I didn’t want to talk at length about any one topic this week, so I decided to do an enhanced blog….a rambling on steroids, where I intend to toss in several topics to make a literary salad.  I suppose literary is a bit of a stretch since I’m not that talented as a writer!

First, I’d like to share a little of the maiden voyage in our new RV that we picked up last weekend. I always talk about how new employee orientation is like a fire hose of information that the employees promptly forget two hours after hearing about the various topics. That was what our orientation to this strange new beast was.  I tried to take notes on my iPad for later reference, but it only took us ten minutes before we were calling Johnson RV and asking….”Now where was that lever that moved that thingamajig.” Ten minutes after that we texted him back and asked, “Where did you put that extra key and the laminated checklist again?” When we couldn’t figure out how to use the navigation or keep the step from going up and down every time we opened the door, we decided a little trial and error wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.

When we reached our friend’s house, I suggested gently to Jody that maybe it would be better to just park in the street rather than pull up into his steep driveway. She mentioned that he said that it was okay to park there. Later when the bottom scraped as she backed out she noted that, “I should have listened to you.”

Probably the most hilarious thing was our night at the camp ground where we had to continue to get up several times in the middle of the night to squat and pee next to our brand new RV complete with full bath, kitchen, etc.  Why, you ask? Well, we didn’t want to fill the tanks and have to winterize the damn thing again…so remnants of tent camping blessed our first full night. Here’s the thing….my idea of camping is the Holiday Inn, but the next best thing was an RV and I still had to do the midnight squat.

The other reason we bought an RV is because I don’t particularly enjoy sleeping on the ground no matter how thick that super luxury camping air mattress is. Ironically, the first words out of my mouth the next morning were, “We’re buying a memory foam topper. My back is killing me.” Needless to say the mattress is crap. On Monday night, I ordered the topper and a small efficient vacuum cleaner (of course).

It’s the holiday season and how do I know that? Because the lone ornament that we have hanging above our kitchen table is suddenly of great interest to our cat, Nico. We can’t figure out how in the world he has managed to ignore the darn thing for the entire year we’ve had it hanging there, but he has. So…I’ve come to the logical conclusion that it is in his DNA to try to bat it down during the holiday season, because that’s what cats do. It’s instinct right. If there is a Christmas tree, we must climb it. If there is an ornament, we must bat it down and play with it. Hey, we didn’t make the rules, we just follow them, Mom. I got horse yelling at him to get down.

Today we had our annual holiday extravaganza…we don’t call it a Christmas party because we genuinely wish to be inclusive of all holidays around this time of the year. I literally ran my ass off all day, but my reward was the ability to eat dessert three times! I ate a cheesecake at lunch, an apple pie at dinner and for the 10pm shift, I plan on gobbled up a slice of chocolaty deliciousness.  Normally I call these events, mandatory fun because my department is the one who is ultimately responsible for them and I am required to be at every shift. I’ve decided to rename them mandatory food coma.

One final random topic to pursue…While I was talking with my nephew about this crazy political climate we find ourselves in that just keeps getting more bizarre every day, he shared an anonymous quote that I thought was so profound to explain how we got to this place we are in. Here’s the quote: “When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”  On that note I’ll end my weekly blog because I know you will want to have a lively dialog about this with your chosen family and friends.

I’m not even going to attempt to try to weave in a tie in to my books. I’ll just remind everyone that my two newest books are on sale everywhere for $5.99 and it can’t get any better than that! If you feel compelled to take advantage of this great sale that Affinity is putting on for the whole month, you know the drill….click the links below.

Affinity Author Page         Amazon Author Page