Happy New Year...

So... I was just sitting here, minding my own business... when I suffered a sudden and random attack of silliness.


Anyway, Little goth Bob, Pocket Buddha and I all wish you much luck, prosperity and happiness in the coming new year...

Well, finally some pics... not great ones though.

Didn't see much that was too interesting, but I was bound and determined to find something to photograph, then I saw that the frost was still in the shady areas, and I took some pics of some weeds with the frost on them...

The top one is wild mustard... I think. The bottom is henbit, or maybe chickweed... I'm not sure to be truthful. I know that if I see it in my yard I attack it with a frenzy, but out in a field it's kinda cool...

Work finally more or less petered out for the week. Nothing will be happening tomorrow, so I won't be working... and I won't be going out for New Years Eve... I worked in too many bars to even find it amusing.

We used to call in Amateur Night. People who, under normal circumstances couldn't bring themselves to choke down so much as a glass of wine will show up on New Years Eve and get absolutely smashed. Something about the ongoing stress of the holiday season I'm sure, but after you've spent a few years pouring people into cabs, well - the thrill is gone.

I'll stay home and eat Cabbage & taters with some smoked pork... and baked black-eyed peas. And since the oven will be on, might as well make some corn bread... That oughta satisfy all my ancestral requirements.

Randomness...

Slooooooow day at work yesterday. It's probably going to be just a slow today, seeing as we're wedged between Christmas and New Years and nothing much is really happening...

Was actually going to take some pics yesterday, when I realized that I didn't have my dang memory card in the camera. But today, I have my memory card. And three novels in my truck... I always try to keep something to read in my truck. What you need is something that will hold your attention, help you pass the time, but is still fairly easy to read. If it's set among people you don't run into everyday of your life, it might actually teach you something, but that's not a big priority. Literature is for reading at home, when you have time to really think... these books are for reading in fast-food joints and parks when you have 20 or 30 minutes to waste.
Murder mysteries are best. Barbara Michaels has found a great balance of spooky mystery, with enough romance to keep the ladies interested without making the guys squirm in their seats, and enough action to keep the guys happy, but not so intense that it makes the ladies disgusted. Jonathan Kellerman writes psychological thrillers that are often based in the Jewish Comunity, Tony Hillerman (who recently passed away) wrote mysteries set in the Southwest involving Native American characters... from both I've learned something about two cultures I wouldn't normally come that much in contact with. Don't get me wrong, I don't know enough to say I really know the cultures, but I know enough to not embarass myself with stupid questions...

Yesterday in the doldrums, I wandered into a thrift store. Particularly looking for jeans. I end up in warehouses all over, and it's a little hard on pants, I'm always looking for jeans. Preferably black denim. They look good with the uniform shirt and don't show the dirt as bad... and I found a bunch of used paperbacks. Start looking through them, and the lady that worked there says... "Oh, those are all black novels... " I say, OK and keep looking.

They're a sub-genre of fiction written for African-Americans by African-Americans. Now I've certainly read black authors before. I'm actually a pretty big Maya Anjelou fan. And I've certainly read novels with black characters, but looking back, they were usually written by white authors. It might be interesting to read these. But I've not read the paperback fiction before. I found two murder mysteries, and a novel about a woman who cleaned up after heroin addiction, married well and is now widowed and trying to raise two children and keep them off the streets... it promises to be a soap opera but it might be interesting.

So I bought 2 pairs of jeans and 3 books, Much to the amazment of the lady working there... I want to send her a letter... rule one in customer service, don't wrinkle your nose at the customer like he might be insane and you're afraid it's catching. I probably won't go back there... but quite frankly, annoying her yesterday really kind of made my day.

And this post is certainly not typical of me... and I don't know exactly what my point is... but I was sitting here typing and this came out, so here we are...

There's a buddha in my pocket...

Christmas brought some old friends into town. I spent yesterday afternoon and evening running around with Nicole who now lives in San Francisco. Of course we had to visit the Thompkins cemetery, because she's heard me talking about the graveyard in the middle of the highway for a while, but had never seed it, and she is a member of a computer group that tracks historic graveyards on the web... I've posted about this one before, if you want to know more, click http://lpfleamarket.blogspot.com/2008/11/week-in-review-again.html

Then we went to dinner and decided to visit the HUGE Half-Price Book Store in Dallas. It's the big, main store of the chain, and no matter what you're looking for in the way of printed material, you can probably find it there. But one thing I did find was this... a Pocket Buddha!

Cute little guy... he is a happiness Buddha. He certainly made me happy, it's strange how a little plastic figure less than 2 inches tall can amuse you so much...

there are six different ones... Harmony, Peace, Wisdom, Love, Happiness and Faith.

I hope his presence on my blog spreads a little happiness around... a little extra happiness is a good thing. I'll probably set him with Little Gothic Bob, or maybe I'll find a little spot on the dash of the truck for him.

Merry Christmas

and what would the holiday be without a pic that's so cute it's obnoxious?

Merry Christmas!!!

This week...

Friday rolled around and it's the first day in a long time that wasn't gloomy with fog, for which I'm immensely thankful. Driving without much visibility is never much fun, but driving for 8 hours a day without much visibility is just down-right nerve wracking. I spent the day running around doing last minute orders before the holiday hits... Including a last minute delivery into the Airport. During rush hour. On the Friday before Christmas. I seriously considered pinching my dispatchers head off.

But I did, on a delivery into Hutchins, see a few road runners by the road. Didn't get to take any pics, as I didn't have time to stop and even if I had, I probably wouldn't have been quick enough to catch a shot anyway. Quick little varmits... but I did find a couple on the web...

Here's the guy we all loved as kids...

and here's what they actually look like in real life...

Not the most attractive of birds, but they're really fun to watch when they're hunting for bugs beside the road.

It is confirmed, I did lose a couple of plants in the freeze... I got most of the cacti in from the back yard in time, but the ones in front got forgotten. The Stapeliad gigantea got badly damaged, I may be able to cut it back to healthy tissue, but I already have a branch that had fallen off and I was gonna root, so I'm not sure I'll mess with it. And a variagated agave turned out to definitely not be winter hardy, even though the label said it was... but I'm thinking it may come back from the root. Most of the agave's and yucca's are very difficult to kill... hope everyone has a great Holiday season, in case I don't get back before then...

Later.

Finally, some pics...

But I'm afraid that they're not very good pics. You see, in this part of the country, the first freeze doesn't turn the landscape into something that looks like Jack Frost has been working his little head off, it turns everything into something that looks pretty much dead... That coupled with the fact that since that darned freeze, we've been plauged with misty rain and fog. Not much fun to drive in, I can assure you...

But I've gone a good while without any pics to post so I was determined to take a pic of something. Anything. Really...

So, when I was driving through Mansfield today, I saw two red-tailed hawks sitting in a tree... they were this years fledglings, which is probably why they were sitting together... Usually hawks are pretty solitary birds... I stopped, but one flew off and I got this pic...

Then, when I was in Mesquite, I saw this cedar tree... It seems to be a natural mutation or variation, but I liked it's kind of spooky shape...

compared with the more normal pyramidal shape of this cedar beside it...

I even took close-ups of the branches so that you can see the difference in how they grow... it's really kind of cool.

I've been reading "Wicked - The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" by Gregory Maguire. A re-telling of the Oz story. It's actually an old book that I had missed somehow, but I had to read it because I'd already read the sequel... It's call "Son of a Witch" so I had to read this and then re-read the sequel to get everything straight in my head again... They're actually very good books, if you're looking for something that's kind of thought provoking without being too heavy...

And that's about the state of things right now...

Sorry that the pics aren't great!

a new week ahead...

Well, the dang truck is back, with a brand new fuel pump... which I couldn't afford, primarily because it's this time of year...

I did get to take some stuff to the Flea Market today, some Gorham Crystal bowls, and some Fitz & Floyd China, plus some other odds and ends that have been sitting here underfoot.

Mom called, and she and my sister have been asked to put together a small cookbook that a charity group will be passing out to some financially challenged families. These recipes are supposed to taste good and be cheap. (If anybody out there has any suggestions, we would be glad to have them...)

What started all this, is that the church groups that formed the core of this charity will often hand out donated foods to the needy, only to find out that the needy had no idea what to do with some of these things... Mom and my sister both have gotten used to answering phone calls like... "we just got in 50 lbs of kolrabi, (or spagetti squash, or rutabegas, etc...) and nobody knows what to do with them... " and they can both come up with 3 or 4 recipes for the charities to photo-copy up and hand out with them. And if they can't, there's well over a hundred recipe books floating around here, we'll come up with something.

I was called, because everybody in my family knows that when I was a young bachelor, I managed to feed myself on less than $20.00 a week, Actually, I could have afforded more, but I was desperately saving my money for a specific purpose. Anyway, they're kind of hoping I'll be able to come up with some penny-pinching tips. So, there we are. Hint 1: I can make soup out of anything...

They're wanting a few paragraphs on the basics. I may publish it here to test it if you're interested keep your eyes open.

And that's it for this week... I didn't see one darned thing to take a pic of, so here's this...

well shoot...

So I picked up my truck yesterday, and I blissfully started work this morning... (well, blissfully is an overstatement, but you know what I mean...) then, about noon, I turned off my engine, for a few minutes, and the darned thing would not start again.

So, I called Triple A, and they said they'd send a tow... even though I was going to have to pay for it because I've used all my free ones. Then they said they'd be sending someone from Imperial Towing. In 20 minutes, a little pick-up truck shows up, and I'm thinking "there is no way that little toyota is going to tow me anywhere..." It turns out that the tow truck was a little far away to get there quickly, so they sent this guy... he was a diagnostician and he was there to see if we could get the truck started so I wouldn't need towed... (I'd still have to pay the service fee, but I would save the milage on the tow...) so I tell him what I think is wrong and how it's acting, then he pops the hood, crawls under the truck, grabs a bunch of tools and equipment from his truck, and after checking everything thoroughly, announces that I will definitely need a tow because the fuel pump just plain ain't working, and there's no way we can get it started.

I was impressed. I now know exactly what's wrong, (it's what I suspected, but now I'm SURE) which makes dealing with a mechanic much easier, but he was trying to save me some cash and his company some diesel fuel by helping me avoid the tow... then he called on his radio, announced the tow guy would be there in 30 minutes and asked me if I wanted anything while I was waiting... all very polite. Gave me a business card if I needed to contact him and took off to help somebody else.

Then the tow guy shows up, and he starts in on the same thing, seeing if we Really NEED a tow. I told him the other guy was already there and that the fuel pump was kaput. So he loaded the truck, I jumped in the cab, he reached behind the seat and handed me a bottle of water, then towed me to the mechanic... I've ran into a lot of tow guys over the years and I have to say that the guys at Imperial Towing know their stuff and have the whole concept of service industry down... If you're ever in the Dallas - Fort Worth area and need a tow, these are the guys to call...
anyway, not much else today...

later

nothing much...

hello... really just checking in. The truck had to go into the shop yesterday... nothing major. But when you have a really good mechanic, there's almost no chance of getting anything done on the weekend, so I took it in yesterday and took today off... Wednesday is the slowest delivery day anyway... But since I didn't have to work today, I went ahead and had a beatnik night last night. This consists of drinking red wine and listening to jazz... Now, not enough wine to get drunk by any means, but some red wines have a tendency of giving me a headache the next day even if I've only had one glass, so, as much as I like it, I make sure that I don't have anything to do the next day. Didn't have to worry about it though, no headache today, so that one goes on my list of 'safe' wines.

Had a surprise freeze last night, it wasn't supposed to get that cold. Fortunately, most of my plants are in protected areas, but I think I lost a couple... we'll see...

And I'm off driving tomorrow...

The store...

Had to go to the Flea Markets annual Christmas Pot-luck tonight. I don't like pot lucks in general... The whole point of being invited to go out to dinner is that I don't have to cook, and then, dangit, I have to cook something.... Grrrrr....

anyway, I took pasta salad. I never really use a recipe for this, because it's too easy... Cook a package of pasta - sea-shell, bowtie, tortellini... whatever.

Chop up veggies... tonight it was one cucumber, a small onion, a carrot, celery and a tomato.

Mix together with the pasta, and enough ranch dressing to coat everything. (you can use blue cheese instead... and you can add a couple of chopped up hard boiled eggs if you want)

you're done.

Now, I know that I talk a lot on here about the store, so I figured you might want to see it...

here's my booth in the flea market...

I know it looks like an unholy mess, but believe it or not, you sell more out of booths like this than you do out of the over decorated ones. I guess if people wanted to go to a boutique, they'd be at a boutique... not a flea market.

And that's all I had pics of.

Not too impressive, huh?

no real point in the pic... I just got this card in the mail and I thought it was funny...

Anyway, this week is finally over. Not a good week at all... just way slow. I'm afraid that with the economy like it is, everything is slowing down. I'm not doing any more document jobs, documents are now e-mailed or faxed. It used to be on Fridays, I delivered payrolls... but now the accountant sends a file through e-mail and they plug it in and print the checks on site. So, I'm running around doing shlock work.

and not terribly much of that...

In all honestly, courier work is what you do while you're looking for a job you want. Unfortunately, with the unemployment figures that came out today, I'm not sure that there's going to be an actual job worth having out there. And the people that are hiring, warehouses and such, are going to just lay off after the holiday season. This is not a good time, so I find myself in the position of trying to keep a job that I never really wanted to begin with... and I'm going to stop kvetching now...

Well, it has been a rather eventful week so far.

I managed to lassoo my niece and her fiance and manipulated them into helping me move the flea market stall... with the three of us, we got it all moved and everything displayed in the space of one Sunday! I didn't think it was going to be possible, but it happened.

But then I left without paying the rent, so I dropped by on the way back home from work Monday, and, like a blasted idiot, I left my dispatch radio at the flea market, so I had to miss work today.

So today, I went and picked up my radio, and on the way back I dropped some stuff off at Goodwill. Since I was there anyway, I walked in to see what they had and walked out with some of the best flea market collectables that I've been able to find for a long time... Morrocan hanging candle holders, a 2 ft by 3 ft mirror in a hand-carved wooden frame, Danish Modern teapots... the great thing about shopping when you run a flea market is that you don't have to confine yourself to one style... You're not neccesarily looking for things to fit into your own decorating scheme, you're just looking for really great cool looking stuff... and now, I get to spend the rest of the evening cleaning it and pricing it. Joy! (not)

Now the white dove of peace at the top of the page is for the people in India... it just seemed appropriate when I started posting.

And the little cartoon is for all my cactus-loving blogging friends. I've had it forever, and I can't believe I haven't posted it before now...