For the first time in a very long time, I got in my email (at work even!) a FWD that was actually kind of funny. It was originally a blog entry from someone who had found an old JCPenney catalog from 1977 and made little comments about the pictures. I didn't think the original author's comments were all that funny, so like any good blogger, I ganked the pictures and will use them for my own blog entry!

You know, I think I actually had this outfit when I was little:

For those not alive in 1977, yes..there were gay people back then too:


Matching outfits were the number 1 cause of divorce in the 70s:


Proof that more men than women smoked pot in the 70s:

Proof that more women than men dropped acid in the 70s:

GOOD GOD!! I think this is a picture of my mom and dad:

Clearly, it was fashionable in 1977 to make furniture out of barrels:

IN OTHER NEWS::::::

>>Work sucked today. Of course it will continue to suck until I get caught up on all the shit that Miss Lazy Shithead didn't do while I was in class!!

>>Did you know that when someone is cremated that if you haven't already bought an urn to put the ashes in, the funeral home gives you your loved one in a box? Neither did Cindy!

>>Life is VERY SLOWLY getting back to the tiniest bit of normal this week. Aside from the shock of today (the ashes in a box), she is feeling at least a little better. With the holidays just around the corner though, I think she's going to have it pretty bad. Don't worry though..I've got a plan in mind to at least TRY and make her holiday a little less miserable.

Well, that's about it for now. Oh, by the way...I've gotten a couple of emails about the "BryM: Sticky Notes" blog that's listed in my profile. It's not active right now, but it will be once things here settle down a little more. It's basically just my profound obervations Yeah, I couldn't even say it with a straight face! Anyway, it's going to be just very short stuff...Lord knows I can't keep up with TWO long winded blogs here!

Ok, with all the stuff I’ve been through for the last few weeks, I think I deserve a little bit of a gripe session!! What a crappy day I had:

>>Christine the Truck has decided that not only is she going to squeal for the first 20 minutes of my 25 minute commute, but NOW she’s decided that when I take a curve the brake light is going to come on for no apparent reason. Now when you add those things in with the fact that I leak a quart and a half of oil every 10 days or so, you can imagine I’m pretty frustrated at this point!

>>I get to work this morning and almost turned around and came home. While I was in class for the last 3 weeks, my “back up” person hadn’t done SHIT in my area like she was supposed to…in fact, she didn’t do ANYTHING for those 3 weeks, which of course leaves ME completely screwed! Now get THIS….the girl who was my “back up” had the NERVE to tell me today that I should be grateful to her for having done my job while I was in class!! I contemplated slapping the shit out of her, but thought better of it when I realized that she is going to be out for a week later on this month. Would anyone care to take a guess who HER “back up” is? Since I’m composing this on MS Word, I can’t put my devious smiley after that comment, so just use your imagination! The REALLY good thing about my plan for revenge is that it only takes a couple of days to do some serious damage….and I’m going to have FIVE days in which to fuck her up!!

>>During my lunch break, I went against my better judgment and called my cousin…the one who spent $60,000 in a week. My contact with him is now pretty infrequent, but I figured if I didn’t call him this week he’d have an attitude the next time that I do see him. So I called him up and he proceeded to try and lay a guilt trip on me for not calling or visiting the last few weeks. I told him, “there are two reasons for that…the first one is that I have been over at Cindy & Kevin’s place practically 24/7, and the second one is that I don’t feel I should go out of my way to come to your house all the time considering that you’ve only been to MY house twice in the last almost 3 years.” His excuse was something along the lines of “you know I don’t venture far from home….” Which is of course complete bullshit. See, this guy will go to Fayetteville every weekend to the drag strip….a little geography lesson: Fayetteville is a good 45 minute drive from where he lives. MY house is less than 30 minutes from where he lives. Don’t get me wrong, I do love him very much but he DOES have a tendency to get on my nerves now and then. Needless to say, it’ll probably be a few more weeks before I call him again…I’m really not in the MOOD lately to have his kind of aggravation dumped in my lap.

>>On the way home after work, my frustration level began to boil over…..I just don’t understand WHY all these transplants don’t get a map and learn their way around this area instead of clogging up the main roads every single day. Now, there are two different ways I can go home from work, one of which is taking Hwy 55 and the other going about 10 minutes out of the way on a very narrow country road and crossing over the lake. Taking the Hwy 55 route is now pretty much impossible because the exit to get there is usually backed up at least ¾ of a mile. The long way is MUCH less traffic, but I have to go down a country road & cross over the lake. The biggest problem with that is the fact that there are deer EVERYWHERE in that area…….and trust me when I tell you that my truck just simply could NOT withstand the impact of hitting a deer! ANYWAY, I got on the country road and was just whizzing on by when a raccoon runs out in front of me at full throttle. I didn’t even have time to even THINK about trying to stop, so he ended up getting splattered. It was kind of nasty actually, but that’s what the stupid little fucker gets for not looking both ways before he crosses the road!!

Ok, so that’s the end of my griping…..

>>Cindy is slowly but surely making an effort to get back into the swing of things. It hadn’t occurred to me until I was talking to her this evening…..she has spent literally the last FOUR months in her house taking care of Kevin 24 hours a day 7 days a week! Anyway, she is working on pulling herself back together and may even try and go into work for a few hours later on in the week. She and Chris spent the day going around and doing some little stuff that needed to be done, and from what they both said, it was a very nice adventure for them….Chris even made her laugh a few times! Cindy was telling me that while they were out, they passed by a new IHOP that’s going to open soon and she told Chris that she was going to have to take Kevin to eat there when it opens. She thought about it for a minute and then laughed. That’s sure sign that she is going to be ok after a little more time goes by.

So..that was MY day. Will someone please shoot me?

I’m exhausted. Physically AND emotionally. I’m sure that comes as no big surprise to anyone who reads this blog though! Speaking of which, I again owe a big thanks to all of you who have been so thoughtful and caring through all of this. Believe me, it has REALLY helped out tremendously!

Today was yet another adventure here on the cul-de-sac. It started out mundane enough…Chris and I decided to install a new light on the front of the house, and while we were doing that Cindy wandered over. I could tell she’d had a rough morning, so I’m glad that she came over. Chris and I finished up with the light and then ended up going over to Cindy’s to help her transplant some of the plants that she had received for Kevin’s funeral. In all, we probably planted half a dozen azaleas and eight mums. Neither of us were quite sure about planting them this time of year, but Cindy just doesn’t have enough room in the house for them all. Aside from the plants, there were enough flower arrangements to make a florist shop jealous!! While we were planting the mums and azaleas, a friend of Cindy’s came over and ended up spending the majority of the day with us. She was a very nice lady named Helen….she’s the wife of the really big guy that cried while talking about Kevin at the service.

Cindy ended up giving Chris and I several little plants to put into our yard, so we all headed back over to our house to plant those. After we were done with that, the four of us went out onto the back deck and were just sitting and talking when I noticed a deer just sitting on the ground at the very back part of the yard. Since the back yard is almost an acre, the deer was quite a distance away from us, so at first I just thought it was pretty cool that a deer would be just hanging out in the back yard. So while we were all just sort of watching the deer, a bunch of the dogs in the neighborhood started barking…the deer didn’t move. Then a group of motorcycles came by the main road, which isn’t all that far from the house…again, the deer didn’t move. It was then that I was afraid that the poor thing was hurt, so Chris and I started walking towards where the deer was at. We got about halfway to it when it spotted us and started moving around….but not for long. It had apparently been hit by a car because every time it tried to get up, it fell back down. It had apparently gotten hit by a car or something. Meanwhile, Todd and Christy (another set of neighbors) came over to see what was going on. We decided that it would be cruel to let the poor deer suffer, so Chris came into the house and got his shotgun. Chris didn’t want to be the one to shoot it, so Todd volunteered. When Todd got up close to the deer, he could see that it was in a lot of pain..apparently its hoof had gotten infected pretty bad and both his back legs were broken. He was also skin and bones…which would explain the nasty looking birds circling overhead. So Todd ends up shooting the deer…..which began the next adventure of the day:

Just after Todd shot the deer, we heard another loud bang from the other side of the street. Then we noticed that the electricity had gone out to all the houses on the street. So, I go inside and report the outage to the electric company and start to head back across the street to Cindy’s place where she and Helen had gone. When I got there, Cindy told me that she’d seen a dead squirrel just under the street light at the end of her driveway….which was apparently the cause of the power outage. So as I go out towards the street to check it out, there was this God AWFUL smell….the poor squirrel had apparently wandered over to the transformer and KA-POW……Kentucky Fried Squirrel!! I felt horrible for the poor little thing….one of my favorite things about where I live is that we have tons of squirrels here and it is so much fun to watch them run around and play with each other! They will start in my back yard on the fence that separates my yard from the neighbor’s, running back and forth. Then they’ll get on the electric and cable lines and run all over the place….back and forth from yard to yard. Given her fondness of squirrels, fellow ‘Streamer HeatherScot would be very entertained by these little creatures! I think we have so many of them around this neighborhood is because it’s VERY critter friendly out here! I think it’s actually in the covenants that you have to be a critter lover to live here! Heh heh

So after the electric FINALLY came back on, Cindy dragged Chris and I kicking and screaming to her house..she wanted to cook us dinner. Now if y’all believe that we were dragged kicking and screaming, you need to leave now because you don’t know me! hehehehe Neither Chris OR I will turn down someone cooking for us!

The menu tonight included the most amazing pork chops I’ve ever eaten!! Cindy is actually a very good cook, although on some things she does have a tendency to over do…but hey…it’s the thought that counts, right? Anyway, while we were eating, the topic of adjusting to life after Kevin came up. We’ve all decided that the best (ONLY) approach is to just take things one day at a time….not that we have many choices in the matter, ya know?? I was telling Cindy that even though all of his friends are going to miss Kevin something terrible, the BIGGEST adjustments are going to be for the three of us. Cindy for obvious reasons, but Chris and I because we live just across the street and saw Kevin practically every day for the last five years. His other friends will have a much easier go of it because they DIDN’T see him every day. Now that’s not to say it won’t be tough on them, but it’s always harder when you spend every day with someone than just an occasional visit. Thankfully though, we can at least rely on each other when times are tough!

There are a couple of things that have been bothering me the last week…the first one being that there were a LOT of people this week that had told Cindy things like, “I’ll come over and visit at least once a week to see how you’re doing”, and “I’ll make it a point to call you twice a week”. That’s all well and good, but Cindy told me this evening that there are quite a few of those people that said those things that she actually hadn’t seen in a very long time! In fact, they rarely came to even see Kevin while he was sick. It bothers me that when someone dies, people will make all kinds of promises like that and then just vanish into thin air just as soon as the funeral is over. I guess it’s always been that way though…like when your friend moves away and you say, “I’ll write every day!” …and then never do.

The second thing that’s REALLY bothering me is that not one of Kevin’s family members came down for the funeral. They haven’t even called Cindy to see how it went or see how she’s doing…or even just to say hi! I just can NOT fathom something like that. When Cindy’s mother in law finally DID call her back after Cindy had called several times, her statement to Cindy was, “You have my sympathies for your loss….” HELLO??? Mom…this is your SON that died and you tell his widow “You have my sympathies for your loss”????? I was ASTOUNDED!!! I did however find out what was behind that statement from Kevin’s mother. It seems that while he was growing up, Kevin’s parents were VERY abusive towards him…physically and emotionally. It was because of that abuse that he’d run away from home at the age of 17 and joined the Army! Cindy said that throughout the years, Kevin had tried desperately to be close with his family, but they were just aloof about the whole thing….a fact that made him very unhappy. I just can’t get myself to even imagine anyone being that uncaring about him…most especially his own family! I do thank God that he at least had someone as devoted to him as Cindy…otherwise he’d have probably ALWAYS been abused by his family in one way or another. Don’t misunderstand me, I know Kevin was no angel, but he did deserve something better than what he got from his family.

Well, that’s about all for now. My goal this week is to catch up with you all out there!! It’s been such a crazy time that I’ve gotten very lax in my blog reading! Yes, I know…I should be given 50 lashes with a wet noodle for being so neglectful! I hope everyone has a good week ahead!

Well, Kevin’s service was today. It was a day that I will never forget as long as I live. Not surprisingly, it was an adventure:

Chris and I walked over around 8:45 this morning so that we could have breakfast and hopefully a little peace and quiet before the service. We managed to get a precious few minutes of that peace before the bombardment began. Let me just say that there is nothing in this world like the sound of 15 Harleys roaring down a normally quiet subdivision street early on a Saturday morning!! The Harleys were our escort to the funeral home. It was quite an impressive sight actually! The ride to the funeral home is where the day’s adventure began……it started when we all piled into the limo…..we started to take off when one of the bikers came to tell the driver something….so the driver rolls down the window, talks to the biker, and then starts to roll his window back up. The window wouldn’t BUDGE! It had apparently shorted out or “something”. (You’ll understand the quotation marks in a few minutes!) So, we had to ride to the funeral home with the driver’s window all the way down…..and did I mention it was only about 40 degrees this morning??!! We were QUITE a sight ……imagine a procession of 15 Harleys escorting a limo to a funeral home!! Along the way, we came on a very bad car accident that ALMOST made us late to the service!! When the cops who’d blocked the road for the accident saw we were a funeral procession, they VERY quickly got the scene cleaned up just enough for us to get by. A very nice gesture!

So we arrive at the funeral home to quite another sight….there were people lined up outside of the funeral home! The limo circled the block while the Harleys parked along the street….as we came back up the street, they all revved their motors at full throttle until we passed the last bike. It was a truly awesome moment. Once we all got out of the limo, things went just a little haywire for a few minutes. Normally, all of the attendees of the funeral are seated before the family arrives….but I’m guessing they were lined up outside to see our arrival? Anyway, the attendees starting going inside, and we brought Cindy in behind them….well, as we’re waiting for the people to go into the chapel, we’re sort of standing off to the side. People spotted Cindy and started making a bee line for her…she was literally bombarded by a huge WAVE of people! She was in NO shape to handle that, so I ended up having to break into the crowd and put myself and Chris in front of Cindy so that no one could get to her. I know there were some people who were annoyed by that, but quite frankly, I didn’t give a shit what they thought. Chris and I promised Kevin before he died that we would take care of Cindy, and knowing she was in no shape to receive people even before the service started, I wasn’t about to let yet another mob of people pounce on her!

We finally get seated in the chapel, and the most amazing memorial service that I’ve EVER seen proceeded to take place. The pastor read some stuff out of the Bible, we prayed a little, and then he read some more Bible verses. After the pastor was done, he invited people up to talk about Kevin. At first there was an eerie silence and it looked for a minute like no one was going to come up. Then a friend named Ivan came up to speak. He is from Colombia originally, so it was a bit difficult to understand him, but that was ok. Another moment of eerie silence….and then up comes “Peanut”…he’s a biker friend of Cindy & Kevin’s. He’d only known Kevin for about two years, but they had gotten pretty close during that short time. Next up was “Big Griz”..another biker friend. This guy is easily 400lbs and probably stands at least 6’8” tall!! He had been extremely close friends with Kevin since he and Cindy moved to NC from Colorado. This poor guy could barely speak because he was so upset. It’s quite a strange thing to see that big of a man crying!! Then came another man, I didn’t catch his name, but HE was equally choked up during his time at the front. Several more people came up and spoke during the next 10 minutes or so, and then the most amazing thing happened…..Kevin was in the Army when he was young, so a few soldiers were sent to give him his military honors or whatever you call that when they present the flag to the next of kin….anyway, after the last friend spoke, this Army guy went to the front of the chapel and got in front of the microphone and says “I didn’t know this man that today’s service is honoring, and I apologize if I’m acting inappropriately, but this has to be said.” He then starts talking about how he’d never seen a more touching funeral service for anyone and that he was just sorry that HE had never met Kevin because with that much love for him being shown today he MUST have been some special guy! So after he finished, another soldier played “Taps” on the bugle (of course), and then two more soldiers did the folding of the flag and the presentation to Cindy.

So we FINALLY get done with the service and start to leave….this is the explanation for the quotation marks above on the word ‘something’….I was met on the sidewalk by the director of the funeral who tells me that the window on the limo was now working! Now, the funny part about that whole thing is that Kevin would have pulled a prank like that in a second……….SOOOOO, you can draw your own conclusions as to the reason for the failure of the window on the way there, but then the resurrection on the way back home!!

After the service, everyone headed back to Cindy’s house for the party that was scheduled to honor Kevin. The bizarre thing about that gathering is the different types of people that were intermingling with each other…..there were corporate executives to yuppies to bikers (Cindy is an executive at her job)….

The house was literally PACKED with people, but there were a few that made a lasting impression on me:

-----------> I mentioned “Peanut” a bit earlier….fascinating man. He was one of the Harley riders with all the leather gear, but was probably one of the most intelligent people I’ve met in quite a while…definitely NOT the stereotypical image of a biker.

-----------> “Hawk”……imagine if you will a man 6’7” biker built like a fucking dump truck and not afraid of ANYTHING…..but with a heart of gold. Hawk is one of the bikers who escorted us to the service….and when we arrived in downtown Fuquay, he pulled into the middle of the intersection and literally stopped traffic! No one would have DARED to try and say something to him about it….he’s one big dude!! He was a RIOT!! After the service, he went back home for a bit and then returned with a gift for Cindy…….a bottle of MOONSHINE….straight from his very own still!! Get this shit though….normally moonshine will burn so bad going down the throat it feels like your throat is on FIRE, but THIS stuff just tasted like a very STRONG rum!!

-------------> Tommy…..check THIS out…..he’s the funeral director! He does not even come CLOSE to fitting the description of what most people have of funeral directors….he’s not even 30 years old yet for one thing and for another he actually came back to the house after the service and hung out for several hours for the party! It was TOO funny to see a funeral director wearing jeans and drinking Bud Light!! He was VERY cool to say the least!

One thing I forgot to mention was the 21, er….37 gun salute at the house! Imagine a group of bikers with shotguns and you’ll understand why it was 37 instead of 21!! It was DEFINITELY a sight to behold!!

So the party continued for several more hours…in fact, as I write this entry at 10:30 the place has JUST NOW cleared out!!

Chris overheard something today that really made me feel good: he was coming around the corner of the house when he overheard a group of Cindy’s friends talking about the two of us……they were praising us both for having helped Cindy and Kevin out so much the last 5 years. One lady even remarked that she wished SHE had neighbors like us! That was a VERY VERY nice thing to hear!

So now begins Cindy’s journey of living her life without Kevin…..it’s going to be SO difficult for her, but I have a good feeling she’s going to be ok once some time has passed. Oh..and she did the COOLEST thing today…..for Christmas for the last upteen years Kevin sets up an electric train set with the Christmas tree in the center. Each year, he’d modify one of the trains cars and people who would come and visit during the holidays were told to sign the car for that year. Anyway, Cindy told me that she wants Chris and I to use Kevin’s train set this Christmas in our house! You can only imagine how good that made me feel because Kevin absolutely loved that whole set up!!

That’s about it for now. I hope everyone enjoys their Sunday tomorrow!

My GOD, I thought this week would NEVER end!! It has felt like the roller coaster ride from hell…Kevin dying…the rumor at work…the revelation of the fact that the rumor was in fact an invention of Crazy Man…

Hey..if I write my life as a book, would you all buy it? Oh skip that…nobody reads anymore…let’s just make it into a daytime soap opera!! The guy who plays Brad on The Young and Restless has to play me though! All I can say is that NEXT week had BETTER be a hell of a lot better than this week was or I’m going to…..well, I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but I’ll do something!!

So as to avoid the sad stuff this evening, I’ll tell y’all about my day at work. If anyone thought that my stories of stupid people were gone when I got this job, you’ll be happy to know that the stories are now very much alive and well! First off, I took the final test for the course I had to take…and I scored a 105 thank you very much! I was very pleasantly surprised because I knew that with everything that had gone on this week, I was pretty distracted!

Now, during this class, we had two people who were struggling a lot. The first was a guy named, “Howard” (don’t you love how I make up names to protect the stupid?!) who was a senior in high school when Jesus was a freshman. Just looking at a computer made him nervous…my guess is that he was expecting chisels and stone tablets to make the orders for the technicians. I will give Howard credit though…he may be a bit on the dimwitted side, but he tried his hardest. He even showed up 30 minutes early every day to put in extra study time.

Then there’s Sally. Oh Sally. Good lord. She could easily relate to the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. I could write an entire post about Sally…the first thing that annoyed us all about her was when her cell phone would ring during the middle of the instructor trying to teach. Now, what do you think proper etiquette would be when your cell phone rings during something like a class? You sheepishly apologize and then turn your phone off or put it on vibrate. Right? Not Sally. She would not only ANSWER her phone, but she’d get up and walk out of the class to have the conversation! Now ONCE would be understandable…provided that it was some sort of emergency. This didn’t happen just once though…it happened every day for a week!! It finally got to the point that the instructor told her that if it happened again, she was going to have to re-take the course! A few posts ago, I relayed a typical conversation between Sally and I when she sat with me at my desk. There were many conversations like that between Sally and the instructor over the last few weeks, much to the frustrations of everyone in class…and the instructor!!

Here’s a basic overview of what we do at my job: we use a program called SAP, which is a windows type program. It’s set up very similar to an Excel spreadsheet, only there’s no actual building of the spreadsheet…all we have to do is fill in the data in the “cells”. It’s really not that difficult..it’s just kind of time consuming and a lot of bouncing between windows. There are usually several steps involved in what we do, and on most things there is a certain sequence that the steps must be in. If you do something wrong, the program will flash a message and not let you continue. Remember, we deal with hospital equipment, so everything has to be done just so, or there could be huge problems. So as the instructor would be explaining something (she had an overhead display for her computer), we’d all be following along with her. There were times when we all goofed up, but for the most part, we’d ‘get it’ after a few tries. Not Sally. She’d SWEAR up and down that she did everything step by step and that she got an error message and it wouldn’t let her continue. The instructor would have to come over, explain the process again, stand there watching Sally to see if she got it right….and damned if Sally STILL got it wrong!! Thursday we played some ‘learning games’…one was where we had teams of 3 and we were supposed to write the sequence of the order tasks. Guess who ended up with Sally on his team? You got it..yours truly! Anyway, as I and my other team mate would be writing away on the whiteboard, here’s Sally coming up and adding shit to it…stuff that wasn’t even PART of the process!

So we get through the week and today was the final examination. The instructor said that we couldn’t use any of our notes or process manuals, so that immediately put Sally into a tailspin! We started the test at 8:45 this morning and technically had all day to complete the examination. The test itself was actually pretty easy… a LOT of multiple choice and True or False questions, ‘fill in the blank’, and a few scenario problems. I was finished at around 10, and the others (except Howard and Sally) were finished anywhere from 30min to 45min later.

Howard was struggling throughout the test, but finally finished up by noon. Even though the man can be dumb as a brick sometimes, he did manage to get a passing score..but just barely! Miss Sally on the other hand didn’t get finished with her test until after 3:00 this afternoon!! You would know that taking a test didn’t deter her incessant questions and ‘technical issues’ that kept popping up!! What was so funny was when she told the instructor, “This not being able to use our notes is messing me up pretty bad…I wish I would have known that this wasn’t an open book test!” The instructor replied, “Well, if you had studied your manuals like you were supposed to do, you COULD have memorized the steps!” So what did Sally end up getting on her test? She got a 70…the passing grade is 80…she won’t lose her job or anything because of the test, but her supervisor will be told to keep a close eye on her.

Well, time for Bry to go beddie bye! Tomorrow’s a long day and God knows I desperately NEED my beauty sleep!!

Have a good weekend!