Despite the fact that it’s almost 50 below, my weather feed states that we are also having light drizzle.
Can someone explain this? Anyway, it’s a damn good laugh, if nothing else! 
Wishin’ I were on the beach with a six-pack, listening to the waves rollin’ in instead of hoping and praying that the damn Toyo will stay runnin!
Don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad, or if it just is. Am I glad to see it go? Yeah, for the most part. Am I excited about 2009? Some parts of it, you bet. Like the whole gettin’ the hell outta here. Like the plans I have to spend Christmas 2009 with my kids and grandkids instead of alone like last year and this year.
What should have been a bright, shiny new start in June has turned into something ugly, but that is, of course, my fault. I seem to have a talent for sabotaging any sucess I attain, and disconnecting from the world. Right now I am connected to my world and what’s going on in it, but it’s a struggle to stay there. To stay focused and working towards my goals. I feel the siren song of disconnection very strongly and it’s hard to ignore. My fantasy world is so much better than the real world, and having indulged in that fantasy world for so long, it almost seems more real than the real world. But it’s not, and I’ve been waking up with one thought uppermost in my mind every day lately ~ I will not disconnect! At least not until after all the errands and chores and real world stuff have been tended to for the day. It sounds like an easy thing, but it is in fact a constant battle.
Been doing the -40 thing for almost a week. This cabin is not weatherproofed like I had been led to believe, and it is freakin’ cold! It is colder this year than what it normally is; haven’t done this cold this early in the winter since 1989 from what I hear. It’s usually the end of January to mid-February before we drop below -35 for an extended period of time, so it’ll be interesting to see what the temps. will be then. My un-winterized truck is still running, thank God. I was at a friend’s house on Saturday and they were talking about using tarps to cover the engine and wheelwell to keep some heat in. I didn’t think a tarp could really make that much difference; I mean really, it’s only a thing piece of plastic, right? I decided to give it a try on my rig, couldn’t hurt, and wow! what a difference it makes. Instead of my engine screaming in pain and all my belts trying to break whenever I start the thing, the tarp seems to hold in enough heat so the truck sounds like it’s trying to start at more like -15. Huge difference! Funny how I’ve lived up here for 16 years, saw other people using tarps and blankets on their rigs in the winter, and scoffed at the idea that it could possibly matter. Guess even sourdoughs can learn a thing or two.
Milestone day, I guess you could call it. The house is being auctioned today. I have managed to talk myself out of going to the auction. That would send me back to a disconnected state sooo fast, and I don’t want that. It’s time to let it go and move on. I have a goal of leaving here, and I really think it’s a good one. Who knows? I may hate the Lower 48 and scurry back up here, but for now it feels like the right direction to go in. To be around family, to know that it’s possible to spend holidays and special days with them (far more possible than it is up here) is something I crave. Never used to, but it’s there now.
So today, I will go to the welfare office and beg for whatever help they can give me to keep my electric on and food on the table, then stop by a couple of the bars I have apps in and see if they need a bartender tonight. It being New Year’s Eve, ya can’t have enough help in my opinion. A couple of the places that I applied at last week are in desparate need of a bartender, so let’s call it being in the right place at the right time. Plus it’s far better than spending the night alone. It’s hard to compete with the young, skinny pretties that most bars prefer, but I have what they don’t ~ years of experience. That’s what you need on huge party nights like this, not firm boobies and an unlined face. That don’t serve the drinks fast.
Stay positive, and STAY CONNECTED!
A bit late but -
HAPPY SOLSTICE!!!!!
We’re down to 3hrs 44min of daylight, and tomorrow will be 17 seconds longer! How cool is that? How ridiculous is that? It gets better, but the start of gaining daylight is soooo slow. I am tanning now, as I usually do this time of year just to get through the lack of daylight. I called the tanning salon, and lo and behold! I still had minutes left over from last year. Only way I could be tanning, as there is a decided lack of funds available for ‘frivolous’ things in my life.
Finally got up enough nerve to talk to this guy at work last night. He started a week or so after I did. Cute, but in a real down to earth kind of way, and a sexy, gravelly voice that I just love. Turns out he’s from the Keys and he’s just up here to visit his parents for a month. Got bored sittin’ at home so he picked up the catering job for the holidays. We ended up talking for most of the night, and come to find out he’s a bartender down in Florida. He grew up here, couldn’t wait to leave, and pretty much worked his way south. Now he works on the marina in the Keys. Said he makes a buttload of money, most of it under the table. I could do that, and I could do him, but he’s leaving after the 1st. I tried to entice him into coming out with me for a drink after work, but apparently he’s got a second job at the grocery store stocking at night. I didn’t give him my digits, had a major attack of ’shy.’ I know where he’s working his other job, had already run into him there once, so maybe I’ll find the big-girl panties and go there for a gallon of milk. I’m not looking for any long-term thing, but it would be nice to have conversation with someone that is not the usual crowd. We must have talked for about three hours, and boy, did he ever fire me up to go, just head South right now! It’s gonna be a long, cold five months ~
Fifteen days. That’s all that’s left until the house goes up for auction. Will I go to the auction? Probably, even though it’ll most likely rip me apart. Morbid fascination will make it impossible to stay away. What a way to start New Year’s Eve.
Last week was absolutely awful. I ran out of heating oil and woke up to a house that was a balmy 49 degrees. No money to buy fuel, so I wrote bad checks to get some. I eventually made enough in tips last weekend to cover the checks, but not until the checks fees were applied, of course. The next day I had frozen water pipes. Apparently, I popped the breaker while I was using electric heaters. Fortunately, that was an easy fix and I had water again in a couple of hours. The day after that ran out of fuel, again. By then I had a bit of cash from a couple of cleaning jobs, so I didn’t have to write more bad checks. Lovely life I’ve created…
If I could, I would leave here today. Just pack up and go. It seems as if I have successfully slipped completely under almost everyone’s radar up here, as no one ever calls or stops by. If I got hurt or ended up incapacitated, chances are no one would even know. Last year people would call, but not anymore. I really have no life up here I now realize, and it’s past time to move on. ‘Bout five more months, then I should be able to sell everything and go. Just gotta get through January and February, the two coldest months up here. Ugh…
Last week ended up turning out pretty well. I had my first inspection clean on the air force base, huge house. It took a total of 20 man hours to get it done. I got very fortunate and stumbled on a friend to help. It was interesting how it happened. I was sitting in the bowling alley parking lot on Thursday, wondering how I was ever going to finish the house in time, when all of a sudden I saw a friend drive by on her way to the commissary. I called her and asked her what she was doing. “Nothing,” she said, so I asked her if she wanted to help me with the house. She did, and we got it done in a decent amount of time.
The next day was the inspection, and boy, did I ever learn some interesting tricks. The woman that did the inspection brought a UV light with her, and she went over every inch of carpet in the house looking for pet stains! I was so relieved that the folks living in the house didn’t have pets. I had no idea that they checked the carpet that way, but you can bet that in the future, I will be checking carpets that way before I give a firm price on the cleaning. I just happen to have a portable UV light myself which is going to be used rather frequently in the future.
The bartending gig on the weekends didn’t turn out so well, at least this weekend. Apparently, folks seem to think that their free drink tickets cover their tip too, and I only made $20 each night. That really doesn’t make the rent payment. I’m hoping that it will pick up this weekend. I get to work the smaller parties (50) while the other bartender gets to work the large parties (200). She’s been there longer, so she gets the bigger parties.
Well, off to do a couple of cleans ~
for whatever reason, my caps key isn’t working today, so i guess this post will look like a juvenile wrote it. whatever -
i called the electric company today to have power shut off to the big house, only to find out that it had already been transferred to the mortgage company. next, i called the insurance company to try and cancel the policy so that if they succeeded in catching the house on fire, my policy wouldn’t be liable. no dice. apparently it can only be canceled by the mortgage company, which of course they aren’t going to do. so, i explained what i found out there with the heaters and exposed wiring, and they made careful note of it in their records. they also said that if that happened, they would subrogate -substitute one creditor for another, as in the case where an insurance company sues the person who caused an accident for the insured-
dirty pool, for sure. but with all the foreclosures going on in this country, i would imagine that the mortgage companies really don’t want yet another foreclosure on their hands. if the house does burn down, they get paid and walk away. much easier than having to deal with yet another foreclosure auction and yet another house that nobody wants. we’ll see what happens with that.
i’m sore today. got it into my head that i needed to re-arrange the house yesterday. found lots and lots of animal hair. can’t say that i’m all too impressed with all bare floors in the house. at least if there’s carpet, the hair gets caught on that. with all bare floors, the hair keeps going and going and going, until it’s waaaay underneath the furniture. major pain in the ass to get to.
this week starts a month of absolute craziness work-wise. the biz is taking off, plus i’ll have holiday parties to work every friday and saturday night. that’s ok; god knows, i need the money i’ll make. hopefully by the end of this month, i’ll have enough cleaning contracts that i can drop the second job and just run with the cleaning. one of my sisters brought up an interesting point in an email on the subject of employees that i hadn’t yet thought of; if i ever did take on employees, i would then have to deal with liability insurance, workman’s comp, all that crap that i just don’t want to deal with. nope, i’ll just stay small, just me.
ok, i gotta figure out the problem with the caps key; it’s driving my crazy -
