National Lampoons Western Vacation

I decided at the last minute to take Marazzano and my mom on a road trip at the last minute (before school starts the day after labor day). Mo had made it known earlier this summer that he wanted to road trip and my mom had told me in the last year (or two or three) some of her bucket list destinations. So I said to myself "Hey. I can kill two birds with one stone". Afterall, Mo will be 13 next August and if he's anything like I was as a teenager, he will be sullen and moody and only want to hang out with his friends until he's about 25. So now is the time. There have been some setbacks so I can see that the devil is not through with me yet. I must be next in line for some kind of huge financial or spiritual breakthrough cause this has been going on for months.  Me and Gigi (mom) went to pick up Mo in Chicago. I grappled with renting a car (cause the total miles for this trip was supposed to be 3748 miles) and at Shunte's urging, I did. But since I waited until 12 am to make a reservation to pick up the car at 12:30 am from the airport (the only place still renting cars at this ungodly hour), I decided that it would be better to make my last destination (utah) first and my first destination (south dakota) last. All I had to do was print another Trip Tik from AAA.com. That was all. Simple right? Well.... Shuntes building has a computer room and a printer and no one was in there using it so it should have been cut and dry but the computer was stuck in some kind of loop. It kept "configuring" and then it would shut down and then it would restart and then it would configure again and then it would shut down again and then it would restart again and well you get the picture. I called Mo and asked him to come take a look. He unplugged and replugged and it just went back to the loop. So I left him and went back to see how he was doing in an hour. By then, he got the computer to come out of the loop. Cool. Then I just have to redo my trip tik and then print it. Not. Now the printer sitting next to the computer isn't showing up as one of the options for printing. I tried to add the printer and I tried to install the printer but that printer's model number just was not showing up in the dropdown menu. Shunte and Mo tried but they couldn't fix it either. Shunte said she had to go back to her office for some paperwork for court the next morning. I think we must've already spent an hour and a half trying to get the computer up and then trying to get it to print so I was already frustrated. So I went back to the office with her and redid my trip tik on her front room computer. Did all that and guess what? It wouldn't print. The printers name was not in the drop down. I was having a bad case of deja vu. By now it's after 11pm. Shunte then mentions that she just got the printer and maybe it's not hooked up yet and that I should use the rear computer room. So I redo my trip tik (again) and this time it prints. Now time to book the car.  I had already priced the difference between a neighborhood rental place and the airport. Airport taxes are high so I thought a local neighborhood would be better but a neighborhood rental actually has a higher weekly rate by about $80 so it was $80 cheaper to rent at the airport even with taxes. I am satisfied with checking two or three sites to make sure I have a comparable price but Shunte doesn't like to take my word for it. She had to recheck everything I already did to satisfy herself and then she did Hotwire and Priceline. Priceline agreed to a midsize rental for $12 a day before taxes. So it was gonna be $208 for about 9 days including taxes. By now it's midnight. This was the same day I had finished driving from the Spa City so I was tired and cranky by then. So at midnight, we go to the airport to pick up the car. We're riding along la di da and suddenly all the lights on the dash and headlights go out and the car comes to ta stop in the middle of the street. Fortunately, it was not much traffic at this time. Shunte says The cable thingy on the battery is not tight and it gets loose after we hit so many potholes. So I have to unlatch the hood while she lifts and then hold the hood open while she bangs down with one of those small plastic antibacterial bottles from bath and body works. The car starts up again. I am beginning to feel like maybe God is trying to send me a message. First it takes 3 hours to print something that should've taken 10 minutes and now this. Well, that's not all. I go inside to the rental counter with my Priceline.com reservation that I made 30 minutes ago and the desk clerk (who we'll call Jacinda) informs me I can't use my debit card for a rental unless I have a return flight or boat ticket when renting from an airport for Alamo and Enterprise. I have never in life heard of such a thing. I have about 2 grand on the debit card and that should've done it for whatever authorization or holds they needed. Well of course I have no return ticket since I didn't fly. You have to prepay when using priceline.com and so the car had already been paid for and it was nonrefundable. I had read all the small print and remembered seeing something about having a return flight number but they didn't require it when I made the reservation and it made it sound like some kind of fancy option instead of a mandatory requirement. The same soft wording was on a sign at the rental desk. It's like they don't want to hurt your feelings or something. The sign and website NEED to say. You CANNOT use a debit card unless you are flying or cruising. Jacinda is sympathetic and she tries to enter everything without it but it won't take so she used a flight number on some papers she had from earlier that day. Shhh. Don't tell anyone. I thank God and go out to get my car. The shuttle driver tells us we can take any car that is parked in our size category. Wasn't much choice for me cause there was only 1 car for me to choose from. We go home and get back about 1am. The next morning, Shunte loses her phone and we delay our departure to help her look for it. Since she had helped up take everything out of my car and put it in the rental, we thought maybe she had sat it down in the rental and we didn't want to be gone for 9 days with it in our car.  She went back to court to see if she had left it there and we finally left around 11:30 am. The first 2 days were pretty uneventful. It is a 20 hour drive to Utah and so I did 12 one day and 8 the next. Plus about 3 hours in stops for my mom who had to pee 45 minutes after we left Chicago. And yes I snapped because she could have went at Shuntes before we left like me and Mo had done. I then made the declaration that when I stop, EVERYONE will get out to use the bathroom and if you don't have to go, then "go anyway". Oh and did I mention that the air conditioning did not work. Just blowing hot ass air in hot ass Utah. While in Utah, we went to see the Arches National Park in Moab (which was beautiful and worth the trip) and Canyonland which is also in Moab (less impressive though me and mom did climb a 1/2 mile uphill trail to an overlook which was an achievement in itself). On my way to Arches though, there was a light flashing "VSC OFF" and the malfunction indicator light was on. It was only 7:30 in the morning so my day was not getting off to a good start. I had to look these up in the car manual. The VSC thing has something to do with skidding. I wasn't worried about skidding in the summertime and the book said that if you can't turn off the flashing light (cause there is a button on the dash to do so), then there is a malfunction. I kept mashing the thingy on the dash and eventually both lights went off only to return later in the day. I was a little nervous about it cause we kept passing signs on the highway that say NO SERVICES. No food. No gas. No cell. No lights. No moon. No nothing. If you get caught out there, you. will. be. fucked...! We checked into the "Knight Inn" . After previously paying $100 the night before for the Comfort Inn, things needed to be averaged out. It was a decent inn. The carpets were ugly but newer and clean. It would do for $50. Well, when we walked in the door, there was one of the plastic plungers under the dresser. The kind of plunger that looks like an accordian. Looking back, I guess that should have been a clue. Mom went to the bathroom before she went to bed. I got up at 12:30 to go and there was something in there already. I just thought she had forgotten to flush. So I flushed. And it flooded. Water splashed on the floor.  The plunger didn't work. I think it had a hole in it so it wasn't suctioning properly. I went to the front desk to ask for another room. The young girl who rented me the room wasn't there anymore and the new clerk told me the young girl had forgotten that she wasn't supposed to rent that room. So the new clerk apologizes and gives me a key to a different room. I go there and stick in the key. The light turns green but someone from inside shouts "Move on!" so I take that key back and she gives me another key. Apparently the youngster doesn't record the rooms that she rents either. I think she needs some addtl training. The 3rd time is the charm and I have a fresh toilet. Both Mom and Mo are sleep so I work to move all of our stuff without waking them. There are 7 rooms between the old room and new room and it's 1am. By the time I'm done, my heartrate is up like I just did a 20 minute workout and I'm up for a bit. Anyhow, left the next morning heading out for Craters of the Moon, Idaho and there are some lonnnnng roads with no cars as long as the eye can see so after 2 hours we finally hit a booming metropolis that has a kmart. I make a beeline for these "services" and let my mom out so she can get a case of water and pop. I was sitting there for about 20 minutes wondering what is taking her so long (and I found out it was because she took the time to read through and buy a birthday card) and guess what? The car cuts off. WTF!!! We're right in the middle of Buttfuck, Utah in a busted ass rental car. These things are not supposed to happen. I rented a car cause I didn't want to chance that my own reliable car would have issues. Sigh. I was thoroughly disgusted. I was done and cooked and fried. I called the Roadside assistance and got the ball rolling and we continued on to East Buttfuck, Idaho for our next park. We are so fortunate that our car stopped at this place because it was a town and we had a cell phone signal. We didn't have a signal (all 3 of us) for most of the trip because most of the time we were in the middle of nowhere. Some of the roads we were on were so quiet, that any movement at all broke the sound barrier.  Pray for me cause I don't know if the devil is through with me yet.

The Devil has been busy

Around May 8th or 9th, my computer started acting funny. Everytime I typed in an internet address, it would go to the site for a second and then immediately go to a popup of one of those windows telling me I have thousands of viruses. So I reached out to my cousin in law T and he gave me a website for a free malware scan and told me to run it and see if it helped. I went to the site and there were a bunch of things to click on so I clicked on what I thought was the right one but it wanted me to pay $ so I needed to contact T to see which one was the right one but I didn't have a lotta time to fool with it cause I had to pack and prepare to go out of town. In the meantime,   I was afraid to type any of my passwords into my own computer so for paying bills and stuff, I had to go over to moms. I wanted to talk to T first but I was grudgingly contemplating buying a new computer or getting a new phone with web/email access but while I was doing that, it was May 11th and time to leave to go to Myrtle Beach for my 40th birthday. I told myself I would figure it out when I got back so I left my house at 8am to pick up my mom. She wasn't ready so I figured I'd get on the internet and print the directions and look up some stuff to do in Myrtle Beach. That took about 20 minutes.  I went to harass her but she STILL was not ready. So I busied myself with ebay,mediatakeout, facebook, etc. and she STILL was not ready. She finally presented her plethora of belongings to me by the front door and I went to pack them in the car. It was 9:37 am !!! I was so hot that I didn't trust myself to speak. So I didn't. We rode in silence for 2 or 3 hours before I said a word. I got up EARLY so we could leave early since I have to do alllll the driving. This is the same person who would not drive the last 11 miles to the spa city (the last rest area is 11 miles away)  because I couldn't keep my eyes during a previous trip. Anyway,I told her NEXT time, I need her stuff 2 days early or she can't go. She can pack her toiletries in a seperate overnight bag the morning of. I told her me waiting 1 hour and 37 minutes was unacceptable because I could have used that valuable time to sleep. 20 minutes is ok. 30 minutes is ok. But an hour and 37 minutes?? nuh uh. She started talking about how her cancer really made it hard this time cause her legs were hurting and this and that but I cut her off. She had more than 2 weeks to pack and enough clothes to compete with a retail clothing store. She could have put one outfit a day in her suitcase if that is what it took. After driving for about 6 hours, I ate a sandwhich she had made. It was sliced ribeye steak on brioche bread with her own homemade russian dressing. It was the bomb and by far the best sandwhich I've ever had. With each bite, I could feel the wrinkles loosening on my forehead. By the time I finished it, all was forgiven. While we were on the road, my aunt called to say she got a virus from an email I had sent her. I knew I hadn't sent any emails in quite some time by apparently my computer (which was off) was sending emails to everyone in my address book with tthe subject "no subject" and my aunt opened it and clicked on the link and got a virus from one of those emails and so I was beside myself. The computer continued sending messages for the duration of my trip.

So right before I went to Myrtle beach, my direct IRA rollover check for my pension (from my former job) arrived and it had the wrong payee on it. They used the payee from my 401k account which was different. For the pension payment, not only do they make you fill out, confirm the name/address of the payee and the a/c #, sign and send it back by a certain date but they make you wait 60 days to do so. They say in bold letters that what you input on the form is what they use to cut the check but obviously it is not. I had waited 60 days on this check so oops on their part. I called them and they apologized profusely, stopped payment on that check and reissued another with the correct payee and a/c#. I used my moms address for the check but I was going to be in Myrtle Beach when the check arrived. My mom had asked the Post Office to hold her mail for the duration of our trip so I thought it would be safe at the post office until I got back. But nooooo. While we were in Myrtle Beach my aunt calls to say a lady who knew her had recv'd a bunch of mail that didn't belong to her (the lady had just returned from vactaion and had a "hold" on her mail also). The lady had flipped through her mail and she didn't recognize my name or my moms name but she recognized my aunts name so she called my aunt and asked her did she know the other names and told her that the mail was at her house. WTF??? My check is floating around everywhere but where it should be. The check was for a substantial amount and if that check got in the wrong hands and got cashed, I'd be another 60 days waiting on them to sort it out and give me my money.  I didn't know if the check was part of the mail the lady had received or had been delivered to another joe blow who also had a hold on their mail or what. Fortunately, it was toward the end of my trip so it didn't ruin the whole thing.  At least that's what my mom said to cheer me up.
So we checked out of Myrtle Beach on May 20th and the plan was to drive until I got tired on the 20th, then stop and spend the nite at a hotel and then get up on the 21st and finish driving home. It's a total of 16 hr drive and since I figured I'd drive about 10 hours before I got tired, I lollyassed around Myrtle beach until about 1pm. Me, mom and Diana went to Broadway at the beach a second time, went to a military memorial park and ate at Rioz-the brazillian steakhouse. So I made it to Mississippi before I got tired. It was around midnight. I stopped at the Holiday Inn express and they were full. So I drove another 30 minutes and stopped. They were full. WTf? Then I started picking rinky dink no name hotels and they were full. The deeper I got into Mississippi, I didn't even have to get out. There were crude
no vacancy signs on the doors. This had never happened to me before.
When going on a roadtrip, I never make reservations and I just pull off when I get tired and get a cheap hotel. Come to find out, there are a billion rescue workers in town for the flood they had a couple of
weeks before. So I had to keep driving. We must've stopped at 10 hotels. I didn't want to waste any more time stopping and driving 10 miles off the expressway only to turn around so I drove all
the way to Forrest City which is about 2 hours outside of Spa City. We got there about 3am. This is a huge rest area I have stopped to sleep at many times before. There are always lots of cars and truckers there. I slept for 2 hrs then drove on home. We got there about 7am. I showered the public washroom vapors off of me, brushed my teeth, ate and went to bed around 11am. I slept for the rest of the day.
So I came back from Myrtle Beach on the 21st and then I had 10 days (7 business days)
to decide either to register my car plates in Arkansas or reregister
in Chicago ($100 for plates and about $80 for a city sticker). So I went back and forth with the questions to get the requirements that I needed to switch to Arkansas and the cost analysis for which was cheapest. I went to the dmv and was in line and they told me that I had to raise my liablility requirements per state law to 25/50/25 which had not been mentioned to me when I was asking questions. The dmv called my insurance co on the spot, told them what they needed and let me stand at the counter for 30 minutes adjusting my policy (they would have NEVER let me do that in Chicago). We were all set to go, my quote was about $100 cheaper than in Illinois and I was doing okay. The rep's last sentence to me was a recap. By then,we were all done, documents had been faxed to the dmv, stickers had been placed on the plates, money had exchanged hands etc etc and then during the recap, he repeats the quote amount but said my premium would be $199 a month.
Screeeeeech. Stop, no and don't. I asked him how could my monthly payment be higher if my premium was lower than IL. Oops he said. That quote was for 6 months and my policy for IL is 12 months. So basically my insurance doubled. Since all was said and done and I had already registered my car for "personal property tax" in Arkansas (which was still gonna be cheaper than the Chicago sticker), I just let it go so I could get the plates cause mine were gonna expire the next day (May 31st). I did call the insurance co back later that day and I didn't cuss but I told them there was no way on God's green earth I was gonna pay $2400 a year for a 5 year old HONDA with 115k miles in a city with a population of 39k. Since I only have 5 payments left, they told me that when I paid it off, it would be about $900 less a year. Now they are talking some sense. 
So on May 26th, I call my tax preparer/wells fargo advisor to ask him for the address to send the pension rollover check to and for a distribution form so I could take a little out for myself. Then since I had him on the line, I asked him did I end up owing taxes. He said No and that I
had a refund and that didn't I get his email.? Well I had a virus but I still checked my email from somewhere every week at least including junk mail and he had not send me anything. He usually sends a link to the tax return so I can check them over. He said he had finished my taxes a long time ago.
 Mind you, I did not get all of my documents to him until about April 10th. Since the deadline was so close  (April 18th) he said he'd do his best but if he didn't finish in time he'd file an extension for me. So he told me he'd resend the email and the link and then he said as an afterthought that he was suprised I hadn't
gotten my refund yet and he kinda said it funny (like in slow motion) but I didn't think anything of it at the time. It usually only takes two weeks to get your direct deposit after filing a tax return and it had been over a month. Of course, I'm seeing everyday on yahoo finance about how tax refunds are being hacked and this happened to a personal friend of mine two years in a row.Someone filed a return in his name and got a refund so when he went to file his own return, it was rejected.  I had to help him file a form with the IRS
so that they would flag his return for closer scrutiny. So I'm like "Just great". Well exactly 2 weeks after my conversation with my tax preparer on May 27th, I was on the irs website using the "wheres my refund" feature but I needed the exact refund amount and that was more than I had at the moment so I decided to call and check my bank balance one more time and this time it was much higher. My tax return had finally hit my a/c. He had prepared the return but I believe he forgot to actually file it and it must have occured to him when he was telling me that he was suprised I hadn't gotten it yet. If I hadn't called. I STILL wouldn't have my refund. But I thought I was gonna owe so it was a pleasant suprise.

So the devil was busy during the month of May. I'm not sure what he was trying to keep me from doing.
The good news is that Shunte gave me a check for $127 (the cost of that tire I had to buy in Feb/March) and so I am officially off of the 90 day self exile.

In June, Mo came ot visit from June 18th through June 26. He loves him some Arkansas. I drove him home on the 26th and since I'm free, I stayed until July 3rd. On July 2nd, I took my car in to my favorite dealership for some service we had talked about previously. Had to have the water pump replaced and new filters. The water pump usually only needs to be replaced once but Imma try to keep this car as lonnggg as I can so I may need to get another one a few years from now. Anyhow, my service came to $970. I was gonna wait with the car. I had a brand new book and everything and they said it would take about 5 to 6 hours. They insisted on renting me a car cause they didn't want me to sit idle for that long even though I thought it was gonna be more trouble than it was worth since anything and everything I wanted to do still (buy aunt bab's fried rice, hot links from food 4 less, 6 packages of fresh uncured bacon for mom, parker house sagey souse from Jewel, homemade tamales, lunch with aunt Totsie and possibly a visit with my sociopath ex friend G and my a visit with my cousins in country club hills on my way out) was on the other side of town about 40 min to an hour away. Oh and did I mention it was a Saturday with Taste of Chicago traffic? Anyhow, even though Honda pays for the car, I had to use my credit card and then the rental agency will credit me back when it's returned. Honda time stamps it for me when I return it to prove that I only had it for a day because enterprise was closed on Sundays and closed on Monday for the 4th of July. So I'm having lunch with Aunt Totsie when Honda calls a mere 4 1/2 hours later to tell me I can come pick it up. On my way to Honda that morning, I had bought gas for my own car using my Bank of America card wayyy on the other side of town. Then when picking my car up, I stopped a block away from Honda to fill up the rental car using my bank of america card. I only had to refill it half a tank. So I guestimated and I was a little short so I had to swipe my card again to buy another gallon. When I get to Honda, I used my Northern debit card to pay and the cashier tells me it's denied. WTF (or "what tha?" as Mo would say). I have way more than enough to cover it. I made sure of it before I went. Then she says she thinks the limit is $500. Now I knew there was a $500 limit on the ATM but for charges? I had just used the card on July 31 to pay off my car and it was well over $970 so I couldn't understand why I was having problems. So since my Northern card wasn't working, I decide to call and see the balance on my Bank of America card. I had money on the card but I hadn't planned on paying with it so I did not conciously keep enough to pay in that a/c. The automated system said I had $540 or something like that. So the cashier had already taken the $500 she was allowed off my Northern card so I owed $470. So I told her to run the Bank of America for the diff. Denied. I tell her to try $400 and I have about $80 in my purse in cash. Denied. WTF? So now I'm getting nervous. Cause I can call my sister or Shunte and ask them to bring me $100 or maybe $200 but $470?? Probably not. Who has that kinda cash on hand? I need my car TODAY so I can go back to Spa City in time for Angel and Kendall's arrival and it's a holiday weekend and the bank closes early on Saturday so it is already closed. So I ask her can I go to Walgreens to see if they have an ATM. I'll try my Northern card there and see if it lets me get money on a seperate transaction through the ATM.  She said sure. I don't think she understood that I had given THEM the extra key (the valet key) and had kept the other key for myself. She probably thought I was gonna walk. But I got in my car and DROVE over to Walgreens and thank GOD I was able to get $500 out of the ATM. So I go back over to pay her and all is well. She then gives me my key valet key back. On the way home, Bank of America's automated system calls me to tell me there is suspicous activity on my a/c. It gives me a multiple choice for where my last gas purchase was. Well hell, I bought gas twice today and I don't remember the name of the gas stations so I got it wrong. So now I had to talk to a person. Apparently all this gas buying (my first purchase on the other side of town, my first gas purchase for the rental and then the addt'l gallon I bought for the rental) put me on some kind of "do not fly" list:) I explained and the guy unlocked my a/c. I left Chi around 4 of 5, got back to Spa City around 7am and took my shower to remove public bathroom vapors and slept until Angel came in at which time we had a little birthday party for her.

When I got back, or maybe it was right before, my computer was doing ok. I had gotten around the little virus thingy and even had run the malware for Willa and got her computer up and running too. I kept seeing little messages pop up regarding RAM. Well I guess I didn't really SEE them cause I dropped my computer in January and all the stuff in the bottom right hand corner can no longer be seen. So all I could see is the word RAM and nothing else. Come to find out there is a hard drive failure. How did I find out? One minute the computer was fine and then next time I turned it on, it said "hard drive failure" on a simple black screen. The 50 programs I had in my program menu? Gone. It's just blank. Internet exploreer? Gone. Everything is gone. I had to accept the my 6 year old computer had bitten the dust which means I had to buy a new one. Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money. The cheapest one I could find was $299 so ding ding ding we have a winner.
Towards the end of July we were supposed to go to Disney for a family trip. I of course, fell hard down Willa's back steps about 4 days before. It had been raining and it was just more slippery than usual. I didn't know if I was gonna be able to go. Willa was in Texas and I sat there about 30 minutes thinking about that commercial "I've fallen and I can't get up". It's not as funny as it used to be. My cell was in the house so I was on my own. I uncurled my leg from under me and made an excrutiating trek across the yard home. I did a constant routine of Ice, heat pad, aleve and aspercreme. And I did that all day everyday (mostly) until I could walk without feeling like a bone was sticking out. After the 4th day, I knew I could make it. The van had two running boards so I didn' t have to take any huge steps up. We have not been on a family trip in a long long long time. And we probably will not ever try to do this again for a long long long time but that is a whole 'nother story.

***Due to my computer issues, I had like a billion messages piled up. I tried to get rid of the garbage first and I still working my way through the "real" messages. So I'm not ignoring anyone but it's a lot to get through.

The Senior Buffet

I took my mom to Walgreens on her appointed day during my 90 day self exile period. We finished

up and then she said she wanted to go to Sams but first we should stop by Aunt Willa's and pick

her up and that she had tried to call Nan to see if we should pick her up but she didn't answer.

I'm thinking... ok it's a family affair at the Sam's club. Whatever floats your boat.

 My mom said they were having an "event". I'm thinking it's like a sale or something because

Sams never has sales so that would indeed be an event. So we get there early

around 11ish to beat the crowd. There's a big sign at the front door that advertises

Sams "Tasting event" is going on that day. So THIS is what the big day is about. Sams
 usually has a few samples on Saturdays but apparently this day, they are having MUCHO
samples and this is the highlight of the year for a senior. A must attend event. So we went in
and I go to the back of the store. Might as well shop while I'm here. I need some lettuce
and whipping cream. They have a lot of sampling stations but in a lot of cases the food
is still cooking and there are no sample cups yet.   I had a piece of applewood smoked bacon
(not a WHOLE piece but a 1 inch piece) , a piece of smoked deli turkey (not a WHOLE slice
but a 1 inch slice) with a tiny piece of swiss cheese, a piece of real parmesean cheese with
 a 1/2 inch apple cube (which wasn't bad. He suggested a bowl of strawberries with some
shredded parmesean on top for that sweet and pungent flavored mixture). I also had some greek blueberry yogurt and some salmon with some kind of sweet chile sauce on top. The beef
 brisket and the chicken patties with carmelized onions and asiago cheese were
 not done. I looked around but could not spot my seniors soooo, I went back to the front
 of the store and purchased myself a nice juicy Nathan's hot dog with a soda for under $2.
 I think that having samples is all fine and well. It's nice to be able to taste some of those
things without buying this gargantuan package before you even know if you like it or not.
However, it is not my OBJECTIVE to get full. I never expect to  get full from 1 inch portions.
That just is not my expectation and no matter how many 1 inch samples I have, I am not going
to be full. It might take the edge off my hunger but I will NOT be full. Maybe it's just a mental
thing and maybe it's jis' me. And it certainly doesn't make the cut for my social calendar.
The seniors that had accompanied me though were in their element. I ate my hotdog, drank my pop,
went back for more pop, cleaned out my 20 pound  purse and still there was no sign of them.
 I looked at my watch and an hour had passed since I had sat down with my hotdog.
I had been sampling for about 20 minutes before I got the hotdog so we've been in this store
going on an hour and 20 minutes. So I get up to go look for them again. I find them in good spirits.
 Not only have they sampled everything in the store for free but they actually found some non
food items to buy.  Free is the operative word for seniors. This includes sugar (splenda and equal as well )packets at the restaurant, lemon from the restaurant, peppermints and if you are
at cracker barrel, it involves asking for extra syrup, jelly and butter so you can take that home too.
We were at Sams all in all for over 2 hours but guess what. We didn't have to stop for lunch
because they were so full so what a bargain. I'll have to put it on my calendar for next year.

Treadmill for Dummies

Well yesterday I did something really Kimberesque (meaning something so crazy that it

usually only happens to my friend Kimmy who draws these type of happenstances to herself). I cannot take credit though. My friend Keshia originally coined this phrase in reference to one of  HER

friends. Anyway, inspired by Oprah and Bob Green's latest money maker (20 years younger) whereby

a bevy of overweight ladies lost 26+ pounds in 2 months by eating 1700 calories a day and

exercising 300 minutes a week , I blew the dust off the treadmill and moved the blanket that

was on top of it in an effort to get started. The treadmill originally belonged to my cousin.

My cousin left it at her moms (my aunt) house when she moved to Cali some years ago.

I borrowed the treadmill from my aunt's house and it was around New Year resolution time

so I was really excited about it. I just wanted to see if I'd use it and maintain my enthusiam 

before committing to buying one of my own and then using it for a glorified coat rack.
Danny and his brothers moved it for me and I was in business. Then a week or two or three later,
my aunt told me that my cousin was having a moving truck move all her stuff and needed
the treadmill back. I called my cousin and told her I'd buy it from her (at a used discount of course)
and she could just have a new one delivered to her doorstep without it jiggling in the moving truck
all the way to California. Especially since she was having a washer and dryer delivered
anyway and all of the other things you have to buy and have delivered when you move.
She said No thank you so Danny and his brothers loaded it up and took it back to my aunts.
A couple of week's after that, my aunt told me to come get it cause my cousin didn't take it
and it was just sitting in the way on her back porch. I was reluctant cause by now I had lost my
enthusiam for those new year resolutions and on top of that, I was gonna have to call Danny again
and I really wasn't looking forward to that. Surely, he would think I was crazy. But I called and
he went back and got it from my aunts in Indiana and brought it to me without too much fuss.This time
it cost me about 3 subway footlongs which at the time were not $5 footlongs. I've been carting the
treadmill along everywhere I move every since. All that to say, it's been a lot of jigglin' going
on for that treadmill. It was a decent treadmill but not a $2k top of the line so I didn't know how much
more jigglin' life it has left. So when I blew the dust off, of course it didn't work right away.
I pushed on this and that and then I pushed on it again and nothing happened. Then I read the directions
and did it in the right order this time but my fingers were faster than my brain. I'm sure that has
happened to everyone at some time or another. The brain is on a 3 second delay like those
cheap digital cameras. So while my mind was saying "WAIT", my fingers had already moved the
lever from slow to FAST! So off I went. Running 100 miles an hour to keep from falling off! I didn't
even have time to think about it. I just intinctively started running to keep up with the treadmill. Mind you it was on the fastest setting and since I NEVER run... well you get the picture. It seemed like this
went on for about 5 or10 minutes but it was probably only a minute or so. But everything goes in slow-w-w-w--w-w--w-w-w-w-w--w-w-w-w-w-w--w motion from this point on. Theres a movie playing in your head and in the movie, you are going "SPLAT" on the wall. You are injuring yourself and the phone is far away so you won't even be able to call and say "I've fallen and I can't get up". This is a small cubicle I live in. Surely I would hit this wall right behind me qith incredible force ! Oh Lord! I don't have insurance! I can't afford a concussion! Because of my 90 day self exile, it is not unusual for me to go two to three days without seeing or talking to anyone. I'd just be lying in a broken heap for DAYS. So all of  these calculations and best/worst case scenarios are playing in my head in this 60 seconds (which SEEMED like 5 or 10 minutes). So I concluded that I HAD to run even faster so I could get close enough to the panel to move the control back to slow or better yet OFF. I guess this is a case of doing what you have to do. Like the guy in the movie 127 hours who cut his arm off. I don't know HOW I did it, I just did. It was like Chariots of Fire! And what really kept playing in the back back of my mind (in this same minute that seemed like 5 to 10 minutes)  was that email that I am sure we have ALL received at some point or another. It is a video from youtube I think that shows someone going splat off of the
treadmill. Anyway, I gain speed, swipe it off, it stops and I fall on the bed huffing. I don't even have enough breath to puff. So I just huff. After 10 minutes or so , I get up to go to the bathroom and my legs
are still shaking. I was like a baby calf taking it's first walk. And then 10 minutes later it hits me. I am stiff as can be. I hurt everywhere one ought not to hurt. I ached and ached. There's an episode of the Simpsons where Homer falls down a cliff. And each time he hits the peaks on the cliff he says "ow", "ooh" or "uh" alllll the way down the cliff. That's what it felt like. I gave that treadmill a WIDE berth for
the remainder of the day. The treadmill has hand rails but it had never occured to me to grab the rails
and just jump on the side boards. Even one foot on the sideboard would have been a huge lifesaver. When I got ready to get back on the horse today, of course it would not work. While I tried to get it to work by pushing buttons, THIS time I stood on the side rails so if it suddenly came on I would be fine. There is actually a nice little warning on the panel that says to stand on the side rails first. The treadmill key (which is just a rectangular piece of red plastic) is on a string. The key is red and then there is a string connecting it to another plastic black rectangle but the black rectangle looks more like a clip. I have always wondered what this is for and I have never figured it out. In years. NOW I know that the key goes in the treadmill and you clip the black piece to YOU so if you suddenly have to start running 100 miles per hour, as you get further from the panel, the "key" will be yanked out and the treadmill will stop so you don't have to go splat. There is actually a blurb on the treadmill about the clip as well. Ohhhhhh. Okkkk. Well, as my friend Diana always says, hindsight is 20/20.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PnDNFe-y7iU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpyLiCdnkAk

My 90 self exile and how it came to be

Well this is how it all started. Names have been changed to protect the identity of the uninnocent....

In preparation for a long period of unemployment, In October, I set about updating some things on my car that I knew needed fixing . In October, I went to the dealership for an oil change and whilst they were doing that, they told me I had four nails in each of my
rear tires. So I took the car right on over to Firestone Complete Auto Care where I had
purchased an addtl road hazard warranty when I bought the tires and told them that I had 

 four nails in each tire. They confirmed it and as part of the warranty, replaced

the two rear tires. For free. So my car had been making this wobble wobble

noise for ages and I knew it was the tires so it was
just a stroke of luck that those two rear ones were damaged already. Therefore, I set about
saving the money for the remaining two tires to be replaced. Because there was really

nothing wrong with them, they wouldn't have replaced them for
free. Anyhow, In January I receive a Firestone coupon by email for 15% of tires and this saved me $34 on two new tires as long as I used the coupon by Jan 31. I was in Crescent Springs Kentucky at the time visiting my cousin and Chicago was in the middle of a 21 inch blizzard so I decided to get my new tires there while I waited out the blizzard. We found a Firestone fairly close in Cincinnati. I got the 2 remaining tires and got my wheels aligned

since I have a free lifetime wheel alignment and I was very pleased
with my purchase. Fast forward to February 16th. On the 16^th, I was headed out

to run some errands. I had heard a noise and people were looking at me funny so I parked the car in the Walgreens parking lot and got out and circled the car. Lo and behold the tire was completely out of air but it wasn't making that impossible sound that flat tires usually make. I didn't want to go into Walgreens & shop cause I was afraid I
would come out & not be able to move it so I struck while the iron was hot & hot

tailed it over to my moms house (about 4 miles away). I parked the car in front of her house and said "can you call Jason and ask him to come look at my tire? I think the tire is flat'" Jason is her good friend. Instead of doing that she said "he said he was coming over after he finishes helping Ramondo do something today". This is not
what I had asked but ok. At 3:30 she says "if he doesn't come by 3:00, he usually isn't coming". Ok but if you had called and told him that I needed him (like I had originally asked),
perhaps he would have made an effort to stop by. That's what I was thinking but I didn't say
it out loud. But I was thinking it. I just sighed instead. My Aunt Birdie stopped by my moms to pick up her dog. My mom dogsits for her. She told me Ramondo's nephew (Shooks) could probably come by and see if it could be repaired. She called for me but Shooks was at work and would not be out until dark and could not give an approximate time that he could stop by the following day. But I was stuck so I said ok I'd wait until tomorrow.I asked Birdie for a ride home ( 2 miles or so) and she gladly obliged. My other aunt, Wilma, called
me and said she heard I had a flat and did I want it fixed? I said yeah and she said Ramondo ( who is her beau or something like that) would fix it in the morning. So in the morning, she gave me a ride to my moms. I called Shooks and cancelled and told him his uncle was gonna come instead. I looked up Firestone locations by zipcode on the world wide web and the closest one was 30 miles out. I called and told the man that answered that I had a flat and could not drive out there and was there anyone in Hot Springs that would honor the road hazard warranty and fix it. For free.
He said no. He said they didn't have any brother or sister stores in Hot Springs. I asked him could I buy a new tire in Hot Springs and then come out there and get my money back for it. He said he didn't know about that. He said the best thing to do was to put the spare on and ride on over and they'd fix it no problem.I didn't press it cause it sounded like a plan to me

and that was what I intended to do. So when Ramondo came over, I asked him to put the donut on and he said he had an air compressor and was just gonna put enough air in it to drive someplace and get a new tire. I reiterated that I had just gotten these tires less than 6 months ago and that I had a warranty and Firestone would fix it. For free.
I told him what the guy said. First Ramondo said there was a Firestone dealer

out on Airport Road. I asked him the name of it because I wanted to call. I guess he didn't know. He and aunt Wilma left for a few minutes to get something and when he came back,

 he had a different firestone dealer for me out on Summer Road right next to blah,blah, blah. He had called ahead and they said "Come on down! We'll take care of her". And take care of me they did. Ramondo said it didn't make sense to fool around with that donut when there was a Firestone right here. He said that ole guy at Firestone in Benton was just trying to

make money off of me. I told him that the guy wasn't gonna make any money off me

cause he was gonna replace my tire. For free. Ramondo says the Benton guy gets money

for the tires he sends back to Firestone. I don't know the protocol of how
these warranties work and I don't care but all I know is that it works in my favor and

I can get a new tire. For free. Anyhow, I guess that was enough jibber jabber cause

Ramondo told me to hurry up and drive over to Summer rd before the air went back out.

 (I felt like I had to rush over there on borrowed time. No time to think things over very clearly.) Benton was too far out for me to chance getting stranded with a bad tire

so I went to the shop Ramondo had called that said they would take care of me. First thing I ask when I get there is are they gonna honor that warranty and they say no
they can't cause they are not an affiliate of Firestone. He say the tire can't

be repaired (which I knew from previous experience that driving on the rim when it's flat like that will shred the inside of the tire so I believed him). And he says that a new tire

is $127 with tax, disposal, everything. To add insult to injury. They may be
a firestone dealer but they don't have a firestone tire for me. All they have is goodyear. WTF. I'm here now & I need an effing tire. I don't wanna come back and I refuse to ask

Ramondo to put the donut on again so eff it.
I let them put the tire on and I drive back to moms. But I am NOT pleased with my purchase. One, it was $127 vs FREE. Ramondo did not take the time to get his facts straight or

 maybe he did but he just didn't care since it wasn't his money.
Two, it's not even a firestone tire so I coulda went somewhere else that didn't look like they had been storing tires for decades. Like one of those places on the movies with buzzards flying over it. I bet Ramondo has never even been here to have HIS car serviced. I coulda went to Walmart. Half the town goes there so they probably rollover their tires fairly often.
Three,this $127 tire doesn't even have a road hazard warranty so if IT goes flat IT will NOT be fixed. for free. So I pay and I head to my moms but I could have spit fire. You could have cracked an egg on my head and it would have been COOKED! I was a true taurean. There was smoke comin' out of my nostrils and ears. As soon as I get in the door, mom tells me

 so helpfully that Jason would have put the donut on if I had left the keys at her house last night. Well I was only 2 miles away so if he really wanted to fix it, he could have come & got the keys OR if she had called him when I first ASKED her to & told him what I asked
her to, he could have told me to LEAVE the keys then. But I am totally 100% uninterested in what someone WAS going to do for me after I don't need them to do it for me anymore.

I told her that from now on, if she needed me she need not look too hard cause home is where I'd be for the next 90 days. For the next 90 days I would be on a self exile until I recouped the unnecessary $127 I had just spent. $1 at a time. I HAD been spending $20 a week on gas and that would last for 7 or 8 days . So if I don't go anywhere except to the grocery store once a week, then I should save at least $40 a month.I had BEEN riding to the post office (for my ebay sales), walmart, kroger, wendy's $1 menu (cause I didn't have a stove at the time), to Aunt Birdie's to visit, out to eat with the Family on Sunday's, out for birthdays (Kora's, moms and birdies), to  the flower shop to buy my mom flowers throughout her medical ordeal, Sonic happy hour where they have 1/2 price sweet tea and strawberry limeaids from 2-4, the dollar store, dairy queen (for a little ice cream treat), the book store (the kindle book store),out looking for little unique things to put in Mo's easter box,

the movies, the red box, mcdonalds for sweet tea, to the hot water springs to fill up my bottles for free spring water. a ride here and there to familiarize myself with new areas and new ways to get places, a ride in the mountains or just a ride through the city after 9oclock when everyone else had gone to bed.
NO MORE. No Siree Bob. Not me. I'll go grocery shopping once a week and if I forget something,too bad. I'll make my own tea with tea bags in my very own tupperware pitcher.

I'll read the books I have.Mo has enough for his easter box. I don't need ice cream anyway.

I have hundreds of dvds from those  tv series on dvd, tons of VHS and even dvd movies I've never watched. I can drink tap water and the mountain will still be there when the 9

90 days are up. My hair doesn't need cutting if nobody is going to see me. I won't grow a unibrow but instead of going every 2 weeks to get my eyebrows done, I'll go every 3 1/2 weeks. Most importantly, I could save gas by not going to my moms house everyday. I supposed I was gonna still go to church and I'd go see her afterwards (we go to the same church a block and a half away from her house) My mom said, don't do this. It would be at her expense and she would pay for half of the tire but I said NO. If you pay for half of the tire, I will not learn the lesson I need to learn. Which is ...Go with your first mind. Don't let someone bamboozle you  into doing something that you don't want to do
and that you know isn't right for you. FOLLOW YOUR OWN MIND.
I told my mom that if she needed me to call and I would come and I would still take her to chemo and that once a week I'd take her to the stores, hairdresser or wherever she wanted to go.I told her we could just buy 1 gallon whenever we went out and that should do it. I left and went home. To further twist the knife in my back, the following day my aunt Wilma calls me and asked me did I get the new tire.  I said yeah. I had to pay $127 for it though and she said "WHAT???" I thought they said they’d take care of you. I said "They did take care of me. They sold me a tire for $127." I asked her did Ramondo even ask them were they
going to honor the road hazard warranty when he had called and she said she

didn’t know but she didn’t think so . We talked a few minutes more and then she hung up. See, I asked the RIGHT question when I called firestone. I asked who would give me a new tire. For free. Ramondo just asked sloppy questions but did not clarify the facts and I guess he didn’t understand that a firestone DEALER is not a firestone auto care center.
Aunt Wilma called back a few minutes later to tell me "Ramondo said… you need to go

back and get that tire and then take it to firestone"
I told her I am not spending another minute or more money on gas (driving back to that backwards tire shop and back and then to the firestone in Benton and back) on this tire. I have already spent $127 on this situation and that’s it! What I didn’t say out loud was that if Ramondo had put the donut on like I asked,..we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.
NOW he wants to give me advice after his first advice was jacked up. Well Stop, no and don’t. And that, folks, is how I came to be in a 90 period of self exile.It will be over

around May 16th which is right before my 40th birthday.