Clothing Drive For Leann

There is a girl amongst us that desperately needs our help. Her name is Leann Rimes.

At one time, she appeared to have it all. She was happily married and had the voice of an angel. But something happened. She found someone new and left her husband. She hasn't been the same since.

Apparently, she's fallen on hard times. She looks like she could use a footlong Subway sammich (or three) and some clothes.

Leann.....Grocery Shopping

Apparently, she didn't get to eat!

Her poor husband is trying to hide her butt from view

Nothing to wear....or eat!

If you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding!

How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat????

Like my carry on? It's a Baggie!

Does This Make My Butt Look Big?

What About This One?

Or This One?

Oh Look! Another Husband to Steal! Get his number!!

Hey Kid!!!! Wanna see my butt?

Honey.....can I buy some clothes? And something to eat?

Star Rays

My dad has a subscription to his hometown paper, The Star.

The news section is rather dull. Usually the front page is some local politician proclaiming that support of the new proposed landfill will bring jobs and prosperity to the county. Another story may cover the residents living near the proposed landfill taking over a town hall meeting to tell that local politician that he's full of horse hooey along with suggestions as to where he can relocate his landfill. (Unfortunately, "UP YOURS!" apparently isn't listed on the county map.)

If it's a particularly slow news week, a reporter may venture out to the countryside to snap a picture of a local farmer who has grown squash that is the spitting image of UGA's beloved mascot, UGA VII.

I have two favorite sections, the first of which is called "Remember When."  They reprint articles that originally appeared in the paper 25, 50, and 75 years ago.

I scan it for two reasons. One is to see if I recognize the names of any family members. The other is for the humor and the oddities.  I know a visit to Athens, GA was a big deal 75 years ago, but nowadays if you called the Star to tell then you were getting in the car to go visit your sister in Athens, GA for a week the response would be "And?"

Which beings us to "Star Rays".

Star Rays operates on a simple premise. If you travel to some exotic locale, take along a copy of The Star. Find a recognizable landmark, then have someone take a picture of you at that landmark holding a copy of The Star. Send it in to the paper and they will publish it.

They've printed pictures of people holding copies of The Star in front of Stonehenge, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Sydney Opera House in Australia. They've also printed pictures of people holding The Star on the Vegas Strip, The Grand Canyon, Peggy's Cove, and Bug Sur.

But I have to laugh at the people who send in pictures of themselves holding copies of the paper at such locations as Bobby Brown State Park (a whole 10 minutes away), The Anderson Mall (30 minute drive), The Georgia Guidestones (sorry, but since the Guidestones are in the county, it shouldn't count!)....you get the picture.

Part of me is willing to excuse it to two factors. With unemployment and the price of gas a lot of people are vacationing closer to home or doing "stay cations" and visiting local attractions. And I'll have to admit that it's kind of exciting for kids to see their pictures in the paper.

But part of me is willing to bet it's done on a dare just to see if the picture will get printed.

"Hey Earl, let's head over to Hartwell and have our picture made in front of the new Hardee's with a copy of The Star and mail it in."

"Naw....that's too far. You know RaceTrac is doing their Sodapalooza now. You can get a 32oz coke for 49 cents. Let's go grab a coke and have our picture made there!"

I will guarantee you that unless someone has sent in a picture of themselves in front of a European landmark, an entrance to a US National Park, or from a cruise in the Caribbean, two teens guzzling frozen cokes in front of the local RaceTrac will eventually be printed in The Star.

The Most Useful Walton

The other day, one of the cable channels was running a marathon of "The Waltons."  It was one of my favorite shows growing up.

After a while, though all that fawning and preening of the magnificence known as John-Boy caused my brothers and I to just want to give him a good smack up side the head sometime.

I, personally, just don't "get" why everyone thought John-Boy was so special. 

The family scraped and saved every nickel they could for John Boy's education and what did he do?  Write three novels that hardly anyone bought and he was dropped from his publisher.  When he returned to Walton's Mountain after the war, he had to go back to Boatright University and take a job as a professor because, as his publisher stated, there was already a glut of wartime novels on the market...who needs another.

Jason got a music scholarship...what did he do with it? Well, he had the opportunity to appear on The Grand Ole Opry, but some sort of family crisis prevented him from accepting it.  After the war, he bought the Dew Drop Inn so he could contribute to the delinquency of Walton's Mountain by selling liquor and playing the piano every night.  Yeah, that was scholarship money well-spent.

That brings us to Mary Ellen.  Mary Ellen sashayed up to nursing school thinking that they were just going to fall all over her wonderfulness and she'd walk out the door the next week and be a nurse. 

Well, they sure put her in her place in a New York minute.  The minute she started taking the admittance test, she discovered (horror of horrors!!!!) it contained questions about CHEMISTRY....and ALGEBRA!!!!!  (the nerve!)   

She hadn't taken those courses in high school and had absolutely no idea they would be on the entrance test.  I'll throw her a bone and allow that it is entirely possible that those courses were not offered back when she was in high school, but before she even registered for the test you would have thought she'd have the sense that God gave a billy goat to do a little research. 

I mean she knew she was going to be a nurse before she even got out of high school.  How about asking John Boy to take her to the school one day so she could talk to someone at the school? How about sitting down with that traveling nurse on Walton's Mountain and say, "Uhhh....I know you can't tell me the exact questions that are on the entrance test, but can you tell me exactly what TYPES of questions are on that test?  Do you have any books I can borrow?  Can I follow you around for a week or so on my summer vacation to see what you do and if this is really something I want to do?"

And then, as soon as she's admitted to nursing school she dang near KILLS grandma! "Oh Grandma...you just have that virus that goin' around.  Go to bed, drink plenty of fluids, yada yada yada."  Turns out Grandma had appendicitis and they managed to get her to the hospital right before it burst.  Way to go Mary Ellen.

Ben and Erin at least had a little bit of sense.  Ben could wheel and deal to get what he wanted, but he really could be an a$$hole when he wanted.  Erin took a couple of typing and shorthand courses and got a job as a secretary at JD Pickett's plant.  To hear her tell it, she ran the plant. 

When you really think about it, Jim-Bob was the most useful and likeable of the bunch.

Who built a short-wave radio that was able to communicate all the way to London during the blitz and find the mother of the two orphans right at Christmas? Jim-Bob.

Who built an ENTIRE car from pieces of scrap he found around Walton's Mountain? Jim-Bob.

And when John-Boy returned from the war, returned to Boatright, and was going to start up their television department, who went home and started building a television so the rest of the family could see John-Boy on TV? That would be.....(drum roll, please) Jim-Bob.

If you were having trouble with your washing machine and needed help with a repair, you'd have to wait on John-Boy to whip out his Big Chief writing pad and write about the whippoorwills singing in the pines, the aroma of the honeysuckle vines after a summer rain, and the laughter of the children as they walked home from school. Jason would have to find his harmonica first and Ben would want to know what was in it for him.

Jim-Bob would have simply walked to the junkyard and found a stove pipe, some old garden hoses, and an old war surplus filing cabinet and built a brand new washing machine.

Jim-Bob.....the McGyver of the Depression.

The Lemonade Stand

I was driving around town this afternoon, and for whatever reason this childhood memory popped into my head and I just started laughing.

Here's what happened. 

It was around 1970; I was probably about ten years old at the time and my friend (let's call him Ted) from down the street was about eight.  We were bored and with nothing to do we came up with the bright idea to have a lemonade stand.

Since it was already about 1 o'clock, we didn't really have time to build an actual stand.  So, we "borrowed" my dad's chaise lounge, flipped it over sideways into an L-shape, stuck a scrap piece of plywood across the top and TA-DAH!!!! instant lemonade stand.

Ted "borrowed" the mini Dixie cup dispenser from his parent's bathroom, a package lemon flavored Kool-ade from the cupboard, and his mom's finest Tupperware pitcher, while I "borrowed" a fresh lemon from our refrigerator.  We mixed up our lemonade using the water hose and waited for our first customer.

We waited....and waited....and waited.  Finally, one of the girls from across the street rode past us on her bike and asked for a cup of lemonade.  We asked for our dime up front.  She said we could get it from her mom.  (Let's just say we knew our customer base and knew better than to extend credit to this customer....and her mom.)  Needless to say, we lost that customer.

Long about 3 o'clock, we were about to give up and drink the lemonade ourselves.  We had not sold the first cup.  As we started gathering things together, Ted noticed that the paper lady was coming down the street delivering the afternoon paper.

Ted told me to stay put while he ran towards the street.  As Sandra the paper lady shoved the afternoon paper into the neighbor's mailbox, Ted laid down IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD, so Sandra could not pass.

Since this was in the 70's in a subdivision, the only "traffic" our street had was at 6am in the mornings when our dads left for work, the mailman at noon, the paper lady at 3pm, and at 5pm when our dads came home. 

So even though Ted laying down in the middle of the street TODAY would warrant a call to DFACS, back then it meant a good butt-whoopin' if his mom found out. 

As luck would have it, she just happened to be looking at the window at that time and our lemonade stand went out of business at that exact moment.

However, since Ted managed to stop Sandra, she decided to buy a glass of lemonade.  She forked over 40 cents (her three hellions were with her) and we poured the lemonade.  When she saw the size of the mini Dixie cups, she insisted that for the price she was paying she and her hellions were entitled to three refills each.  

We were kind of pissed, but being ten years old and eight years old and she was an adult we didn't have much of a say in the matter.

Factor in the fact that Ted's mom had since discovered her mini Dixie cup dispenser was missing from the bathroom, along with the pilfered Kool-ade and the fact that her best Tupperware pitcher was being manhandled by the paper lady and her rowdy brood, let's just say she was not very happy with us, either.

Ted got his butt-whoopin' and I got sent home....and that was the last time we ever decided to have a lemonade stand.

Free At Last!!!!

I had the most amazing experience today!  First, a little background.

If you read the two posts prior to this one, you can see that I was a little bitter and angry.  Scratch that....A LOT bitter and angry....and with good reason, as far as I was concerned. 

And after I wrote those two posts, I swore that that would be the end of it and I would return to a somewhat normal blog.  But it wasn't meant to be because I just could not let go of this anger.

I really wanted to tell the complete story of exactly what had happened to me over the last year, warts and all.   I wanted to name names and write about each and every one of the four characters involved along with what I thought of them and my fervent hope for their respective futures.

The problem was that this is a public blog and I did not want to risk the chance of them or a former coworker stumbling on what I wrote...especially since I REALLY wanted to name names.  I wasn't worried about their feelings so much (because they sure as hell didn't worry about mine!); I was more worried about a potential lawsuit.

So I took a break from blogging with the thought that time would heal all wounds.  But every time I returned to this blog, I could feel that anger welling up and the temptation to post something nasty. 


Someone suggested I just write everything down, read it aloud, and then burn the paper.  I had no problem with writing it down or reading it aloud...the problem was with burning the paper. 

I know burning the paper is part of the "letting go" process, and I really did want to let go.  But I wanted the people involved to be held accountable.  If I burned the paper, no one would know and the parties involved would not be accountable, if that makes any sense.

I wanted a way for SOMEONE in this world to know EXACTLY what transpired from July 11, 2011 through October 30, 2011.  I wanted a way for SOMEONE in this world to know EXACTLY what was said to me and by WHOM.  I wanted a way for SOMEONE in this world to know EXACTLY what kind of hell I was put through.  And finally, I wanted a way for SOMEONE in this world to know EXACTLY what I thought of EACH and EVERY PERSON involved. 

I wanted to name names and I wanted to post the truth.  Not management's sanitized version ("it was a mutual decision", "it was her decision", "we're not at liberty to discuss", etc.)  I mean, if the truth WERE to come out, it would look really bad if the current employees found out how the company that supposedly cares SO MUCH about a certain charity treated an employee that had that particular disease. 

But after thinking about it, I quickly realized that the only people in that company that actually give a damn about that charity are the ones that actually put together the fundraisers and participate in the charity, itself. 

I mean, let's be real.  It's easy to write a check or donate a big ticket item to a silent auction.  That's participating, right?  Sure!  But spending an hour or two walking around a track with (gasp!) employees?  Actually organizing a fundraiser?  Putting together goody bags to sell at the event?  On personal time?  Hell...the golf course beckons!  Just write a damn check and be done with it.  So much easier....plus it's a tax write off, it gets the organizers off your ass, and it makes management look good.

So....back to my original problem....how to get rid of all of this anger once and for all?

Here's what I did!!!!!

I wrote the story down, read it aloud, sealed it in a bottle, and tossed it in the ocean.  Then I wrote individual letters to the four people involved, read them all aloud, sealed them in four individual bottles, and tossed them in the ocean, as well.

Where they wind up, who knows?  Who cares?  Not me! I don't give a damn and quite honestly I really don't give a damn if I see the four people involved ever again.

Yes...I named names and I told it ALL.  After tossing the last bottle in, I felt SO WONDERFUL!!!  All of that anger was gone!!!  I really can't describe the joy that I felt.

For all I know, those bottles may never be found or read.  If they are, I offer a sincere apology about all of the profanity.... but it's one of those "you had to be there and experience it" instances. 

But I just feel at peace knowing that those bottles are out there, somewhere, and that someone may someday come across one of them and read my story....or find out exactly how I feel about a certain person...or four.

If I'm lucky, the finder will look the names up on the internet and wonder which one of the numerous names that pops up for each is the offender.

Don't know....don't care....because I had the last word!!!!!

Vengeance is mine...indeed!

Just some rambling thoughts......

If YOU have to wonder if the YOU mentioned below is YOU, Dear Reader, then I'll just leave it to YOU to wonder.

Just so that we understand each other, I'm not wishing my misfortune on anyone.

HOWEVER, I do believe what goes around, comes around.

YOU all have significant others. Most of YOU have children. If someone had put them through what I was put through, I have no doubt YOU would be angry. I'm going to stop there.

I would like to offer YOU a hearty congratulations.

I've never felt the need to have a personal "sh*t list" before....until now. I'll let YOU decide if you think YOUR NAME made my list. So much for that!

I've learned a lot this past year and I'd like to share the knowledge with anyone that happens to stumble across this blog.

1. Put away as much money as possible in a rainy day account. Tax refunds, rebates, bonuses, raises, etc. should all be squirreled away. Thankfully, this has been something that has become second nature to me.
2. If your employer ever says "Don't worry about your job", that's when you need to start worrying. Don't count on the FMLA to be your safety net. It was written to protect the employer, not the employee.
3. If your employer says your job will be there when you return, get the specifics in writing. Make sure the job title, job specifications, and pay are specified and have your supervisor, human resources, and a company officer sign it and have it notarized.
4. If you have to go on a medical leave (short term or long term) get copies of all of your performance evaluations prior to leaving. If you've never been reviewed, request one. Also, print out all emails thanking you for help on projects.
5. While you are out on leave, take the opportunity to update and fine tune your resume...just in case.

Now....when you return to work:

1. Continue to print and keep any emails you received from coworkers thanking you for your help. If you have never received a performance evaluation, you may need these emails for future reference.
2. Document, document, document. Document what time you came to work, what time you went to lunch, if you went to lunch, what time you went home, as well as if you took work home.
3. If a coworker ever says "Don't worry....they are NOT going to fire you, not after what you've been through", I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but yes, they can and yes, they will. Oh they are definitely not stupid enough to say that they are firing you because of your illness, but they have other devices at their disposal. "Not performing up to expectations" (hence the need for getting copies of your previous performance evaluations) is vague enough to allow leeway without legal reprisal. It's also why you need to make sure to follow #4 from the first list and #1 from this list to counterattack.
4. Invest in a small voice recorder. If you are having memory retention issues (and even if you are NOT having memory retention issues) tell your employer that you need it to make sure that you understand project requirements. Begin using it to record ALL meetings where your projects, your work performance, etc., is discussed. Google "FMLA ADA reasonable accomodation" for additional information. A tape recorder can be considered a reasonable accomodation...AND can serve as a witness should the need ever arise.
5. Unfortunately, The XYZ Company is NOT a family; it's a company. That sort of thinking (the company is a family) died in the late eighties and early nineties. Business is business; people are expendable. Think your job is safe? Think again. You, as the employee, are an expense. Management loves to decrease expenses.