Feel Like Complaining

Have you ever been Gaa Gaa over a TV personality? My daughter and I are partially smitten with a certain Capt. Johnathan of Deadliest Catch. She likes Capt. Andy more because she doesn't go for the scruffy kind. But she's only 13 so what does she know? Our love of these certain captains was intensified when we saw them at a book signing earlier this year. They were both very humble guys who seem to be a little surprised of their newly star status. I then joined the forum at Time Bandit just to join in on a little conversation and to keep us with what the captains were up to during their off time. In any forum, you are going to have the regulars, semi-regulars, sometime posters and lurkers. I range from lurker to sometime poster. You then have a group that like to call themselves the leaders of the gang. Now since this forum revolves around nice looking men, members are mostly women. Any woman or girl for that matter that is a fan of the FV Time Bandit is called a Bandita. The l...

Our little weekend trips are over. They were nice but it's just not where I wanted to be. Our favorite place in the world is Cannon Beach, Oregon. We have stayed at many places there over the years but lately we have stayed in a little cabin at an RV park. We used to always stay at Schmitz Cottages but Mel died several years ago and his cabins were torn down for much fancier (and expensive) accommodations. His cabins were large, not fancy, even a little dirty (according to my mother), but we loved them. They were just steps from the beach and he charged a fair price. We went there occasionally while growing up and my husband had never been there so whenever we were able to take vacations, that's where we would go. And that's really the only vacation place our daughter has ever been. She loves it as much as we do. What got me to missing the ocean so much is catching a whiff of my neighbor's smoke from his fireplace. It made me think of the campfire at the cabin. It doesn...

Now I didn't say that I was a bad driver. Actually I'm a very good driver. I've been driving for 34 years and never had an accident. I was in a bad one once when I was 16, but that will have to be a different story. We went on a little trip this past weekend and I realized that I really don't like to drive all that much. My husband loves it though. But he does get tired so I try and drive about 1/3 of the time. There are so many things I don't like about driving; to name a few: Winding roads -I feel like I'm going to drive off the side of the road. Hills -Same thing. Winding and hilly roads -Same thing x2. Bad weather conditions -Pretty much same thing. Cars behind me -I'd rather follow. Semi's beside me -They swerve too much. Passing cars -I don't like going 80 to pass someone. Using cruise control -I'd rather be in control, thank you. Heavy city traffic in strange towns -I'm a better navigator. Construction areas -I always get them when it...

This little drunken tale starts last Thursday night. Husband's at work. It's 2:00 a.m. and I hear someone yell "Hey!" in the back yard. It took me awhile to discern who's voice it was, then I recognized it as my dh's work partner. They keep the work truck in the garage and he was waiting for my dh to get home so they could switch. There was some drunk kid in my backyard under our patio looking around. Rick got close enough to be able to touch him but yelled instead. The kid flies over the fence which is not easy because it is a good five feet drop to the sidewalk. He runs kitty-corner across the street where there is a good party going on. All underage drinkers. Then I heard my dh come in and go back out the door. I got up not really knowing what was going on. I saw my dh picking up glass in the alley and street that the drunk kids had thrown. They tried to give him some song and dance about them being too young to drink. We may be old but we're not stupid...

The other day I went to a 13-hour produce sale at a local grocery store. I got there early to get a good selection and the store was already buzzing. I fought my way through the multitude of shoppers to get my big bargain. Then I got to thinking as I looked at the 'bargain' prices; .97 a lb. for tomatoes, 1.00 for a bag of lettuce and spinach, corn-3/1.00, .87 a lb. for cauliflower and 1.29 a lb. for green beans. Remember that not long ago these were the normal prices for vegis? So as I clutched my bags of produce that I proudly only paid 12.47 for,I said to myself "Wow, what a deal." But I miss the good old days when I could just walk out of a store and think I paid a fair price for a good product. Now I have to wait for a big sale and walk out thinking they did me a big favor.

OK, so you know I rant about my neighbor from time to time. I started disliking him about a week after they moved in and that was probably about 6 years ago. After the whole dog thing escalated and then blew up I have tried to be nicer and not be such a bitch myself. ME.....A BITCH?????? I did see a lot of things in myself that I did not like after that incident and am working on tolerance. Now, what has got me to be so newly mushy towards my neighbor is that yesterday as a Birthday present for my daughter, he gave her a ride on his Harley. My daughter is the most conservative little now-13-year-old you have ever seen, and this was quite a big deal to her. You can usually find her with her head in a book all day long (not that that's a bad thing). She's not a mall rat, texting, midriff showing, mouthy, teenager. I got lucky with this one. So anyone that does right by my daughter can't be all that bad. They were gone about 45 minutes and he took her for a ride along the ri...