Ground Zero And The Mosque

I thought about writing this last week (we aren't going with prescribed blog format here, just what comes off the top of my head)  then I said naw......there are enough people talking about the mosque @ ground zero in New York.  Then I saw this video or what I could see of it because my internet connection is limited.




It seems that a man of vaguely African heritage (do rag on top of head basically, why not offend all while I'm @ it not just the conservatives, why should they be special?) walked through the crowd of protesters that were gathered @ the proposed Islamic Center close to the former site of the Twin Towers or Ground Zero.  (BTW you should check out the hallowed ground they are right, Mc Donalds, Strip Clubs, Chinese Restaurants, I know my insurance agency was next door too)  So this guy who is a carpenter is walking through the crowd of protesters and they basically attack, especially one dude in a shiny shiny blue hard hat and green t-shirt.  He really wants to fight the guy who looks vaguely foreign.  You all know the end to the story, the man with the white African hat was going to work @ the  memorial @ ground zero, he is a carpenter there.

What does this teach us?
1.  The guy in the shiny hard hat just bought it.
2.  Do not judge people by their do rags.
3.  First impressions are often wrong.
AND most importantly except for the Native Americans WE were ALL foreigners once.

I Thought Trouble Came In Threes?

This isn't South Texas, actually it's green down here.  The heat thing?  It's worse down here I swear than this photo.  Of course it's just as bad everywhere.  Who cares if it's 98 or 105? Deadly hot I can't stand outside and survive for long periods of time hot is just HOT.

So the refrigerator broke last week?  The truck broke the week before?  Well this weeks problems decided to condense themselves to this morning.  This may be a good thing but it led to some rather short fuses and nerves.

1.  Air conditioner fan broke in front of the semi.  That wouldn't be such a tragedy because there are two ac units on trucks except our other one had a leak in the freon and he plugged it off so the one in back REALLY doesn't work.  BUT this gave him an extra fan to install in front until we could find another fan which took 3 stops.  Freightliner truck, you'd think a freightliner DEALER would have a fan?  Silly silly you!!  We had to go 3 places to find a fan and freightliner couldn't even tell us where to find one.  (Pharr Texas)  He got it running first thing this morning by pushing on said fan blades while fiddling with the knob, a fact which he should not have told me because I was meditating on his great mechanical skills before his confession.

2.  We got locked out of the motel room we stayed in last night.  OK, we left the key on the dresser and then decided we needed back in the room because it was HOT @ 5:30 AM in the truck and the dog and I might as well be in the cool while he worked on the truck and then he could come back in and get cleaned up (he hadn't actually GOTTEN to the fan blades to PUSH on them yet), BUT being brilliant OCD people we were going to be ORGANIZED and EARLY and got out of the motel room @ 5:30 for our 8 AM appointment 10 miles AWAY!.  5:30 AM  not supposed to be HOT in the truck!!  Then the new key the night manager (boy) wouldn't work and he had to come make it work for me...
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3.  After finding a new fan motor  much later this morning and putting it in we were following behind a gravel truck, Diamond Rock BTW but I know from previous experience it's useless to call them.  POW a rock hit our windshield and it will have to be REPLACED soon.

4.  You thought we were through didn't you?  We go to clean out the trailer (husband has been doing trailer cleaning as he is still in the----she wouldn't go trucking with me for 8 years, I'd better not screw this up------phase.  But since I used to clean trailers out all the time I decided I needed the exercise.  Trailer wouldn't start.  For all of you non trucking people it's a reefer.  A GIANT refrigerator or freezer.  Would be nice to have it started since it's 100 and we will be doing physical sweeping inside of it.  I swept and he fixed the unit, it had lost it's prime or ground or something.  Sweeping wasn't too bad but the dog did get rather dirty "helping".  This is AFTER I washed his feet, twice.

So we are still married.  I haven't demanded to be taken to the nearest airport, he made me take the dog carrier out of here anyway.  Hopefully the rest of the day will be better?  Thank goodness I married a mechanical person!

One Refrigerator, Two Refrigerator

This is my world, those are my feet.  This is the back of the truck.  See the little box up in the left corner?  That is the built in fancy refrigerator.  It's been in here since last November (husbands father built the shelves for it all)  it was on my bench in the family room before I moved it to the basement before THAT.  A new frig like that costs between $700 and $1000.  It hasn't been working for a few days now.  Quit last week.  I fiddled with it and looked up the repair manual on the internet.  Fiddled some more.  Decided he had it wired wrong even though it worked before...

We went to Wal Mart yesterday.  Bought a small refrigerator for $58, realized when we got it in the truck it wasn't DC it was regular AC but thank goodness we have an inverter.  The difference between $58 and $1000 is quite a bit though.  One of those regular coolers that plug into the power source don't do well in hot weather or if the truck is turned off.  You can see the new refrigerator, it's the white square on the floor in the left corner.  You have no idea how COZY it is to have only about 1x2 ft instead of 2x4 ft back here by the bed.  Now I have to move the frig to get clothes out etc.  We do now have a frig again though.

Guess what else happened when we bought the new frig and got groceries in it?  On a lark I had turned the old one back on.  It was freezing water by last night.  I did fiddle with the thermostat while ago and I think that is it but we fiddled with it for like 4 days last week and that didn't work!   So now I'm trying to figure out whether we should find a place to strap the white frig outside the truck and take it home or just try to sell it in the parking lot of a truck stop?  Of course if we did do that the old one would immediately quit again.  Oh and we have another small frig almost identical to this one @ home, it's not like we needed a small frig!  But we weren't home to pick that one up.

You aked what is the black square up above in the middle of the photo, or maybe you don't care but I will tell you?  It's the microwave.  To warm my coffee up in the morn, I have fried eggs etc. and don't make fun of my shelves, stuff has to be crammed in there or it falls out!

So Murphys Law and all the other sayings and laws are fully in effect and all is well with the world.....

Thoughts On Life And Kindness

My friend Maureen @ IslandRoar has an excellent post titled the Kindness Of Strangers.  She lost her father recently and tells of herself and her daughter saying the very same thing to their respective mothers...I didn't want you to be alone.  It really got to me.  Then the kindness the ticket agent showed her reminded me of so many times strangers were kind to me and sometimes became friends. 

Nothing like this has happened in my life recently.  Just a slow trickle.  Actually I'm happier in ways than I've ever been, more comfortable in my own skin as they say.  But we have had our share of setbacks and today is no exception...slow to get unloaded.  I'm applying for online writing jobs for a bit of extra moulah.  Actually all of this started with a graduation, a wedding, a reunion, the Mexican Government and a load of pork but it's a long story still being looked into by insurance so we won't go into it here.

It (the bad luck)  all started again last week with the truck breaking but we got it fixed cheap enough, just took awhile (for those of you who don't know I'm riding with my husband in his truck, I used to run his trucking company but we wanted to stay sane and got rid of it have one old truck now ugly but it's PAID FOR!....I used to sell on ebay before the recession...I used to paint and sell on ebay, I even worked @ Wally World for awhile and was groundman for a hurricane crew and gopher) anyway we have been shown much kindness that was unexpected in the last week.  A friend of ours and his wife came and picked us up and let us use their vehicle to go to the motel, they had dinner with us and even looked for motels with laundry facilities in them for us.  Then he took us to our other friends house the next day and he (2nd friend) took us to pick the truck up when it was fixed.  Then he took my husband to KC to pick up a check (I admit I did clean said friends  bachelor pad while they were gone). You ask why we didn't just go to enterprise rental?  I think the nearest one was 50 miles away for one thing..... We finally got out of there and went and picked up a load in IA.  We stopped to see my daughter in Wichita and she drove us countless miles when we had a tire go bad, the dog got fleas from another dog, had to go get flea spray, etc. etc......  Now we are going to get loaded it seems after all tomorrow which is good due to my husband being the fastest most dependable trucker there is but also because of the kindness of the produce broker who has saved our hides more than once this year.

This isn't a pass it forward plea or anything like that.  Just take a moment and think who do you have to be thankful to or for today.  Who is suffering and could benefit from just a phone call.  Who haven't you forgiven?  Who could just use a little help and encouragement?  Who were you close to last year and why aren't you this year?