Last Day Of The Month

Well, we are heading into October tomorrow. This month sure has gone by fast, but so has the whole year. The heat is hopefully winding down because my main air conditioner has pretty much all but expired. I can't complain, though. It was born in 1972 and has preformed above and beyond my expectations for the last few years that I have lived here. If I am here next summer, and it looks like I probably will be, a new one will be purchased.

Here are some end of the month photos for your viewing pleasure:

THE MOUNDS

ODDBALL ORANGE LANTANA

RED FLOWER THINGS BY THE WELL HOUSE

WHAT USED TO BE MY DRIVEWAY

LOOKING DOWN INTO THE HOLE BY THE DRIVEWAY
THE SMALL WIRE DOWN THERE IS MY REPAIRED LINE
NOT SURE WHAT THAT STEERING WHEEL THING IS

LOOKING AT MY FRONT DOOR FROM THE DRIVEWAY

COOL HOLE IN MY OLD OAK TREE

IVY THAT HAS GROWN INTO MY BEDROOM WINDOW

SOME LANTANA LOOKING ONTO MY FRONT PORCH

TEENY LANTANA FLOWERS LOOKING LARGE

VERY SMALL BUG ON SOME IVY

UNKNOWN TYPE PURPLE FLOWERS THAT GROW
WITHOUT EVER BEING WATERED

It's Too Big!

Got home this morning and turned on my computer and realized quickly that my monitor had gone out. Sigh... withdrawals... sobs...

So as soon as Best Buy opened, I was in the store and in a matter of mere seconds I was out the door with a shiny, new, WAY too expensive, monitor. Told the guy checking receipts at the door that this was the most money I've spent in such a short amount of time. But boy is it purdy! I'm going to have to get my neck muscles used to swinging back and forth as I sit here. I bought the biggest one they had.

Now I'm off to see how my Wizard101 looks on it. Then a movie. I'm SO excited!

Skewed Vision

20 years ago, had someone told me that I would one day live alone with four cats and have intense rage and hatred towards most people (internally, not externally), I wouldn't have believed them. The words hate and rage were not part of my life back then. 20 years ago, I started my law enforcement career.

It has become increasingly obvious over the last several years that my desire to interact with other human beings is all but gone. Where once I could find something good in the worst person, now even the good people are seen as inherently bad.

As the days, weeks, months and years fly by, this social "problem" I'm having is only getting worse. To the point that I am starting to question myself. If I was sad about being alone and being friends with only the people I work with, I think the solution would be easier found. But I'm not at all sad. I have told you here, more than once, that I LIKE my solitary life. A LOT. The less I have to interact with people, the happier I feel.

For a while, and on very rare occasions even now, I blamed this closed off version of myself on the bad break up I experienced in... 2003? HA, I can't even remember the year any more. The rational part of myself realizes that too many years have passed for this to be a real cause of my horrible outlook on life. And it's got absolutely nothing to do with my aversion to going to the grocery store, driving anywhere, going outside to get my mail, taking my trash to the curb.

I've never been a big fan of self help books. Like the psychologist I once went to, I feel silly paying somebody to tell me things I already know and it's frustrating when they (books or psychologists) can't give me an answer to any of the questions I actually had.

A friend recently lent me a book after a conversation we had about my unsociable behavior. Not only did this book clearly define my life now, but it answered a question I had long ago accepted as unanswerable. That question was: Why did he leave me? It was an answer that even the man who left couldn't give me.

This friend of mine, tying to help my people hating skills, inadvertently answered the BIG unanswerable question and with it, gave me some tools to help curb this anger towards people in general. The book is called, 'Emotional Survival For Law Enforcement / A Guide For Officers And Their Families', by Kevin M. Gilmartin, Ph.D. This book was written with police officers and their families in mind, but worked well, obviously, for this dispatcher... who was once PART of an officer's family and who deals with a lot of the psychology of working in law enforcement on a nightly basis as well.

I am not, by any means, miraculously healed. But my mind now understands that "it" was not my fault and that in itself has released a burden that I have been carrying around for many years. The culprit was ignorance on both of our parts... not so much about the end of the relationship, but why we got together in the first place and why it ended the way it did. I'm still working on the hating people part. That's going to take some work.

The Internet Is My Crack

So I got up yesterday evening before work and alas, my internet connection was gone. Next to my driveway are several large phone boxes. I have DSL. For the last two weeks I have had large machinery and Spanish speaking folk digging in and around my driveway by those boxes. Luckily, they asked if the gravel roadway they had planted their back-hoe on was my driveway and they were told, yes this is the only way I can get my car out, so they were kind enough not to pile the dirt they had planned on piling there, there. The more days they have been here, the smaller the area I have had to get out. Right now, I'm having to drive around their gigantic hole and not hit the huge dirt mounds now sitting in my yard opposite the hole. My driveway sits between the hole and the mounds.

This morning I was excited to see the AT&T guy out working early. Around 11:30, after having severe withdrawal symptoms by not being able to immediately get online when I got home from work, I finally went out to ask how long the phone lines were going to be down. He made a weird face and told me they weren't supposed to BE down. I replied, "great".

Obviously I'm up and working now or I wouldn't be blogging. And that's only because that sweet AT&T man went out of his way and got all sweaty and dirty and fixed the cut line that those stupid contractors cut. In my experience with cable lines and such, any time contractors are digging they end up cutting a line. Every. Freaking. Time.

When he was done with the repair, he came to the door to make sure I was up and running and sure enough I was. I ended up standing out on the front porch and talking with him for about 45 minutes. SUPER sweet guy, about my age, VERY handsome... and very gay, which is probably why I stayed out there and talked to him for so long. I felt safe. Not like that creepy dude that came up the one time where I gripped my garden tool in a defensive manner because he made me feel so uncomfortable. In my list of attributes of the perfect man, I've now added gay. In my 42 years of living, the nicest guys I've ever had the pleasure of meeting have been gay. It's just a shame that I'll never get to date one.

He admired my Lantana that is in full bloom right now and he thinks it's an antique type because he's never seen anything like them in any of the nurseries he's gone to. I told him it's been here forever because I can remember as a small child pulling off the little flowers and collecting them. I told him I wasn't sure how well a stem cutting from a Lantana would propagate but he was welcome to take a cutting if he wanted to. He declined because he had a long drive home and it was so hot outside.

And then I tried to get on FaceBook and it was down.

So thank you AT&T guy. I wish I would have gotten your name. You went out of your way to provide me my internet crack, and I had a very nice visit from a complete stranger which is SO rare for me. You made this old lady's day.

World Travelers

My daughter boarded a plane yesterday, headed to Germany. For Octoberfest. I'm beyond ecstatic that she's getting to do this. I always kind of sensed that she would be a world traveler some day when she was younger, and I'm grateful that she did not inherit my homebody skills.

My son will soon be going to Washington to visit his best friend and his wife. It's strange to say that because I think back to the years when his best friend would come over and they would jam on their guitars and be typical teenagers and these children, as well as my own, have grown up so fast. As wonderful as it was to be blessed by these children of mine when they were growing up, knowing that they are out in the world doing things that make them happy, being happy, brings a sense of peace to me now.

I believe what most parents want for their children is for them to have happiness in their lives. Sure, heartache and pain is part of life and my children have had their share. As much as we, as parents, wish we could keep them from that, it's inevitable. Our hearts break right along with their's. I've shed tears with them, and for them. But the best part is sharing life's joys with them. Getting to hear about their adventures and the places they have gotten to go and the places that they want to go. That, in itself, is probably the best part of being a parent. The end result of all the worry over fevers, grades, boyfriends, girlfriends. Don't get me wrong. I think I'll always worry. But that's a big part of being a parent, too. Because I know mine still worry about me, too.

Seven And A Half Minutes Of Hell No!

If I Won The Lottery...

I posted another video of a lady that was doing this in California a while back and I was going to link to it for you, but alas... I can't find crap on here.

One Day On Earth

One Day on Earth Participant Trailer from One Day On Earth on Vimeo.

Link:http://vimeo.com/11214910

Simply Fascinating

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i-zYdOPG2k

Little Boys Never Grow Up

Most of my working career as been spent working with men. Before working with police men, I worked in a machine shop. There was two maybe three females in the entire company. Aside from a very small amount of time being a cashier at various grocery stores, a Chick-fil-A fast food restaurant and less than a month being a waitress, the rest of my time has been working in a predominately male work enviornment.

As the mother of boy and a girl, there are vast differences between the two. Girls grow up to be women. Boys grow up to be bigger boys.

My work life has influenced who I am. I still can't fart in front of anyone except my kids, but I don't seem to have a problem sharing in bathroom humor with the best of them. The other night one of my officers, who farts freely around me and makes me laugh because of it, started talking poop. Me, being a frequent pooper myself, jumped in. I laughed until I cried.

You women out there who have young sons be prepared. They never grow out of farting and the bathroom humor does nothing but get worse over time. It's NOT a phase. It's a way of life.

I miss my son.

The Perfect Ending

My night last night was supposed to be a breeze. After three days in a row of 12 hour shifts I was looking forward to my Friday night being only 8 hours long. Mother Nature had other plans.

Texas had a tropical storm system plow through the southern part of it the last day or so. If you know anything of hurricanes and how they rotate, you might know that the heaviest rainfall occurs on the North and East ends of these things with the rainfall spreading hundreds of miles in both directions. It lined up perfectly with my area and we got about 8 to 10 inches of rain during the night.

About an hour before I was to walk out the door for my wonderful two days off, all hell broke loose. It had been completely dead at work prior to that. The calm, before the storm, if you will. The call that started it all was an outside electrical box shorting out and filling an apartment with smoke. Then, as people woke up to start their day, I started getting calls about water inside homes. The rain came down harder and harder and people had to start being rescued, and cars started to get stranded. Not long after the next shift arrived, all roads leading out and in to our little city had to be blocked off. I was not going to be able to leave.

Once I got dispatch safely handed over I jumped in the truck of our K9 sergeant type person and got a close up view of some of the city, which at that point pretty much resembled a lake.

Two hours after the end of my shift, I was finally able to get out of that city and start to make my way home. An hour after I started to head North, I finally walked in my door.

In 20 years, that's the first flooding I ever had to deal with as a dispatcher. It's not the first for the city because I remember one year our officers were getting people out of houses with boats that were volunteered by citizens. I was just lucky enough not to be working at the time.

The best call of the night was when a panicked citizen calls and tells me I need to do something about her house flooding. Her words, "You need to get people out here to do something about all this flooding." My words, "Ma'am, we can't make it stop raining."

Hell Week...

...is what I'm designated this week as. And it's still not over. After three 12 hour shifts in a row, I'm-a tired. The extra money will go in the "buying me a new house fund" even though I don't really have one of those yet.

I'm so tired I can't even think of what I was going to blog about this morning.

It's raining. Still kind of hot, though. Lots more rain to come they say. I hope it rains on my days off. I like rain on my days off. Yeah... that wasn't what I was going to blog about.

We Want YOU!

The one comment I get the most when somebody discovers I'm a dispatcher is, "You must have the most interesting job ever!". To which I usually scoff, and on occasion point and laugh. Yes, my job is different than your job, but your job is different than mine. After being asked the question, "What's it like to be a twin?", the twin retorted, "What's it like NOT to be one?" In other words, I've worked at my job for so long, I can't imagine what it's like not to.

For instance... people outside of my line of work tend to stop and stare when they see a cop going about his job. Unless they are doing something wrong, or have a warrant, or are carrying a pound of marijuana in the trunk... then most try to avoid eye contact as much as possible. I stare at cops when I see one that I've worked with for years without his uniform on. Oh, wait. That didn't sound right. When they are dressed in "plain clothes". To me? THAT'S weird and well worth staring at.

For those of you that may not do what I do, you might be curious as to how one trains for such a career. For police, the State of Texas has a requirement that you go to some form of police academy. After graduation, these young men and women have only just begun their training. The real training will come from the streets. Dispatchers don't have an academy. We are considered civilian employees. They have a lot more specialty schools now compared to when I started, but most dispatchers learn by watching and listening to other dispatchers. Even today I feel like I learn something new almost every day I'm at work.

Then there is the S.W.A.T. team. These guys have some grueling training, especially around here in the middle of summer, what with all their ninja turtle hats, gas masks and heavy ballistic body armor they are required to adorn. I've never attended a S.W.A.T. training day, but I found a short training video that might give you an idea of what goes on during one.

All Fixed

New battery in da car-a. Now for an oil change today and I should be all set to start a new and long work week.

We've had a few days of off and on storms. Two people sent me messages day before yesterday about seeing a 'double rainbow all the way', or almost all the way. I saw no such doubleness here. Just a single, but it was still pretty. The urge to cry uncontrollably and yell out 'WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?' as I stood on my front porch, was almost too much for me to resist.

Aww... He Thinks He's A People

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvG4KLbc_yg

Things, They Are-a Changing

Seems as if work is going to be unusually uncomfortable for a while.  I've become much more limited in what I can say in regards to work related matters, personal or otherwise, but change is in the air.  Overtime is imminent.  People's egos will be bruised.  But in the end, we will come together again as families often do.

My car battery has been PMSing the last few days. Doesn't want to hold enough of a charge to get my car started when it sits for at least 8 hours. I've been hooking it up to a battery charger I have. It's only been taking about 5 minutes. I think it takes longer to hook everything up. It's like I'm driving an electric car but without all the electric car benefits. I've eliminated alternator issues because I got home the other morning from work and turned off the car and started it back up with not even a lag. Batteries are cheaper than alternators.

Traffic in the mornings has doubled since school has started. Makes for crappy rides home from work. I was thinking this morning on the drive home that I would be the meanest defensive driving teacher EVER. Now I wonder how one becomes involved in something like that. Something to Google later on, I think.

Happy September!