The Zen of Sunrise

 Many may already know, but I started a new job on June 23.  I work at the same building, but now work directly for our Corporation.  Much of what I do is similar to my last duties at the TV station, except I am doing one task for multiple stations, instead of doing multiple tasks for one station.  Trust me, this is a joy.

More importantly, my hours are now 7 am-3 pm.  This is a dramatic change for me.  It has been YEARS since I worked a job where I could see sunrise or even sunset.  When you are trapped in an audio booth during evening news, you can't really take a break to watch the Sun set.  And when you work until 1 am daily, seeing the sunrise isn't much of an option either.  Most of my pictures of outside looked like this:

Super Moon

Or consisted of watching fireworks for events I could not attend, but could look out the door and see 2 seconds of ka-BOOM, before I went back into a windowless room.

Watching fireworks at the baseball grounds

Or even sadder yet...watching the sunset through a TV monitor:

My world is so very different.  

The first sunrise in years

I feel like a vampire, that was suddenly granted the gift of sunlight.  The unbelievable joy of seeing the sky 'pink' up as I drive, the sky changing from dark purple to violet to dark blue.  Watching wisps of clouds start to glow.  The quiet sound of birds chirping.  I honestly had forgotten how beautiful the world is early in the morning and late in the afternoon.

There's a happiness in being able to attend after work events with friends and family and not have to take a day off.  Being able to say yes to dinner out or drinks with friends.  The simple joy of dinner at home, with my husband, even if it is just spaghetti in front of the TV.  

A Glorious Sunset while out at the Beach AFTER work

There are a handful of people who have not expressed any congratulations to me about moving up.  There are a handful of people who resent my moving as a personal insult to them.  Like I made the decision primarily to create problems for them.  

It's frankly very sad. 

For these are people who have been experiencing the joys I have felt over the past month, for years.  These are people who I guess no longer find the beauty in small things.  People who don't understand we are all on this planet together and only by each of us finding our own joy can we make this world a better place.  It's not how many friends you have or how many groups you belong; it is what you do with your time on this planet that matters.  It is being happy for someone else who has been greatly unhappy and under appreciated to finally find happiness.  I'm sorry that group of people is so unhappy that they feel they need to criticize someone else's joy or ignore it.  

It's seeing the beauty in those sunrises and sunsets that reminds me to be caring, share other's joy, console their tears, offer a helping hand that makes life worth living.

The "Fingers of God" stretch out from the sunrise

Randomness on a Monday afternoon.

I raise my hand and admit it....I have not been posting about next door lately.  No excuse, just lazy...or working a lot.

Rumson has caught me on several occasions lately.  Most recently he started telling me all about the new program that Crazy Woman is currently on.  If you have a mentally unstable person, be aware the state of Florida is offering home service to treat the cray-cray.  Seems some poor soul comes to the house and shoots her up with drugs once a month.  That's probably why I haven't seen her talking to trees or circling around the cars lately.

What he did tell me however is that DCF was ready to pull his mother (Dead Mama) from the house, because Crazy Woman was physically abusing her.  I'm starting to get a bit of sympathy for Dead Mama.  So tragic her children and extended family.  Rumson tells me that if she had been removed, due to the reverse mortgage, they would have lost the house.  

Is it OK to be both relieved that someone is getting help and not abusing an old woman and likewise sad that a year ago they were not booted out of the house?

I'm having the cat issue again.  Sir MG kitty, who holds court in the cul-de-sac, is once again (in warm weather) wandering over to visit them.  Today it took me a while to track him down for breakfast.  He was next door.  When I call and he hears me, he comes running.  Some unknown male next door...its always a revolving door of people there....yells, "Is that your cat?  I thought it was mine."  I was flabbergasted.   It has been over 2 years since I started feeding him.  I told Rumson and my other next door neighbors that he is ours and we are taking care of him.  Why the hell would someone LIVING IN THE SAME HOUSE not know who the cat belongs too???  I said back, "been mine for over 2 years"  then added, "he likes to visit everyone".

I pay about 40 bucks a month in medicine for the creature, I hope he doesn't just disappear some day because the unknown guy decides to take him someplace else.  Seriously.  I have fought with these people until my hair is gray...over property lines, trash, boundaries and now the cat.  I am hoping that Zillow is right and the house is in 'pre-forclosure'.

Yard man told me a few weeks ago, when he was asking if he could cut down some dead trees in my yard, that they have a broken heater...hence all the fire wood.  No heater/no A/C.  And Rumson is supposed to be an HVAC repairman?  jeesh.  I shudder to think what it must be like in the summer.  Oh and the washer and or dryer must be broke too....laundry is flying on the wind...trust me, underwear day is not the day to be look out my window.  Of course they do not string it up in their back yard, where it's out of view...no, it waves in the breeze right out my front window and the first thing you see when you drive down the street.  Hello Granny Pannys, nice tidy whiteys y'all.

Just blowing in the wind

Recently one of Ed's co-workers came to the house and commented on the wooded patch in our front yard.  I think "trim the bushes" was the comment.  They don't understand that this is blocking a lot of the view of next door from our house.  I'm trying to make a green fence in our front yard.  It's a slow procedure.  We get new neighbors, I am cleaning out the beds.

My Green Screen

I feel sorta bad about this

There has been very little interaction lately with 'the neighbors'.  Honestly I am grateful.  A little over 2 weeks ago, Rumson met Ed at the mailbox and informed him that 'they were having a garage sale Saturday, if we wanted to add some stuff'.  To date I have not seen a garage sale.

I have noticed a large blue tarp on the roof however.  This neighborhood was built all at one time, so everyone tends to re-roof at the same time.  5 or 6 in a year for a couple of years and then 20 years of waiting.  Well next door has a roof that probably was put on late 70's/early 80's.  So I do suspect they have a problem.

It has been extraordinarily quiet.

But what I feel bad about is being happy at their probable misfortune.

Years ago, when Daddy was alive and we'd get weekly, or even daily visits to keep us updated on their lives, Rumson told us that he took a reverse mortgage out on the house.  It was in his parents name.  He told us that he intended to transfer it to his name when both parents died.  Now I am no expert, but I am pretty sure there is a point that the equity is out of the house and the reverse mortgage people expect to get the house.  I don't know exactly when they did this loan, but I suspect it was over 10 years ago.  Daddy died about 4 or 5 years ago and this was done well before he died.

We have been anticipating that day when Dead Mama really does pass on and the Redneck Circus would be forced to move along.  24 years is a long time to have dealt with a less educated and less classy version of the Clampetts.

So yesterday when I got a Zillow alert saying our property has now increased in value (yay we are no longer underwater!)  I went to the web page to see what a recent house sold for down the street, assuming that is why our value went up.  That's when I saw a little blue icon over the house next door.  I clicked on it, thinking they were renting it.  But instead found out, they are in Pre-forclosure.

According to the webpage, they took out a loan 2 years ago and the bank is starting proceedings against them.  The only thing I can figure is that the Reverse Mortgage ran out and they took another loan to try to pay it back.  Since not one person works over there, except for the yardman who pretty much only does my other next door neighbors yard and theirs, I suspect that things are going very badly and I anticipate cop cars in the future.

My concern is once the bank does move them out, Crazy Woman is likely to still be hanging around.  She's spent most of her adult life next door and she is just unstable enough to keep coming there.  I mean she took off on a Baker Act years ago and they just left on vacation, leaving her locked out of the house.  I do worry about Dead Mama.  She is so feeble and mentally vacant these days.  Add the fact that some days I can only tell the difference between she and RumSon by whether or not the person is wearing a shirt.  For the record, he doesn't.  Alcohol has ravaged him, so he looks like an 80 year old woman.

I'm torn.  I feel sorry for them on a human level.  But on the other hand, not having 3-5 trashed cars in my front yard; not having schizophrenia and dementia up close and personal; not having family tragedy acted out like bad Shakespearean drama in the yard/street/neighborhood:  MIGHT just be a pleasant change.

It's a quandary, for sure.

Creepy! I mean seriously Creepy!

I just had a run in with RumSon.  I had opened my garage door to get the mail/paper and bring the recycling bin up from the street.  MG kitty decided it was too hot outside, so he followed me in.  I noticed his water bowl in the garage was nearly empty, so I brought it inside and refilled it.  By the time I walked back out, RumSon was in the driveway, about 6 feet from the inside of my garage.

We have yard tools and such just inside the garage door, so I immediately got suspicious.  He was on his cell phone, well it was to his ear.

He tells me that the electric company had just installed a new meter and he was wondering if they gave us the same one.  He's staring at it, sort of....I explained that ours is broken, the old one burned up and we are awaiting them to come replace the meter.  He then told me the lightning was really bad the other day.

Then he starts explaining his meter.  Which frankly I didn't care.

And I was saved by his phone call going through and mid sentence with me, he starts talking to the person on the phone.  I did not want to sit and listen to his call so I said Later and walked inside.

I watched him walk back to his house from the front window, empty handed.

Dammit I never have had to worry about leaving the door open for a little while, now I am wondering if he is coming over to see what we have in the garage so he can borrow it.

The same way they borrowed our yard wagon....one day they'd ask to borrow it...3 days later it would show up at our back door.  They'd ask again and 4 days later it would come back.  Eventually, it just stayed at their house.  Last time I saw it was this past winter filled with wood.  That was right after they had cut the tree up on my property.  I joked with Ed and said we should go get the wagon, it is ours and most likely so was the wood.

I am trying to stay humorous about the entire situation, but it gets harder and harder to do so.

By the way, the garage door is now closed again...even though I am leaving for work shortly.

Random Meme on a Sunday afternoon

I follow a lot of groups and pages on Facebook that can only be described as 'extreme fandom'.  Which means I have a FB page filled with pointless and random crap that can only be described as filler.

Mash ups that have no relevance:

Just in case you wanted to know Martin Freeman is about a foot shorter than Jared Padalecki

 Screenshots with the dialogue typed on the picture:

Just in case you forgot what they said...

 Then there is this...

 

 

 

I mean, what the hell?

So I guess what I am perplexed the most is why anyone would bother with doing this at all...Now I love me a Schrodinger Cat or anything from some ecards:

Yep, had those days

 But seriously, why and what is this:

Doctor #9 and a couple of random dudes?

and don't get me going on the shit passed around supposedly from George Carlin's Mouth:

What the Fuck people, I didn't say that?

 Is the need for attention so great, that just having your meme go viral make you feel special?  I'm at a loss.  Maybe this is why....

Good night everybody, I'm here all week!

Probably going to hell

Because of my work, I spend my drives to and from, in complete silence.  Years ago, I'd drive to work with my own personal soundtrack to face my days in News.  Think "Eye of the Tiger".  But now, sitting in a room with 20 computers...and their fans, numerous satellite receivers and yes still a few tape decks, also all running with fans and the best part, the massive air handlers for the building above my head, it is a very noisy place before I even add the volume from 2 station's programming.  I adore that few minutes of silence before I go to work and after I leave.

These zen moments truly make me realize, I am not normal.

For example, there is an old Chi Chi's Mexican restaurant I pass daily.  It has been numerous endeavors since the Chi Chi's closed, currently it is a church.  And because of that and what I think every day passing it, I am going to hell.

When it first opened, I thought as many delicious Margaritas as I drank in that restaurant (ok in the bar) I probably sighed a few "oh God's" while I was in there....so it is only fitting it is a church now.  Yes, I know.  Hell.

Then we get to the name.  CREPA.  Christ REsurrection Power Academy.

Who doesn't think of some sort of Religious Power Rangers going out on the street, forming in a giant Jesus on the Cross to fight evil?  Yes.  Hell.

Then I figured they were a group that performs exorcisms.  "The Power of Christ compels you!" said the old priest in the Exorcist.  Which if you think about it does sort of fit in with the Power Rangers idea...I mean who would be a better exorcist...screw that Old Priest and New Priest stuff, call in the CREPA!  Yes, I am currently creating my own ring of hell.

But these are the types of things I think about on my silent drives to and from work.  Of course most of this comes on my drives home.  I love driving home.  Not just because the day is over and I get to take my bra off...trust me that is a good thing, but because at 1am, there are rarely people on the road.  Which means I can drive and zen without the constant, "what the hell is that guy doing"  "Whoa, turn signal dude"  "What the hell asswipe" interrupting my lovely thoughts of giant evil fighting Jesus rangers tackling Satan in a throwdown on the Arlington Expressway.

For the record, I am certain that the people from that church are wonderful and lovely people and I do not mock them.  I just have a very strange imagination.

Back where he belongs...thanks to bad weather

willingly came in for a nap

With a Tropical Storm threatening, I picked up the MG cat and brought him inside.  He has been coming in late at night or early in the morning...when he is hungry, but quickly heads out the door and back to Dead Mama's house.  So when he yowled to go outside, I ignored him.  The worst of the storm was coming at the time no one was at home to bring him inside, so he spent a long 30 plus hours inside.  

Early this morning, seeing as how it was just wet and windy, we let him go out again.  I did not expect to see him again until late tonight.

Much to my surprise, when I went to get the mail, he shot into the garage and the kitchen door.  So I gave him a late breakfast and continued getting ready for work.  After half an hour, I just found him curled up on the bathroom floor sleeping.  NO desire to go outside (which is good because a tropical storm influenced thunderstorm is on the horizon).

I noticed lots of activity at Dead Mama's today, but no sign of MG.  So I suspect that inside time at my house, just reinforced where home actually is...and where it is not.

Thank you Tropical Storm Andrea.