Shay's Not The Karate Kid

I entered Shay into martial arts classes to help with his self esteem. I saw him as a young Ralph Macchio (The Karate Kid) who wanted to learn the art but lacked the formal training.

What I realized a couple of weeks ago is Shay doesn't look just a little bit like Johnny the bad guy from The Karate Kid movie, he looks like him a LOT!!





Okay, maybe there's not much resemblance in that photo....

But how about this one...

Things Aint So Bad

I wish I had saved this newspaper myself. A dog sitting customer of mine has it framed in his house, and I had to share it with everyone.

These headlines were the start of a very huge problem for our community. It reached 128 degrees (and I had an outdoor job then) and the beaches had a poor water-quality reading because of an e.coli pollutant up river. When the water heated up at the beach areas (it doesn't circulate like the rest of the water in the lake) it made the e.coli worse. So our main attraction for tourists, the beaches, had to be closed.
Up river, we have casinos, Indian housing, and all sorts of industry that was likely dumping waste water into the river. The exact source was never publicized although I truly believe the authorities knew who it was.

The horrible heat persisted, so the beaches stayed closed.

And then came CNN. It made national news, that the waters of Lake Havasu were unsafe to swim in.
Tourists cancelled reservations at the hotels, the boat launches were empty, and everyone suddenly had no job. Who buys houses? Visitors from elsewhere. And locals who had jobs. So the realtors and construction workers were on unemployment along with the rest of us. We only had one major manufacturing company and it opted to move to Mexico to take advantage of cheap labor. So there went a BUNCH of jobs.
It was a busy time at the unemployment office.

This persisted for a while, and our little town basically shut down for several months. The weather cooled off in the winter and the lower water temperatures did away with the e.coli problem. Oh and I'm sure whoever was dumping in the river figured they'd better stop doing that.

The following March, Mtv showed up to do their Spring Break series of shows from one of the very beaches that was shut down due to the pollutants in the water. They only joked once that the water was unsafe, but other than that they showed people having a good time. They held free concerts for anyone who wanted to come, and I enjoyed quite a few great shows. It was an alcohol-free environment, and everyone had a great time. Guess what happened then?

Tourists and boaters came back. We all had jobs again. Houses began selling, and construction picked up.

With everyone making money once again, it was apparently forgotten that Mtv was the reason for our re-birth. When it was proposed that Mtv come back the following year for spring break, the older more vocal citizens said, "No way, that's trash tv!!"
Mtv kept trying. The very loud older folks in our community fought back, including our stupid newspaper and City Council, making it impossible for the spring break show to happen again.

So they went to Florida.

And here we are again, no tourists and no Mtv.

My Bucket List

I've found something to go on my Bucket List.

I hope to never ever ever have to attend a funeral where there's caskets lined up like that. Ever.

People need to stagger their deaths.

My Attitude Is Improving

I have noticed in the past few hours that my poor attitude is improving, and it has a lot to do with interacting with people. Not the people who have made me angry or who have let me down this past week, but people who are just as busy as me and have hectic complicated lives.
You see, my outlook on things have been pretty bleak for the past seven days. I can actually pinpoint the moment when it went downhill, but I'm not airing that on the World Wide Web just yet.

To be pissy for seven days straight is very difficult. You have to ignore the pretty sunsets, the smiles on children's faces and the warm, reassuring feeling of a really good hug. Oh wait, I haven't had any of those....
Time for a hug.
It's been a lot of effort to ignore the sunsets because our neighbor to the West is on fire and it makes for some pretty spectacular reds and oranges.

And the children...well they're not smiling because they've got some pissy attitudes as well. It's not their fault.

My baby Shay turns 12 in two days and he's not happy about the whole birthday thing. Not because of puberty (he's there, by the way, and that makes me bummed out a little. o.k. I'm actually bummed out a lot) but he's unhappy because his dad promised a very cool present then backed out of that promise. Gee, thanks, dad. Now I have to pull a rabbit out of my rear and get this birthday out of the crapper. Maybe I can sneak him into Kokomo's. Lil Jon is playing there this weekend.

Pioneer Woman

It takes a lot of dedication and talent to have a website like Pioneer Woman's. She has the blog portion, the cooking portion, the home-schooling portion, the photography portion....and on and on and on. And she has a ranch to run on top of all that.
She is a beautiful, articulate mom of FOUR who went from city life to a very remote ranch with miles and miles of horses and cows and bulls.
And her recipes are simple yet gorgeous creations that you don't need a huge budget and enormous amount of skill to execute.
I adore her.
She got Bloggie of the Year.
She just wrote her own cook book.
I pre-ordered it on Amazon. It made me negative in my checking account. Oops.

Well then she posted a schedule of her book tour. Holy crap a book tour!
She will be three hours away from me in October. And guess what. I'm going. I'M GOING!!!!!!

Will I play it cool, like, "Whatever, Okie, I like your book but whatever...."

Or will I be truthful and just gush over her at the book store?

Maybe I'll show her my moon walk.

Hi Steve

How's it going?

Can Ya Do Something For Free For Me?

If only people were THAT honest when they approached me about stuff. Just tell me up front, how much of my free time is this little favor going to take?
Perhaps I need to be smarter about my answer, and include the response: "And what favor will I be getting in return?"

I get lots of requests from people, asking me to do things for them, things that will never pay and will never earn me anything more than frustration.

It's my own fault, for being someone who BELIEVES in volunteerism. I know if I can do a particular thing, to help someone out, I will do it. Only afterward feeling a bit put out because I failed to negotiate something fair in the deal. I never negotiate at all, I just do the favor and then later on I wonder why I spent so much of my time doing something for free.

That girl that cut my hair today; she asked to be paid when she was done. What? You mean this wasn't a FAVOR??? She was clever. She went straight over to the cash register after she hacked about 2 pounds of my hair off. I know some of the things I do for people isn't exactly worth the $16 that I was charged for my haircut, but it's at least worth a FAVOR in return. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. That kind of thing.

I just need to be better about getting scratched. Then I can stop complaining.