Duke and the Door

I was at the bank today making a deposit for work and Hubbs calls my cell phone. He wants me to come by the house, right now. That's it, he didn't say anything else, just come by the house, right now. What the hell right?

So I drive home all nervous. I was expecting anything from the cops being there to someone driving through the front door. Honestly.

Well, when I got home it wasn't really all that bad. I mean, yeah, its bad but I can deal with it.

Our lab, Duke, gets really excited when he sees cats. He runs around in circles, whines and jumps against the front door. Well, our front door is a sliding glass one. Half of it moves and the other half doesn't. Duke got a little too excited this afternoon and broke the stationary part of the door.

I pulled up in the driveway, get out of the car, walk up to the gate and look around. There is glass EVERYWHERE. The door exploded. There is glass on the patio, there is glass in the yard, there is glass in the living room.

Nice. Thanks Duke.

Tonight, after I get off work, Hubbs and I get to drive for an hour to Home Depot for a new front door. Yay, tiny happy dance for getting to go visit Home Depot. Sucks ass to have to drive for 2 hours round trip.

Oh well. That is how things have been going lately.

Oh and BTW, Duke is fine. He didn't get cut or anything. It just scared the shit out of him and I don't expect him to come out from under the bed any time tonight.

We made it

Well, we made it to Iowa.

Soooo not having a good time. Seriously.

I am ready to come back home.

**sob** My Squash

I spent an hour pulling up all my damn squash plants last night.

I had gotten home around 5ish and went outside to pull some weeds and see if there were any new squash. I hadn't been out to look in a week because of the massive amount of rain we have gotten lately.

I got the weeds pulled and started lifting up the squash plant leafs and reaching around, moving the mess around so I could get to the squash. I happened to glance at the underside of a leaf and saw a bunch of egg clusters on it. I pulled the leaf off and started checking the rest of the leafs for more eggs.

Every single leaf had eggs on it. And then I started noticing the squash beetles. I bet I saw 5 of those nasty ass little things at first glance.

Grooooossssss. I don't do well with bugs anymore.

Monk Man was kneeling in the grass looking for bugs with me (of course). I told him to run and bring the big trash can over to me. I was in my Birks so I ran inside to get a real pair of shoes on. My dumb ass know better than to try to garden in sandals but knowing and doing are 2 different things.

That's it! The squash was fun while it lasted. Those damn things were going in the garbage if it took me all night.

So Monk Man finally got the trash can over to me, after we played 20 questions about why I needed it.

I grabbed ahold of a big set of leafs and pulled. And pulled. Finally the plant came out of the dirt. It was COVERED with the squash beetles.

Yep. Pulling out the plants was a good idea because THEN I saw a freaking Black Widow spider crawling around in the dirt. I dropped the f-bomb and squealed Eeewwww like a little girl. I am sure my neighbors were quite entertained watching me swear like a sailor and jump around the back yard flapping my arms in disgust.

Spanky had taught me (burned into my brain) at a very young age to squish ANY Black Widow spider I came across because they would bite me and whatever body part that spider bit would have to be cut off. I am pretty sure that isn't really true but his story worked. I don't screw around with spiders.

Now, all 12 of my squash plants are in the dumpster and the spiders are killed (hopefully).

When I was finished, I had the worse case of heebie jeebies ever. I was convinced that the bugs were hiding in my clothes and in my hair. I was covered in dirt from head to toe. Being the overly concerned mommy that I am, I made Monk Man strip down so I could check him for bugs. Yes, right there in the middle of the back yard.

The other plants that were around the squash seem to be unaffected by the bugs so that is a good thing. The carrots are tall and bushy. The peppers are getting big. The onions are pungent. Not a bug to be found this morning.

I am a walking disaster today

Its barely 9:00 AM and I have already decided that I should have stayed in bed and called in spastic (its like calling in sick but being honest).

We received a piece of glass and I needed to write what vehicle it fits. So I took one of the "Big glASS" paint markers from the counter and went into my parts room. When I took the lid off, the whole freaking top part came off and the paint spilled all over 3 windshields, the ground and my hands. Luckily our detail guy came to my rescue and said he would take care of cleaning the shit up.

Now my hands are Sponge Bob yellow. How attractive. Thankfully I only have a half day of work because of the holiday tomorrow. I think that if I had to be here longer than absolutely necessary, I might accidentally burn the damn building to the ground.

Another Earth?

I read this MSN.com article Earth's Twin. It was really interesting.

A quick summary: Scientists are really close (like 5 or so years) to finding a planet that is supposedly exactly like Earth. They have already found 3 "super Earths". Which basically means that the planets are bigger than our Earth but small enough to have mountains. Scientists have already found multiple Jupiters and Saturns and are close to having the technology to find smaller planets like Uranus and Neptune.



Taken from the article: "We are looking for twins of the Earth, analogs that walk and talk and smell like our own Earth," Marcy said during a telephone interview. He is currently looking for super-Earths using the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii.

Such a twin would be rocky, with a similar chemical composition to Earth, and would orbit within the habitable zone of its star.

The habitable zone defines the distance at which a planet must orbit from its star for liquid water to exist on its surface — not too hot like Venus, not too cold like Neptune or Pluto.

Astronomers have found planets orbiting pretty close to the habitable zone, but none so far within it.

"I suspect there are Earth-like planets with lakes and rivers and waterfalls and deep glacial gorges and that are spectacularly beautiful," Marcy said.

Finding a planet in the habitable zone is the first step toward finding alien life.

"When we say it's a habitable world, all we're doing is saying it potentially could hold life," Boss said. "To go beyond that to say, 'Here's a habitable world; is it inhabited,' then you need to start studying the atmosphere of the planet."
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Ok, science lesson over.



This seriously freaks me out. Maybe I have ready too many Stephen King or Dean Koonce stories and watched too many Sci-Fi movies. Maybe? Hell, probably.



I think we need to leave the other planets alone. Messing with "alien life" is only asking for problems. I don't see things turning out well.



Its like poking a strange dog through the fence. You might get bitten, you might not. It really isn't a chance that I am willing to take.



And for anyone who is thinking "Oh but we could use the other planet's natural resources", stop right there. Why even consider destroying another planet? We have done enough damage on our OWN planet.

My Head Is Spinning

Why? The last 2 days have been Hell.



Yesterday (Thursday)

Hubbs got a call from the Railroad and they told him that the board he has been on (that pays him to not find another job) had been abolished. So no more paychecks, no more insurance.



So I went into survival mode. I started thinking about what we can cut out of our routines to save us money. I didn't come up with much. Things are already pretty tight. I really don't want to have to charge anything ever again.



I *could* cancel the WOW account but then Hubbs would find some more expensive hobby. I *could* cancel XM but then I would be back to buying CDs. I already buy generic foods, generic diapers, generic everything.



The best thing I could come up with is to temporarily stop the debt snowballing. Its not much but it IS an extra $150.00 to $200.00 a month. And Hubbs would be going up to Colorado to build houses with his brother.



That's all I came up with.



Hubbs checked some memos from the Railroad and found out that he could put in a request for "temporary transfer" to Iowa. So he called his union rep and left a voice mail. The union rep called back very late last night and gave him some of the information he needed but not ALL of what he wanted to know. So he called a dude in Iowa that was in charge of the whole thing. Voice mail with this dude too.

So off to bed with an ass kicking migraine. Fun.

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Today (Friday)

Hubbs got up at 3 AM. I don't know why. He just said he couldn't sleep. I got up at 6 AM and just around that time, the dude from Iowa called him back with the information he needed.

But right after he got off the phone he found another memo that offered Montana as another option for the temporary transfer.

Ugh. Too many life altering decisions. I do not do well with shit changing. Not at all.

We decided on Iowa.

So he got all his paperwork faxed in. The Railroad bought him an airplane ticket for tomorrow. It was something like $600. Oh. My. Gawd. It is a good thing that the Railroad paid for the ticket because that is not cool. We don't have that kind of money. I don't think most people do either.

So we are staying in a hotel in Phoenix tonight so he can catch the plane tomorrow. There is no way in hell I would try to drive down there tomorrow and then drive back in the same day. My back is too screwed up to sit for that long in the car.

We are taking Monk Man with us but leaving Bobblehead with my mom.

I am not happy about having to suck it up and let my mom watch the boys today and Bobblehead tonight. But at least my dad is there to keep that whole crazy ass family in line.

So anyway, the deal with the temporary transfer. Hubbs gets a bonus when he gets to Iowa. Plus he gets another bonus every week he is there on top of what he would normally make.

I guess the reason that they are offering this temporary transfer is because of all the flooding. The floods washed out the tracks and now that the tracks are replaced they have way more trains than they have people to drive them.

So I don't feel 100% at ease with this but I don't feel like something bad is going to happen.

He could be gone for 3 weeks (at the least) or he could be gone for 3 months (at the most). Its really up in the air right now.

So I feel like my head is going to explode. There is so much to do, so much to worry about, so much unknown. Ugh. That's all for now.

I HAVE to get some work done today so they don't fire my ass.