Aaah Puberty

My baby's breaking out in acne, and it pretty much happened all this weekend. Poor guy is the same age as I was when I first started breaking out; 10. I looked at him yesterday and suddenly realized he looked a lot older. Dang, my baby Shay....
So I went to the store to get him some Oxy 10. Showed him how to use it. He seemed to be taking it well, considering. He's seen enough of those Proactive commercials, so he knows what acne is.

His cousin Skylar is about to turn 11 and her family is anticipating the arrival of her "friend," the period. She's been more withdrawn lately, and acting different.
It's depressing.

On a happier note, the 34th birthday was nice. We had some friends over, and Steve actually paid one of my friends to make the lasagna and cake. She made a very cool checkerboard cake with my picture on top.

FSBO

I finally took the time to get my car listed on Ebay this morning. Great picture, great ad, it mentions that the car runs and looks awesome.
Then I drove it to a meeting after that and it broke.
It took several hours to coordinate with AAA and the tow truck driver.
Turns out, it was a hose from the water pump.

I think my car's trying to tell me something.

Oh No

I turn 34 on Sunday, and what bums me out is remembering my mom when she was the same age. She was oooooold! But then again she wasn't me.
She was a secretary for Mutual of Omaha, married to a guy she had nothing in common with and she had three awful kids who never seemed to let up.
She'd recently had a hysterectomy because of some medical issues and that made her hormones jump into high gear like she was in menopause.
She spent a lot of time packing our belongings and moving because the rental market in Omaha was awful. I remember moving once a year, sometimes at the end of the school year and sometimes right in the middle. The house we were renting when she was 34 was this really old place with bizarre old carpet that was so worn it looked like a very thin floor mat.
We had to move after about 9 months in that house because the landlord wanted his ex wife to live there, so their child visitations could be simpler. He lived down the street.
I missed that neighborhood because it was one of the last pretty areas of Omaha. The lawns were manicured, huge old trees, the schools were beautiful brick buildings with awesome hardwood floors, there were kids of all ages on our street so we had plenty of entertainment, there was regular community events like street fairs and Halloween parties and Christmas craft sales, and the people were normal.
When we got the notice to move we had to find a place on very short notice, and we ended up renting a house on 24th Street and Florence Blvd.
Anyone familiar with Omaha knows that 24th and Florence is the ghetto.

Shortly after moving there, it became very clear my mom couldn't take the city bus to work because she was either going to get mugged at the bus stop or worse. So my parents bought a second car. At a stop light one dark morning, my mom was surprised by a man who had walked right up and opened the passenger door of the car. She took off driving right thru the red light.
We heard gunshots quite regularly in the night, always wondering if bullets could go thru bedroom walls.
My sister and I walked to our little school that was several blocks away, and my brother went to another school, in the other direction.
We soon made friends from other neighborhoods (we were the only white kids in ours, we found other white kids as we walked to school) and we would all join up in the mornings and walk together. We were brought up to avoid blacks, that's why we didn't dare get friendly with the black kids in our neighborhood.

I think I was the first one to be attacked. My sister and I walked with some kids every day, and apparently one day they were in an argument with some black kids we didn't know. My sister opened her dumb big mouth and said something to the black kids. She was in first grade. I was in third. The black kids were in fourth and fifth grade. They started towards my sister like they were going to do something to her, so I had to step in. I said, "Leave her alone." They ganged up on me and beat me like I'd just held them up at gunpoint. They hit me with their fists and whatever was laying around, kicked me, chased me down if I got up and tried running, and wouldn't let up. Eventually an adult came along and broke it up.
I limped home and my dad cleaned me up. My eyes were swollen shut and I hurt everywhere. I got checked out at the doctor's to see if I had any broken bones on my face.

Well then my brother limped home one day after school. While walking home, he was hit over the head and knocked out by some drunk homeless guy who'd been following him.

I don't think it was long after that, we moved out of Omaha to Fort Calhoun.

When I consider where I am today and where my mom was at the same age, I'm pretty thankful.

Weather

We are staying in Phoenix for a couple of days, while Steve's getting a helicopter looked at by some helicopter dudes. This top picture is Steve landing outside the Heliponents building, with the diagnostic guys.
I'm inside working on the computer; toasty warm!



I got up this morning and walked around a little at the resort where we're staying.
This is a picture of the golf course at about 8 am, it was foggy and cool out. Something we NEVER see.










This is the view we normally have out our front door (at home)
No, not the trash cans, the MOUNTAINS!





Yesterday morning, as we were getting ready to leave for Phoenix, this was the view out our front door.

Spooky. Couldn't see any of the mountains, and the clouds were moving really fast like they were alive or something.

Forum Foray

I've joined two online forums in the past week, one is from SCIFI.com, and the other is for work, performanceboats.com.
It's funny how dangerous it is to post something, because sooner or later someone will rip you to pieces, no matter what you wrote. I try to stay positive (and careful) but there's assholes everywhere I'm learning....

On another note, if you have a kidless night definitely rent "Heartbreak Kid" with Ben Stiller. It is definitely one of the more crass comedies you'll find.

We went to see two movies over the holidays; I Am Legend and No Country For Old Men.
Didn't like either of them. Too depressing, no redeeming ending to make you feel good. They were both sooooooo sad and unfulfilling.

And the Race Begins

Now that we're in January, I'm in a foot race like no other. The next few months will be a hectic dash to get everything put together and executed successfully, so my year won't be a total waste of time.
First, there's the American Cancer Society fundraiser. We kick off activities in two weeks and I'm sooooo not ready for that.
Then, there's the model boat clubs races and the Vettes and Vipers car show in February. That's after we head out to the Glamis dunes in California for the Jagged X off road event.
We have the Lincoln Day Dinner in Feb as well, with Sherriff Joe Arpaio speaking to the crowd. This will be a huge event because it's an election year and people flock to Sherriff Joe like he's a rock star.
In March we are dedicating our time to preparation for the big truck show, which is scheduled for the first weekend in April. Then, two weeks later we have the Havasu Havoc Truck Show, sponsored by Truckin' Magazine. That one's a nightmare because it's all twenty-something year olds with very expensive vehicles.
The week after that is the Desert Storm Poker Run, with huge expensive offshore boats who come to our lake just to show off and be on t.v. We only run a small portion of that event, which is fortunate.

The week after that we begin our Regatta season, which means there's an event on the water every weekend for two months--then two months off--then two more months of solid events. YIKES.

In the next month I have so much preparation and planning, I might lose my mind.

Oh well, it's better than working a real job.

OH. MY. GAWD.

I say "Oh my GAWD" because I finally met someone who literally sang the soundtrack to my 21st year. Brian Holland is the lead singer for a rock group called "Offspring." He and his band are still together, though not as popular as they were back in the 90's. They sang "Pretty Fly for a White Guy," and several other tunes that we all would blast on the stereo.
He's a pilot, and has a bitchin hangar next door to my boyfriend's out at the airport. Steve told me about him several years ago, but I've never been lucky enough to meet Brian because he's either taking his private jet out to the taxi-way, or he's driving his truck out of there.
His hangar is bitchin because it's big enough to hold his jet that has an anarchy symbol on the tail fin, his Russian L-39 jet that he flies for fun, and also the two story condo that he had built in there. Steve showed me the condo one day, when Brian was out of town. It has a "patio" out front (although inside the hangar) with a green astroturf lawn and a custom pool table. Then inside, the downstairs has a full bar and big screen t.v. with all kinds of comfy furniture. The upstairs has a master suite, a second bedroom, and two bathrooms. The master suite has a big screen t.v. as well. I guess Brian had all this built in there before he had a house in Havasu. Or maybe it's a guest house or something...
So I finally had the chance to meet him on Saturday. Steve had invited me to tag along on the flight to Calif, to take his boss back home to Santa Ana. As we were getting the lear jet ready, Brian and his co-pilot Mark happened along. I got to meet them both, and they seemed kinda confused about who I was. Mark finally just came right out and asked what I was doing there. When I said I was Steve's girlfriend they kinda got speechless, like, "Dang Steve's a cradle robber!" Too funny.