(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 – …………..
“Gonna bang you like a screen door blowing in a hurricane.”
I laughed so hard when I first heard that!
Do you know how long I had to wait for a good storm so I could use that title? Months. MONTHS, I tell you. (If you recall, during the last big storm in Texas Hill Country I was pleasantly, fortunately, blessedly in another state.)
But this is Texas, so I knew it would only be a matter of time until there was a big storm wherever I was at. Like all things they do big in Texas, storms are at the top of the list. And so is the flooding. Many of you may recall the flooding of two years ago.
Leave it to me to find another RV park with a river that floods. Mind you, I’m on a completely. different. river. this time around. Ya, like that mattered.
This is a series of photos taken at three intervals, over about 20 hours. (Click below to see the photos.)
“I’m trading you two in for good kids,” my dad bellowed to Chickenbone and I one summer day long ago after we’d been acting up.
Interventions.
After our parents divorced, Chickenbone and I spent summers at my father’s house in Carlsbad, California. We were generally allowed to run amok during the day while he was at work, or sometimes we would spend days at our grandparents house nearby. We loved the freedom, but we also got bored after a while.
We were shocked. “Trade us in? What do you mean?”, one of us asked.
“I’m trading you two in. As soon as the catalog comes in the mail, I’m going to trade you two in for good kids.”
Last we left off, my coworker “Spiderman” found someone to whom he could pimp his spider out for a long weekend in Dallas, was requesting transportation to Dallas for his horny male spider.
You new folks may still not realize I do not make this stuff up. Hang around a while and you’ll see little corners of the world you did not know, or perhaps ever wanted to know, existed. You’re welcome.I consider this a service in line with Public Service Announcements.
Back to the pimpin out of one of Spiderman’s numerous (30+ and growing) spiders.
We may rejoice! The spider is getting laid. The ride for the horny spider to spend a long weekend with a female of the same species has finally taken place.
As I mentioned in a previous post, Spiderman was quickly able to find a nearby mate for his spider through Facebook. Facebook is the place to hook your spider up for a weekend away with other spiders.
Mark Zuckerberg must be proud. When he helped create Facebook, he was probably thinking it would be a great arena for humans to hook up. Little did he know…
Got issues with your Norcold refrigerator? You’re not alone!
(Norcold is a brand of refrigerator in many RVs. Feel free to skip this post and go to the next one if you don’t have an RV or aren’t interested in all the crap you have to fix if you own one.)
A portion of the glacier of ice that once occupied my freezer. It’s about two inches thick here, but started as three inches in the center. Yeah, yeah, so I let it go for a while – what of it?
My Norcold fridge doesn’t do well in high heat, the current temperature in south central Texas. I’m hoping you have better solutions than what I’ve tried. Besides, I’m losing interest in the Online Dating Chronicles. Not even the “30 Boyfriend Rules” profile written by two little girls got a response. Perhaps potential candidates suspected my snarkiness in posting it in place of my original profile.
Issue #1: The back of the freezer has accumulated a glacier’s worth of ice.
I suspect the extra weight negatively effects my gas mileage. Global warming is not effecting my RV fridge. If there is such a thing as Global Warming, the world is welcome to use my fridge to help combat it.
I tried to thaw it, only to have my hairdryer die after about two minutes. WTF??? The hairdryer still works, but seems to over heat and shut down when trying to thaw the fridge. It wasn’t making a dent in the glacier anyway.
Next, I chipped at the wall of ice with a knife for another thirty minutes, switching arms, back and forth, as each arm tired out. Thirty minutes and two aching arms later, I had made such little progress it was depressing.
Issue #2: The small drip tray in the top, back of the regular cold area of the fridge freezes over and won’t drain.
It’s been hot here in central Texas, hotter than a whore on nickle night at the cat house. So when the rains and cool weather came – without terrifying winds – we all enjoyed it immensely. I can’t tell you how wonderful it has been to wear pants and long-sleeved shirts for the first time in over six months.
So there I was, sitting at the computer in cozy sweat-outfit bliss, trying to catch up on email, etc. while listening to the soothing plip-plop of soft rain on the roof.
Then I heard a SPLAT-SPLAT. Huh, I thought, that drip was louder than the others.
I start to go back to my Facebooking typing when I had a second thought (yes, two in less than a minute – we wouldn’t want to tax ourselves).
Uh-oh… My mouth dropped open as my head snapped up and my focus zeroed in on the drips coming from under the entertainment center. (Feel free to insert a stream of your own dirty words.)
The RV sprung a leak, again, and in almost the same spot as last year. Some of you may recall the time when the windows let in rain. Thank goodness I was home this time, too.
While it feels at times like the Universe is conspiring against me lately with several RV issues happening all at once and myriad other things which you’ve likely been subjected to enjoyed reading, the Universe also seems to provide (sometimes) at the same time: The rain stopped while we spent a good two hours caulking the RV, the temperature was neither hot nor cold, and the rangers once again came to my rescue.
With caulk in her hand? Covered in caulk? There’s a joke in there somewhere. Feel free to post a better one in the comments, but remember my mom reads this blog so don’t go all perverted like that one commenter, ok? On an unrelated note, I chose this photo because my butt looks great. Sometimes, gravity works in your favor.
I would like to take this moment to express my gratitude to the wonderfully kind and helpful rangers at the park. Lets all say a nice little prayer of health and happiness and prosperity for them, ok? Seriously, now is a good time.
When we left off, I had just realized I was being followed by some stranger in a beat-up pickup truck with dark tinted windows. If you missed part one you can read it here: The Time Martin Sheen Saved My Life. Part three (the conclusion) coming soon.
Trying to lose the strange vehicle stalking me, I quickly drove around corners and waited for him to pass by. Whenever he realized I was no longer in front of him, he would search the short streets for me. When he’d spot my car, I’d pull out and speed off in another direction. After one such turn, I got stuck in a dead end culdesac with him right behind me! I think it surprised him, too. Oddly enough, he didn’t block my exit, instead backing up to let me out of the narrow dead end.
Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, after passing him I sped down another street.
Thinking I’m safer in this small neighborhood of nice houses, I’ve become afraid to return to the main highway that pretty much goes nowhere for 27 miles. But I’m frantically trying to call the police. Cell service on Point Dume? Damn near non-existent.
My calls to 911 kept getting cut off part way through. Unlike the police in Northern California, the 911 operators in LA just don’t give a shit, probably jaded by the many horrendous calls they get. They made no attempt to call me back when we got cut off. None. Had this been Northern California, the 911 operators would have blown up the phone trying to call back a terrified woman cut off during a 911 call. (To give you a little better idea of the police mentality down in LA, if you ever get pulled over for a DUI, just make a $2,500 donation to the police department and there will be no DUI. Heard stories of police brutality? All true. You’re not famous? Oh, no help for you until after your murder. That’s the treatment I was getting from 911. This probably also explains the high rate of homicide in LA: 911 is apathetic to your pleas for help.) But, wait! There’s more…
In honor of the resurrection of the Hawaii Five-O CBS television series, I thought I’d tell you all about the time I carried hand cuffs.
For years I carried handcuffs. No, not in the hopes of finding someone hot to kidnap a willing victim. But that’s not a bad idea. Thanks!
In another episode of Jobs I Had: I was a licensed Bail Agent.
Yup, the State of California thought I was sane enough for a Bail Agent’s license. As long as you haven’t committed a felony, you too can get one.
Being a licensed Bail Agent meant I could go on bail “skips” (those who skip out of town or sentencing) and arrest the offender. Neato. Got my own handcuffs, too. This job was in conjunction with my time as a P.I. – my boss, the owner of the PI firm, also owned a bail bond agency.
With two exceptions, no one ever “made” (identified, spotted) me. If I got questioned by neighbors in the area I was staking out, I had a great cover: I was stalking my cheating boyfriend. They were so nice they would offer to help! People are cool.
A couple weren’t cool. Some men were nasty, and even threatened me. Too bad you can’t shoot someone for threatening you. If they’d only known I was armed. And dangerous.
And unstable.
Before you all go thinking: OMG! She was just like Dog the County Hunter! No, it’s not nearly as exciting as they make it seem. Well, not all the time.
But sometimes it is very interesting.
Case: A BIG dude who skipped bail on my boss. I had a mug shot to go by and night goggles.
So I’m waiting near his apartment. The complex has a gym where we know he likes to work out. I’ve been instructed to call for our off-duty police backup when I spot the skip.
I spot him working out at the gym. Score! My heart starts racing. Our off-duty police backup meets me, we ID the guy with the mug shot I have, and the cop handcuffs him. The guy doesn’t have his wallet or ID with him because he was working out, but he says he’s not the guy.
A likely story. Ya, we never heard that one before.
He insists he’s not the guy. He admits to being on parole for killing (Penal Code 187) a cop with his brother 9 years ago, but says he’s not our guy. But he’s a Dead Wringer (pun not intended) in the mug shot I have.
He’s really calm and polite. That’s rare. But it’s ok with me that he’s still handcuffed.
Anyway, we walk him to his apartment to get his wallet and ID. The photo looks like him, but the name isn’t the same as my skip. The cop runs a check on him, and finds only that prior crime he mentioned: The 187 . The murder.
He’s really not our guy. Ok, fine.
The cop goes to uncuff him, but he can’t find his handcuff key. It’s gone. Totally lost. He asks if I have mine.
Nope. Didn’t expect to be doing the handcuffing on this one. Plus my key was taken away from me. But that’s another story.
So the cop leaves me alone in the apartment with the handcuffed BIG dude. Who could head-butt me to death with one blow. Who is innocent of skipping bail. But not cop-killing.
I’m sure I oozed fear the whole fivty-thousdred minutes I was alone with BIG dude.
He was tame as a kitten with me. Very nice of him considering WE’D HANDCUFFED AN INNOCENT MAN.
It had belonged to my friend’s ex-girlfriend, a woman named Cindy. Cindy and I didn’t look all that much alike, but we both had blond hair, blue eyes, and were of similar height.
She, of course, was older by a few years. That’s really all I (and the bartenders) needed.
Ahhh, childhood memories. So sweet, so innocent, so…
…much like a college frat party.
What is was like at Mom's.
For the most part, I lived a pretty sheltered life growing up in the Santa Barbara area until shortly before the age of 14. After my parents divorced when I was around eight, my younger sister, Chickenbone, and I lived with our mom most of the year. We had to be in the house at 5pm, and in bed at 8:00 or 8:30pm, depending on our age. We had chores to do every weekend and were fed health food.
McDonald’s was not on the menu. We stole candy from the local candy store because we were starved for sugar. (I hope the statute of limitations has run out ’cause I just totally confessed to a major crime. Again.)
Then I was sent to live with my father in Capitola, but for the next year my sister continued to live with my mother. Things were very different at Dad’s: My curfew for school nights was midnight, bedtime was up to me, I could eat whatever I wanted, and drink from the liquor cabinet.
