...and the weird stuff that happens around here? It just keeps getting weirder.

Apparently, we have a new neighbor...of sorts.  One that is keeping us HOSTAGE in our home until dawn breaks - seriously.

About a month ago or so, I tweeted

While having the windows open to enjoy the crisp autumn air we've discovered that, apparently, there is also skunk in the vicinity #yuck
— Gigi (@gigirambles) September 25, 2013

Silly me.  I thought Pepe was just passing through.

No, apparently, he's decided he likes it here SO much that he has taken up residence.  How do I know this, you must be wondering.  I know this because just about every morning for the last week or so, when either one of us heads out the door to get the paper, there he is...sitting in our driveway, just daring us to come any closer, flicking his fluffy tail and smiling (yes, really).

The first time Hubby came back into the house and told me there was a skunk in the driveway I figured he was insane and just didn't want to go out in the rain.  Until the next morning, when I ventured out the side door and looked up the driveway - and there he sat, giving me that "Come any closer...I DARE ya! I DOUBLE DOG DARE ya!" look.  Needless to say, I turned around and went right back in the door; because honestly?  Who wants to go to work wearing "Eau de Skunk Cologne?"

Without question, I have done my research on skunks since then and have decided that I can wait for daylight to break to get my paper; for a few more days anyway.  As it appears they are nocturnal creatures, I figure once the time changes he will be hunkered down and sleeping by the time I wander out (I hope) to get the paper and then when it gets really cold he'll go into a state of torpor (similar to hibernation, but not quite) and then we will move (possibly) and never have to deal with him again.

There! *dusts hands* Problem solved.

Resting (rather uncomfortably, I might add) on the horns of a dilemma...

So, I just received a text.  From a boss.  Not THE boss, mind you, but a boss nonetheless.  Nearly THREE hours after being off the clock; asking me to be in the office early.  Not for anything urgent, of course.  No, just to pick up keys.

Why?  Because he has determined that since our office is SO old fashioned as to still require the gents to wear a suit to work four out five days (and everything BUT the jacket and tie on the 5th day) that it would be TOTALLY unacceptable for him to pop in for five minutes to pick up a set of keys.

But yet it would be appropriate for ME to pop into work - extra early (mind you, without overtime pay) to grab the keys and bring them down to the parking lot, where he can then be merrily on his way to our other office (which isn't under the stuffy restrictions that we are for some reason) and spend his day out of my hair (which, to be honest, after the past two days of pure hell; WOULD be a small blessing that I could definitely use right about now).

Which leads me to this...how to respond...

A) I'll try to be there; but you know....no one will notice you popping in for five minutes sans the suit.

B) Sorry - I have a prior engagement at that hour. (What?  He doesn't need to know the "engagement" is with my bed!)

C) You don't pay me enough to deal with this kind of crap.

D) Okay.  You owe me BIG time.

or

E) Ignore the text and reply tomorrow three minutes before he expects me saying "OMG!  I WISH I had seen this last night!"

I need your input NOW, by the way.  Since I plan to hit the sheets extra early tonight since, as I'm sure you've surmised...today has been an extra tough one.

****

And right about now, I realize...had the last one asked this of me; there wouldn't have been any question that I would have done it.  Mainly, because the last one would have NEVER asked me - she just would have be-bopped in there, grabbed the keys and have been merrily on her way.

Here's a novel idea - why not pack the garage first?

As it looks like the deal is solid and that we will actually be moving, we decided to pack up the garage yesterday.  And my suspicions were confirmed - Hubby IS a hoarder.

We spent two hours out there and I would estimate that about 70% of what was in there was garbage; thankfully he agreed.  So now we just need to move all the stuff that is destined for the trash out of the garage and get rid of it.

Remember those two boxes of baby things I mentioned last time we "cleaned" the garage?  Well, as Hubby picked one up it fell apart in his hands.  Looking at all those baby things took me back.  Was Man-Child ever really that tiny?  Obviously, he must have been.

Two days old

And it was also obvious that I had saved far more than was sane.  It also became QUITE clear to me that storing baby clothes in a box is not a smart thing to do - because those clothes were filthy.  So I did what any sane person would do - I scooped them all up and threw them in the wash.  And after they dried then proceeded to spend the next hour folding those teeny-tiny garments and deciding what I absolutely could not bear to part with and placing them in one of those Space Bags.  To the rest, I said goodbye and took them to Goodwill where they can find a new home with someone who needs them.

It feels good to be getting rid of stuff.  That is the good thing about this move; it is making both of us evaluate what we have and getting rid of things we don't need.  And the motivation behind it, is that we don't want to move it.  So the less we have, the less boxes that we will have to pack and unpack.  It still won't make the whole moving process any less sucky; but hopefully this will mean that the suckiness won't be as drawn out.

In the past, the garage has usually been the last thing we packed - which resulted in a total nightmare and might be partly to blame for why the garage is always the hellhole that it has been.  This time, this is the first packing we've done - and we assigned boxes such as "Car Stuff," "Plumbing Stuff," "Yard Stuff," etc. so theoretically when we land wherever it is we are going to land (yes, I still don't know where we are going to live) we can unpack the garage in an orderly manner and get it organized from the get go (oh hush, a girl can dream).

My plan is to attack one room every weekend going through, discarding and packing all the things that aren't needed on a day to day basis.  We'll see how that works out.

That is the good thing about this move; since we don't have to be out until December 8th - it is giving us plenty of time to evaluate what we are packing.

Now, if I just knew where we were going to live...

Someone please remind me to quit fiddling with things...something always ends up broken

I broke my blog...AGAIN.

Luckily, only for about an hour or so this time.  This time I single-handedly, in one fell swoop, deleted every single picture that has ever graced the pages of yours truly.

And it's all my phone's fault.  Or Google's.  I'm not quite sure but the more I think about it; the more certain I am that they were in it together.

For whatever reason, I cannot log into my blog dashboard from my phone.  I used to be able to do this and then *POOF* one day I couldn't.  Today was the day that I decided to fix this.  So I fiddled around with various things trying to get it to work and failed miserably.  The next thing I know, I get a notification on the phone telling me that it has synced all my phone photos with Google +.  Crap.

I never use my Google + account; why I even have it I will never know.

So I hopped on the computer to see what fresh hell I had wrought - and discovered that, yes indeed, I had synced all my photos to that account.  Despite the fact that they weren't being "shared" with anyone, I decided to go ahead and delete them; since I never use Google +.

After some struggling with manually selecting some of the 500+ photos, I clicked over to a new tab to figure out how to select them all at once - since that option didn't seem obvious.  Once I found it, I selected them all and hit delete with satisfaction.

But the empty albums were still there.  I clicked back over to the new tab to figure out how to delete the albums when a random sentence in one of the results caught my eye (of course, I've deleted that tab, so now I have to ad lib what it actually said) that said Google moved all your photos out of Picasa and put them into Google+; or something to that effect.

And suddenly, I was filled with absolute horror.  I opened another tab (why yes, I have been known to have as many tabs open as humanly possible) to check in on my blog.  I looked at about three different posts I was fairly sure had pictures in them, from various dates and ALL THE PICTURES WERE GONE!!!!

I clicked back over to Google+ to figure out a way to restore them and, of course, it wasn't readily apparent so I clicked to another tab to Google it.  And *phew* found out they weren't completely gone yet and was able to restore them.  Apparently Google+ knows that people are stupid and need an undo key.

But it would be even better if Google gave you a heads up before you clicked delete.  You know, something along the lines of "Hey! Are you SURE you want to do that?! Because if you do, all the pictures on your blog will go bye-bye!"

So here is the moral of this story - don't delete anything ever from your Google+ account.  And it's a good thing I forgot I even had that account before now, otherwise I might have deleted it...and who knows what would have happened then!

Doctor Sleep...and other stuff

Where have I been? I know, I know...I've been busy - well, not really but what other excuse do I have?

At any rate, last weekend I treated myself....

Bought myself a treat! Am only 130 pages in and I love it! pic.twitter.com/sV3PvAbQ5Z
— Gigi (@gigirambles) October 6, 2013

I can never say no to Stephen...unless it's short stories.  I can't stand short stories - even Stephen's - simply because I feel like I'm being cheated out of a whole story.  Yes, I have issues.  I admit that; now let's move on.

I actually bought the book on Saturday, the 5th, but due to circumstances beyond my control (i.e., celebrating Man-Child's birthday - dear God, in heaven, he's NINETEEN!), I didn't get to start reading it until Sunday; after driving him back up the mountain to school - and between the exhaustion of celebrating and the exhaustion of driving, I didn't REALLY get into the book until Monday and then I was hooked.  By Tuesday, it was clear that despite the fact I had over a hundred pages to go and it was past my bedtime, I HAD to finish the book.  Needless to say, on Wednesday, I was worthless due to sleep deprivation - BUT IT WAS WORTH IT!

The only reason I was able to jump right into this book without having to re-reading The Shining was because over the summer it became apparent that Man-Child had never seen (or read) it.  That was remedied fairly quickly.  As a side note, I do NOT remember the mother being so irritating the first time I saw the movie.  This time?  She irritated the hell out of me.

Because we watched the movie though, I was up on all the characters and I didn't have to stop to think, "WHO was Dick Halloran again?"

From the jacket; "On highways across America, a tribe of people called the True Knot travel in search of sustenance.  They look harmless-mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs.  But as Dan Torrence knows, and spunky twelve-year-old-Abra Stone learns, the True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the steam that children with the shining produce when they are slowly tortured to death."

Now, if that tiny blurb - in addition to my exclamations of YOU MUST READ THIS NOW - doesn't send you running off to buy, beg, borrow or steal (please don't steal; that's wrong) this book, then nothing will.

In other news, the house has been inspected and we received the report yesterday.  And by all accounts, I can say without a shadow of a doubt the "inspector" in question is an idiot. 

In addition to other cosmetic, nonsensical stuff he determined that the pilot light was out on our fireplace.  Our WOOD BURNING fireplace.  The one that is filled with soot and stray ashes from previous, actual fires instead of gas logs; that produce no soot or ash.

So once, we address the fact that the inspector is a moron we will see if the buyer is willing to take it mainly as-is if we throw a small amount of cash in at closing (mainly because we don't have the time between now and the closing date to fix everything).  So, I figure by Monday we will know for sure, for sure, if the deal is done.  And then I can really start panicking, as opposed to only dreaming up scenarios that have me living in a van; down by the river.