs of the same three actors, dressed as indians, being pulled around by chains. We pretty much ignored all the educational stuff and instead focused on exploring the edge of the river. There were dead fish everywhere. We found a giant avocado and argued about whether or not it was actually an avocado.
Saturday afternoon, Sara took us to the beach. Anna and Sara got attacked by squirrels. We walked around the beach. We found some pretty shells. Sara told us about all the drive by shootings that happen on the beach. Saturday evening was alumni night at our hosts' high school. We decided that before we went to the game we would introduce Jon to the wonders of Chipotle. After we were through, he agreed with Kevin and I that Chipotle has more flavor than Qdoba. There was an alumni boys basketball game before the boys game. We were all disappointed that there wasn't an alumni girls game because we wanted to see Sara play. Sara's team ended up winning their game, and I was surprised when after the game Anna said that it was the most exciting high school game she'd seen. As soon as we got back to Sara's house, we started watching the Colts/Ravens game. Because we knew the game would start before we got back, Kevin Tivoed the game, so we started from the beginning and by the fourth quarter, we were able to catch up to live action and finished the game live.
On Sunday afternoon, we all went to Robinson's nature preserve. It was here that we determined that Jon was now Ranger Jon, seeing as he knew everything there was to know about birds and wildlife and salt marshes and life. The preserve was pretty sweet all around. There were probably three miles of trails that we walked, plus a really cool observation tower. We especially enjoyed seeing a bald eagle. There were vultures everywhere, picking at all the dead fish that still littered all the shoreline. After the preserve, we stopped by Kevin's parents' house to pick up some dinner. After that, we went to Publix to get supplies so that I could make a cheesecake. Apparently, Floridians like their Publix. It was fine. It has a cool name, I guess. We watched the Chargers/Jets game and then I made the cheesecake.
Kevin had to work Monday, but Sara had the day off. We really wanted to see manatees so after some internet searching, we discovered that the Tampa Electric company had an observation platform that was supposed to be good. We drove up there, and sure enough, there were at least 150 manatees enjoying the warm water runoff from the power-plant. There was also a canal walk that took us away from the manatees but also happened to take us toward a section of water full of rays and sharks that enjoyed jumping out of the water. Anna and Jon got some pictures of sharks jumping, and we some some big rays jumping, though we didn't get any pictures of them. It was actually a surprisingly cool place to visit. On the way back, Sara and Jon got ghetto rocking out to "Gangsta's Paradise." Sara took us to this place called Starfish Co. for lunch. It was just this little dockside restaurant attached to a fish market, covered in signs asking customers what the hurry was and urging them to be patient. We waited patiently for our food. It was good. Jon had mullet because according to the menu it's the fish that "put Cortez on the map." Anna had crab cakes. I had clam strips. Sara had a grouper sandwich. I think we all enjoyed our food. We then went to a local music store so Anna could find some good sheet music. I helped Kevin and Sara make white chili for dinner. We ate cheesecake for dessert. We played The Game of Things again. We laughed more. We came up with more catch phrases. I think we all had a good time.
Jon's flight left Tuesday afternoon, and Sara had to work Tuesday morning. Anna and I asked Jon what he wanted to do. We all agreed we wanted to go back to the preserve, and we wouldn't mind going to the beach. We went to the beach early so that Anna could try to find a sand dollar. All told, we found eight sand dollars and some cool shells. Then we went to the preserve, but we didn't see any eagles that time. We did spend quite a bit of time watching fish swim through the waters of the preserve. It was a nice relaxing visit. When we got back to Sara's house, we just waited for her to come home while Jon did some laundry. When Sara came back, we all piled in the car and drove Jon to the airport. It was kind of sad.
Tuesday night, Anna and I offered to take Kevin and Sara out to dinner as a thanks for letting us come visit. They suggested a place called Firehouse Subs. I guess it's a chain, though I had never heard of it (and a quick look tells me there is only one in the state of Indiana). They had really good subs and a whole array of hot sauces to try. We had fun tasting the different sauces with our subs and deciding which were our favorites. We all agreed that one particular sauce called Gator Hammock was amazing. After dinner, I started doing some laundry at their house. When I went into the garage (the location of their washer and dryer) to check on the laundry, I discovered to my horror that a can of paint that had been on top of the washer was now spilled across the floor. I think I terrified Kevin when I came inside and said that I had made a mess with some paint in their garage. I assured them that I didn't think I had directly knocked over the paint, but I thought it was caused by the vibrations of the washer. Fortunately, Kevin kept his cool, and we went out to examine the damage. As it turns out, there wasn't much. Kevin apparently picture paint splattered across the hood of his car. In reality, the paint just landed on a plastic mat in front of the washer, and the spill was confined to that small area. We just moved the mat out of the way so that the paint could dry and called it good. The thought of all of that still kind of horrifies me though.
On Wednesday morning, we said goodbye to Sara and Kevin, who both had to work, and we started packing up. We then went to the beach one last time so that Anna could get a little bit of sand to bring back home. On our way out of town, we stopped at Sara's bank and sent her a map, through the depository vacuum shoot, directing her to where to find their house key (which we had used to lock up when we left). In return, she supplied us with "Safe-T Pops" (you know, the classic lolly-pops from the bank with the loops instead of the sticks). We then drove all day. We stayed at a hotel in Tennessee that night.
On Thursday, we got up and drove to the Bass Pro Shops in Sevierville. We looked around awhile. We relaxed a bit. We drove through rain most of the way after that. We got back home that night. We picked up Daisy. We slept. We avoided unpacking.
I guess these words really don't capture the trip, but Anna and I both agree that it was one of the best trips ever. So, this is a shout out to you, Sara: Thanks for an awesome time. And this is is a shout out to you, Jon: Thanks for reaffirming my belief that if I were to ever be on Cash Cab, I'd want you in there with me.

That One Place

We're going to that one place tomorrow. You know that place, the one with the people and the guys and the girls and the stuff. Yeah, that's the one.
I have a new boss. The company re-organized the regional managers. I don't think anything bad happened to Pam. I think she just got re-assigned. My new boss came by today. Her name is Robin. I don't know how old she is. She told me she was in her early thirties. I think she looks at least forty. I learned from her that someone has actually been calling the Salvation Army's divisional headquarters complaining about me and how I run this place. Among her complaints were that I didn't clear the sidewalks and that there were roaches. Both of these were news to me because I do indeed clear and salt the sidewalks. It is also readily apparent to everyone here that pest control comes once a month to spray, and at that time, we ask if anyone has seen any bugs. No one has claimed to see anything more significant than a spider. If there are roaches, I will gladly call the exterminator for more severe action. I think Robin saw that I was genuinely baffled.
The bug guy came today. He sprayed the apartments. We didn't hear about any roaches.
Daisy is at the in-laws' while we are gone to that one place.
Howie and Chief are going to hang out here and guard the apartment.
Robin also has a dog named Daisy.
Robin has twin three-year olds.
We're taking Anna's mother's car to that one place because it is new and hopefully more trustworthy than the Exploder.
Blue.
We've been cleaning the apartment so that it's clean when we get back.
I have no idea when we will leave tomorrow because I don't yet know how far we are planning on going.
The ten day forecast for that place is calling for high sixties to low seventies. I need to bring shorts.
If you're lucky, Anna might post some pictures of that place when we come home.
If you aren't lucky, Anna will post some pictures of my butt when we come home.
There's not much worse in life than inhaling kitty litter dust.
I made a cheesecake the other night. I made whipped cream to go with it. It's a wickedly good combination. There are a couple pieces left. Anna and I need to finish them before we leave.
Anna's mother is going to teach the children's church lesson on Sunday. It's going to be on day three of creation (land and plants). Anna found some tiny little seed planting kits for these tiny little strawberries. The kids are each going to get to plant their own.
You wish Anna had taught your children's church.
It just occurred to me that Anna and I had a really nice cooler in which we could have taken drinks and such on our trip. But I don't actually know for sure where this cooler is. Anna's sister might have it.
"Now we lie awake/with shut eyes/so to forever forget this." Some albums are just transcendent.
I don't know what I am right now.
People who read our blog: Some person from England.
Somebody from England found our blog by searching '"my contact lenses" OR "my contacts" OR "my glasses" OR "my spectacles" site:blogspot.com.' Yeah, I have no idea what they were trying to accomplish. They must be insane. All people in England must be insane. They drink tea. That can't be healthy. They drink tea and eat candy. They also don't care about their teeth. And that have that weird "stiff uppper lip" disease (that must make for some awkward kissing). Can you think of any other crazy generalizations about the snobby British? I did once see a poll conducted on Brits, asking for things that made them British. Apparently, a penchant for standing in lines is the only thing you need to be British. Insane, I tell you. Insane.

Suffering

My contacts are very dry at the moment. No one has ever suffered this much.
On Friday, Judy came into my office and asked if I could jump start her car. I did. As I was walking back inside after I was done, I saw Mike struggling to start his own car. I ended up giving him a jump as well. I am the most magnanimous apartment manager ever.
At church tonight, Cade was telling jokes. Q: Why did the chicken cross the road? A: To get his grain. Q: Why did the coyote cross the moon? A: To get to Chicago. Q: Why did the chicken lay an egg? A: To get to Chicago.
This morning Cade informed us of this little tidbit of information: "On Friday I'm going to school, and then I'm going to sleep, and when I get up the next day, I am going to a tractor show, and I have a tractor book, it talks about Indiana."
Elizabeth was trying to instruct the young children on how to behave during church, and she asked them what not to do during church. Noah replied, "Punch Anna and take her glasses."
The entryway to the complex is a salty mess. I need to mop it tomorrow, though it'll probably just get salty again.
I keep blinking, trying to moisten my contacts. Anna doesn't like that word, "moist."
Gray.
I had to dispose of one of my favorite pairs of boxers last week. They were finally just worn too thin and had holes that were just too big to justify wearing them. It's not that having extraneous holes in my underwear bothers me. I was just not comfortable with the location of these holes and the potential for fertility altering mishaps.
The loss of my boxers combined with the dryness of my contacts leads me to wonder if I am being tested like Job, but like Job, I will not curse God though all of you, so called "friends," urge me to do so. It is for posterity that I document my trials so that future generations may read and understand.
The side of my head itches, right above my right ear.
My sufferings continue to compound.
Alice's granddaughter was arrested on premises last week for meth. I need to figure out what I can and should do about this. I really am very poorly trained and informed. I just kind of got tossed into this job.
Anna introduced her dad to the wonders of her Droid Eris and the games that can be played on it. He grew mildly obsessed with an ball/maze game.
I'm not going to lie. Anna's phone is pretty cool. Did I mention that it has an app that turns it into a metal detector? As Anna commented to me the other day, she thought it was pretty awesome when as a senior in high school she got a cell phone with a color screen.
I believe I finally have Daisy properly terrified of me. I need only stand by her crate and in she goes.
I believe that by now I have sufficiently demonstrated that there are quite a few random visits to this blog by people unknown to me. The visit and subsequent comment from the lady at the ICM (I don't particularly want to spell it out and have her show up again) have led me to consider a little more just what these people might think, should they take the time to actually read an entry. How do they take me? Do they sense the sarcasm where there is sarcasm? Do they see sarcasm where I am serious? Most likely they are completely mystified that anyone would take the time to actually write such pointless babble. I don't know whether I would rather they take me as I intend you to take more or if I would rather them take me seriously. Unless of course, you all take me seriously, and in that case, we need to have a talk. Just kidding, everything I write here is serious as death.

I'm horrible

We're supposed to get four to six inches of snow in the next couple days. Apparently, Hoosiers think this is a lot of snow.
Anna and her friend (and former roommate) Lynn tried to horseback riding yesterday. I suppose tried might not be the right word because they did succeed in riding for five or so minutes, but then Lynn somehow ended up on the ground instead of on her horse. I wasn't there, I didn't see what happened. Anna didn't have a good view either, but mostly, we just suspect that Lynn panicked when the horse started to trot, causing her to jump off.
I learned something about myself today, but I'm not sure exactly what it says about me. I was watching a news report on Senator Dodd's retirement, and there was a lady holding the little girl in the background. My first thought upon seeing the girl was something like this: "Sad, that little girl is going to burn in Hell." I'm sure you are wondering how I so abruptly came to that conclusion, so here is the undeniable logic of my thought process. Sen. Dodd is a democrat. Democrats burn in Hell. Anybody significant enough to be on stage as he announces his retirement must be a democrat. Any child raised by such a person will probably grow up to be a democrat. Therefore, this little girl is predestined to burn in Hell. Does this make me horrible for thinking she will burn in Hell or good, because I'm sad that she will burn in Hell?
This isn't an isolated incident. I realized the same thought occurs to me whenever I see young children connected to democrats or celebrities.
My toes are cold. I'm using this amazing blanket Anna knitted to warm them.
I lost Daisy's dog tags today. Usually, I attach her leash to a sturdy loop on her collar, but without realizing it, I missed and just attached it to the ring holding her tags. While she was outside, she was being a rotten dog, and I gave the leash a tug which pulled the ring apart and sent her tags into the dark mysteries of the night.
I made guacamole. I've been eating it with "hint of lime" tortilla chips. It's amazing.
Lately, I've been dreaming that I'm a serial killer running from police. I don't believe I've ever actually killed anyone in a dream, but I sure have tried. Most of the time I'm just not strong enough to pull the trigger. I squeeze and squeeze and nothing happens. Don't worry though, I'm always trying to kill these people in self-defense. I seem to get shot a lot in my dreams. One of the first dreams I remember is being at church and finding a button that opened a hidden room and being taken captive at gun point by the church council.
It's time to make some chocolate chip cookies.
Anna and I learned today that Peggy is short for Margaret. We were surprised by this, so we did more research. We learned that long ago Margaret was also a name for a a kind of daisy, so Daisy has also become a nickname for those named Margaret. I'm calling Daisy Margaret from now on.
People who read this blog: People from the Indianapolis Children's Museum
While looking through visits to this blog, I discovered that there were a couple visits from the Indianapolis Children's Museum. I'm not sure how they found our blog. They didn't do it through google. Somehow they must just be able to track when people talk about the museum on the internet. I didn't say anything bad about the museum. I wonder how much else of this blog they may have read and what that made them think of the visitors they get.

atta boy, tom

Anna.

I'm watching Tom and Jerry on the Cartoon Network and Tom is trying to learn how to play the piano. And it's kind of amazing how hard they tried to make it actually look like he was playing the piano. Two thumbs up, crafty cartoon makers and Tom!

01022010

Happy palindrome day.
I had to go to the office for something just now, and upon opening the door, I discovered a note from Alice, which stated that she had lost $1.25 in one of the dryers because it wouldn't get hot. The dryer she blamed was the one we just had repaired. This made me feel a little sick. I grabbed some quarters and stuck them in the dryer to see for myself. Sure enough, there's nothing wrong with it. I'm trying to decide if she's just trying to get me to give her money or if she just pushed the wrong button.
I was about two blocks down the road from the apartment complex earlier, when an ambulance flew past me. I didn't really think about it until I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw it turn into the apartment parking lot. I quickly turned around to see what the deal was. The EMTs seemed very indecisive about what they were doing, and when they finally got out of the ambulance, I asked them for whom they had come. They didn't know. Whoever had called had not given a name or apartment number, just the building. Then Beulah stuck her head out and announced that she was the one who had called. Once that was figured out, I went ahead and let the EMTs do their thing. I guess Beulah had another panic attack.
Tomorrow will be the end of the Broncos' season. Sure, there are roughly ten scenarios which could get them in the playoffs, but none of them are likely. The most likely scenarios involved the Broncos winning tomorrow combined with the Jets and the Steelers losing or the Jets losing plus the Texans winning. As I said, there are other scenarios, but those are exceedingly unlikely (such as the Ravens losing to the Raiders). As it is, the Jets are not going to lose tomorrow. The Bengals are just going to lay down and hand the Jets the game, and the Broncos' miserable season will be at an end.
Anna had lunch with some old high school friends today. I think they had a good time.
We were in sore need of an oil change, so we took the Explorer to the "express lube" at Wal-Mart last night. When they announced that the car was done, we went to the counter to pay and overheard one technician ask another if he had noticed our car idling funny when he brought it in. Yeah, that worried us. When we went out to star the car, it started right up, but it sputter out in about five seconds. I gave it a bit and tried to start it again. The same thing happened. I got the attention of one of the techs and had them take a look at it again, while Anna called her father for advice. The techs couldn't understand why it would suddenly stop working like that, but they had a mechanic on premises that they brought out to look. The mechanic looked at our engined for about ten seconds and then said, "let me go get a screwdriver." I thought that sounded like a ridiculously simple sounding tool for whatever catastrophe had befallen our car. When he returned, he refitted our air intake hose to the engine and had me start the car again. It purred to life like the day it rolled off the assembly line. Anna and I thanked him, and we left, baffled that a lose hose connection could actually make our engine stop like that.
We're starting with real children's church in the morning. We're just going to start from the beginning (as in, "In the beginning..."), and we're going to make sure they get indoctrinated properly before they enter the world and start hearing all these heresies about Creation not being a literal six day thing.
I'm really thirsty, and I'm fresh out of AriZona Pomegranate Green Tea. I think I might die.
I need to take Daisy out and then take a shower.
People who read this blog: Person googling "back of legs sting"
Our dear visitor comes to us from Lima, Ohio and has most likely been stung by a poisonous spider on one leg and bitten by a poisonous snake on the other. He or she may also have a variety of ant, flea, mosquito, fly, and any number of other insect bites. The combined force of all this various venoms and possible bacterial and viral infections will surely lead to his or her demise. Who knows. He or she may even have had an encounter with a rabid raccoon being chased by a rabid dog being chased by a rabid buffalo. This all goes to show that everything wrong in the world comes from dogs who can carry rabies as well as fleas.