Feel Like Complaining

The neighbors' dogs revisited. We're getting ready to take a walk this morning and one of our neighbor's dogs is at our back gate. Another one in the yard is clearly not happy because he's not the one that got out. Apparently there is a broken slat in the back fence and she got out. His truck is pulled up so close to the fence that my husband couldn't get back there to get her back in. I called them both on their cell phones; no answer. The dog made her way back in so I called her back to let her know. She answered and said that she told her husband about the fence but he hadn't got around to it yet. A little while later, some guy knocks on our door and asked if a little dog was ours. He described it and we knew right away it was Shithead . I try to be a good neighbor and go over and try to open the front gate. He's not having any of it, yapping his little fool head off. I was afraid he was going to snap my ankles off. I called her again and had to leave a m...

To me PETA has occasionally been a little 'out there'. I agree with some of their philosophies but this last one is just plain strange. They want Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream to start using human breast milk for their ice cream instead of cows. Can we all do a collective "eeeeewwwwwwwwww!" They say it would reduce the suffering of cows and calves. What about the poor lactating women that will now have to be hooked up to the milking machines. I have USED a breast pump, I KNOW how it feels. If I had thought that it would have made wonderful ice cream I would have made my own years ago. And then what about all those dairy cows that now will have no purpose and might even burst wide open because they aren't being milked? And should other ice cream makers be insulted that PETA did not contact them? I mean there are hundreds of companies out there using millions of gallons of milk for the ice cream that we love so much. You've got your Baskin-Robbins, how many fla...

My husband is at it again. Another "duuhhh which way did he go? Which way did he go?" moment. We have accounts at two banks, one is for business and our personal account is at a local credit union. Sometimes when I am really short on time I will foolishly ask him to make a deposit for me. The credit union has their own deposit envelopes which are clearly marked in big blue letters. I usually mark the business accounts deposit so he will know which way to go. But it doesn't always work. The other day I used a clearly marked credit union envelope so I didn't think I needed to remind him where to go.....wrong. He takes our daughter with him and they drive the opposite way, to the business branch. She gets out of the car, puts the envelope in the drop box and they go on their merry way. Monday morning he gets a phone call and a cheerful girl says "Hi, this is Rachel at U.S Bank." He said "AGAIN?", which means he has done this before. They are getting t...

I really hate when I let my temper get the best of me, because I feel bad later, sometimes. Every year since 1st grade my daughter has received free lunch at school. And dutifully every year I fill out a new application. This year they put us on 'reduced' status. OK, I'm fine with that. I guess it means we have more money--she says sarcastically. But the little problem started when they did not notify me. I called food services and told them that I hadn't received my letter and so she told me on the phone of my new status. Never once in the convo did she say that it was effective IMMEDIATELY . Every year I get my letter it says that the status is good until October 10th of the following year, so I assumed I had until the 10 or so to send some money for lunch. She told me she would send a new letter which I received today, but still nowhere on the letter did it say that it was effective immediately. Today my dd types in her student ID and the lunch lady says, that will b...

Our weather has been warm for the end of summer so we decided to BBQ like we do most weekends. Fired up the grill, put hamburger in the turner and corn on to boil. Our dog Nellie loves when we BBQ. Her nose follows my dh as he brings the meat outside and then as he brings it back in and then back out when we sit out to eat. Before he put the meat on the grill he dropped a little piece in her dish. Then he propped the door open so it would be easier to go in and out with our hands full. While we were eating we noticed that she was not outside waiting for our last bite. She is not a beggar but knows that we always save her one little piece so she waits patiently for it. As we went in after dinner we noticed the raw piece of hamburger on the floor. We tried to give her a bite of hot dog and she started whimpering, pacing and looked absolutely miserable. We thought she had been stung by a bee because the top of her nose was still healing by a bite just two weeks ago. If she is layin...

First I have to say that I am a pretty good cook. Maybe not Martha Stewart good, but I don't get too many complaints. I don't cook out of a box and prepare scratch meals 5-6 nights a week. That's why I was surprised when I screwed up so bad on this one. I had found a recipe for oven crisped fish and chips. My dh loves fish and chips and I wanted to make it for him. It called for Haddock which I easily found. While defrosting the fish I had to pour off water several times from the container. I guess that should have been my first clue. I have never seen a fish so 'wet'. So I squished it and squashed it to get all the water out. I was supposed to coat the fish in bread crumbs with spices and set aside in a pan, which I did. Then I needed to cut 2 potatoes into wedges and shake in a bag with 2 tbs. of flour. Well, 2 tbs. did not seem like enough to me so I added about a half-cup of flour and shook away. We all love Jo Jo's so I thought this was going to be great! I...

This cheerful little subject line is what greeted me last Friday morning as I opened my email. To back up the story a bit I will have to tell you why this jerk felt he had to say this to me. Earlier this spring I had written a story about one of ladies I work for. It was a very nice story.....really. I'm not totally bitchy all the time. It was the first story I had ever written and I was pretty proud of it. My husband and I both subscribe to a couple of inspirational ezines. A few of them run full stories on Friday's. I submitted my story to both of them but only heard back from one, so far. It ran on Friday and my inbox was full of the nicest emails from all over the world telling me how much they loved the story and that I should continue to write. Then there was this one. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Do the world a favor and quit writing. my GOd what trash. no meaning... no passion... no purpose . Don't quit your day job. Transforming world consciousness...healing the planet...one semin...

My daughter has a cute little lamp in her room; a plastic purple flower in a pot. The light burned out and my husband with his infinite wisdom decided to put in a new bulb. It's really a night light, not a full blown lamp and is supposed to take a 4 watt bulb. But all he can find is a 40 watt bulb that goes in our dining room light fixture. He figures that if the base fits, then it will work. By bedtime my dd goes in to get ready for bed and smells something strange. I walk in and see this beacon of light coming from her table. I go to look at the lamp and the two petals of plastic are fused to the light bulb. I yelled at my husband, "If I had known you were using that kind of bulb I would have told you not to." He said, "Well I guess I should have had told you what I was going to do then you could have told me that it wouldn't work." "And you couldn't think of that on your own??????" I mean, really, look at the size of that bulb in that tiny ...