Red Rubber Duckies........by Diane Ogden

I love buying people things therefore holidays are my greatest pleasure so as to excuse and allow my over zealous giving spirit.  Valentines day I happened to pass some rubber duckies at the grocer store.  No kidding.  These little duckies have rotating  lites of different colors.  For real!  I was so pleased I picked up four of them.  One for me.  Cant you picture that 8 x 10 glossy of me in the bath with a lited rubber duckie (don't go there!). 
I purchased one for the littlest grand.
I purchased one for the littlest and only great grand.
I purchased one of each for my life job helpers small children......
When I went to remove the sticker on the bottom it read:  Small parts not for children under 3! 
S H U T U P   C H I N A! 
There is probably blue asphalt inside the rubber duckies to make them lite up blue.  Sshheessh chit
So day after Valentines Day I receive the sweetest gift from my helper workers.  It's the photo I have posted in a nice little frame, and a "sweet" chocolate rose which I am allergic to.  But so appreciative of the thought. 
(Do you ever get sick of, "It's the thought that counts," deal) 
I am totally impressed how those two wee ones posed with the rubber duckies for the pictures.  Is that Happy News or what?  Made my day!!
(Notice one has a white duckie and one has a red one)

The Limo and the Maintenance Man.......by Diane Ogden

Today was a happy day give or take the crap.  Ever notice how crap resembles carp.  And both are garbage creators, slash, eaters. Carp is crap and crap is carp.   Back to my point....  I look for happy things in the midst of every day life. 
I was standing in front of a clients home this morning when up the street comes, no not a knight in shining armor on a white steed duh!  A limo, a long black truck looking limo.  Some people think the new SUV type limo's are cool but to me they look like a long black truck without mud flaps.  Yet the idea of the limo itself leans the mind toward extravagant.  Mind you I am about to begin a days hard work which is the opposite of extravagant limo.  I think the driver was reading my mind because he slowed down and waved to me that wave that says, "Sorry lady!  Maybe next time!"  I waved and gave him the, "You know what you look."  Smiling the entire time I was.

Then my sweet, very young manboy banker helped me fax some legal papers which after I left, said company called me saying very young sweet manboy banker obviously cannot run a fax machine as they only received two of four sheets.  So I run to my complex office to use their fax where I run into our maintenance man.  He asks me how my microwave is doing?  I said, "Fine, so is my toilet, why?"  He reminded me of the fact it was my third microwave in eight years. I said, "But I'm still on toilet number one!"  He had installed a small part in the third microwave that quit working within one day so the Frigidaire folks had to come and replace that same small part in third cheap microwave. He couldn't understand why his part didn't work.  I told him, "I suspect your itty bitty part must be defective." At which time the office girl could not hold in her snickers and the maintenance man loudly told me I had a dirty mind.  I do not!  I just find the happy and funny anywhere I can.  From Limo drivers to bankers to maintenance man-boys with little bitty parts that don't work. 

My Dead Mouse by Diane Ogden

That little rhinestone creature WAS my precious computer/laptop mouse that died a horrible death. The dog got it and shook it and shook it.  There were little baby rhinestones flying all over the room sticking on the walls and curtains. Done/Dead! I loved that rhinestone mouse. Not like you love your family of course (well sometimes actually more depending on the day)....rather how a girl likes her diamonds.  That dead mouse made me happy every time I sat down at my technology center which includes one dead PC, one large wonderful monitor waiting for its Dead PC to come back home and turn 'her' on again. One scanner printer, another better scanner, one laptop, and one Toshiba tablet.  The worse part is the built in mouse on my laptop doesn't work so well, then the rhinestone mouse dies, so I run to Wal Mart and buy a cheapee mousie while I wait for the new rhinestone mouse to come by UPS after ordering it online?  I tried to install an old PC wireless mouse on the dead mouseless laptop but no go. I lost the little teeny tiny USB dealie that makes those items work.  Imagine that.
I also have the matching glitzie stapler that is alive and kickin ars.  I'll all work out.  In the large scheme of life it's considered a very low issue, except to me..........Of course if something had to die within these walls I guess the mouse would be the safest to go!

Happy Valentines Day Diane O......by Diane Ogden

I have been wanting a piece of cake for some time now.  So......my brain simply said NOW and this morning I stopped at a local grocer I happen to be passing when I could no longer put the brain craving off. 
You should have seen all the 80 plus year old men walking in and out with flowers and cupcakes and cookies, I suspect for some nice lady back at the ranch or home in the nearby neighborhood.  Or maybe like me there was no one at the ranch and they were merely severely having a Valentine's Day sugar love craving.  I love worthless cake roses.  I have loved worthless cake roses  ever since I was a kid.  I know I know,  and they leave a greasy fat coating in your mouth.  Fat! Yup! Do not care I love wedding cake roses, birthday cake roses, Valentine cake roses!  4th of July cake roses and so on. 

So I am not going to wait eight hours until I get home to scarf this little darlin and her two rose up.  I am sitting in my car in the grocer parking lot eating this sweet on myself cake with the spoon I brought in my lunch to eat my no sugar Motts Grannie Smith Applesauce.  How embarrassing is that to tell.
So notice I get to the first rose(I moved it) and I am so totally excited.  Sugar RUSH coming!  I decide to eat only one petal so as to savor the two little roses upon my pallet.  I tried to scoop a petal off and discovered it was hard.  I thought, whaaaooo, my rose is old and hard.  Then I started to hit the center of the rose and it was hello rock hard and obviously made of plastic.  Had I thrown it in my mouth whole like I usually do, so I can roll it around and enjoy it for as long as possible, I could have broken a tooth.  What kind of jerk bakery puts plastic roses on an itty bitty chitty cake and charges $4.99.  Robbery I say!  Corporate Valentines Day itty bitty chitty cake robbery. 

I bought myself the cute little cake because its Valentines Day and I love myself!  Anyway I knew no one else would buy me one as I "are" a single person.   I removed the plastic worthless roses and gave my "gremlin" looking doggie the pan to lick clean.  Doesn't she look like she might KILL if I try to take that pan of crumbs and frosting away?  I didn't, she put her paw inside it to hold it down and licked it spotless.  Happy Valentines Day from the Happy News Lady....

Grandma Tillie Fly's off the Wall Again.....by Diane Ogden

My Grandmother Mathilda Mae Heiny Jungbluth is special to me and I am to her. By the way she be dead. I have a photo of her and Pa, a black and white glossy that has flown off the wall in my bedroom twice in my life just when I was about to make a really bad decision.  She was doing her best to STOP me, but I was young and did not realize her intention.  I did think it very spooky the first time it fell off its nail perch with no cause and effect going on.  No one jumping or humping on the bed, no wind gales coming thru the window.  And no one vacuuming or dusting for cobwebs accidentally did it.  Nope....she did it. 
The three instances have occurred over a forty year period of time and wouldn't you know it she struck again this evening. 
I have had an extremely difficult two months with stress levels to the moon where she obviously was perched and took notice.  I realize this card I made with her photo on it isn't as heavy as a framed glossy but....it has sat there for months and never fell off the shelf it resides on across from "me" bed.  Tonight I was in the "rest room" (why its called that I don't know) and when I came out there she lay right in my pathway....  I said to myself....oh crud now what?  It has to be good grannie cause I am up to my brows in chit lately.  I sure hope she lets me know what it is I am not supposed to do.  Oh, could it be, leave my livelihood (job) and put the cat and dog in the car with kitty litter and hit the road  ( don't forget the laptop) for as far as my gas tank will go!  God wouldn't that just be a gas.  Puns, I love em.  I don't want to die or anything nutz like that. I just want something besides work and taking the dog out to pee, and more work, and taking the dog out to pee, and getting groceries and washing the car and so on.  Oh I am grateful for all the working and being able to take the dog out to pee.  Heck I am grateful I can still pee. On my own that is.  And I don't live in Iran or Iraq or Syria, those poor peoples. Yet still....Grannie is trying to tell me something along with the pigeon (dove) that flew directly at me, when I was taking the dog out to pee.  So close over my head the dog got scared and jumped on my leg to pic her up. And when I turned quickly to see where it went it was GONE.  Oh yes I said GONE!   Pigeons or doves coming before you means you need to make your home more family-ish... okay it really means to huddle with your family as there will be safety adn security in that activity.  Oh my god you have to be kidding me.... What am I missing?
hummm, sort of the opposite of driving AWAY as far as the gas tank will go huh?  Which is only 300 miles max with my car.  So that means I could end up north almost to Marinette, Wisconsin, or East into Lake Michigan, or South to Centrailia, Ill. Or West to some god forsaken place in Iowa.  No wonder Grannie is telling me to knock it off and settle in.  It is what is is, it is what I have been dealt, so deal.  (Chit, I really wanted to get away, but I suppose a planned vacation would make more sense. YA THINK?)  okay okay I wont run away this time.

A Cat Hair Pillow....... by Diane Ogden

This is NOT my keyboard.  And do not try this at home rather check with the professionals.  These people took the guts out of their keyboard before putting it through the dishwasher.  Oh yes they did!~

They decided against the Q-Tip hi-way and took the direct Interstate wash.  Me, I used the Eureka hose which still took quite some time to suck all the white cat hair out from under the keys.  It just kept coming and coming like a long string from the circus clowns suit.  I was embarrassed even though no one was looking.  And I hope no one ever finds out - doi.  Hey I love my cat and I would hope if I shed some hair no one that loved me would care.

I would have never thought to check my keyboard if I had not run smack into a clients cat hair keyboard on the job. It took me a half hour to suck all that hair out, think about that. Thirty minutes at sixty seconds a minute. Do the math, to get all that long red cat hair out of his keyboard. That is when I went directly home and began sucking out the pounds of hair locked in and under my laptop keys. I was really scared the keys were going to get sucked up too..... but they didn't.


 I wish to say I thought maybe I could make a soft pillow out of all that cat hair stuck in keyboards all around the world.  eewww.  There must  be a way to clean it like they do other animal hair...and it is soft and cushy and still eeewww. Hey don't diss me, check out the woman that does art portraits with dryer lint!  People all over the county send it to her in different colors.  I'll stick with synthetic stuffing thanks anyway.  p.s.  My keyboard is now clean. Is yours?  Laptops really shouldn't be put in the dishwasher.  I know that!

p.p.s.  My dad, you know? Jack Nickolson?  He wont eat at my house cause he thinks ONE stray hair could get into his food.  Just imagine if he ever say someones "cat hair keyboard."

Match.com by Diane Ogden

My sister-in-law told me to join match.com so I did.  She once told me to get a job selling insurance, so I did.  And I was very successful.  She tells me all the time that I am not in charge. Her Dad tells her that so she passes it onto me. Not sure why, she is the bossy one having been in charge of a car dealership she owned for some twenty years.  Back to match.com. So I fill out the questionnaire.  I answer all the questions as truthfully as I can without scaring anyone off and I submit 9 photos.  The main photo is me with  my hair in rollers.  I just had to do it.  If the prospective man could handle that, the good pics were only a click away.  And so they did, click away that is.  I have met up with one fellow, certainly not a "gentle-man" as he asked me what I would like and I said, "Ice Tea," which after two hours I never rec'd.  No manners!  I almost forgot, one of the first things he said to me was, "Do you have to wear those glasses?"  Need I say more. And he wanted me to go snow shoe-ing in the woods.  I could borrow his sisters snow shoes.  Seriously?  No thank you... If I couldn't get ice tea out of him, I am liable not to get back out of that woods with any help what-so-ever.  And fishing?  Nope, he should have friends by now, men friends that like to be quiet and watch a string hang in the water for hours.  Me, I would be working on my 25,000 woman words a day and scaring the fish away!  Next guy never stopped talking about the roller photo.  He just didn't understand that.
He said I must not like adoration.  Yes I looked it up.  After ten emails and it was still under discussion, I deleted the "pretty boy."

I haven't given up, but so far 85% of them want a slender, athletic body toned woman.  Yet they look like they are about to deliver.  Twins that is.  Men!  They just don't care about what's under the boob....its all about the boobs.  I am not fat, and I have boobs along with a heart under one of 'em that will continue to look for a nice fellow that will go fishing without me.  I 'm just not that into it.  And the more I think about it, I might not be that into this match.com either.  Sorry sister-in-law, this is like too much work.  I already had my quota I think.  But I am keeping the $40 a month match.com charge door open just in case.