I started a group for Twilight by Stephanie Myer, please feel free to join! :)

I was thinking today...there are some unusual name combinations on my case at work...There is a Katz/Stevens and a Duncan/Hines and a Demi/Ashton....it's really freaky that these people's last names just happen to have some significance...What are the odds that two people move in together and it just clicking like that? A funny one I get a lot is myboyfriendgotrunoverbyatrain. I don't know why they signed up for so much stuff with that name, but it's on quite a few letters that they get...

You guys get any bizzarre names?

Edit*: Chet, you reminded me of one more I saw last week! "harry johnson" LOL

I haven't been on lately, mostly due to my latest addiction: Twilight.

For those of you who don't know, Twilight is becoming even bigger than Harry Potter in the book world right now. I scoffed at the people getting caught up in this 4 book series by Stephanie Meyer, thinking, "what's wrong with these people obsessing over this book, reading over and over again and wearing 'Edward' t-shirts and chattering wildly over vampires...."

Everywhere I went, that damn book was in someone's hand. Girls were waiting by their mailboxes anxiously awaiting the newest and final book last August--much as I did for Harry Potter I'll admit.

I went to the ferry to get a ride to an island with my best friend, and the girl behind the desk could hardly look up from the book, and then only to exclaim "I've read this SIX TIMES! Everyone in this office has read it!"

My friend and I exchanged looks and it wasn't too long after that her sister called her telling her to get the book NOW. Her sister went so far as to mail my BF her copy of the book from Georgia and forcing her to read it. That was the end right there.

After that, it was "Twilight this-" and "Twilight that-", I couldn't stand to be around her and her mother and her other friends and their mother....AGH! EVERYONE had read my BF's copy of that book in about 2 weeks. I mean everyone. Everyone she works with, every woman she is related to, her neighbors....it was like a virus!

That book looked like it went through the washer/dryer 10 times.

I finally said "GIMME THAT BOOK!" I'll show her, I'll prove that SOMEONE won't like it.

I mean, it's about a 17 year old girl named Bella Swan that falls in love with a 17 vampire named Edward who has been 17 for 90 years....I little like a Tuck Everlasting story. She wants badly to be immortal with him but that would break his heart. He is constantly at war with himself for loving her because he knows at any second he may not be able to control himself and harm her. He has a "family" of vampires that have been together like parents and children for a few hundred years taking care of each other--and they consider themselves "vegetarian" as they only hunt large wild animals on weekends to satiate themselves. They are some of the few that can be in the presence of humans and control themselves.

ANYWAY.

I flew through that book SO fast, I could NOT GET ENOUGH. It was all I could do to get done with work yesterday knowing that book was home NEEDING to be read. I finished it at a cliffhanger last night, threw on my shoes, and high tailed it to Barnes and Noble half hour away, grabbed the book in 30 seconds flat, drove like a banshee to get home and plop back down on the couch. I read til about 3a.m. VERY unlike me.  The book brings back overwhelming feelings of high school angst, lust, and first love. It's intoxicating, I feel like I'm back there again, lol. After 10 years with the same person, this book feels kinda like an affair LOL.

My friend finds it all amusing by the way. I've become part of the herd =/

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The moldy mouse you ask?

Our post office is NASTY. Our cleaning guy is slack and doesn't have to do anything except show his face for a few minutes a day to empty our wastebaskets and gossip with the PM. When I was the cleaning person, I was forced to stay the 10 hours required a week (over 5 day span) to earn my money. He is there 10 MINUTES a day. Our office is never sanitized, mopped, dusted, ugh...the bathrooms...the BATHROOMS....

Anyway, we have a tiny little breakroom just big enough for a fridge, sink, water cooler (sink water is black), and nasty dirty shelves loaded with dirt and grime, I really need to take a photo...actually, ever watch the "Saw" movies? Grimy like THAT.

It's not UNUSUAL to smell something foul in there. Usually it's 3 year old food in the fridge that hasn't managed to crawl away yet. This week the smell leaned a little more to the fragrant bouquet of roadkill.

It smelled like that for 2 or 3 days.

I couldn't even walk in there anymore, I had to look around to find the source, and I was the ONLY one that cared to take the initiative in that place.

What did my nose find?

A giant moldy poofball of a mouse hanging out of a mousetrap beside the fridge.

My nose has been inhaling dead mousie particles for days. I had dead mouse in my nose. And mold.

I exclaimed my discovery to the office only to cause warnings of projectile vomitting from my fellow workers that had been attempting to eat breakfast.

The PM rolled her eyes and muttered something smart ass about my discovery to her drunken employee f--- friend. She wandered in there and had to glumly agree that it WAS as bad as I claimed and she closed the door and put a note on it for the cleaning man to "clean up his pet".

I have to say, it smells much better--in comparison anyway.

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Richard was called out to Texas a couple days ago...Thursday night we went to ****'s to find him some work boots so he wouldn't have to hike in his line boots all day (line boots are for climbing power poles, they are mostly metal inside and hurt like hell after a days work). Nobody had his size in any boots that would have been of comfort so unfortunately he is in line boots out there right now.

He has been praying for storm leave all year, it's basically overtime pay from the time you wake up til the time you go to bed everyday. He brought the 4 wheeler with him too, because they pay an extra few dollars an hour to have 4 wheelers on the sites. He thinks he may be gone for a couple weeks (took 2 and a half days just to get there at 60mph in the convoy) but now it's looking more like  a month. It's almost like Katrina all over again, but hopefully not as bad. At least he's had a few raises since Katrina, so we should definately get the credit cards paid off this time. $42 an hour for 16 hours a day adds up fast, and even faster for uncle Sam unfortunately. We'll never see half that paycheck.

I hate being here by myself. The kitties are only so much company. I find myself having conversations with them and realize I've spoken far more to them than the people at work that day. Am I a crazy cat lady or just a typical postal worker?

Richard's sister works at the PO with me, and her husband works with Richard so he's gone too...She is also going on a cruise (with the PM) in two weeks without her husband, so not sure who will have to babysit those kids for 10 days without her husband home to take care of them. Long week for the grandparents (grandmother works at PO too, lol).

As long as Richard is home by October 20th for our cruise, I'll be happy. And I'm sure he is going to really welcome this vacation with open arms!

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The kitchen is a mess. We ripped out the old kitchen and boarded it up so the kitties can't get in there (its awful), so now with the plywood sheets walling up the old room, the house feels REALLY small.

All I have to do to my new kitchen is finish painting the trim, seal the grout on the floor, and put in knobs---I may leave the knob drilling to Richard, I don't trust myself to drill a straight hole through my expensive cabinets.

But it's fully functional now :)

I'll take more pics as soon as it isn't cluttered with tools and boxes.

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Well, I'm going to go read Twilight now :)

I don't even know where to BEGIN with this...

Growing up in Eastern NC, I've seen my share of hurricanes! By now we can all pretty much tell what's going to be a catastrophe, what we should stay indoors for, and what is simply going to be nothing but a few hour wind/rain storm.

I don't know if I am just forgetful or if things have gotten a little out of hand, but I don't recall the entire city ever having such an EXTREME reaction over something like this.

Has the world gone hurricane-crazy? Everyone is on the end-of-the-world bandwagon with this crap.

This is Hanna right now:

We had a little rain this morning, a beautiful breeze on a sunny afternoon...yet the entire county decides to shut down all the schools and daycares so MOST OF US that still have to WORK have nowhere to send their children (I don't have kids of course, but it was hell for a lot of moms who did today). It is 6:30 PM and it's BEAUTIFUL outside.

There is a city curfew of 7:00PM that I just cannot understand. Why not 10:00, at LEAST.

We went shopping at Bed Bath & Beyond for things to put in our kitchen this weekend and they weren't closing until 6:00PM for the storm.

I went to Food Lion at 5:00PM people, and they were ALREADY BOARDED SHUT.

A place that people HAVE to go, a place above all others that needs to stay open til the LAST MINUTE is CLOSED.

I was so mad, I hauled tail a mile down to the Piggly Wiggly. Now folks, I HATE Piggly Wiggly. Mostly because there has NEVER been more than 5 cars in that parking lot at one time. Everything is DUSTY, and about 10% more expensive than Food Lion. There isn't enough turn over on the food in that place, yuck.

When I get there, there isn't a single parking spot left! I thought the roads had looked empty, but damn, it's because the whold city had congregated at the Pig.

Instead of the normal ONE lane and ONE employee visible in that place, EVERY lane was open with about 20 cashiers and baggers. I'm willing to bet they all met for the first time tonight, because they sure as hell have never been seen working more than one at a time in that place.

I only needed a few things to get me through the weekend, only because I've had a busy and overly procrastinated week so stupidly waited til the last minute. After seeing the madhouse, I decided to get the basics: My wine, milk, juice, and Richie's Pepto Bismol. Cost me $25! Would have cost $20 at Food Lion, AND I would have gotten a free milk ticket, grrr...

Anyway, my main intent was a loaf of bread with lunchmeat, but lunchmeat was too expensive there, and the bread aisle.....oh, the bread aisle....

You'd have thought we were getting a typhoon the size of Australia.

You'd have thought we were going to be sealed into our homes for 3 months.

Evidently that's what EVERYONE thinks, because there wasn't a SINGLE loaf of bread left. Not a muffin, not a bagel, not a moldy bag of raisin loaf in the dusty back corner, not a DAMN thing left.

Here it is, 6:40PM. I've got a book a million pages long to read over the weekend thanks to Joanie, a bottle of wine, and a kitchen to finish. It's still sunny and beautiful outside, and I will more than likely sleep through the wind and rain. And if it lasts til tomorrow, well dang it, thank goodness it's my day off and I don't have to work in it, because I got wet enough delivering mail in the first bands of the storm this morning.

 If this doesn't break my new sub in, I don't know what will. She better not get too mad and forget who's going to have to work through Ike (ME). THAT is the one I would take seriously. Not Hanna.

I'm losing interesting blog title motivation...

Wanted to give you guys a funny site to check out  that keeps me up way past my bedtime stiffling laughter...(Beth you'll love this site I think).

www.zug.com

Holiday mail was BAD yesterday...Had 16 feet of DPS 6 feet of flats but thankfully only 24 parcels...today though, was HEAVEN. ONE TRAY of DPS! I was done with my day today at 11:15...heck, I didn't get on the road til 11:45 yesterday! lol