How I Really Feel Friday - Happy for the Weekend

How do I really feel? Let me tell you.

I bought a hand-held shower head earlier in the week and installed it. It didn't seem to put out water at the proper pressure and also, for the money spent, seemed cheaply made. Last night I go to Walmart and buy a more expensive one, different brand, get home take it out of the impossible to remove container and before I install it, it seems even cheaper than the previous one. So I repackage them both and head back to the store and return both BUT not before I get aggravated by the whole thing and read on each package that the WaterPik brand and Peerless brand shower heads I purchased were both MADE IN CHINA.

The original one in my shower had been there for so many years. I can't remember where or when I purchased it but do remember it was costly way back then, but it seems everything like that is much cheaper now. The original one was a MOEN.

So the beau can see I'm on a mission and won't be happy until I find a replacement LAST NIGHT and kept rambling on about boycotting Walmart because of the cheaply made MADE IN CHINA products, especially after reading about 6 articles in the past three weeks about the dog cookies sold in Walmart that are made in China that have Cyanide in them. How Walmart quietly took them off the shelf without much publicity, especially following their other publicized problems with food from China. I continued to ramble about Toys R Us yesterday and the coloring sets that have lead in the box and even in the crayons. Crap, crap, crap! I was on a roll.

I only wanted a shower head from a plumbing supply store that was made in the U.S.A. however, none of the stores were open after 8 p.m. in my region! He asked if I wanted to go to Home Depot. I continue to mutter that "Yeah, that's better, cheap shit from Mexico!"

Well, I knew I didn't have many options so we did look in Home Depot and they did have some of the similar cheap MADE IN CHINA products but they did have one model MADE IN THE U.S.A. and they had an especially nice one MADE IN GERMANY. After carefully scrutinizing the two products through the IMPOSSIBLE TO PENETRATE packaging, I opted for the MADE IN GERMANY model.

I was immediately in a better mood because now I was optimistic, again. The beau took over because now at this point he probably doesn't feel I'm competent to install the new shower head from all that crazy rambling that went on. He was probably "cutting to the chase" knowing that if this model failed I'd be in an even uglier mood than before. I must say that when I got to see this German made shower head out of the packaging I was impressed. You could tell immediately that more care was taken in the manufacturing of this product.

So the new shower head is installed and works wonderfully. I feel like writing a letter about the inferior quality products - where do I begin? Who shall be the recipient? I'm not sure yet but this "got my goat."

But I see room for opportunity...perhaps an HNT related opportunity in the very near future.

Have a great weekend everybody! Hug and kiss your children, especially those little ones that don't know any better yet to talk back and give attitude because they grow up fast and go to school before you know it. Next they're off to run some large corporation somewhere and forget to come visit you in a nursing home. Ta ta for now.

A MeMe using Wikipedia

I liked this so I will repeat it here but in the vein of Os, I will not be tagging others. See Os's post to follow directions properly if you wish to tag others.

Go to Wikipedia and type in your birthday (month and day).
Write down 3 events, 2 births, 1 holiday and tag 5 friends.
There are five slots in the Birthday Meme.
As you are tagged, you have to remove the name in the first slot and bump everyone up so that your name can be added to the bottom.

Three Events:
1885 - L.A. Thompson patents the roller coaster
1892 - At the YMCA in Springfield, Massachusetts, the first official basketball game is played
1986 - Martin Luther King, Jr., day was celebrated as a federal holiday for the first time

Two Birthdays:
1896 - George Burns, American actor, comedian (d. 1996)
1906 - Aristotle Onassis, Greek industrialist (d. 1975)

One Holiday/Observance:
Presidential Inauguration Day in the United States (since 1937)

Weekend

Beach on Friday morning

I drove all the way to Starbucks this morning to get a cappuccino, because no one makes them quite as good. I'm so addicted to Starbuck's brand that I think I'm going to work their in my spare time!

How I Really Feel Friday - Well...the cop was nice

Let me preface this by saying that I took today off for a last hurrah before school starts so I can spend the day at the beach with my kid because she's been trying to get there all summer long but her and her friends calendars never seem to make that work and/or their being new drivers they weren't allowed to drive with one another in the car.

I left work yesterday and joined two other old co-worker friends to visit another girl we used to work with to cheer her up. Kim not only just turned 50 but had a rather serious surgery to her neck and is home bound. Its approximately 6 weeks after her surgery. We didn't want her birthday to pass without any fanfare having been stuck at home so we brought the party to her. The one thing I did right, she seemed to really enjoy my choice of red wine that I brought, was very familiar with it and impressed. The other girls brought things to nibble on and we had a lovely few hours chatting, laughing and reminiscing. So I was in a happy place when I left Kim's house.

When I got home I had about an hour before the kid got off work but she promptly called to say that she was picking up her best friend and going to a local diner for food. I told her to be home early because I wanted to leave rather early for the beach.

At 10:45pm I called and asked where she was and reminded her little absent mind to drop Ally off because by the time she does that and gets back home it will be almost 11:30. What can I say, she's going to be a junior and Math is not her forte!

At 11:30 my cell phone rings and she says, "Mom, can you come get me?" "I'm at the 'no-tell motel' (raunchy name withheld) and the cops want our parents to come or they won't let us leave." Steam pressure building up inside me.

I say, "Are you in trouble?" She replies, "No, and don't be mad."

She says this a lot to me when she's calling me last minute when she's already supposed to be home. I'm not sure which pisses me off more, that she's not home when she's supposed to be or the gall of her telling me how NOT to feel when its my parental right.

So I jump from my nest from which I was sleeping and decided to put real clothes on because although I would have loved to embarrass her, I grew up in the town that she called from and you never know who I might bump into and that might not be the moment I want to be seen in my PJ's.

So when I get to the 'no tell motel' I eyeball the cop car and a group of kids from our town. The young, handsome, more than cordial policeman says, "There was a party. They were in a room." And by the look on my face quickly added, "a whole bunch of kids were in the room together." and adds, "SHE doesn't appear to have been drinking BUT I don't want anyone driving home just in case and I don't want to 'pinch' anyone." Well, he was in a more generous mood than I was.

We had to leave my old car at the 'no tell motel' so that this morning when my friends and family drive by on their way to work they can see it sitting there! Oy!

The whole ride home in the car she was angry at me because she knew I was pissed and that I wouldn't believe her when she was trying to tell me that, 'she dropped Ally off and then went to the 'no tell' to give Chelsea her sweatshirt so she'd have it tonight for the concert' they're all supposed to go to. My question was "you left the diner in 'Town A' dropped Ally off in 'Town B' (which is our town but the furthest point on the outskirts) and then drove all the way to 'Town C' when you should have already been home." Reply: "I know you don't believe me but that's the truth."

I have to admit that it was hard not to believe this version of the story because as the cop indicated, she seemed to be one of the few if not the only kid who appeared to NOT have alcohol in her. BUT she conveniently omitted telling me her plan of action when I talked to her on the phone which doesn't make it look good for her.

Upon waking this morning the first thought in my head was A) She's going to kill me (high blood pressure, heart palpitations) and B) The ex should have to deal with this because it would be payback for everything I used to have to put up with when he used to behave the same way...as an adult married man! Sweet justice if he had to deal with the same behavior he used to make me have to deal with! BUT NO, God seems to have a sense of humor and wants to prove that history repeats itself and remembers that I had to take 11th Grade History over again in Senior year.

Conversation with my sister via e-mail this morning

Sister:
I still see my therapist once a month, more for me because I think of her as a friend. She is reallly great. It gets me out of the office and she calls (Ex's name withheld) all kinds of good swear words.

Me:
I can do that weekly for you - we can drink and I can call him douche-bag dik-wad!

Sister:
No, she calls him mf.... and pr...k.

Just had to share...this conversation tickled me.
Of course she never needed a therapist until the douche-bag dik-wad divorced her.

How I Really Feel Friday ~ Doctor, Doctor revisited

Happy Friday!

The good news is that my blood work seems to be back in the normal range. However, the doctor's office had to admit that they forgot to include one test in the blood work, so on my way home today I'll get that taken care of. Just want it all to be over with!

The work week, after coming from vacation, wasn't too bad because my boss was out on her vacation. So it was a non-stressful week. Can't ask for more.

Saw "Mahalia" last night at the local stage company starring Frenchie Davis. What a wonderful play and what a dynamite performance by Frenchie Davis. A power-house of a voice. Just amazing!

I'm going to soak in the weekend with fresh air and sun as I feel like Summer is coming to an end, all too soon. Maybe I'll capture next week's HNT, as I never got around to it this past Thursday!

Whatever you may be doing this weekend...enjoy!

Back to R E A L I T Y

Back to: yard work, cleaning house, laundry, work, doctor's appointments, bills, managing my kid and her craziness which she calls 'summer.'

How I Really Feel Friday - Sigh...back from vacation

Vacation was wonderful - too short in some respects.
Just long enough when traveling with family.

Here are some photos:

Just back from the Bahamas HNT

How I Really Feel Friday ~ Funny....but NOT

Well I'm overly excited about the upcoming C R U I S E. I'm "wired for sound" and its all I can think about....the preparation....the actual trip.....me being a sun goddess, etc. I'm thinking about electronic accessories to bring and one that is NOT on the list is my cell phone because I don't want my kid bringing hers and calling and/or text messaging friends at the tune of international fees and for that matter I figure I can communicate with my beau via e-mail which I don't mind paying for that connection on the ship because I'm certain it's gotta be less expensive than the international calls. Thoughts? Suggestions anyone?

On another note, I got away from my legally bound partner before he could kill me with stress, but I'm sure his spawn (my kid) will finish the job that he started. Enough said. I don't want to get all worked up and give myself palpatations and kill my happiness buzz of my upcoming cruise.

I will take plenty of pictures. Maybe I will be a voyeur. I'm calling it the LUV boat. Signing off - be well everyone!

HNT - slice of the pie

Happy HNT everyone!
It's going to be 96 degrees here today.
Organizing and preparing for vacation ~~~ C r u i s e ~~~