Eeeewwww!

There is a message board by the door at the house where I am renting.  This morning the following was scrawled upon the board:

Please clean up pubes after grooming.

Thank the merciful heavens I have my own bathroom.

Does anyone else find this a bit ridiculous?

A photo from the parking lot where I do a lot of grocery shopping: 

Well, now that was $5 bucks that didn’t go to waste…

Well folks, it’s the end of an era.

One of my two vintage alarm clocks went dead.  I don’t know what happened to mine personally (it might be buried in the spud’s room at the farm) but I inherited a similar one from my ex.  Mine was purchased somewhere circa 1980s and had a small faux walnut case with red digital numbers, and I suspect the ex’s was of a similar vintage.

I remember when my mother bought it for me.  It was the year my parents bought their first house.  I was almost done with seventh grade, so I’d have been 13 I think.  I was kinda disappointed because I wanted one like my grandparents had.  You boomers remember these?

I was fascinated by how the numbers would flip.  I also wanted a radio alarm instead of that hideous beep the cheap alarms made.

I cannot tell you how I hated that beep.  I developed an honest to Pete anxiety trigger to it.  It got so bad that if I’d hear that alarm sound anywhere at any time my heart would race and I’d start to panic.  So when DVD players became affordable, many years later, I bought a new alarm clock with a CD player that I could set to wake up to a certain CD.  Oh, that was like waking up to a whole new world.

But.  There’s always a but isn’t there?  I actually grew to like the red number readout.  Over the intervening years no matter how many different alarm clocks I’ve been through, I always kept my first alarm clock with the red numbers just as a clock.  When I moved to my tiny room in the Big City, I went back to using the red number alarm clock I inherited from the ex as a clock by my bed (but now I use my cell phone with a pleasant, cheerful chime with bird chirping in the background to wake me) because it shed less harsh ambient light but was easy to see without glasses or contacts.

Finally, after some 30-35 years of service, however, it ceased to keep time.  It has no moving parts, and runs on electricity, so I ‘m not sure what wore out.  Maybe some circuit finally degraded.  It had been not very accurate for a week or so, slowly losing time so I had to re-set it frequently.  Then, the time discrepancy got greater and greater until finally, when I came home from the farm it was so far off the time it was useless.  I had to unplug it and throw it away.

Oddly, I feel sort of lost now.  No red numbers to warn me of the time through out the night when up for trips to the bathroom, no numbers to comfort me with the knowledge that I have two more hours before wake up.  No more of old reliable who I once hated then came to prefer.

*Sigh*  Life is strange.

But, I see I could get a replacement with one of those retro flip number alarm clocks that always fascinated me…

I found a new love

I’ve been poor for so long I don’t usually mess around with “luxury” products like fancy-shmancy soap.  However, the company that makes the cheap aloe glycerine soap that you buy in bulk packs for about $0.33 cents a bar stopped making the aloe variety.  I don’t want to smell like peaches or white tea, so I bought some bargain deodorant soap, which I’ve used in the past, and is comparably cheap.  But, as we enter the alligator season (the time of year when humidity levels fall to minus 50%) my skin, though tending toward oily, is getting too old to handle the harsh deodorant soaps it used to laugh at and just produce a ton more oil.  I have been feeling quite tight, itchy and dry of late.  And, as it is hard to lotion one’s own back, I decided to live life high on the ol’ hog and try, *GASP* an expensive moisturizing soap.

I bought one bar at the drugstore for $1.69 and felt like I was just flushing cash down the toilet.  But, you know what?  I really like it.  I’ve used it for over two weeks now and decided that it was much better for my skin, plus it smells really nice.  Clean.  Not fru-fru-y perfume like, but just nice, fresh and clean.  Still, $1.69 a bar.  I’m pretty poor.  I wasn’t sure I wanted to commit to that kind of monthly expense.  Then, I Googled it.

Good gravy.  What did we ever do before Google?

Well I found this online drugstore called Pharmapacks.  You can get it through them for less than a dollar a bar and if you buy in bulk you get free shipping.  Still pricey.  But hey, I’m worth it.

I did a little more digging and found out that Pharmapacks also carries many other personal hygiene products I have trouble finding elsewhere.  So, double score.

Malapropisms

So this morning I attended my biochemistry lecture where we were talking about how nucleic acids form DNA, translating DNA and protein coding within genes.  After that I attended my genetics lecture where we were discussing chromosome inversions and how they can cause crossover errors during meiosis resulting in lost genes and non viable gametes.  And, now I have just finished my Virology lab where we were preparing unknown samples of virus for DNA analysis and headed down to work.  Once there I turned on my laptop for some tunes and the radio website asked if I wanted to change my genre preferences.

Only I thought it read change my gene preferences.

Considering I just spent most of the day in lab and class talking about DNA, genetic material and genes, I think it makes perfect sense that I’d read change gene preferences.  Don’t you?

 

The gamble

The house that I am renting a room in in Big City sits in a very non-homogenized neighborhood. It has a lot of wooded lots, no sidewalks and a lot of non-uniformity between it’s level of posh-ness.  Some people have shacks with little more than gravel drives while others have huge privately wooded lots and fancy houses and paved driveways.  It is definitely an area which used to be rural and grew up very eclectically, probably over a very long time, on a long street that connects two major thoroughfares.

Despite being a rather busy street, or perhaps because if it, it has very few other “connections” to the rest of the roads in town.  Normally to get to school I just turn left out of the driveway and zip down the street and make three turns and in less than 10 minutes I’m at one of the Stickittoyou U parking lots.  If I want to shop or visit friends I just turn right from the driveway and in 10 minutes or less I’m most of the other places I want to be, so the location is pretty convenient.  I also like it a lot because , even though it is smack dab in the middle of everywhere I want to be, it doesn’t feel downtown city like; there are no bus lines and no businesses anywhere near my place, so there is a much lower number of random people wandering about that don’t belong.

As I believe it is an old neighborhood which used to be unincorporated, the road itself is not in super great condition and, following the major flood from a few years ago, many of the drainage culverts and sewer pipes apparently needed fixing as well as the road itself.  So, starting early in August, Big City began road work on my street.

At first they placed big blinking “road closed to thru traffic” signs and some barricades on both major ends of the street as well as at the few connecting side streets but only totally blocked of the “right” end of the street by taking a huge hole of pavement out.  But that wasn’t so bad because there were a few side streets you could turn off on before the big hole in the road and detour around it.  However, yesterday they tore a big hole in the “left” end.  That’s the end I need to go down to get to school.

Now, it happens that there is only one other way to get out ‘to the left’ from my place to Stickittoyou U and it takes you through a very convoluted series of residential streets and adds, I kid you not, about 10 minutes to my drive depending on whether you make a couple of lights.  You can access this other route from three side streets off my own street, some are a little less twisty than others, but all of them must be turned on fairly well in advance of where I need to make my first turn off my own street.  Or I can go the other long way and go ‘to the right’ which also adds about 10 minutes to my drive.

Are you still with me?

So I tell you all these things so you will appreciate this.

I came home mid afternoon on Wednesday and turned onto my street from ‘the left,’ weaving around the “road closed to thru traffic” sign and barricades as usual.  But then, yesterday, at 6:45am I left for school.  It was very, very foggy and hard to see far in the dim morning light, especially the grey road, other cars, and street signs.  I get almost to my turn and see the traffic light is green through the fog, but I also see other lights on construction trucks.  I am trying to figure out what is going on in the fog, and preparing to weave around the blockades to make my turn when, HOLY CRAP!  THERE IS NOW A HUGE HOLE IN THE STREET!

Thankfully, I had slowed way down to turn, so I was able to stop before being close enough for the hole to eat my car, with me in it.  But then I sat there a few moments stunned, as a herd of construction trucks moved around me, wondering what the heck I was supposed to do.  I could possibly turn around, but now there were trucks and workers all over behind me.  Where had they come from?

Then as I was fixing to back up, a guy came over and moved some equipment so I could get on the shoulder between the curb and a big pile of the material they pulled out of the big freaking hole and he waved me through to make my turn.

I tell you I felt kinda stupid, but those crews, man, they move freaky fast.  Kudos to you for efficiency.  Dudes.  You are amazing.  I definitely applaud your speed and skill at moving massive amounts of earth and rebuilding in a matter of a few hours.  But.  It is a pickle for me, and all the other people living on the street and having to use it every day, never knowing what the situation will be.  What route should I use today?  Will I be able to get through?  Things change quickly from day to day even from one hour to the next.  It often happens I leave and they are tearing up a hole, but a few hours later it’s filled in and that section of road is drive-able again.  Which is what happened with the big freaking hole that almost ate me in the fog yesterday.  When I drove home expecting to have to take the long convoluted detour from ‘the left’ end the hole was already filled in.  Scary, amazing, wonderful and frustrating.

It kinda blows me away that the city and construction company aren’t in better communication with the residents on the street.  I mean, not knowing where a new hole in the road is going to pop up could be dangerous.  Especially on a low visibility day.  And you would think they wouldn’t want you in their way either.  Is it that expensive/time consuming/or otherwise difficult to put up one of those big signs that blinks messages and say :

Attention local traffic: new work ahead, no outlet to Main Street today, detour around.

Is it too hard to change the signs as work progress advances?

So now I am wondering, what will I encounter.  Will I be able to go the normal route this morning?  Should I chance it?  Or should I double my commute time and go an alternate route?

It’s a gamble.

Strange coincidences

Yesterday the spud had summer camp at the zoo.  I was finished with work a little early so on my way to pick her up I ran a few errands.  On a lark I stopped at a resale store to see if they might have a dining table chair I could pick up on the ultra cheap.

Background notes:  A few months ago one of my old dining room chairs broke and Leif declared it essentially unfixable.  So all summer when the spud was in town we had just one chair for sitting at the dining room table.  I do have some other chairs in storage that I could utilize, but I really hate them.  I think they are ugly, uncomfortable and bulky.  Strangely enough, in the past, I have had really good luck finding unique antique chairs at garage sales, resale shops and even at the curb on garbage day for a fraction of the price (or free) for what they charge for some of the ugly chairs they sell these days.  Often all they need is a quick wash and a new fabric seat, which I can usually replace in no time at all.

But I digress.

As I’m walking up to the store, lo and behold, I run into a fellow tour guide.   Let’s call him Rick.

“Rick!  What in the world are you doing here?”  I laughingly ask.

“Hey, Janie.  I’m shopping for a chair.”  He says.

“No way.  I’m here looking for a chair, too.  I guess I’ll have to race you for the furniture department.”

We fall to looking at the selection of chairs and I find a two-piece set of chairs that will fit my needs and are well within the poor-college-student budget.  I leave Rick, still butt-testing a few different chairs, to pick up the spud.

Upon arriving at the zoo, I park and get out figuring I’d go inside and use the bathrooms and look at the gift shop while I waited the last few minutes.  As I’m closing the door to the car I look over at the car parked next to me and think, that person looks familiar.  She is getting out of her car.  When she turns to face me, it clicks.

It’s Tiffany.  Yet another tour guide I work with.

“Hi Janie!”

“Hi Tiffany!  This is too funny!  It’s apparently run into tour guides day.  I just saw Rick at the resale shop by the mall.  We were both shopping for chairs.”  I laughed.

“That is too funny.  I’m here to pick up my younger sister.  She’s at zoo camp.”

“And I’m here for my daughter.  She’s in the zoo camp, too.”

 

What are the chances I’d run into not one but two fellow tour guides on opposite sides of town.  I seldom run into anyone ever.  Now that, my friends, is really what I call a funny coincidence.