What started as a collection of rants and raving while suffering the mind-numbing cold of the Upper Mississippi Valley has now become observations of assimilating to the State of Alabama.
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Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Payday Poverty- And Mom Has A CT Scan....6-24

Ok- Monday was payday. Monday, thank God, was when the overdraft fees would quit accumulating.

Wed was when I finally sat down and did a bit of math and figured out that the car payment was going to be late this month and the only two bills that were going to see any money was my Visa and Kohls charge.

Those two are the two on the top of my list to get paid off ASAP. The car people will forgive me I hope as that payment will be off to them shortly after the 1st of the month, along with my rent, and other utilities effectively rendering me broke for another two weeks when the cycle starts itself all over again, and the next X-cel energy bill isn't going to be as nice as the last two due to the fact that for the last two days Wisconsin decided to have a crisis of identity and produce temperatures more in line with Memphis TN in July and August instead of a pleasant, sunny, 80 degree day with moderate (read below 50 percent) humidity.

No, we get the upper 80 low 90 degree with high humidity. Which means that the window air conditioner must be turned on if I expect to be able to sleep. Remember, I live in a tin box- not a house. So much for a respite from my housing needs causing my checking account to hemorrhage any cash available.

Wed the 24 completely sucked on numerous levels. One week before- Mom found out she had breast cancer. So today- I spent most of the morning with her at the clinic getting more pictures taken of her innards in an effort to provide her Dr with as much information as possible to better diagnose, and create a plan of attack to destroy those malcontent, and possibly malignant cells.

And while my mother is doing her damnedest to keep a stiff upper lip about all of this- I know just by seeing how cranky she is- that she is scared. So having accomplished the medical appointments followed by a restorative cocktail- I returned home to hopefully get some rest, which didn't happen because I realized that if I went to sleep then, I would be waking up in the wee hours of the morning and my next two days would be just as screwed up as today. So I put the tooth picks under my eyelids and muddled through the day accomplishing little other than sending off the above mentioned payments to creditors.

Add to all of this an on again off again boyfriend who steadfastly refuses to communicate anything without turning it into some kind of guilt trip, one hour of sleep, and you get the picture. I'm not a happy camper.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

My Past Comes Back to Haunt Me- UPDATE


Sorry this took so long to post- but many thanks to you Beth for your amazing memory :)

HI,
Ever since reading the blog post I've been meaning to send you the story behind the "Hiss" name. Here 'tis, in all its grammar-school scatalogical silliness:
On a field trip to the Memphis Zoo in 1973 or thereabouts, our class stopped in the gift shop. (Funny how I hadn't even KNOWN there was a gift shop before that . . . clever Mom!) There I spotted a ceramic piece that was a pot (ashtray, perhaps?) with a snake coiled around it and the words "Remember when you didn't have a pot to hiss into?" I didn't know it was an allusion to the old saw about "we were so poor we didn't have a pot to piss into", but I sensed it was slightly risque (in a 3rd-grade sort of way) and therefore it held immense appeal to me. You saw the objet d'art too, and that is how the Hiss Club came to be. The piece was probably a few dollars, certainly out of my 3rd-grade price range, and I really didn't care for snakes anyway. I ended up buying a zoo coloring book instead.
I don't believe this is the exact item, but the snake and message are the same.
. . . and there you have it, the HISStory revealed.
Your old pal,
Beth