Oh, I Think So

I really thought I was going to write about the Illinois budget crisis which is now over one year old.  However, before I write opinions of Governor Bruce Rauner and how he could end said crisis, I want to more carefully formulate what I want to say.  So next week!  NEXT WEEK!!  I will have my on long-awaited (by me) blog on Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) which he surely won't read and which I suspect only a few people will, in fact, read.  As with everything in my blog, I do it for myself and if others read and enjoy it, I will get some small satisfaction.  Meanwhile, dang, it's still toasty here, but good news -- an a/c is in.  Things get cool!  I am sleeping better and will accept that as being good enough for now.

It's summer and it is very warm.  I thought about discussing Illinois's Year Without a Budget but I will work on that for next week.  In the meantime, my a/c isn't installed yet.  I really gotta do that...

So suppose you're on one of the Hiawatha trains that travel between Chicago in Milwaukee, making stops at Glenview, Illinois, Sturtevant, Wisconsin, and General Mitchell Milwaukee Airport before Intermodal Station in Milwaukee.  It's the return trip from Milwaukee to Chicago and it's been a very nice day.  You've done what you wanted to do in Milwaukee, you got a nice salad to eat on the train, and though the train was delayed by a passing freight car for 30 minutes, the conductor has kept everyone well informed. It's a hot day and the train is neither too warm nor stupid chilly.  The sun is shining and the storms they swore would roll through did not materialize.  Really, a very nice day for 93ºF. There were some pictures taken at the Milwaukee thing but they're for one's hobby of making jewelry.  No pictures were take on the ride up and on the return it was all about texting with three different people, all at once.  The texting ended and next was time ...

When I was a young woman living in New York, I had a job working for a small fabric manufacturer.  The principals in the company made a very good living -- the wives of the owners had full-time cooks -- but the rest of us were not treated as they treated themselves.  They were very generous with overtime but we all got minimum wage or just above and so every person worked five hours overtime a week.  It was generous but required.  If you sashayed out "on time" they let it be know that you'd made a mistake.  Once we understood it was something that had to be done, we all did it.  Misery loves company. Our big boss was a smart man and I thought kind of unscrupulous.  In fact, he probably did have scruples but they were the scruples of a man in business who had scratched his way up from nothing to build something for himself and his children and their families.  Nothing was going to take that from him and if an employee -- even one of the loyal, lo...

Due to my decision to get all things medical and dental done in the first six months of the year, I've entered into a contract with my savings account and my body that I won't have a great vacation this year.  I am using days for gum grafts, colonoscopies, and hand surgery.  My gums may be revisited in the fall so it's best to save days for that.  I like to get out of town on an airplane.  I treated myself to global entry three years ago so when I go to O'Hare, it's less trauma for me.  Even if they change the configuration of the aircraft and change my seat, I can still get in the TSA pre-check line; I just have to strip down, take off my shoes, and show my bottles, all of which are fine with me.  Where it go is another issue. There are several places where I can get really inexpensive airfare but when I get there, there aren't any affordable hotels to be had.  I can get good hotels at a great price but then the airfare makes my eyes bug out....

I was in Michaels, the craft store, yesterday looking for picture frames that were on sale.  A great sale!  One day only!  Fifty-percent off all ready-made frames!  While I was walking to the frame department (always in the back at every Michaels), I passed by the kids merchandise.  Someone -- and whoever you are, I admire your particular brand of insanity and we will always be friends -- decided the lions would be eating fresh meat.  I agree.  They would be. Dinner is served  but watch out piggie!  You are NEXT! We all know that the lioness is usually the one who hunts and kills the prey and the lazybones male enjoys her work but for the purpose of Michaels on a Saturday, it is perfect. There was also a pterodactyl ingesting a mother pig and all her piglets but it just didn't photograph well, which I find is always the problem with flying dinosaurs.

In early April I had gum surgery.  They harvest skin from the roof of the mouth and fashion that into gums.  There was some pain but they give you nice painkillers which do the job for the couple of days that you need them.  After that's it's just annoyance while waiting for the gum graft to take and the stitches to dissolve.  There is some ultra-antibacterial mouth rinse with a hyperactive mint flavor which I liked but after the surgery you can't rinse the usual way as you could dislodge things.  You have to shake your head back and forth and I am not kidding!  Thirty seconds of nuclear mint!  Again, I liked it. I have uncooperative brows and as I get older I've sprung the odd hair or two in wrong places.  It is what it is.  I'd been going to a Brow Bar at one of the Ulta stores or one of the Macy's stores but that isn't cheap.  It's pretty quick for the lip but the brows required weird measurements but, sigh, I did it for years....