Sitting with the great unwashed

Sorry to sound so classist, but the person who just sat down next to me has an aura of old smoke and BO extending for several feet.

Is it ever going to warm up? Promises of 52 degrees seem hard pressed. I just can't seem to warm up. Got up at 4 AM and it was dark and cold. So, I got back in bed after reading for an hour, but just couldn't seem to warm up. Felt like I must be getting the flu....but I pride myself on my ability to not get sick. I am not sick but AM one of the worried well.

Not doing a whole lot today. Breakfasted with two friends I hadn't seen in awhile. Volunteered at the art gallery and had a good time talking with interesting workmen. Went to the car mechanic and arranged to spend lots of money there next week. Am glad I came to the library, though. It is nice and peaceful today. AND I found a new Janet Evanovich audiobook. What could be better? Oh, I DID accomplish a long undone project...buying windshield wiper fluid and putting it in the car all by myself.

I'm his guardian angel?

I meet some characters at the car mechanics. I like the car mechanic as they are honest and down home. They scribble what to do on a piece of printer paper smudged with oily fingerprints. Then they put your car keys on top. Calendar seems to be day by day and hand written. I brought stuff to do but I forgot about the loud country music they play. A guy came in, looking for a left hand mirror that he had ordered "a long time ago". He had left the country and his brother took over the truck and then kept it for awhile. When he finally got it back, the left hand mirror was STILL broken. He said if the mirror was still in the back room, he was going to call ME his guardian angel. It was. I am. He counsels prisoners as a labor of love for 40 years and his work is never done.

The weather is hideous. I can't stand it much longer. Two days of dank, damp and dreary. The only good news is that my roof didn't leak (yet).

I am busy organizing nuts and delivering them. Due to the horrible weather, I have not lugged the four boxes of nuts upstairs into my house. I am organizing them IN THE CAR. Soon, I will commence to binge on nuts every night until they are gone. I sort of overbought, if that is possible.

Volunteered for something I really don't feel like doing. I gotta stop that.

I miss bumper stickers

I saw two good bumper stickers today. There were quite a few on this car and you don't see THAT any more either! 

- "I listened to NPR before it was cool".
- "Are you hearing voices of crazy people?  Turn off FOX news".

Holiday weekend approaches.  I don't like holidays.  Nothing is ever happening due to the holiday.  I never have any plans.  I emailed my sisters and none of them have any plans either.

Torrential rains yesterday.  Ceiling leaking again.  I guess a leaking ceiling never gets any better, only worse.  (One can always HOPE, can't one?)  So here are my main problems today...

- a leaking ceiling (roof)
- a dead bat somewhere in my house
- a barking pit bull next door
- cell phone battery is inexplicably dying and I need to make some phone calls
- rash on my leg is starting to itch again

Other than that, life is just hunky dory.  I will try and think of some GOOD things now...

- the competition at the health club is almost over so I can stop feeling inadequate
- I am starting to walk better due to losing weight
- everybody is very well behaved over here at the Vineland Public Library
- I rebooted my laptop and overcame the nonfunctioning
- Serena Williams is one hunk of a woman (I just perused Tennis magazine)

Stressful morning

Was rushing to get to my exercise class.  Got into the line at McDonald's although it was horrendously long.
Noticed in the side view mirror that the guy in front me was SHAVING like he had narry a care in the world.  Finally he drove off without even going through the drive in to get food.  Grrr...Then had to go to get car maintenance done.  Brought an overdue library book.  I forgot that one has to listen to country western music in the office.  That was hard enought for me (not good at multitasking)  Then a guy who was waiting kept getting phone calls and his ringer was gangsta' rap.  I am as fond of gangsta' rap as the next fella but NOT when I am reading AND listening to country western music.  I was missing Paris where people are quiet and well behaved, not IN-YOUR-FACE like people in my town.  I really detest listening to other people on the phone.

How did I run out of time?  Planned to use the computer for an hour and then do other stuff like photocopying and reading the newspaper on a stick (cheap thrills, as was pointed out by Kramer on Seinfeld).  Drove an hour to go to a demo on Windows 8 although not sure why I want to learn about it.  May have to get an ipad or an iphone soon.  But I don't say no to some free education.

Tried to look up my favorite yoghurt from France to see exactly HOW fattening it was.  But the stats are not like ours, so I couldn't figure anything out.  Thought I would post a picture of it anyway.  Yoghurt with chestnuts!  How come WE don't have that?  In fact, the yoghurt selections in Paris were WAY more than we get.  I brought home one of the little glass jars to remember it by.  (We couldn't figure out what to do with all of them anyway).  This is from their collection called Les moments plaisir (pleasurable moments).
I know you can FRIEND my favorite CHEESE on Facebook (Caprice des dieux) but not sure about stuff from La fermière.

Distracted driver

Yup, that's me.  Here are some of the things I do in the car...
- Rummage for hand wipes
- Apply lip gloss
- Remove and replace audio books on CD
- Answer the phone or listen to my voice mail
- Look for napkins or kleenex buried somewhere near the passenger seat
- Get out paper and pen and write a list
- Try to get poorly functioning pen to function

Had to stop for a strawberry shortcake today.  Totally wicked, but by the time I get back in town, strawberries may be DONE!?

Book review: Fodor's Paris 2011.  OK, I KNOW it is 2013, but this is the most up-to-date one in the local libraries.  I borrowed this one from the Vineland Public Library (914.4 Fod). I DID learn quite a bit from it and took five pages of notes.  I think my mother told me to never take a library book on vacation in case you should lose it.  I skipped over a lot of stuff on restaurants and shopping.  I can't afford to shop HERE, so why should I do it in France?  And how much effort do I want to go to to get to a restaurant I can't afford?  I think I am more into the if-I-happen-to-run-into-it sort of voyager.  Many helpful things in this book, like the best days to do this or that and that French people are going to be giving me the once over and that they don't like LOUD Americans. Neither do I!  And info on telephone and the necessity of a lot of polite banter when coming and going.  Book includes a large map.  I am going to miss it, but I might buy a more up-to-date book or perhaps even a DIFFERENT book.

You and tequila make me crazy

Had to spend a lot of time in my car mechanic's place this morning.  That means listening to a lot of country western music, including this song by Kenny Chesney.  I was sorta shocked to find out that replacing a lightbulb is a really complicated and expensive procedure.  Had to get a friend to come out of her way to pick me up for lunch and then bring me back.  Poor planning on my part.  It all worked out even though when we got to the luncheon they had run out of food!  But my friend was able to have TWO desserts instead of a main course, so she was happy.

I am still wearing my exercise clothes but running out of time to exercise.  I an going on a trip soon to a fashionable city and am going to have to overcome my habit of dressing like a slob.  Shopping for attractive outfits is not a priority so I am wearing all my old exercise clothes to death.

Audiobook review - Second grave on the left (Charley Davidson, book 2), by Darynda Jones.  It was way too long, with too many subplots.  Paranormal stuff on top of a mystery.  I thought it was a combination of Stephanie Plum and Sookie Stackhouse.  In the author interview, she said it was a combination of Stephanie Plum, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and someone from the Gilmore girls.  For me, it heavily leaned towards Janet Evanovich as the reader is the same person who reads her books (Lorelei King).  Charley (called Juicy by some people and called Dutch by others) is really the Grim Reaper and she is kind of in love with an other-worldly guy who comes and goes, usually with bloody wounds which can miraculously heal.  She can see dead people.  I found it confusing and complicated and kept wishing it would be over.  And now it is.

Out of sorts today

Came out of my house to go to breakfast and found that someone had been riffling through my car and stealing things.  They stole my makeup bag (new), my kleenex, $5, my snacks and sunglasses and tire pressure guage and the worst thing was...my AUDIOBOOKS.  They can be really expensive and I will have to pay the libraries I borrowed them from.  Since I am a retired librarian, I do not have the nerve to ask them if they have a special rate for victims of crimes.  Luckily, they did not go into the trunk.  I am into and out of my car a million times a day and 99% of the time I get the locking thing right.  BUT: they smashed the window of my new neighbor's car, so perhaps it was lucky I left my car unlocked?!  He has only been a resident for three weeks and is probably rueing the day he moved to Bridgeton.  I could have told him to expect bad things to happen once or twice a year.  I could make quite a list.  Each time I call the police although it has never helped me.  At least this time, they made a valiant effort of taking fingerprints, but said they thought the guy(s) were wearing gloves.  So now I have fingerprint dusting powder all over my car. 
The other reason I am out of sorts is that I went to THREE libraries until I found one with good parking spots available.  (I know it sounds crazy to not want to walk a few extra hundred feet and then go to the health club to exercise, but....)  So the Millville Public Library is good cause there is a lot of room to spread out and I haven't yet been here this week, but THE SEATS ARE HARD.

Finished the book The blind side, by Michael Lewis.  The movie was much more engaging.  You never hear much about Michael Oher, but he is still on the Baltimore Ravens and they won the Super Bowl so he must be doing something right.  After the Super Bowl, I wanted to read the book.  I borrowed it from the Bridgeton Public Library (796.332 LEWIS).  It is the story of a black guy who gets adopted by a (Republican Evangelical) rich white family in Tennessee and becomes a football star.  He has a real shy kind of personality.  He came from a family of 13 with a crack addicted mother.  He guards the quarterback's side of greatest vulnerability, his "blind side".

On my Nook, I finished a book by Walter Mosley called The man in my basement.  It was not one of my favorites.  I seem to be obsessed by this writer.  This good-for-nothing black guy gets hired by some guilty white guy to keep him a prisoner in his basement and take care of him for a whole lot of money.