Category Archives: A Cuss Word Will Do

Lightning Crashes – An RV AC unit dies

Posted on by April 3, 2017
(Cue “Lightning Crashes” by Live, from the album “Throwing Copper”. A great song, one of my favs.)

(This is just a short post to let you all know I’m still around. I will be posting about Florida shortly)

The above referenced song title and lyrics were the first thing I thought of as reality set in: Thunder and lightning storm. Lightning crashes directly overhead. Power flickers, TV screen freezes. The smell of burnt plastic, and of electrically charged air (a rather unique smell).

The backup batteries and converter did their jobs so well, quickly bringing the TV back on, it took a few minutes for me to realize I was no longer running on shore (hookup/city) power. But then I noticed some little things weren’t on: the fridge had flipped from electric to gas, the socket where my phone was (no longer) charging, the Christmas lights in the living room, the microwave clock… That’s serious. When the microwave is out, I am NOT a happy camper glamper.

When the rain slowed down, I switched to generator power and began checking my favorite things: TVs – check; microwave – check; fridge – check; toaster oven – check; water heater – check; oven – check; furnace – check; AC unit – …..  AC unit – ……… AC unit – …………..

Ohferfuckssake.

Lightning crashes, an RV AC unit dies.

The blower works, But, wait! There’s more…

Indecent Proposals, part two

Posted on by July 19, 2016

If you haven’t already, read part one of Indecent Proposals here, or none of this post will make sense. All caught up? Ok, good.

Mouse having sex with a mouse.

This is like internet dating, but better.

He replied saying he was busy traveling for a few weeks. Then no other communication for two weeks, until I get the email below (in green). Apparently, he’d not been traveling as he said in his previous email. When reading his next email, with his thinly-veiled indecent proposal, keep in mind we have had one phone conversation and we have not met.

Dear Blond Lemming,

Good morning. I hope that you had a fabulous holiday weekend.

Are you making the move to (town to get away from the ex Speck) this week?

I’ve been catching up with friends and trying to get my back yard ready for a 3 week trip. I’m planning to leave this weekend, hopefully Saturday, to go to a conference in OH and then spend 2 weeks in MI. Then I’ll drive up through the Upper Peninsula and back down through WI. Should be a lovely time for a trip. I’m busy lining up appointments and visits now.

Sorry we haven’t met yet. We’ll have time to talk in the car if you want to ride along;-) I’m taking my friend’s kayak and am especially looking forward to the shores and inlets of Lake Superior. I’ll be passing through a lot of areas where wealthy Chicagoans have their summer homes. They might be good regions for your sales? Ready for an adventure?

Or a cup of coffee, of course;-)

With wanderlust,
Greenie

WTF? I’m thinking the “wander” portion of his signature was a typo on his part. And he wasn’t paying a bit of attention during our call if he thinks I sell door-to-door products, or anything, to homeowners.

Hi Greenie, But, wait! There’s more…

Tales From the RV Park: This one’s not funny

Posted on by July 12, 2016

Author’s Note: The first part of this post is not funny, at all. In fact, it’s still quite sad for me. But then it gets a bit funny (in a bizarre, dating-sucks way) when I went to Bethany Beach in Delaware, and then it gets hopeful. I have some hilarious (or not) dating escapades to tell you all in the following posts, and a hopeful solution to my screwy dating life. But before I get to that, I have a confession of sorts to make…

It's a shame you can't buy common sense like you can buy deodorant.

It’s a shame you can’t buy common sense like you can buy deodorant.

It’s not really a confession so much as connecting some dots for you all, dots that I haven’t connected for you before. Actually it was one dot. The connection is this One Dot and I dated on and off for the last three and a half years. I’ve written about him a few times, although rather subtly in most cases. He is the one person I wrote about whom (I believe) I never gave a secret name, until now. While a few of you know who he is, and others can connect the dots, I won’t use his name. Instead, I will refer to him as Speck. Because, he’s not even a dot now, he’s just a speck. (This will make more sense when you read what happened.)

Speck transferred for work from Cow-Chicken-Oil Town, Texas, to Pennsylvania Rainforest/Dutch Country about a year and a half ago. At the time, his transferring many states away was the best thing that happened to me, him not being in my life my more.

But, I’m blond, none too bright, and have the tendencies of a lemming. Oooh, look at that perfectly good cliff – I think I’ll throw myself off it for funzies! But, wait! There’s more…

A rough day at Rough Canyon, or Does This Look Broken?

Posted on by February 13, 2016

The day was hot – hot like only central Texas can be in mid-August. The kind of hot that would burn an egg on the sidewalk. Waves of heat radiated off the asphalt road. We were headed to Rough Canyon at Lake Amistad for the day, pulling a boat behind us. It’s a long drive from north Hill Country to Lake Amistad, a long barren drive through miles of nothing, punctuated by the rare intersection named as if it’s an entire town.

It was in the middle of this long stretch of nothing, the kind of nothing where cell phone signals are non-existent, that we got a flat tire. Because, you know, that’s where stuff happens – in the middle of nowhere with no cell signal.

Parked off to the side of the road, an area covered in fire ant hills (for you non-Texans and non-southwesterners, those are aggressive red ants that leave a burning bite) my friend fixed the flat with the help of a roadside mowing crew that I flagged down. (Because your tax dollars are hard at work, mowing the sides of roads in the middle of NOWHERE.) They didn’t speak English, and my limited Spanish wasn’t much help, but we all used hand signals. (All joking aside, I’d like to add that country Texans and native Mexicans are some of the kindest folks, always ready to lend a hand to someone in need.)

After numerous fire ant bites (on everyone), a nasty gash on a finger or two (not mine), and a string of cuss words (also not mine), we were back on our way to Lake Amistad. Like the weather, the truck was running hot for most of the trip but we finally made it to…

Rough Canyon at Lake Amistad

It's a BIG lake.

It’s a BIG lake… this picture doesn’t do it justice, but it’s the only long-shot I took.

The following is a slide show of the high cliffs and caves. Native Americans once lived in these caves. But, wait! There’s more…

The Life of Pye: The day Pye locked me out of the RV

Posted on by December 13, 2015

Remind me again, Why do I have a cat?

Better yet, why do I have THIS cat?

Fair warning: This is long, and kind of ranty.

The trip was already going far too slowly: It had taken me 13 hours to get 2.5 hours away. I was behind schedule by an entire day. I was supposed to be in the Texas panhandle by Sunday late afternoon, and working by Monday morning. But the RV needed a couple minor things (air in tires and a new battery – NO THANKS AT ALL TO PROGRESSIVE’S ROADSIDE-LACK-OF-ASSISTANCE PROVIDER, AGERO.) Read the first part of my adventure to get caught up.

So now it’s late Monday morning. I’m in the middle of small town America, somewhere in the Texas panhandle. After the sleepless night at Wal-Mart and a second long day on small, bumpy country roads, I have made it only as far as Crosbyton, Texas.

The day Pye locked me out of the RV

Pye hates the RV when it moves, and is positively stir crazy when we’re not driving down the road. She hates riding in the RV more than Checkers ever did and wants to get out as soon as it stops. Refusing to see the pattern of never being let out in a new place, she yowls at the door, and tries pawing at the door handles. (You see where this is going, don’t you?) After two solid days on the road she is done.

I slept late to make up for the lack of sleep the night before, feeling guilty the entire time because I know I’m already not going to make it to the top of the Texas panhandle by that night, even without the compulsory stop in Amarillo to see my top bucket list item, the Cadillac Ranch.  But, wait! There’s more…

Tales From the RV Park: Holy Haters Batman!

Posted on by August 18, 2015

I’m not going to bother with the usual disclaimer on this one because this is a rant. It’s also not directly related to the RV park, which has a whole host of weirdness all its own, but is instead a rant about my general experience with the nearby towns. There will be cuss words.

If you are new to this blog, you should probably skip this post for a better one. Any other one. This post isn’t my best first impression. Just saying. I don’t know when I began caring about first impressions. Humh, that’s new. Carry on.

<rant on>

Say NO to haters.

Say NO to haters.

I am ready to leave Deerville, Soberville, and Touristburg. I’m over it, for a couple reasons.

I’ve been teaching a free meditation class in one of the neighboring towns. I’ve done this before. I don’t get paid for it, it’s something I like to do to better my little corner of the world. It’s also fun for me, gives me a chance to meditate with a group, and best of all to hopefully encourage people to meditate daily. I teach different approaches to meditation, ways to easily increase your practice, and share what it’s done for me.

Daily meditation has change my life in ways that were previously unimaginable to me: a sense of inner peace, mental clarity, better health, and the ability to monitor my thoughts – and to choose better ones, etc. Of course I want to share this with people, so I started teaching meditation to others. I have done this for a several years, and it has always been a fun experience.

But then some haters came. Now I don’t want to share it with them anymore. But, wait! There’s more…

Fifty Shades Read Aloud by a Kernuttie

Posted on by August 12, 2015

Fifty Shades Read Aloud by New Yorkers

One of my readers, a New York construction worker, sent this clip of himself and a few other folks reading snippets of Fifty Shades aloud. It’s hilarious! They were “interviewed” for Late Night With Seth Meyers.

Craig Ferguson said the books are “vanilla” (ooohhh, Craig – I loved you before, but now I love you even more!). I’ve also heard the movie isn’t that good; it’s better to watch these videos. There are many other clips in the series, so have fun!!

RV stuff I fixed all by myself.

Posted on by March 7, 2014

Before I get to the self-stroking RV stuff I fixed, I want to talk about something sort of important, for once…

My Yahoo! editor has fallen off the face of the earth which means I’ve been able to write more on this blog. Lucky you! (No contact in about a month now, and I’ve submitted a great story idea and an article in that time, along with a few reminder emails.Whatever.) So in between writing the next episode of Tales From the RV Park, I checked my blog stats on Google Feedburner and noticed I lost about 20% of my subscribers within the four days after this post: Online Dating: Oh my. Well, this explains a lot. The post may or may not explain a lot about online dating, but I can’t figure out why I lost so many subscribers. I thought the post about the hunter-gather principle would’ve been the one to turn folks off. Or, far more likely, this post, this post, or this post. Was it something I said?

I don’t try to offend anyone on this blog, but I realize it happens. Heck, I do it in my face-to-face life, too… I suffer from “Foot In Mouth” disease all the time. It’s probably that missing filter thing I mentioned in my About page.

Since I brought up the online dating, some of you may be wondering about what’s going on with the Online Dating Chronicles. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Nada. Ziltch. Zero. Concerned I might say something “sans filter” – like I do on this blog – I have been extra cautious when writing back to the few men who’ve sent me a normal email. The conversations always seem to go quite well… and then nothing. They just stop replying, or send one random sentence in reply to our regular email exchange – a sentence that contains no question in which to reply. And, no asking to meet or to talk on the phone.

I do live about an hour and a half (or more) from the ones writing. Maybe that has something to do with it – in the end they just don’t want to bother with the distance. I don’t know, that’s just a guess. Maybe I’m offending the crap out of them, too. 

So,I’m done with the online dating thing. The endless emailing that goes nowhere has taken its toll on my level of interest.

Which means I will continue offending and/or boring the crap out of the few of you dear readers I have left…

Self-Stroking Post RV Stuff I Fixed All By Myself

There is a dichotomy to the RV lifestyle: A lot of stuff needs fixing or regular maintenance, which sucks. But when you fix it all by yourself, it’s an awesome moment of pure pleasure. SPOILER ALERT: If you can tell someone about it and they make all the appropriate facial expressions and comments, the moment of awesome lasts even longer.

Maybe it’s just me, but I get a real thrill out of fixing some, often random, item on my RV. Is that feeling why men love fixing stuff?

*light bulb goes on above my head*

Ohhhh, I totally get it, guys. It makes me want to get frisky, too.

I will now tell you about Stuff I Fixed All By Myself because you are a captive audience that’s really nice to me.

Well, it’s this or you could go back to the work you’re avoiding. Ok, we’ll compromise – I’ll keep it short, kind of. To help with keeping it kind of short, just know the links below are all to previous posts so long-time readers can skip those. Everyone new has to read them. Why? Um, you might learn something. Yeah, that’s it.

Now that we’ve got that settled, I shall commence with the list of Stuff I Fixed All By Myself:

But, wait! There’s more…

Ten Things: Ten More Reasons Dating REALLY Sucks

Posted on by September 4, 2012

A while back I wrote Ten Things: Ten Reasons Dating Sucks.

Because of my mixed feelings about dating vs. remaining single, I now have ten more reasons dating sucks. And because I’m apparently a glutton for punishment.

single vs relationship

I’m on the “Single” side right now. Rather wary of the opposite sex at the moment.

MamaSteph, in her article Men… Ugh…, put it better than I ever could have…

I am not at all a stupid person, in fact, I like to think of myself as rather smart, but on occasion I do some very stupid things, most of which involve men. I love men, everything about them, wide shoulders, hairy chests, deep voices, big hands, the way they smell… anyway, where was I? Oh yes, for a relatively smart girl I have made some bad choices in men, bad choices, like if stupidity was a crime I would be a lifer with no parole. If I walk into a room with 100 men the ones who hone in on me first are the most unstable, I will then pick the worst one of them to date, it’s a character flaw.

I feel a kindred spirit to this woman, a complete stranger. But she knows me and I know her. Like her, I, too, am not desperate for a relationship, I am single by choice. However, I would welcome the opportunity to share my life and adventures with the right man. Emphasis on RIGHT.

But, wait! There’s more…

Bugzilla, my new roommate.

Posted on by September 2, 2013

Are y’all sick of me telling you how big shit is in Texas? I hope not because just when I think I’ve covered the “biggest” thing Texans have, some other unnaturally-sized creature or event comes along to prove me every bit the naive Californian.

Texans have big balls… and I don’t mean parties.

You may be thinking I found this out the traditional way. Unfortunately, no.

We had another really huge storm in the southcentral area of the Texas coast on Sunday/Monday night. Tornadoes were spotted right over the little town I’m camped in just northeast of Corpus Christi. I was terrified when the tornado warning to “take immediate shelter” was announced. I grabbed my cat and headed to the cinder-block building in the park. A family from Canada was also there taking shelter.

While waiting for the storm to subside, we peeked out the door. It was then I noticed all the other RVers – ones with Texas plates – were still home, in their RVs.

In a park with over two-hundred residents, we were the only ones taking shelter: the four Canadians, the Californian and her cat.

All I can say is storms and mosquitoes aren’t the only big things in Texas. Texans have big balls, too.

But today, I want to tell you about something else “Texas-sized”. My new roommate.

But, wait! There’s more…