Tires and sometimes dirty is good

At what point did I get sucker tattooed on my forehead? And more importantly, why is it only the people working at tire shops notice it?

My kid ran over a raccoon a few weeks ago. OK, a couple of months ago. Ever since, the tires vibrate and there is this strange "whirrr, whirrr, whoomp noise." It wasn't the whooomp whoomp noise my old car made when the lug studs were comng loose. Or the creaky, creaky, grinding noise a bad tie rod makes. More like loud humm or buzzz.

And the last time I got oil changed at the good Wal-Mart Tire and Lube Express (yes, they exists) the tread wear indicated that the front tires should have been replaced a while back. The amazing thing, they didn't try to sell me tires. Since, the wear was uneven, I was thinking I might need a front end alignment.

So, I go to my local Plaza Tire to take care of business. It's a nice clean tire shop. They also do some mechanicaning work. So, lots of birds, one stone, radda, radda, you get the idea. Well, they wanted eighty dollars a tire and fifty bucks for a front end alignment. It would be seventy for a four tire alignment. I was waiting for the quote on topping off the blinker fluid. Oh, and the road hazard warranty was extra.

I decided that maybe I should go a little out of my way to go to my regular mechanic. Certainly Luther would at least offer to kiss me first. Unfortunately, Tire Bargains was closed. So, off to National Tire and Wheel. Yeah, sixty-three or so a tire. That's the mounted and balanced price. But they don't have my tire size in stock. Why do I always end up with difficult to size tires?

Only options were to get up early and take my chances at Wal-Mart, wait another day, or drive up to the Fort with really bad tires and take my chances. I went with option three.

So, brother Fred has a tire guy at Discount Tire. This looks like a newer shop with a clean waiting room and lots of garaage bays. We're back to eighty dollars a tire plus the hazard insurance. The sales drone noticed my out of state plates, but offers the road hazard warranty any way. Guess I'll be needing a little windshield grease to keep the bugs from sticking.

Wal-Mart seems like a nice alternative. Seventy dollars a tire. Oh, and extra ten dollars each for mount, balance, valve stems (why do they get away with that? That's like charging extra for the mascara brush.) Still eighty dollars a tire.

After driving to a couple of other places to get quotes, it looked like that would be the best we could do. So Wal-Mart it is. For some reason, it takes almost two hours to get tires at the Jefferson Pointe Wal-Mart. Two hours!!!! WTF happened to the EXPRESS part of Tire and Lube Express? This was after the service writer waited on the four people that walked in after I did. Obviously there is a maximum IQ for working on the west side of town. And these people weren't even close.

After driving in circles looking for a independent tire dealer or anyone that wasn't Wal-Mart, I find a couple of places down on Jefferson. The first place didn't have my size in stock in their cheap tires, but could sell me some for $92 each. To their credit, they didn't try to sell the road hazard crap and informed me that they would have them early next week.

I needed tires today. Really, I needed them right away. So, the nephew and I go next door to Tire Barn. It resembled a warehouse with a bathroom. Nothing fancy. Concrete floors and a dirty bathroom. On the upside, the tires were cheaper than Wal-Mart. When I asked about mounted, radda, radda, the guy looked at me funny. Guess he wasn't aware most places try nickle and dime customers instead of giving a price for the whole enchilada.

So, the dirty little tire shop got my business. All the shiny tire shoppes with their complementary coffee and plate glass windows could learn a little from a ship without garage bays and fancy lifts. If you don't have to pay a cleaning lady, you don't have to sell valve stems.

PLus Size Chocolate Pie

Every year at Thanksgiving, I experiment.  Usually my dinner experiments work spectacularly.  Last year, the crab dip was a hit.  And the cheddar bacon dip, was marvelous.  Oh, and the pepperoni pizza dip was finished off pretty quickly.

Before you think I'm a one note artist with dips, I do some incredible work with dessert.  I created a local treat commonly refereed to as Christmas Crack.  I waited until the last minute to make it last year, because I was trying to weasel out of any Martha Stewart tricks.  It didn't happen.  And give me half a bag of Oreos(crumbs and all), a couple of boxes of instant pudding, and cool whhhip, and I'll come up with something.

This year, I'm trying my hand at Plus Size Chocolate Pie.  Have I ever made it, well no. I have just finished fleshing out the design.  Implementation is another matter, but that can wait until Thursday.

The base of the pie is an Oreo cookie crust.  Oreo cookies are a perfect, because the cream filled center makes a good binding agent, so no extra butter is needed to make the crust.

The first layer will be no-bake cheesecake.  I found a fabulous recipe at kraft.com.  On top of that is a thin layer of chocolate fudge.  Not the stuff you put on ice cream, but actual fudge.  And then I'll follow with the standard chocolate pie filling of whipped cream and chocolate pudding, in that I'll mix either toffee chips or chocolate chips.  For the top, I'm still wavering between meringue and whipped cream.  I'll figure that out later.

Apathy as a political movement

I guess apathy sums up my social political views.  Gays getting married, don't really care.  Marijuana legalization, don't care.  Smoking, don't really care.  What two, or three or four, consenting adults do is not my business.   I would hope that anyone I extend that indifference to returns the favor.

Most of the country is all in a twitter about the gay marriage ban in California.  I don't care if they marry.  I honestly don't think that it's the government's business in telling me who I can or can't marry.  Of course, the government shouldn't be able to force any church to recognize or bless such a union.  

There is a strong segment of society that believes that being gay is a choice.  So frigging what if that's a choice, smoking and drinking are choices, too. Homosexuality is an abomination of God's will.  I'm no theologian, or Christian for that matter, but while we have access to God's words, from a myriad of sources each of which translated several hundred times, very few people are privy to God's will or inner most thoughts.   

So who am I to judge the choices others make?  Who am I to deny  people the opportunity to make a heartfelt commitment to each other?  Just make sure I get an invite to the celebration.

Like I said, marry, don't marry, don't really care.  And I don't think the government should care, the government should take the $80 filing fee and buy the good toilet paper for the ladies' room.

 

To each their own, addiction

I was going to go on about my obsession with free stuff from the Lancome counter at Macy's and Dillards.  How dangling a tote bag with a coordinating cosmetics bag free with a $29.99 purchase and I'll buy your $28 Art Liner (damn it, now I have to buy a lipstick or a eye shadow), what a scam.  Buy hey its free.

But then I found my new addiction, Whatever, Martha on Fine Living.  Two thirty somethings, Alexis Stewart and buddy Jennifer, sit in a cozy urban living room watching clips and talking like the camera's aren't in the room.  And nothing is off limits.  They poke fun at Martha's clothing, her mannerisms, and her guests.  Most segments turn to sexual innuendo if not straight up sex talk.  But it just girl talk.

Sometimes, the girls try their hands at some of the projects demonstrated by Martha, only with less than "Good Thing" results.  At the end of each show, things really devolve.  Alexis and Jennifer talk about things not even relevant to Martha, like dating,  food, and sex.

So, if you've got time to kill, come on over.  Just kick off your shoes and bring a bottle of wine.

Sometime a joke isn't funny

I can't eat meat  Seriously, I can't eat meat anymore.  I turned to vegetarianism a couple of years ago as a bit of a joke.  A few days  a week I'd go meatless, but when a cheese burger craving occurred or  the BBQ chicken heart attack on a bun  I would indulge.  I wasn't really concerned when the meat craving became fewer and farther between.

And then I decided to rejoin the ranks of the carnivore.  Mostly because i was tired of sounding like a picky eater, which I've always been anyway.  And, even though I hate the antibiotics and growth hormones being pumped into the industrial farmed animals, I actually liked the taste of meat.  So I figured, joke is over.  

I went back in whole hog.  Ham, egg, and cheese for breakfast, you betch ya.  Cheese burger and chili fries for lunch sounded like heaven.  Chef salad with extra meat was a dinner staple.   Mmm pork, chicken, and beef.

But then something happened.  I didn't notice it right away, it took a three or four days.  It seemed like I was extra gassy.  Not belching in public or ripping one at inopportune times.  It was more like a perfume that emanated from every pore of my body.  And, like anyone that spent anytime in the field in the service, when you can smell yourself it has to be bad.  And it's wasn't our standard rotten egg gas or the brief burst stink.

No, this became an aura of stank.  It had an initial tinge of rotten eggs, but evolved into a foul stench that followed me everywhere.  And not like crop dusting in Wal-Mart that leaves a brief trail of odor as you stroll the aisles.  No this is what being Pig Pen must be like.

So I decided I need to find a cause.  What had changed over the last month or so.  I hadn't changed beers or wines.  I was still using the same soap, shampoo, and deodorant. Oh, that's right, I'm eating meat again. 

So I stopped eating meat again.  And the force field eased.  No longer did I stink.  Thinking that the answer couldn't be that simple, I sampled a little meat.  White Castles probably wasn't the brightest choice, but I wanted something to remember.  And it was back like a Stephen King boogie man.

So, I guess I'll be parting ways with meat again for good this time.  I guess my body would adjust in time, but the unpleasantness isn't really worth it.  I survived just fine without meat before, guess that's one steak for you to enjoy.  Now, where's my salad

I just want to be tall

When I was a kid and then in high school, people were concerned about my future.  They wanted to know if I was going to college or what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Well, I didn't make it to college right after high school, I ran off with the circus.  Not really, but the Marines was close enough in the 80s.  We had tents, occasionally we liberally applied thick make-up, and we had a serious kick ass band.  No elephants or trick dogs, of course, but there were plenty of jack asses.

After a couple of years as a stay at home mom and part time college student I ventured into the employment market.  Fast food is a make or break industry.  Either you learn to flip burgers and take the bullshit or you go nuts.  Usually you do both, sometime in the same shift.  

Follow that with a brief stint in full service restauranting, inbound customer service, and finally I landed in the post office.  The amazing thing, no matter where I've worked or how much I've been paid, the characters are pretty much the same.  The petty games and jealousy always seem to pop up.  

I never wanted to work at the post office as a kid.  Hell, I don't even remember playing post office as a kid.  Really, all I wanted to be was taller.  Guess that's why they make 4" heels