The History Channel series, Ice Road Truckers. You could not pay me enough to haul a backpack over a frozen foot long creek let alone haul wide loads across 300+ miles of frozen lake. But these guys do it every year and I suppose the pay is good or they wouldn’t be doing it. But I could be wrong, some of them might do it just for the sheer thrill, although I don’t see what could be so thrilling about the ice cracking beneath the truck, the word that comes to my mind is TERRIFYING. Yeah, that’s it!

Ok, confession time. I am in lust with this guy. Well ok, maybe not lust but he’s kinda hot and he can cook! Oh, and he embraces the polynesian culture to the point of getting a Marcquesas tattoo on his arm. In that episode, he fed sharks and visited the gravesite of French painter, Paul Gauguin and of course my personal fav, he got his tribal tat done.

And speaking of Tony, I think he’s on now.

I’m allergic to my office. No, seriously. I’ve had a lingering cold for about 3 or 4 weeks now and I finally went to the doctor’s to get some meds but only because on top of my sinus infection, I also had neck pain. On top of that, the left side of my chest started hurting, then my fiingertips were tingling. I thought I was having a heart attack. Fo’ real.

So I went to the ER last Monday and they took an Xray of my chest, all was clear. They hooked me up to the EKG machine, heart is ok. They took blood and fed me some pain meds. They also took an Xray of my neck then gave me a referral to get an MRI done as soon as possible. I told the doc that I had an MRI done a few years ago so after 5 hours of testing and more testing, they released me with antibiotics, muscle relaxers and a neck brace. She also told me to stay home from work for the next 3 days and to follow up with my regular physician on Thursday.

Well, my regular doctor wasn’t available so I went to see someone else. You gotta understand the way military hospitals go. You see whoever is available unless you have time to wait for your primary care physician to see you. Well, that was a wasted visit because the doctor told me to call and make an appointment for my primary physician after she read the report from the MRI that I had done 2 years ago which pretty much says I have a few slipped discs in my neck. She thinks that could be the cause of my fingertips going numb. Carpal Tunnel in my left hand? Perhaps. I’ll find out as soon as I make the appointment. For now though, I’ve already used up the week of sick leave that I get for the entire year, and I’ve only been working there for 4 months.

When I went back to work on Friday, I was still moving slowly because of the meds I had taken the night before. I barely survived that day. This past weekend, I took more of the strong meds and rested. This morning I was feeling a whole lot better … until I stepped into my office. My nose got stuffy all over again and when I stepped outside, it cleared up. I told my co-worker I must be allergic to the office. She laughed and said it might be due to the leaky roof, maybe there’s some mold up there. I wondered if they wanted to get rid of me but didn’t want to pull a Donald on me so rather than saying, “You’re fired!” they’d just kill me off? When I got home from work, I told my daughter about my allergy to the office. She thinks I’m a drama queen. *L*

We had such a wonderful summer this year.  My son and his family from Hawaii flew in and I finally got to meet my youngest grandson.  He’s the cutest chubbiest happiest baby I’ve ever seen.

My son and I have our birthdays one day apart, his is on June 13th and mine is on the 14th.  We received phone calls from friends and family wishing us happy birthday.  Then my cousin Joey who I absolutely love as if she were my sister called on the 15th begging for forgiveness because she forgot to call me the day before.  Of course I had to make her squirm so I told her that I would only forgive her if she flew in with my other two grandchildren who lives out in Boston.  They flew in on the morning of the 16th!

I don’t know what kind of fantasy I was having when I wanted all of my grandchildren here at the same time but let me just tell you, it was as chaotic as it was fun.  I can say it was fun because I was at work for most of their waking hours and then I was the first in bed which meant my cousin, my son and his girlfriend, my daughter and my hubby had all the responsibilities of feeding, entertaining and referee’ing while I was home only enough to enjoy a few precious moments with each of them.  Of course I spent more time with the baby because he didn’t fight with the other children.  He just enjoyed being in his own little world, feeling content with his binky or bottle.

They were here for roughly 5 weeks and even though we didn’t get to travel and do a lot of sight-seeing, we all had a wonderful time.  On the last week of their visit, I phoned a nearby photo studio and set an appointment for a photo shoot with my husband, myself and the 5 grandchildren.  Oh, that was fun - NOT.  Trying to get all the kids to look at the cameral man at the same time was exhausting.  The poor guy took over 50 pictures which I got to view today and we had to scratch a few because someone was either digging his ear or another had her eyes closed or another had looked everywhere but at the camera man. 

Anyway, I made a new header pic with pics we took in our front yard that my son wanted to compare with last year’s pic at the same location and also some pics that my cousin and my son’s girlfriend took while we were settng up at the photo shoot. And yep, that’s me and hubby by ourselves acting all young and innocent. 

Ok, so I’m not talking about me.  In fact, I hardly working for the money right now but we know that’ll change in a few weeks.  Oh yeah, before I forget, I didn’t ace the test but the bossman told me I scored high on parts of the test and that’s the reason I got hired.

So, if you’re wondering what type of work I’m doing now.  Well, I work in the office of a Pest Control company and before you even ask,  NO, we don’t get rid of your kids or significant others.  So, yesterday was my first day of work and there sitting on my desk was a glass container with wood pieces and LIVE termites.  ICK!  *LOL*  It wasn’t so bad, I just ignored the creepy crawlies and they went about their termite business of eating wood and crapping all over the place in their container, purdddddy gross huh?  But when I walked into the office today, the pets were gone.  The bossman said he figured I’d might want to use the extra desk space but he told me he didn’t move them too far from me, just to another nearby table.  They LOVE ME, they really LOVE ME.

Today, the bossman gave me a quick lesson on some insects that we treat.  I scribble furiously in my notebook then came home and googled it so I could get BETTER notes because mine were so all messed up.  So ok, now I know the difference between a termite and ants with wings, BUT only if they’re side by side.  Other than that, they’re just creepy crawlies to me.

Wow, take long time for the pages to load at the hawaiistories site so I wonder if maybe time fo fix something or what?

Okay, well …. *doing a happy happy joy joy dance in my chair* … I got the job! Yeah baby, now I’m a “working girl” or will be next week.  I’m so excited!  My friend tried to make me worry about whether I got it or not.  He told me that he didn’t know but the owner told him he was torn between the two applicants and the aptitude test would be the deciding factor.  Thank goodness I love doing Logic puzzles since majority of the questions were basic logic questions.  I hope I aced it so I can rag my friend who said he only had one incorrect answer.  Ha!  He’s a guy, and he expects me to believe he almost aced the test? Duh!

My daughter was approached by a dentist the other day while she was at work and he was impressed at how great a job she was doing at multitasking.  According to her she was on the phone while ringer up a customer and answering someone else’s questions.  She thought he was bogus because he was dressed very casually but he gave her a business card and told her to call his office because he wants her to work at his office.

She waited until yesterday to give his office a call, the receptionist answered and when Meg gave her name, the receptionist told Meg that she’s been waiting for her call because the dentist kept asking if she had called yet.  She made an appointment to meet and fill the application this morning.  The pay is better than her present job but she has very good benefits at her present job.  The work hours are M-F 9-5 which is 100% better than the hours she has now which most times end at 9p.m so she doesn’t have too much quality time with Kamalani.  At least now she’ll be home in enough time to spend with Kamalani until her bedtime, which is 9 p.m.  She’s not going to quit her present job because the benefits are really good so she asked her boss if she could go to part-time instead.  They really like her there and they want her to move up in the world so they’re very supportive and her boss agreed to put her on part-time status.

Speaking of Kamalani, her birthday was on Wednesday and she’s now a grown up 7 year old. Rather than taking her out to eat on her birthday, I asked her what she wanted me to cook for her special birthday dinner at home.  She said she wanted her favorite.  HAWAIIAN food.  Luckily my friend just got back from Hawaii and brought my bags of goodies from my brother.  A gallon size bag of Kalua pig and 4 gallon size bags of poi.  I also made tako poke and lomi lomi salmon to complete the Hawaii food menu.  We got her a small birthday cake at Safeway and had some Light ice cream for dessert.  It was much better than going out, the food was sooooooo ono.

Tomorrow is her birthday party.  I set it up at the Roller Skate barn.  They have party packages for kids with pizza, drinks and skate rental for 2 hours.  Should be fun! (NOT for me)