Pissed

In Staples, I had to pee really bad, so I looked around for the restroom, and above a doorway was a sign that said "restrooms" with a large triangle/arrow pointing down to the doorway, but when I went to open the door it was one of those really heavy metal doors and the push bar read, "Emergency Exit Only. Alarm will Sound." So I didn't pee because I knew if I took the gamble and opened the door, a very loud bell would sound and I would probably piss my pants--not worth it.

As all of you know, yesterday was hot and humid, and if you have ever laid asphalt on a day like yestereday, then you'll understand what I'm saying here. When you lay asphalt, it is hot as hell, and when the heat rises off it on a summer day, you know you've picked the wrong line of work. To make it worse, you spray it with water so the plate compacter doesn't stick, and the roller is wet for the same reason, which equals only one thing: steam. So after we finished the driveway yesterday, I felt disgusting--hot and dirty and sticky. When we got back to the yard, however, it started to rain really hard, so I took off my shirt, stood in my work pants in a puddle with arms outstreached, face to the sky, and let the rain wash over me; I knew immediately what Andy Dufresne felt like when the rain washed the sewage and twenty years of imprisonment off him in The Shawshank Redemption, but that was just a movie, unless it was just a really hot day of filming for Tim Robbins, either way, that's what I felt like.

Cat Noises?

Last week I was at the gas station with a dump truck full of roadstone--dump trucks have a lever on the bed outside just behind the driver's side that releases the tail gate for dumping--and the man pumping my gas started to fiddle with it, and while I was a little suspicious of it, the safety chain was still attached so I just kept watching in the side mirror. Then it got weird: he started tugging on it and making cat noises every time he tugged at it, and not just little cat noises, but loud cat noises for about thirty seconds, so I started to think he may be retarded or something, but then he came over and asked me in a completely normal voice what would happen if he pulled the lever, and I curtly explained that he would have a gas station with a lot of gravel and he stopped. In New Jersey, you are not allowed to pump your own gas, but how is this guy qualified and I am not; I have eleven years experience pumping gas in Ohio when I pumped my own gas. Don't get me wrong, I like having someone else pump my gas, but it's on principle that I complain here--I would just like the option to pump my own gas if I deem someone else incompetent to do so, or if I have to wait more than ten seconds for them to do so...or if they meow.

The Ticking....

Since I haven't been camping in three years, I decided it was time to get back out into the great outdoors, and I learned that I have become a colossal pussy. Even though I work outside every day in dirt and bugs, I was annoyed and grossed out by all the bugs that were crawling on me, and every time I was scavenging wood and walked into a spider web, I had a small panic attack. So when I went to get into the shower Sunday at Lib's and found a deer tick embedded in my thigh, I ripped it out of my skin, just to show the bastard who was in charge, and now, I am waiting to see who was really in charge, because I have known two people, Merica and Terry, who have gotten Lyme disease from ticks in the past year. I have looked up the early symptoms, and I will let you know. I also found out that Deer Tick is a band.

Midwest Eloquence

On the way to Home Depot, for some unknown reason, I started singing the theme song to Mr. Belvedere, and Lib recognized it, but didn't know what show it was until I told her. We both traced it back to when she was about six, but it was still very vague to her, so I said,"Well, I guess it wasn't probably on but only a couple-few years," which I thought was a well-phrased sentence and was briefly proud of my verbiage, but she immediately made fun of me in a creek-rat accent, and when I defended my choice of words as eloquent, she said that I only thought so because I was from Ohio. I stand by my choice of words, and given the same situation, no matter who I might be talking to (the Pope, president, J-lo...whoever), I would use the exact same words.

Bless this Mess

If when you are cleaning your room, and you realize that the paper in the printer is really dusty, does it mean it has been too long since you cleaned your room,or has it been too long since you used your printer?

Off to a Promising Tart

I don't know if Lib has low expectations for me or if this is a real accomplishment, but for my fiftieth post, she made me a small fruit tart to commemorate the moment; of course, it could have been that she happened to be making two full-sized fruit tarts for a party anyway. Either way all of you who didn't think I would get this far ..l., this is me flipping you off. And thanks for the support Lib ;)

A Lasting Impression

Sometimes the impression I make on my students comes long after I was their teacher. Recently I asked a former student where he was going to school, and he informed me he had never gone to school and was working for his father; I felt a little bad for assuming (93% of our students do go to college), and making the situation a little embarrassing for him. So, at the dollar store, when I recognized a former student, but realized I had forgotten her name, I was planning on acting like I didn't remember her since Lib was the one buying stuff. The girl's name started with an "A" and she was a lot heavier; plus, I didn't want to ask her what she was up to because she was obviously working at the dollar store. So I decided to play dumb. Then, in a bizarre twist of fate, Lib handed me her stuff and a five spot, and said she was going next door to the market to get the fruit because she needed to get home to pee and doing so would save time. I still planned on ignoring the girl, but then I felt bad, so I said hi, and then she had a moment where she kind of remembered me, but not my name, and so when we got each other's name we asked each other how things were going, but not really having anything to say, the situation got so uncomfortable that I pointed to the famers market and said, "Well, I better go get her home to pee," and then I grabbed by flowery notebook, tart pan, and pastry cutter and walked out.

Digging Deep

Yesterday, in direct sunlight, after shoveling dirt, asphalt, and gravel most of the day (and also a lot of swearing) I started to understand why slaves used to sing while working all day in the fields, when for no reason at all, I got a song in my head--much like one of the spirituals of old, but a little on the bawdy side--and it made the work a little more tolerable.

I'll be slingin some gravel
When Jesus swings his gavel,
and they'll lock me outside of the pearly gates
cause I'd been usin some words
in place of "sex" and "turds"
that would bring a rudy blush to mother's face.
So I'll be slinging some gravel
when Satan plucks my apple
and puts my vulgar soul back in its place.

My God, I'm tired.

LBI 2

I had the pleasure of going back to LBI this weekend, and when Lib suggested that we go fishing this time, I was thrilled. On Saturday, I got up at 7:30am to make breakfast and get coffee so we could be sure to get out a couple hours before high tide. I took a walk and scouted the fishing grounds finding a couple of promising structures, including a small jetty(seen just below the lighthouse in this picture) with a deep water shelf off the end--, and it was sheltered by a submerged rock structure--perfect for sheltering fish in the fast moving water. The ninety-year-old salty dog behind the counter of the bait store gave me a few suggestions, and I purchased a frozen pack of squid strips.

One of the two fishing poles left for us was broken, so we were already a man down when we went out to the jetty, but I had a brilliant plan: the rocks would be holding fish that ate crab, so I would toss my crab pot out and catch a couple of green crabs for bait. Lib went back to get her beach chair, and I set up shop halfway down the jetty, so the waves wouldn't shower my gear.

While I was waiting to catch some crabs, I decided to toss out the fluke rig; the end of the jetty would be sure to produce. The squid was too frozen to pry from the pack so I added a little water and loaded the crab pot while the squid thawed. Then, I walked my cage to the end and tossed it in and walked back, but by the time I got my pole baited, two locals ran out onto the jetty and took my spot, which pissed me off, but I wasn't there, so...I lose. I tried to cast my pole, but it tangled, so I had to cut off about a hundred feet of line and start over. At this point, the guys who took my spot caught a black fish after about three minutes of fishing. I retied my fluke rig, and cast it out again, but as I tried to reel in the slack, the gears grinded and cruched, and the reel stopped working altogether. I pulled the line in with my hand, and about ten feet out it snagged, and I broke of my rig. They caught another black fish. Defeated and without any working equipment left, I put my tail between my legs and walked out to retrieve my crab pot submerged right next to them, and of course, they were using green crabs for bait, my plan all along. When I pulled the rope to my cage, it snagged on a rock and I had to suffer the indignity of pulling in a piece of rope with nothing attached to the end, which meant I was out one fifteen-dollar crab pot. We packed up. They caught another, rather large, black fish. In the two weekends we have spent there, these were the only fish I have seen caught (all in ten mintutes) except for later that day when a diver speared a very large fluke...in my spot.

And I don't like you...Jerk Off!

After two years of working with Don, I wondered when I would get pulled over for hauling a trailer with no break lights, and today, when I got pulled over for said violation, I was not at all surprised. The cop was actually pretty nice, and even though he didn't believe I wasn't the owner of the company(he asked me if I could prove it, even though he had my license and had already run Don's plates), he let me off with a minor violation and a fifty-four dollar ticket. He also said if the owner wouldn't pay the ticket, he would back me up in court, but that he had to write me the ticket in my name because I was the driver, which also brought up another point: I was responsible for the truck without break lights because I was the driver. He told me to clean the sealcoat off the license plate and not drive the trailer anymore. So when I had to drive the trailer the rest of the day, I tried to drive around Scotch Plains, but still had to drive a quarter mile through Scotch Plains, and I kept having this fantasy where if he did pull me over again, he would yell the Scotch Plains' version of "Stay out of Malibu, Lebowski!" and then he would throw a coffee cup at my head.

Chicken Run-in

When Lib and I walked into the grocery store yesterday, she ran into one of her students, who immediately yelled, "Holy Crap! It's Ms. Colper...I feel so fat right now" because he had a two liter of soda in one hand and grasped in the other hand, held chest high with bent elbow, was a bag of fried chicken. The kid wasn't fat, and neither was his scawny companion who had two two-liter bottles of soda tucked under his arms for a total of three--the perfect meal.

Granstas

It's funny to see where we come from and not be able to deny it. Before my grandma Bev passed away, she was crotchety and cranky, and when I say "before she passed" I mean as long as I knew her. But she also raised eight children, so who am I to talk about cranky--she spent sixty-three months of her life pregnant, which is over five years of carrying around another human being inside of your body, then she had to raise them all; if she wasn't a ray of sunshine all the time, it's understandable. Growing up, she was never the "nice grandma;" that was reserved for my other grandmother, Irene, but she was not a mean grandma, she was just not as nice as Irene. Bev took me camping and let me chase her cat around the house. I don't have a single unpleasant memory about grandma Bev, she just wasn't jolly; however, when my sister checked her cell phone after her death, she found this picture of grandma and her roommate, Marion, at the home (when I took flowers out to them last year for the 4th of July, grandma wanted a picture with the flowers and Marion, so she made Marion get out of her bed and come to her bed to take the picture--Marion had no legs). So she wasn't sunny, and she could be unpleasant, and she wasn't "the nice grandmother," but she was ornery and goofy and she was grandma Bev, and my grandfather worshiped the ground she walked on for over fifty years even though they bickered constantly.

LBI

I went with Lib to Long Beach Island on Barnegat Bay. From the northwest shore, we could see twelve different firework displays on the mainland. We went to the beach and did a little crabbing, but only caught a couple of greenies. The condo was free, and it was the perfect weekend of relaxing and enjoying summer until we got home and I realized after sitting in traffic for three hours that I had left my keys in LBI.

Catfishstravaganza

Much like last year, Andy, Brian, Daisy and I went to my uncle's pond to fish. We caught about twenty-two catfish, a couple big sunnies, and a couple small bass. And once again, Daisy got tired catching all of the catfish.