Bad combination: The iPod randomly shuffling to Gustav Holst’s “Mars, The Bringer of War” and being stuck behind a farm tractor on the highway during morning rush hour traffic.

In case you don’t know what the musical piece sounds like, here it is.

And yes, we have rush hour traffic here in Northwest Arkansas. Apparently children are too good these days to ride the buses, so the parents clog the roads all taking their spoiled brats to school at the same time we are all trying to get to work.

And then for whatever reason, some farm tractor driver decides he just has to get from one town to another on his tractor… at 10 miles per hour!

Today, started out painful. Literally. I woke up extremely sore from yesterday’s deconstruction of the tool shed. So I…

Tumble outta bed
And I stumble to the kitchen
Pour myself a cup of ambition
And yawn and stretch
And try to come to life
Jump in the shower
And the blood starts pumpin’
Out on the street
The traffic starts jumpin’
The folks like me on the job from 9 to 5

I wish I just worked 9 to 5. Anyway, sorry for that moment of being sidetracked—that happens when I’m really, really tired.

I left the day job today at 12:30 to meet the husbear to going car “shopping”. We need to replace the Pontiac Grand Prix that has seen way, way better days (i.e., having the entire front-end replaced after I hit an ice patch and slid into a giant oak tree three months after we bought it; extreme hail damage during a tornado that actually caused enough damage to be totaled out; the husbear swerving to “miss a deer” and destroying the right side of the car after sliding down an embankment).

The husbear has been looking at vehicles for the last few months (going car “browsing” with his lesbian) and he pretty much decided he wanted a Toyota Prius due to good reputation over the last decade and great fuel economy as a hybrid. We headed down to the local Toyota dealership, and there it was on the showroom floor… the car my husbear wanted.

the husbear’s new car… “Lucy”

That had to be the best car purchasing experience I have ever been a part of. Ever. It didn’t hurt at all!

Now the husbear is giddy to be in his new car. He has named his Prius —”Lucy”. One big, homosexual guess as to why…

the husbear in his new car

Oh, and my new glasses came in today…

My new glasses

What do you think? Do they make me look older? Should I really have been left unattended to pick out my own fashion?

Today I had one goal: to clean up the shed that sits next to the house. It’s more-or-less the tool shed/garden shed/storage shed. During the winter months it tends to get a little neglected and things pile up in it since I don’t like to be out in the cold.

So I start cleaning at around 11 this morning. I’m pulling things out of the shed and stacking them outside in nice, organized piles. I’m even disposing of items that “need to go”, and sorting out the remainder. During the cleaning, I move a shelving unit and what do I find? A HUGE pile of termites and pulpated wood. Crap! Not good. Especially when you live in a 116 year old home made of—you guessed it—WOOD!

termites and pulpated wood

After showing my findings to the husbear—who has been working in yard landscaping—we investigate more and find the floor supports have been eaten and some of the lower walls were showing signs of damage.

the husbear and the now removed floor and wall

After discussing our options, we decide to raze the shed instead of having it treated and replacing the damaged wood. I guess this pushes ahead the plan on replacing the shed. The new, replacement shed was on next fiscal year’s “to do list”.

Razing the shed complicates things. Now I really have to go through everything, disposing of all sorts of things I collected over time (which was a problem anyway). We took what didn’t get disposed of up to the peafowl shed for temporary storage.

stuff piled up everywhere

We knocked down the shed today, and the husbear will start cutting it up tomorrow on his day off and take the remnants up to the wood pile for burning. We want to get it away from the house as soon as possible to avoid any termite contamination. I guess we’ll also have the termite company come out and inspect the house again just to make sure.

the husbear looking studly on his deconstruction

What a day. All I wanted to do was clean up the shed. I guess this was one extreme way to do it.

me and the husbear after a full day of deconstruction

All that, and I still somehow managed a smile.

Call me a dork, but I ran into this site the other day. Thought I’d share as it has amused me for hours. It’s the Internet Anagram Server at http://wordsmith.org/anagram/index.html.

“Adorkable”

I think the shirt is appropriate.

Does anyone else… “leak”?

When I was a young pup, I wet the bed. All the time. This led to awkward social situations as a kid. Like being too embarrassed to spend the night at a friend’s house. Or peeing in my sleeping bag on camping trips in Scouts. All good times, let me tell you.

My parents were obviously concerned. So there was all the poking and prodding done by the doctors to attempt to figure out why. That was fun. I remember once being injected with a dye and having to stand in front of an X-ray type machine and as I was urinating they were taking X-rays. Then there was all sorts of medication that was taken in an attempt to stop the problem. Nothing worked.

The last thing that was attempted was some sort of device that was based on Pavlov’s bell-ringing-and-dogs-salivating experiments. Except in this case it was an electronic buzzer that was wired to my underwear. When moisture was detected, a LOUD buzzer activated and woke me from my slumber.

Which was apparently the problem! I was in such a deep sleep that I didn’t know to wake up when I needed to urinate. I still remember vividly to this day the first time the buzzer went off. I woke up screaming not knowing what the hell was happening, all the while wetting myself—both because that was “the routine” and because I was scared as hell. That wasn’t traumatic, was it?

After a few months of this twisted, evil version of an alarm clock, I was “reprogrammed” to wake up right as I was starting to pee. Which was an improvement. But I still “leaked” a little.

Which I still do to this day. Which is both annoying and a problem. After I “give it a shake” (or five) I still continue to drip a little after that. Not constantly, but just a little. Enough to be annoying. I sure as hell don’t want to go to a urologist for more poking and prodding like I experienced as a youth. But getting older, something tells me that I should before things get worse?

Just thought I’d share.