Life Is Such A Sweet Insanity.

I took a moment today to write a letter to the mayor. The city has spent $40,000 to put up 52 new “wayfinding” signs for tourists. The signs guide visitors to attractions such as the zoo, the train station and the local brewery. While I find these signs to be a good thing for the area, I’m rather dismayed at how they’re being installed. I don’t like the fact that in some spots they’re installing them in the middle of the sidewalk. Not only does this create a hazard for pedestrians, but it also makes it so wheelchairs can’t pass the sign without dropping off the curb, wheeling down the street (and risk getting hit) and then struggling to get back up on the curb again. To make matters worse, the breakaway mounts on the sign posts are installed too high, which could be an increased hazard to any vehicle that happens to run into them.

Now I didn’t bring up the fact that the signs come nowhere near the national established standards that are enforced by the state, nor did I mention the fact that 52 signs for $40,000 seems a bit steep. As a student of civil engineering I chalk that up to a learning experience and I figure I’ll deal with similar scenarios once I’m working for a highway department, but to me it just doesn’t make sense to block a sidewalk for these signs. They should have been installed on a light post.

If that’s not enough to complain about, I’ve also written on the local paper message board my dismay that the county has spent $5.4 million dollars since 2004 renovating ONE court room at the local courthouse. That’s right, $5.4 million dollars on renovating one room, including the custom carpets handpicked by the judge.

And we wonder why at 9.25% we have the highest sales tax rate in the state. They say it’s to pay for welfare (don’t get me started) but we now know it’s just for pretty rugs.

And last, but not least, I’ve had it up to here (imagine waving hand) with the Bible beaters and their obsession with homosexuality. Why are they so obsessed with gay men and lesbians? Trust me, we are not going to move in on some place like Big Oak, Arkansas and take over the town. We don’t know where you are, we don’t care who you are and we quite honestly we don’t mind if you get off on sleeping with your cousin/brother/sister/mother/father. Frankly, it’s none of our business and we wish that you bid us the same honor.

I’m just saying.

The highlight of the week for many suburban based men is when the lawn is over 1/8 of an inch too long so that they get to ride their lawn mower. I am not to be counted among these men, for I mow the lawn on two conditions: 1. Someone is coming over for a party or 2. we can make a mint baling it and selling it to a local farm.

I’m not a big fan of mowing the lawn. Back at the old house it took three to four hours of riding the lawn mower, pushing the push mower and whacking weeds to get the lawn in decent shape. At this house I have it easy, I can get it all done is just over an hour if I keep the lawn mower set to “burn rubber” and “burn the lawn”.

As I’m riding the lawn mower round and round and round in circles, several random thoughts cross my mind. Since I had the joyous task of greenery grooming this evening, I thought I’d make a little laundry list of what I was thinking and share it on the blog. This might give the reader an insight to the chaotic thoughts that zing back and forth in my head.

1. Whatever happened to Jayne Kennedy? Last I knew she played a bad guy on an episode of Wonder Woman back in 1977. Didn’t she used to be a sports broadcaster? Did she fall overboard when she was on The Love Boat? Where is she?

2. Is it wrong of me to think that Lauren Tewes was cute? Is she still cute?

3. (hum along) “We did the bump bump bump, yes we did, yes we did, yes we diiiiiiiiid, yeah, everybody’s got the boogie fever.”

4. Why does Jimbo shave off his fierce beard from time to time? Why did I screw up my mustache? Will it grow back? Why do obsess about this?

5. Where is it written that I have people have to mow their lawn? Wouldn’t it be more economically friendly to get a goat?

6. Have any of these people that drive Hummers ever chased a bull that’s broken loose at 11:00 p.m. at night? Can they tell the difference between a bull and a cow?

7. Is it unusual that I grew up playing in a lawn that was surrounded on three sides by an electric fence?

8. What does Tom think when he’s looking out the patio door and his tail twitches?

9. Do I reveal too much in the blog? Too little?

10. Why wasn’t Mary Wickes ever invited to be on Bewitched? She would have been fabulous.

11. (hum along) “Let the time flow, let the love grow, let the rain shower, let the rose flower, love it seeks, love it finds, love it conquers, love it binds…”. Robert Hays was friggin’ hot back in his day.

12. Was I just singing out loud? Can the neighbors hear me? Did I just run over a rock?

Such fun times on the lawn mower. After all these thoughts flew around a bit I decided to just yell “giddy-up” and enjoy the ride.

I had the most bizarre dream last night. For some odd reason I was selected to be the gay male co-host on the next season of “The View”. There I was, sitting around the table with Joy, Barbara and Elisabeth with an “S” sharing my opinion on just about any topic. Barbara Walters looked older (maybe it was a nightmare) and Elisabeth with an “S” was shrieking like a yapping dog. After some political discussion and more barking from Elisabeth with an “S”, Joy brought up the topic of breast enhancements on women and how she believed that some women got them because their boyfriend or husband liked bigger breasts. These women didn’t want bigger breasts but they were basically being forced to get them. There was a picture of a woman with huge breasts up on the big screen. I remember spouting off my opinion and saying that I don’t get it as you don’t see many gay men injecting their junk with silicone to make themselves bigger and more attractive, why should women have to do the same thing with their breasts just to make their man happy. If they _want_ bigger breasts, well more power to them, but they shouldn’t _have_ to get them. I remember Barbara’s head falling down onto the table when I said “junk”. The audience went wild (good thing I didn’t say ‘dick’). Then I woke up because I suddenly had a paw in my eye (someone was telling me it was time for tuna).

This is a bizarre dream on several accounts. First of all, I never notice breasts. No offense to those that have them but they don’t do a thing for me so why look for them. In fact, I think this may have been the first time in 39 years that I’ve ever dreamed of breasts. Secondly, Earl and I haven’t watched The View since the second day after Rosie’s abrupt departure and we really have no interest in watching it again. I have no desire to be on The View. I don’t even want to sit in the audience.

Maybe I just have a big mouth.

There are many uncertainties when a person joins a workgroup environment. Will the person in the cube next to me use their perfume as a marinade? Does anyone count the number of trips that I make to the bathroom? Will I get hollered at for standing on my chair to talk to the person in the next cube over? Luckily, my fears have gone unfounded on these questions unless the NSA is keeping track of me pee breaks or something.

The chief concern of our workgroup boils down to two simple words. Temperature control. I discovered early on that he who holds the rights to the thermostat essentially holds the secrets to the universe.

Working in a fancy place called the “Network Operations Center”, we have a LOT of computer equipment and related electronic devices scattered all over the place. To maintain optimum efficiency, it’s important that they run at their proper temperature, so the room has to be relatively cool to achieve this. Being a diehard geek I totally get this and understand it and so I know how to deal with it. I do have metabolism on my side, however, as my body temperature is always unusually low, hovering around 95 or so degrees Fahrenheit. I’m hardly ever cold. Except when I’m at work. At work, I freeze to death.

The room is actually a bunch of smaller rooms with all the walls knocked down and then subsequently divided up by having cubicles thrown all over the place. Our supervisor sits in the middle of the chaos and closest to the thermostat. He holds the secrets to the universe. Having to deal with the headaches associated with his job and other fun scenarios, it’s understandable that his blood pressure boils and makes him warm. So he cools the place down by spinning the dial down. This results in a couple of things. The co-worker behind me starts chattering her teeth like Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin to arrive. The co-worker next to me wraps up in a shawl, sometimes so tightly that she looks like she’s mourning the death of something. Apparently I’m cold blooded because I go into hibernation mode where my eyes glaze over, my web browser browses aimlessly and I eat little scraps of food. I then announce that I’m coming back from lunch with a parka, complete with hood. To add to the fun, I bark over the intercom for someone to pick up a can of Alpo for the sled dogs.

It is then that a brave soul takes a letter opener and jimmies it under the thermostat control, getting the dials to spin in the other direction. Good by Alaska, hello Arizona. But at least it’s a dry heat.

And so it goes, eight hours of a temperate roller coaster. I have to admit though, I kind of enjoy the ride and the folks I’m riding with.