New Life Through Your Firestone Credit Card

I'm confused by this photo, though duly impressed. Does this mean there are 'hot boys' inside? Or is this chrome limo advising all 'hot boys' [ or even luke warm ones ] to climb in and take advantage of the air conditioning?

I can't even begin to know what this means, being so far out of the loop. The Extreme Money Bunny is not a frequent visitor here and as a result I am often ignorant of how to best spend my money. Are people demanding on a routine basis that their cars spell things out in chrome now? A brave new world with such people in it... what do such folks want their cars to say, anyway?
I am just happy to have my much humbler [ ancient] PT out of the shop, with a shiny new fan unit, guaranteed to actually cool the engine off - as God intended - by shutting itself on and off, thanks to a new thermostat. Last week the sound of frantic coolant trying to re-enter the reservoir sounded like hailstones pounding my hood in. I was a mere 55 miles from home and managed to take it all in stride, though it sounded a bit like the Four Horsemen rounding the corner, to me anyway.

My car is not glamorous. Bits of the blue are dinged by callous people in parking lots who slam their car doors into the nearest vehicle, cackling into their cell phone. Thanks to a gravel truck, it also has a cracked windshield.
Look at the showroom beauty pictured above and imagine some chewed -up bits of walnut hull, [ squirrels sit in the maple tree out front and spit at my car during appalling rodent contests, apparently.] a bit of brake dust on the passenger side hub and a dingy Union Jack sticker on the back rear window.

From the time I drove it off the Chrysler lot [ with 12 miles on the odometer] it has used more oil than a Sherman Tank. After all these years, I don't question. I just top it off on a regular basis. If I continue the synthetic oil, maybe [ I am told by helpful males close to the project] I can get another 100,000 miles. I've loved this car and will drive it until large hunks of it fall off in the driveway, but...next time...I loves me the Toyota pickup truck , in some festive, pearly, irridescent colour -sort of like looking into a puddle at the gas station.

Patrick Swayze was more than a fine dancer and handsome leading man. He was quiet, strong and knew who he was as a person. He wasn't showy and tended to stay out of the limelight.

I will miss this courageous fellow Texan for lot of reasons.

SO...you wanna be a Ho

That's right. Need to purchase a home to use for your new...ah... 'Performing Arts ' enterprise? Don't worry about those pesky taxes. We can get around that..you want to employ illegal immigrant 13 year olds as working girls?
In the words of this video taped ACORN acountant...."no problem".

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,548827,00.html

This amazing news is somewhat darkened by Joe Wilson's apology, which hit the president's desk before dawn. Nice try, Joe, but it would've been better to keep your mouth shut rather than grovel later.

At Rest In Glendale

I heard earlier this morning that the much refrigerated, overly gawked at remains of Michael Jackson will finally have a home in Forest Lawn this sundown.


It dawned on me that I had visited Forest Lawn Cemetery back in the 1980's. We went just to see the Pickfords and Flynns and remains of other famous folk...it's a serene and beautiful place , filled with my second favourite tree [poplar], gentle knolls and always a little breeze blowing in the open spaces. It also helps that the phenomenal Walt Disney is buried there, too.

I didn't know back then that the man who would someday be my closest confidant and political sparring partner has an older brother buried there - way back in 1955. James was 15 years old and the light of his parents' life. They went on to have other children, but on this little rise in the real estate in the middle of two busy freeways- yet silent and far way from them - James would always be brown eyed, good natured and a mystery to the brothers and sisters who came later. A family enigma, the absent tie breaker in every squabble, whom they still wonder about.
My significant other is pleased his unknown brother is buried near the endearing Jimmy Stewart. It seems right somehow. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington is not only one of Mic's favourite movies, but his bashful, wonderfully accurate James Stewart impression is possibly why I hooked up in the first place.
I never get tired of being called 'Virginia'.

Cruiser Crisis

Late breaking update runs something like this:
My Cruiser blew up two days ago and the mechanical jury is still out on whether merely cleaning the crank case will rescue what's left of the engine. And YES I do top off the oil and other fluids when I'm supposed to. I'm maybe not as diligent about hustling the thing off to get the oil changed. I have been duly scolded by various interested [ male] parties and now wait for the magical repairs to begin. I have an important job interview to attend in a few days and I hope to be up and running again before that.

I also hope that overcast sky in So Cal turns into some kind of precipitation...fat chance, I know, but there's a rumor that it tried to rain there this morning.

Jobville

Since I am approaching the start of a new job, one which, though unglamorous, will no doubt be by turns pleasant, boring and sometimes heartbreaking. Not everybody is cut out to work with senior citizens, but I've done it before, long ago. I was a smug, unthinking 26 years old and did alright with it. But now I am so much better equipped to anticipate their moods, listen to their war rationing stories and fetch the silver serving platter down off the top shelf in the kitchen for them.
In celebration of this new paycheck accompanied pass time, here are some disastrous jobs from the past.


Teenage Cave Guide - this involves going down into the hole everyday leading herds of tourists who are only taking your tour because there's nothing else to do. They are hot, it's lunchtime and the kids are still whingeing about "why couldn't we have gone to Disneyworld, like you promised?" This means your spiel about moonshiners, formation of sedimentary rock [ zzzzz] and average cave temps makes the normal urban 12 year old tourist extremely mean, with glazed over eyes like Charley Manson. It also helps very little that the tour guide is clad in a bright red jumpsuit, which -even at 120 pounds [ age19] makes one resemble Roseanne Barr with a police flashlight. That summer-due to electrical problems- the lights often flickered on and off while I was alone down there, repainting the dampish white lines on the cement. This dark wasn't just dark; it breathed and had fangs.

Girl Insurance Claims Adjuster-which came along after I was much older, and had developed a bit more savvy about how to deal with crusty people. No amount of company funded training however, could've really prepared me for going on cold calls in rural areas. The Ozark Mountains are known for their fiercely independent, no nonsense inhabitants. Even toward the end of the twentieth century, a young female in heels and nice clothes was an object of suspicion out there. One never, never just drives up in the actual driveway, next to the house. One stands at the edge of the yard and hollers politely [?]their name and the reason for the visit. If one hears the inimitable sound of a rifle bolt being drawn back -sigh. Time to go...wrong house. So sorry to have bothered you.
I decided early in the game that I was NOT going to end up on some milk carton, my youthful black and white photo tossed out on the daily garbage, or run over by a city bus in the rain. Needless to say, my insurance career ended right before Christmas, circa 1987.

Professional Statue Polisher- this is someone who is hired to do clerical work, initially then it's somehow found out that said person can paint signs, dress windows, create parade floats and generally make something out of thin air, at little more than a day's notice. Though I was officially a museum registrar, after the regular incoming manuscripts [ if one can relate to a handwritten 16th century prayer vellum as a 'regular book'] were carefully vacumned, catalogued and put away, I was off to, well ...polish statues with a toothbrush and a tube of Crest on 28 degree days. The compound was enormous, and housed several almost scale sized buildings, modeled after those in the Holy land.Located in a heavily wooded area, one walked out to the buildings -to repaint, to re-attach wooden trim.
During my time with this institution, I conversed with lizards who often stood looking out the windows of the smaller diorama buildings, tiny claws clutching the window sill, tongues flicking in and out, their beady eyes looking all around. A friend of mine considered making a tiny Pope hat for one of them, but then how to put it on? A tiny elastic band? A white ribbon?

I have been chased by more than one camel on the same premises. I know now that donkeys are sweet natured and costumes need to be shaken before being picked up off the shelf, due to timber rattlers' fondness for piles of heavy fabric when the weather turns cold. Back in the day, I sometimes found myself wearing a middle eastern street walker costume- regular cast member out sick. Same property, different job.
Off and on, in different capacities, I worked at this odd place. I didn't really hate it...all the time. I loved it on occasion. But nothing I've done before or since has ever taxed my resources on such a regular basis. But the one thing: Never did I feel more alive. I never knew if I needed a toothbrush or a hammer or a fresh coat of Egyptian eyeliner to go to work. Every day was newly minted, and sometimes I miss it.