Summer nights ...

Today I started a new assignment for my summer temp job. Its working as a file checker for a major mortgage company downtown. Today was a "black flag day" which means that the temperature is over 100 degress and the heat index is over 110 - essentially it is freaking hot. I left 15 minutes early so that I would have ample time to hit traffic or get lost. Because I was over prepared I got horribly lost. The whole thing was exacerbated by the extreme heat and 3 questionable sets of directions. I called and let "whom it may concern" that I was running late and to clarify where in the name of asphault I was.

But eventually I made it and the job is easy and rewarding, plus the atmosphere is really communal and non competitive. The reason I even bother to mention it and the purpose of the above photo is the drive home tonight. I got off work at 9pm, the sun had been down long enough for the ground to release its pent up heat and the breeze to find its way through the city. I love driving, I especially love driving a manual through the city highways at night with the radio playing exactly what I want to hear - loudly! The drive home was the antithesis of the drive to work and completely relaxed me.

This wonderful sojourne into "East Rider" also made me think of some friends of mine back in Oz (coughlukecough) who I think find driving to be as zen as I do.

"And I had a bad day..."

The number of things that went wrong on Thursday were enough to make any human being climb a tree and take up office as a chimp.

I woke up at 5am to shower and get ready to leave at 6am to babysit the boys while J drove down to NC for traiing for her new job. Dropped the boys at the sitter at 8am and headed for my first day at my new job. The job, as described to me by my temp agency, was working in a call center for MDA (Muscular Dystrophy Association) from 9-4:30 Monday through Friday for the next six weeks. The actual job was telemarketing, cold calls trying to get people to sign up for a "Lock-up" posting a bail of $3000 to get out. Needless to say for the three hours I was actually on the phone things didn't go so well. Turns out telemarketing steals your soul. At 4:30 on the dot I left to go and pick up the boys by 5pm. I hadn't suckered any "business leaders" into participating. I had also been warned by a more seasoned employee that MDA has an alarmingly high turnover rate and most people don't even last a week.

Things only got worse after that. At 5 I picked up the boys (3 and 11 months) got them strapped in their seats and ready to go. What I didn't realize was that the 3 year old while playing with the keys had hit the auto-lock button and locked all of the doors. I strapped him in and closed his door expecting mine to still be unlocked - I was wrong. It took me nearly 10 minutes to talk the toddlers through unstrapping and unbuckling his seat to reach the keys and hit the unlock button.

While all of this was happening, unbeknowst to me my agent from the temp agency had called me and left me a message. With desperately low battery power and no patience what so ever I listened to my voice mail inform me that I "had not been welcomed back to MDA". "Fine, at this point, whatever!"

Back at the farm it was dropping the boys and grabbing the 26 year old with the severe middle ear infection to head to the doctor. Levi has had the infection for about a week causing extreme pain, loss of balance, headaches, night sweats, cold chills and a general helplessness. So we get to the doctors who's exam revealed that Levi has a hole in his ear drum from the body trying to relieve some of the pressure and a hearing test reveals he had 0% hearing in the bad ear. But the nurse operating the test used a frequency that was higher than medically advisable and for too long because Levi couldn't hear it to stop her. So he got worse. After stopping to let Mama D's dogs out while she is out of town (in a thuder/lighting/hail summer rain storm) and wiping up the mud prints that followed we headed back. Upon arrival I discover that my younger sister has dropped off her 2 year old AN HOUR EARLY so that I can watch her until 2am while she is off being a schmuck. So take a sick adult writhing in pain, two toddlers and a baby all vying for attention. (Bullet to the brain anyone?)

SILVER LINING: I felt so miserable at the "call center" that any more than the one day of work would have driven me to maddness so not returning is a relief. Today I had a meeting with my agent to start a new assignment as data entry for a mortgage company for two weeks. The kids locked in the car ended up being a crisis averted and luckily the car was parked in the shade and still had residual air conditioning. Everything else is over now and both Levi and I actually got a full nights rest (thanks to his new medications).

So yeah, there.

God smites me ...

This is evidence that God hates me. Today I worked the Hanover Tomato Festival with Mary for the Wild Heaven Farm booth. The weather was gorgeous all day, sunny but not excruciatingly hot and the crowd was plentiful. I applied sunscreen focusing on my shoulders and back every 30 minutes from 8am to 4:30pm. I ended up like this:

My sister who has the same genetic makeup as me put on sunscreen twice in the day and was wearing black and green to my white and jean blue and didn't burn - not even a little. How is that "fair".

As Mary put it I was trying to fit in at the Hanover Tomato Festival by picking up some local color. (ha ... ha... lame)

*4th of July*

Celebrate the birth of your nation by blowing up a little piece of it!
Independence day was spent blowing up our newly acquired fireworks, teaching children the magic of sparklers (and the discard water bucket), and having a bbq with family. Aside from numerous misquito bites the night held a lot of laughs. Even my stepbrother thought it would be a good idea to hold on to bottle rockets while they went off (cinged the hair on his arms). Levi also learned that a broken stick on a rocket means it spins and flies horizontal. No blood no foul.

Fireworks and Groceries

In preparation for the 4th of July Independence Day Kevin, Mary, Levi, and I made the impulsive decision of driving 4 hours and two states down to South of the Border on July 2nd. As the photos will show SOB is the most artificial place on earth. Its location is just south of the North Carolina border with South Carolina - hence the name. Started as a minor hot dog stand/pit stop exactly half way between New York and Florida it now sports gaming rooms, a casino, 4 restraunts, a hotel, and a small amusement park. But for the rest of us it has three fireworks warehouses - YEY! South Carolina has less stringent laws on explosives so people come from all over to get their fill. It was over a 100 degrees and there were no natural trees anywhere on the parking lots but it was a fun trip. SOB also served to show Levi a side of America he never would have experienced in a cultured city or up in the quiet mountain town. Frankly put - there is no where like it in the world, Thank God!



SOUTH OF THE BORDER - Where plaster goes to die!