Stranger Danger

What is up with all the perverts in the parks these days? When is the last time you went to Cox's Park on River Road? That place is a carpool cesspool of jerks circling around in their cars until they find another guy to park next to and have a window to window circle jerk. It infuriates me.

This phenomenon has made me extremely suspicious of any solitary man sitting in his car in any park. I am convinced that if they are not having car on car sex with another closeted homosexual, then they are at least rubbing their rhubarb while watching innocent people enjoy a little nature.

I have been hiking quite a lot this spring and summer. I take my dog which is probably a good deterrent to any stalking sex maniacs. (That and the fact that I am tall and overweight). But I still get creeped out when I see men parked at the trail heads or see men on the trails. So I bought a pepper spray that I keep in easy reach. I actually will reach for it if I do encounter someone...you know...just in case.

I spend a good amount of time while on the trails creating scenarios in my head about what exactly I would do if some forrest man did approach me. They kind of follow along this general story line:

Forrest Man: Excuse me, I think I am lost. Can you point me in the right direction?

Me: Yeah, I'm just walking with my ferocious canine. (This whole time I have been reaching into my pocket for my pepper spray.) I think I have a map here in my pocket.

At this point in the scenario, I whip out the pepper spray and dispense a long stream of stinking, stinging spray right into Forrest Man's eyes. Of course the wind is blowing so I will probably be hit by some backspray and start choking and go slightly blind. Surely though, I will be better off than Forrest Man and I will be able to stumble off, down the trail toward safety.

I will make it back to my car and then speed like a bat out of hell to report him to the authorities. They will go catch Forrest Man and the world will be safe from one more park pervert. When I get the police report, it will go something like this:

"Mr. Miller who is a pastor, father of five, who rescues kittens and puppies and gives them to poor inner city children, was attacked, unprovoked, by an overzealous, overweight hiker today on the Cull Hollow Trail in Bernheim Forrest. He had gone there to rescue an abandoned puppy litter. We will be investigating this girl as she has been described by other park goers as walking around with a nervous sweaty look and they all thought she might be on crack."

You English Are SOOOO Superior!

Yes, I am about to get on my high horse! This is probably a really snooty post but I don't care! I am so sick of seeing people use the following words incorrectly. Now, I do not claim to have perfect grammar and my punctuation is less than perfect, but you can definitely improve your image by learning how to use the words below.

YOUR - possessive. Example: "It's your blatant disregard for English that irritates me."
YOU'RE - contraction for YOU ARE. Example: "You're going to fail your English class."

THEIR - possessive. Example: "It's their fault you're going to fail your English class."
THERE - direction/location. Example: "Your English class is over there."
THEY'RE - contraction for THEY ARE. Example: "They're making me take an English class."

ITS - possessive. Example: "Your incorrect use of English has taken on a life of its own."
IT'S - contraction for IT IS. Example: "It's ridiculously easy to use correct English."

TOO - use in place of "also" or "very." If you can't replace with "also" or "very" then use the word TO. You're not going TOO the store. You're going TO the store.

Thanks for listening. I feel much better now.

Hello Again, Hello!

A very good friend of mine pointed out the other day that it had been quite a long time since I had posted on my blog. I have to admit, my dear blog, that I have been neglecting you. I think about you every now and then but the effort to get together has seemed like too much for me. A little five month hiatus has probably been a good thing for the both of us.

What have I been doing since August 22nd you ask? Well......

First: I have a new job. Yes, I finally felt that I had done my time in the trenches of floor nursing hell, so I applied and was rewarded with a shiny new job. I now work in Invasive Cardiology. To all you lay people out there, that means I work in the area where they do heart catheterizations. However, I work in a small sub department called Electrophysiology. Basically, we do pacemaker/defibrillator implants and fix (hopefully) peoples' hearts that are beating the wrong way.

It is definitely less stressful than being a floor nurse, but does come with its own stresses. The main stress is that my job is basically to sedate people to the point that they're asleep without suppressing their drive to breathe. In other words, "Put 'em to sleep, but don't kill 'em." The hard part about it is that there are hardly any rules to follow. Some little old ladies are zonked out for two hours off of one milligram of Versed, while you can pump other little old ladies full of narcotic cocktails and they still want to talk to the doctor from under the sterile sheets.

Second: I have been adjusting to my new schedule. I was working night shift before, and now I work four ten-hour days. I get up at five in the morning, get home around six, make dinner, relax, and go to bed. On those four days, there is not much time for blogging. I do have three days off. Which have been sucked dry with-

Third: Holidays. Every year, beginning around Halloween, I become a neurotic mess. Let me explain. I enjoy the day of the holiday. But all the days leading up to the holiday.....not so much. This seasonal dread of mine began many, many, years ago. I have divorced parents and deciding what to do and where to go and wanting to make everyone happy tears me apart. Add to that mix a husband with divorced parents and now we are really torn.

Also, I just feel like it's all gotten out of hand. I don't even have children and still managed to spend $800 on Christmas this year. That is RIDICULOUS! Gifts should be for children under the age of twenty-five. I am approaching my forties and my parents still spend hundreds of dollars on me. While it is exciting to scuttle home with my loot, I really don't need any of it.

Last: A whole lot of nothing. Tommy and I have been laying low trying to save money that somehow still disappears at an alarming rate. I have been keeping my stress level as low as possible so I don't have to go back on mental meds. That has been working well and now I only lose my mind and go into crying fits once or twice a month. My darling husband, he loves me anyway.


Future Plans for 2010

This year I want to find activities/hobbies I can enjoy alone or with Tommy. Now that I have a better schedule at work it will be easier to plan. I also need to work on losing about 500,000 pounds that I gained in the last six years but I want a miracle that makes them all go away in 8 weeks. If you have any miracles, send them my way.

And, dear blog, I promise not to neglect you so much in the future. You are my favorite cyber-therapist.