A1A South

I had just gotten home from grocery shopping and hadn’t put the groceries away yet when SwampMan walked through the door. “Hey, since it’s payday, would you like to go out to eat instead of cooking tonight?” Well, actually, I had planned to throw some chicken thighs on the grill while I mowed the grass, but my arm could be twisted. Real easily. Like by a suggestion. I might have beat him to the truck.

The grass really needs mowing, though. I’m talking about having to cut a path to the driveway with a machete in a couple more days. I felt a tiny bit guilty about leaving the house in SUCH a mess (open house last night, then a couple hours spent shoveling out a chickenhouse, dishes all over the counter, undone, and ironing left on the ironing board). Mud on the porch. Puppy had gotten into the trashcan (again) and scattered cans all over the yard. My guilt was short lived, though. Who would come over on a weeknight when I’m running my ass off trying to get dinner for us and the livestock fed, and whatever few household chores I have time for before bed? *sigh* Church friends, that’s who. Two different groups.

We belong to a rather conservative religion where the wife is supposed to stay home and be the heart of the home, and the man provides. Well. I don’t like having to ask for stuff. Okay, maybe I demand, but I hate to ask for money, although husband says it’s “ours”. I feel like it is “his”. Anyway, when people walk in and he’s sitting around with the remote in his hand while I’m out hauling buckets around the pasture with the house a complete mess, whose fault is it? Yup. Mine.

I suppose I was rude because I took ’em to the house and let ’em talk to husband while I went back outside and continued with my feeding. I didn’t mean to be. I have about two hours of chores with the livestock/pets per night, and I keep forgetting to get a new flashlight to replace the ones that 3-year-old grandson dismantled and “rebuilt” for me. It would really ruin my evening to step on a water moccasin or eastern diamondback rattler that was unseen in the dusk.

I talked to son over the weekend. He and his girlfriend have gone their separate ways over financial issues, and he used up most of his paycheck on child support for granddaughter, who lives with former DIL and her husband and kids, and getting his electricity at his old place turned on. Just when he thought things couldn’t get much worse, the pump to his well went out and then, when he was going to go to the hardware store for parts, he found out that his tire was flat. He hooked up his air compressor to air up the tire, but found it didn’t work anymore. He called us, but we weren’t home. He called a buddy to come over with an air tank so that his tire could get patched and aired up. While he was waiting for his buddy, he started to mow the grass, and the lawnmower quit. By the time his buddy got there, the local hardware store was closed. He was debating whether to spend $50 on gas to go see if Home Depot had anything he could repair it with, but then his truck A/C compressor started making a racket. I got home about this time and returned his call. He started out telling me about the truck with the bearings going out on the A/C compressor and how if it goes out before getting another check, he’s screwed, because everything runs off that belt. He’s going to take our agricultural pump out at the barn and hook it up at his place until he gets his fixed. Hunh. Guess we better figure on getting another pump! I helpfully suggested a hand pump, but he wasn’t goin’ for it.

I understand his frustration completely. My van A/C isn’t working, and it’s hotter than hell driving back and forth to work. Early this morning, the house A/C started making a racket, so I had to shut IT off. During a heavy downpour this weekend, I discovered that the roof was leaking right where SwampMan and I were going to reshingle this summer, except he had the surgery, and we couldn’t. We thought the shingles could last until winter. We thought wrong. It could always be worse, so I’m going to shut up right now before lightning knocks out all the appliances. Again.

SwampMan just called, and he wants me* to turn on the heat pump and go outside and check out what the hell is the matter with it. Say WHAT? ME? Okay, then. If I knew what was wrong with the damn thing, I wouldn’t have shut it down in the first place! My uneducated guess would be that we’ve kept it going LONG after the time it was supposed to be decorating a landfill, and the bucket has done been kicked.

*I do okay with preindustrial machinery and simple tools, not so much things that are electrical in nature. Examples of Things to Trust Swampie With: Hammer. Nails. Livestock. Paint. Examples of Things NOT to Trust Swampie With: Nail guns. Bulldozers. Internal Combustion Engines. Paint Sprayers.

Per First Coast News:

Today, a Board of Inquiry made up of three Navy admirals voted 3-0 that she should be separated from service; have her service characterized as “other than honorable;” and be downgraded from her current rank of an officer 06 (CAPT) to an officer 05 (CDR), which affects her paygrade and pension.

There wasn’t really any question in my mind that they would allow her to continue after the attempted kidnapping and assault, particularly when she may have had murder in mind for her romantic rival.

Read the rest of the story here.

Dunno ’bout how the rest of y’all fared rain wise, but we gotta helluva downpour here. The rain finally slowed to the occasional raindrop by 11 p.m., so I went outside to feed the dogs and cats by the dim light of a faulty flashlight. The mare showed up at the fence nickering for her feed, so off to the horsefeed bin. I walked over on the concrete apron, splashing through a couple inches of water, stepped through the gate, and the water level was above the tops of my shoes on the concrete apron on the other side of the fence. Eeeeeeeew. While jumping around in wet shoes, I noted the ducks swimming where I had thought to walk across. Hunh. Too bad they didn’t swim up before I stepped into the deep water! No wonder the sheep weren’t out begging. They, being sensible, will stay in their nice, dry barn and beg tomorrow morning.

I found a dryish place to feed the mare because I didn’t want to wade through the water out at the barn, and I’ll get the sheep and chickens fed tomorrow morning when the water will have subsided.

Helluva thunderstorm goin’ on outside. I haven’t been able to unload the feed or carry feed out to the livestock. Once the lightning dies down, I reckon I’ll go outside and get wet.

Well, hell. It’s an hour later, the lightning is still hittin’ fast and furious, and it sounded like a tree on the property done bit the dust mud.

I spent a summer in the cab of a big rig a few years back. Here’s to the truckers of the world gettin’ stuff where it’s needed when it’s needed. I still remember all the words to this song, too.

I’m worried about the future for relatives that are borrowing money for a degree that will only worsen their financial situation when they graduate and certainly won’t guarantee a job. I’m worried about whether my mother, stepdad, and in-laws will have access to health care. I’m worried about so many long-term jobless in my community. I’m worried about former DIL with three children of her own who supplemented the family income by babysitting another three kids because her husband, an electrician, is unemployed. The (divorced) mother of three that she babysits for has now lost her job. My son, who pays child support for former DIL’s oldest child, is having problems of his own.

The economy just slowly continues to get worse. Just when we think that we have gotten sorta used to the discomfort, it tightens up some more so that we have to figure out something else to do without.

I don’t think the politicians even begin to understand what we, the people, are going through. When is the last time you saw a politician doing something like, say, cutting back on vacation time because they couldn’t afford the gas to drive across the state? When is the last time that you saw a politician decide that Motel 6 was too expensive? How ’bout those Obama vacations, huh?

If the Federal government were wiped out in a terrorist attack, would that be a bad thing for the country?