Working in Wet Weather

I do work on the road...or in the case of some private lanes, off of the road. Yep, sometimes the homeowner merely carves a path from the road to the residence without placing any foundation in the newly formed lane.

aaaaand in dry or merely damp weather, this is not an issue. However there are times when work and weather conspire to make driving to some residences more of an adventure :(click on the photos to see the 'life-sized' image in all it's glory!):

Of course, I am sure the parents and teachers enjoy seeing my car roll through the school parking lot the next morning when I drop girl.imp off for her classes!!

as seen at 'the Playground':

girl.imp was naked and supposed to be waiting in the bathroom for me to start her shower, but instead she found my felt, cowboy hat (re: wet weather gear) and walked up between me and the game on t.v. to perform a 'hip pounding' dance to the halftime music. The good news is that the hat was held, at all times, infront of her upper to mid-hip region.

The bad news is that with all the rain expected this week, I still have to wear that hat...

Tuesdays Mondays

Sometimes Mondays are not the bad cliche of the week. Take Tuesday. I got girl.imp off to school -- late because I got up (a tad) latish and girl.imp moves slower than Grandma Moses with crippling arthritis in the mornings. Honestly, if her day could be pushed back to start after the 'Crack of Noon' then she would be much happier with the world.

Sooo we got to school and found that traffic in the drop-off lane was backed up almost to the entrance of the parking lot. It seems everybody was late today. The good news is that even though g.imp arrived 10 minutes after the bell, she had a 15-minute grace period to allow for those students who are on buses to arrive. So after dropping g.imp off, I sat in the parking lot and waited.

and waited...

All the while knowing that I had an appointment to keep some at 10:30a.m. almost 96 miles north and east of the school. I made it by 11:00a.m. On the way there, I stopped off at a McDonald's where my cousin and her husband manage and found that he was having a really, really bad morning.

In the few minutes I was inside the store, the window cashier gave out incorrect change 2x, the front counter cashier was struggling to make $15 of change with no fives (oddly she did have some tens and ones) and I managed to spill a large cup of coffee on the front counter.

I later found out that boy.imp refused to wear his winter coat, preferring instead to wear a heavy cotten hoodie out in the snow.

And yes, I do believe that there was a full moon Monday night...

Since Halloween...

Our neighbor purchased a Nurse outfit for his daughter. A real bargain at $2.99. However he neglected to read the clipboard part of the outfit.

suffice to say, he is no longer allowed to shop for costumes for his daughter...

I was listening to the 'Capitol Steps' while doling out the candy. I did not really hear the innuendo in the lyrics, until a couple 4-year-olds ran up with thier parents.

***
The imps have been running around the house challenging our authority. At various times the following can be heard throughout the Playground:

'Do you want a piece of me, Old Man' or 'Do you want a piece of me, Old Woman'

Girl.imp tried to throwdown with wife.imp on Saturday and got her butt kicked!!!

***
I was at work on Saturday (and missed the OSU - Wisconsin game--which sucked because it was a good win) and was kicked off of somebody's property. This is not too bad as it occassionally happens that some landowners do not appreciate the Oil and Gas business. However this guy wanted to vent at 'The Man' and Saturday I played the role. So after he vented he had this real exaggerated finger-snap, pointing thing going on as he told me where my car was (we were standing right next to it) and bid me 'good day'.

I had to admit, I just made his day.

Wife.Imp -- the Day After

I was back at work and wife.imp needed to take the imps to Saturday Mass and the dinner after. Two notable events occurred:

1- the fam was sitting behind an elderly couple in which the husband was more or less bald. During the middle of mass, boy.imp became fascinated by the play of the lights off of the man's pate. Before wife.imp realized, boy.imp had reached out and run his finger down the back of the man's head...top to bottem (my guess was that boy.imp was tracing the play of the light across the shiny, bald scalp).

2- dinner was rather inexpensive, however there was a slight push for $$ donations at the dessert table (dessert being cupcakes and cookies). Wife.imp gave the poor child $10 and got 1 cupcake and 1 cookie.

wife.imp: excuse me--where's my change? (she wanted to give a smaller donation)
helper: there's no change
wife.imp: what do you mean there's no change? I want my change!
girl.imp: well, you put money in and there's your dessert
wife.imp: But that's $10 dollars! For a cupcake and a cookie!

The Church gladly accepted our family's generous donation....

******

At times, I have to take my bad knees and walk across somebody's farm field in order to reach an equitable arrangement (re: I stay employed and the people I work for have more work to do. This is a good arrangement).

SOOoooo, whilst we were traipsing over 20 acres of hills and forest, I dropped my cell phone. My new(ish) cell phone that is what keeps me connected to the world (just two weeks ago girl.imp read me 30 minutes of Harry Potter whilst I was driving home).

I discovered this loss approx. 30 minutes after leaving in my car to go home, and after 30 minutes back and 30 more minutes of trekking through fields, jumping creeks and staggering through brambles in a forest--I FOUND IT!!

Life is good!

Sorry about your breakfasts...

I was on my way home last night and had stopped at one of the various 'local' truckstops for a good pee. While enjoying the moment the sound that brings the odor arrived first at my ears then my nose.

ZIIIIP

With my eyes watering, I stumbled to the sink then out the door wondering just what one has to eat to chase someone from a restroom the comfortably stands/seats at least 12 people..??

****

I also got a phone call:
girl.imp: daddy? did you do the 20 pushups that I asked you to do
(in the background wife.imp is shouting: 'don't bother him with that, tell daddy what you told me)

Uhoh!

girl.imp: I, uh, I told mommy that iwasmakingoutwiththe
me: what? making out with who?
(was g.imp necking with the boys at school already? I don't have my 'Cans O'Whup Ass' ready!! Geez Louise!!)
g.imp: ItoldmommythatIwasmakingoutwiththespoon
me: The spoon? That's all? ---I mean why would you tell mommy...What does making out with the spoon mean?
g.imp: It means I was kissing the spoon.
me: Kissing the spoon? Oh, well then I would prefer you told mommy that you kissed the spoon.


Daddy has spoken! (and it was a job well done if I say so myself!)

Some Days It Just Doesn't Pay...

In the span of two work days last week, I decided I need, perhaps, more sleep at night. In the course of my work, I sometimes need to copy documents or maps. I often utilize the local Kinko's for this task. Some of the maps I copy are in spiral bound books that are easy to copy. Easy to miss when one leaves the store (this bit of information is important later).

Anyway, I work with my dad and had to stop at his house one morning because the collar of my polo shirt really did need ironing. Yes, I sometimes wear polo shirts. Not that often because I typically do not like them. Yet I was wearing one and it was looking horrid.

SO, I fired up mom's iron and found a little spray starch and wala! Work ready!

The next day I was back at dad's and we were on a phone call when his cell began to ring. LOUD.LOUD.RINGS.

So dad looks at me nods his head and points to the phone. Not having mastered the art of reading body language (and being short on sleep), I interpreted his movements to mean:
"Hey, that ring is annoying. I can't hear a damn thing over here. Go on over there and take care it will you?"

So I went and shut of the cell phone in mid-ring.


OOOOPS.

Turns out dad really meant:
"Hey, can't you see I'm busy here? Geez, I've only got two hands and I am kinda in the middle of a phone call. Go answer that and see who it is and maybe take a message."

After dad informed me of my error he went on to enumurate another failing that had recently occurred. It seems mom came home the day before and found someone had used her iron. She knew this because it had been left on all day. That would be over 8 hours of potential burn time.

OOOOPS.

Then dad gives me a packet that needs to go to a specialist to copy and all I need to do (besides deliver the package) is to copy one of my maps out of one of my books and include it in the package. So I go home and realize I no longer have said book of maps. The next morning, I drive back to dad's (1 hour, 1 one way) and ransack his house and it's not there. But he has the same book of maps so the trip was not wasted. I take the package and drop it off and decide, "What the hell. I'm already out and about, let's go check Kinko's."

The store is only 10 minutes from my house. And the book of maps is there. That means I just wasted over 21/2 hours of my day in drive time alone.

Man, is it after 7pm already? I need to go to bed.

Will this make up for yesterday's LAME-O post?

So I am rushing around the house yesterday a.m. in an effort to get out on the road early enough to do some real work. Meaning I had to be at a specific county courthouse (2.5 hours from my house) before 11a.m. to ensure I had enough time to research property and obtain copies of paperwork so that I could rush to another county (1 hour from said courthouse) in time to keep a mid-afternoon appointment.

So what does this mean? It means I have to do a lot of driving to actually accomplish a minimum of work. In order to reaaaally be certain I would get everything done on time, I had to leave early.

So what is the one thing parents never remember to take into consideration when they make 'absolutely unbreakable commitments' outside of the actual family?

anybody? anybody?

Beuler?

Bueler?

Yep, you guessed it!

KIDAR!!

The imps radar array rivals that of any military/space agency.

In our household this usually is manifested by the imps suddenly becoming raving insomniacs the night before a trip (in which we plan to leave in the wee hours of the morning and drive, drive, drive).

Or let's say that mom and dad are in the midst of an impromtu canoodle. Oh the hilarity that ensues!!

Dennis! Quit rambling and tell us what happened yesterday!!

Ahhh, yesterday. I had plans. I had my books on tape. My chewing gum and bottles of water...

...and boy.imp vomits all over the table, dining room floor and kitchen floor.

Yep the grand 'ole technicolor yawn! He heaved. Blew chunks. Burped up Breakfast.

Fortunately wife.imp's neice is still with us. So give boy.imp the once over, hand him a pedialite popsickle and hit the road.

and promptly pushed this little incident out of my mind. I was late.

Yes, I can hear the collective groans. 'But Dennis, he was sick. How could you leave?'

Do not worry dear readers, the cosmos did not let me off so easily. Right before lunch I pulled into a gas station/convenience store to--well the details are not important but I was looking for the local "WC" (water closet). And in the Ladies Lou somebody was just as sick as b.imp had been earlier in the a.m.

How could I tell? Because the sound effects were very definitive. In fact, I could swear she had been miked and was using a state of the art sound system. She was using digital, dolby sound! With an amp or two. 'Course on my way out she would have appear and she would have to be wearing a uniform proclaiming her to be an employee of this particular establishment and she also wanted to stay at work.

I left my water and gum on the counter and left. For some odd reason, I was not really all that hungry.

There is Professional Behavior, there is Unprofessional Behavior, and there is Immature...

Professional is not only showing up for the job in proper business appropriate attire, but actually backing up the look with the attitude and work ethic.

The best, most-recent example of being professional is from James Burnett’s blog (www.burnettiquette.blogspot.com) of Feb. 2, 2007

“…his publicist, who didn't grace us with her presence, had pre-determined who could interview him. No print media outlets are on the list. I tell the very, very large bodyguard that the print-less interview list is foul and that we scribes should be given equal access for a number of reasons...”

Kudos to James for going after a story even with the risk of being very publicly rejected, either verbally or physically, as is proper and demanded of any reporter.

Pageant Mom and Diana, I suspect, could also deliver reams of paper on the subject of Professional Behavior (what it is, what it is not...).

Unprofessional is the unnamed/unseen publicist mentioned in James’ blog and also includes:

1) Calling off from work because you are sick (but you really are going to go visit with your girlfriend who is home for the weekend from college. Yes, I am still amazed that I was not immediately terminated.)

2) Asking a co-worker to cover your shift because your ‘grandmother was in the hospital and you wanted to be there with her—just in case.’ Then coming back after the weekend and detailing, in depth, just how ‘righteously awesome’ that concert was. It has been almost 15 years and I cannot remember your name Frat Boy! But I will…I will!!!

Immature is being hired into a business with very professional expectations (attire, attitude, performance...some place that would be just like wife.imp's company), spending just over two months on the job and then quitting -- giving no warning, not even allowing management to discuss options or even to offer a short leave of absence – via email!!!!

Bad Day At The Office

So Dennis, we have unburdoned ourselves and shared bad days at the office. So what about you? We know that you are a working dad (now) and you must have something to share..?

Yes, although my office here at the Playground rolls on four wheels and the only annoying people I meet up with on a regular basis are the morning disc jockeys at (name your station. If they are on the air, they are ass-puckeringly annoying. (sorry honey)).

So my bad day took two days to really set in. Yesterday I wanted to get up early to conduct some on-site research at a courthouse 2 1/2 hours from home. This means I would need to leave before 6:00 a.m. to arrive early enough to do any meaningful work.

Boy.imp woke up around mid-night Tuesday with a sever, sore throat. With medicine and wife.imp's TLC he eventually went to sleep resulting in my staying home (flexible hours) all day Wednesday.

Thus my schedule for the end of the week is off course. Today I crammed some research in with talking to actual people but only worked 1/2 the hours available to me because I had to rush home for a Parent-Teacher conference.

So this brings us to the 'bad day' part of my work. I stopped at a gas station to fill up on gas and to obtain some brake fluid because the Idiot Light in the dash was screaming at me. During this stop I:

a: Cleaned out and threw away the trash from my fast food banquets--along with my car keys, house keys, key to my parents house...

b: had to stand inbetween all the gas pumps (where the trash bin was located) and "Dumpster Dive." Yes, I was up to my elbows in empty pop/beer cans, soda cups, and auto related chemicals, about 1 bazillion cigarrette butts and handfuls of ash-filled mud and it took me about 3-4 minutes of emptying all this garbage on the ground around me before I found my keys!!

c: Yes, I actually upped the ante and went for the tri-fecta. I thought I purchased Fuel Injector Cleaner (at this point, I would like to state the bottle was clearly marked in English and I do have more than a passing understanding of the English language). After pouring about 1/2 a bottle of Power Steering Fluid into the gas tank, I added another bottle of fluid to the growing pool of muddy ash to the ground around my car.

I am mere minutes away from the scheduled Parent-Teacher conference. Any bets on how well this meeting will turn out??

Warning! This Post has Absolutely Nothing to do with the imps! It is about me and the only downside, outside of being away from the fam, of my career

So I have started back to work and for the most part it is working out. It is not perfect but unlike Pickle's Papa, I am not as shell-shocked as I was the first time this happened. I am basically on the round-about of life and this stop happened to be the doorway back into the rat-race.

However, because I am not an office monkey, I drive. In fact, I sometimes resemble the Fuller Brush Man in that I am driving all day just to knock on peoples' doors. But unlike the brush man, I am not selling and I am not going to be immortalized with slighty humorous and risque stories about my escapades!

However, I am running into the problem of disappearing rural communities. You know those empty, township roads that have nothing but bean/cornfields as far as the eye can see? Well, they have pretty much been developed into non-existance. Why is this the topic of my blog?

Well, in the good, 'ole days, if one was feeling the 'Call of Nature' all one had to do was pull over to the side of the road, trot into the farm field and ....
But now the roads are fairly well traveled...all day long. AND with the extra housing did NOT come convenient bathroom facilities. Just more people able to stop and watch what you are doing in Farmer Brown's field.

And since I do not want Farmer Brown to know what I was doing in his field, a different approach must be made:

1- Either I can leave the rural area and drive 10+ miles to a restroom or use the restroom before arriving in the area.
2- But what happens if you did not feel the urge when you arrive in the area, and after spending an hour and a half convincing someone that a 4,000+ deep hole in their property is a great idea, you suddenly have not only an urge but sever bladder distress?

I have found the solution to this dilemma:

I am not an Office Monkey

Every now and again, when I am out on the road for work, I get asked where do I see myself in three years.

My most honest answer is 'Not in an office.' I have left the rat race and my pen at the office zoo.
Honestly, they do everything but post signs on the cubicles asking passersby not to feed the workers monkeys.

My ten worst memories of office work:

10 - The boss telling me I will soon put emphasis on quantity over quality.
- I laughed. Within 3 months I truly did value quantity v. quality. Not because I desired to lower the quality of my work but because that is what the company emphasized.

9 - Those tiny gray-walled cubicles.
- with only enough room for a briefcase and a chair
- counter space is limited to a cup, a paper holder and a stapler (pictures had to be tacked to the cubicle walls).

8 - Justifying time away from the desk
- Not since 2nd grade did I ever have to ask permission to leave the desk to go to the bathroom (management could not trust that staff would be responsible enough to stay at their desks and actually do things like work)

7 - The company refrigerator
- where was it posted in the Employee Handbook that any lunch left in the 'fridge was community property? I've actually added extra tobasco and/or chocolate laxatives to my 'lunch'.

6 - One hour lunches
- this policy is aired by the companies, however if they can get you to take your 'hour' at your desk, preferably without food, and limit actual down-time to 5-10 minutes...

5 - Other office Monkeys
- let's face it, there are other co-workers monkeys that just do not seem to pull their weight.
- there are those that wish to gossip all day. Any topic. You do not have to actually listen, just be physically present. I actually had to sit through a conversation where 'Jerry McGuire' was exalted as being the best movie ever made..!
- I once sat near co-monkey who mad a trip to the restroom every 15 minutes. Every day.
- Other Irritating personal habits:
- an actual bark/squawk while talking
- incessant burping/blowing of nose/coughing/clearing throat of imaginary phlem/and farting
All that was missing was another office monkey willing to pick his butt and sniff the offending finger...

4 - New Office Philosophies
- B.S.!! Anybody remember the 'Upside-Down Pyramid' structure? You know the one where the company president is the least valued employee? After that particular speech, I asked my supervisor where I needed to go to negotiate my golden parachute...

3 - Recycled Germs
- turns out that I am a germ sponge. If I do not get fresh air on a regular basis, then I will catch everything that is brought into the office and passed around via the air vents. I cannot think of any year in which I finished with any sick days left over...

2 - Office Politics
- Personally I support whomever's signature is on my paycheck.

- I was once denied the opportunity to interview for a supervisoral position because, "I wore my sunglasses to my desk and walked slowly, as if I did not want to be at work...
(I wore Transition Lenses at the time--they were still a fairly new innovation--and when one is routinely 10-15 minutes early to the office why the hell should I rush to the desk. Did you notice I was not criticized for being routinely late?)

1 - Temperature control
The person in charge of setting the thermostat in the office is probably the most sadistic person to walk the face of our world. I have actually been in offices in the WINTER, when the thermostat was set at less than 52 degrees. Folks that was cold! But it was worse in the summer when the boiler excessively utilized.

So whenever I start to get frazzled or frustrated or desire adult conversation, I just remind myself where I could be and I really do find myself feeling much, much better...