GOM in Oklahoma's Blog

The Daily Prompt:

What do you complain about the most?

Really?  I don’t think I have the time or energy to list all the shit I complain about.

1. Money
2. Bills
3. Idiots
4. Kids today
5. Government
6. The neighbors
7. My wife
8. My cats
9. Myself
10. Medical crap
11. The weather
12. The dog across the street
13. The fucker with the loud booming base on his pickup radio that just HAS TO sit in his truck blasting away for too many hours a day
14. Sports
15. My house
16. Waking up last night to find water all over the kitchen floor and worrying, as I mopped it up, that there was a leak because of all the freezing … only to discover it was because someone (I’M LOOKING AT YOU, TUX!) knocked over the pitcher of water that was sitting on the counter
17. Food
18. The fact that our local Post Office was actually closed one day because of the weather.  What the Hell?  What happened to their motto?
19. Getting old
20. My pickup getting old
21. Insurance
22. Driving my wife to work on the ice
23. Winter cold
24. Summer heat
25. Spring storms
26. Fall leaves all over the damned place
27. Commercials on TV, especially the repeating ones – endlessly
28. The commercials on TV not being long enough for me to go pee … damned prostate
29. Not getting mail
30. Getting mail when it’s all bills
31. Going bald
32. Not going bald fast enough
33. Still having to pay full price for a haircut even though I’m GOING BALD

That’s enough …

The Daily Prompt:

What would you do if you won the lottery?

I feel like this question in some for or other has been asked a billion times or so.

Answer at this time – It all depends on how much money it is.

It’s been years since I bought a lottery ticket.  Technically I guess I HAVE actually won the lottery before.  I matched enough numbers once to win (I think) 10 or 20 dollars.  I rolled that over to new losing tickets because no one had won the big money.  So … did I win or lose?

Anyway …. What would you do if you won the lottery?

$50,000 or less is strictly going into savings for emergencies or unexpected expenses.

At $100,000 I’d buy a new vehicle.  Anything left over between the cost of the vehicle and $50K (which probably wouldn’t be much) would just go into the checking account, with the $50,000 going into savings.

At $250,000 (and remember, I live in a small town in Oklahoma) I’d look into buying a new house in this town.  There is a nice one on the market right now for a little less than $200K.  New vehicle would be next on the list, then the regular thing with the $50K.

At $500,000, after doing all of the above, I’d look into helping out my family members where actually needed.

Anything over $1M just means probably expanding on the last item to gift money to all immediate family members.

If the winnings got into the “crazy money” amounts of the hundreds of millions of dollars, I’d think seriously (I may have mentioned this before) of donating towards some of the municipal projects my little city is trying to do – electric, water, and road upgrades. But I’d keep a careful eye on where and how that money was spent.

I will not be answering this question again.

For the first time since last Friday morning, I left the house this morning.  My wife had to go back to work.  I really don’t understand, the schools are closed again today because the roads still haven’t cleared up, and they are usually closed when the schools are closed.  I really don’t see them getting many people in to eat today, and I’m damned glad I’m not having to be the delivery driver … or my wife walking to people’s houses from the van.  I told her to walk on the grass as much as possible, and if she fell to scream LOUDLY and make damned sure a lot of people knew about it … for the lawsuit.

It got above freezing yesterday and the sun was out a lot of the day, but there’s still crap on the streets, but I made the round-trip with no sliding.  Today is supposed to be warmer and sunnier, so maybe it’ll be better tomorrow.

Yes, she was glad to go back to work.  She was starting to get Cabin Fever.  Me?  Not a bit, I’ve enjoyed it (even if it did mean Bingo was cancelled last night).

And so, WINTER.

On Thursday night all local school systems announced that Friday would be a “virtual day” for classes, “out of an abundance of caution,” because of the impending threat of nasty weather.

The funny thing is – when I first went outside at 6am on Friday it was 45!  That’s warmer than the dire prediction.

BUT the cold front was just beginning to move through at that time.

BUT it was a ‘dry front.’  Nothing falling from the sky.

As it turned out, nothing started falling from the sky until around 5pm.  They could have gotten a full school day in.

My wife’s place of work did only “to-go” meals on Friday (other than the ones they delivered) so that they could get out early, and she was home at 11am instead of 1pm.

And, as said, nothing started falling from the sky until late afternoon/early evening.  It was a mix of sleet and freezing rain that coated everything in a very light layer of ice.  Not enough ice to impact trees or power lines (THANK GOD!), but enough to make the streets “slickery.”

And it kept getting colder.

While I had time, I drew out five buckets of ‘toilet flushing water’ just in case.  Last year the toilet did freeze.  I also drew out a few pitchers of water to supplement the four gallons of “store bought water” I’ve had in a closet since last year.  All “just in case.”  I mean, temperatures below freezing until Tuesday … many of those hours below 10 … several mornings below zero.  Yes, I left the kitchen and bathroom sinks dripping, along with the shower.  I also left the cabinet doors under both sinks open (to give the kitties something new to stare at) and set up an electric heater in the bathroom.  The bathroom has not heater of its own, and there are no central unit vents in there or the utility room.

It did the wintry mix thing all night Friday and most of Saturday.  The street looked awful from the coziness of my recliner, and I saw few people driving around.  It was one of those days that made me damned glad I’m retired and didn’t have to go to work.  The biggest weather issue for the day, though, was the cold.  I don’t think it got above 12 all day.  As I write this it’s 7 degrees outside with a “feels like” of minus nine.  And it started lightly snowing last night and is still snowing a little.

The good news is that we are comfy and cozy and warm.  No water has frozen up, not even the toilet.  I fully expect my wife to find the washing machine unusable when she wants to do laundry tomorrow, but we have plenty of clothes … and I’ll just tell her that if she just really HAS TO do laundry, she can do it by hand in the sink the way my grandmother did.

Church has been cancelled for today.  I expect school and my wife’s job to be closed tomorrow.  The precip is supposed to stop this afternoon and the sun is supposed to shine, so maybe the roads will clear up by Tuesday.  I have no plans to go anywhere, so who cares.  If my wife thinks she needs to go anywhere she has two good legs and a bike.

If you could make your pet understand one thing, what would it be?

Juliet – “You had your treat, now shut up about it!” AND “If you’d stop growling at Tux when she got near you, she’d leave you alone … and she wouldn’t be getting near you if you didn’t insist on lying down right in the doorways!”

Tux – “Stop responding to Juliet’s growls.  She’s just old and cranky, she’s not challenging you to a fight!”  AND “Sometimes I’d like to sit for a few minutes without a cat in my lap.  Just a few minutes …”

Buddy – “It’s warmer inside … there’s food inside (I stopped feeding you outside several weeks ago) … the water is inside … YOU should be inside!”  AND “Mrs. GOM really likes you and really likes you sitting in her lap.  Tux does NOT enjoy you getting in my lap with her.”

L is for LIFE.

The Daily Prompt for today is – Write about your first name: its meaning, significance, etymology, etc.

No, I won’t do that.  Very few people who might actually read this stuff know my real first name.  It’s not a secret; I just rarely reference it.  And I’ve already written something similar before.

Oh, okay, if you insist …

When my mother was a little girl, she liked the name Stephen and decided that if she ever had a son she would give him that name.  Fast forward to when my parents got married, and my mother happened to marry a man whose family had a long history of naming male children Stephen – spelled that way.  For over 200 years.

The first known ancestor of mine with my surname was named John.  He named a son Stephen … he named a son Stephen … and so on.  They all had the same middle name.  It started with a “G” and was the maiden name of the original John’s wife.  And this went on until, for some reason, my grandfather was NOT named Stephen G.  He was named G Stephen (although the G was for George, not the original name).  My grandfather did not give any of his sons the name Stephen, nor did his brothers.

Oddly enough, though, in my generation there are three Stephens.  Two of us with the same last name, one with a different name because his mom was the only child of my great-uncle.  To my knowledge, there are no Stephens younger than me.  If I’d had a son I would have carried on the tradition and gone back to the original middle name as well.

So, I guess, fate intended for my mother to indeed have a son with the name she liked as a little girl.

(FUN FACT: I was not the first male child!  That child was going to be given that name but died in childbirth 10 years before I was born.  He has a different name).

And what does that have to do with LIFE?  Nothing really, I guess, it’s just something about my life.

Something else about my life that I’ve never really revealed although a couple of people reading this already know is my job – what I did for a living.

I “talked” about my job in general terms.  I said I more or less worked outside in the weather, but I did have shelter.  I said I worked for the State of Oklahoma, kind of.  I said I worked at a place that was open 24/7 and that I’d worked all shifts, although I primarily worked at night.  I mentioned a time or two that I’d been involved in horrific accidents that could have easily caused my death.  I also have said that I worked, in a sense, with law enforcement personnel in the area, especially Highway Patrolmen.  And, I said I worked a boring job that no one would really care about anyway, a job that was being automated out of existence and had been eliminated in most other states long before it was here.

From those “clues,” Leeeeeeenda figured out my job.

Someone else who guessed thought I was a Correctional Officer because she figured out where I lived and saw that there was a minimum-security prison work-release center here that has since closed because Oklahoma did away with them.  No, I applied for that job but thankfully didn’t get it.

Someone on another site always joked that I was involved in some sort of espionage because I wouldn’t say where I worked.  Wrong again.

There’s one person reading this – eventually – who knows what I did for a living because I told her in an email.  I also know where she worked, and she didn’t want that revealed either for reasons different than mine.

I always said I’d ‘tell’ what I did after I retired but haven’t.  Lots of the people who were ‘curious’ have ‘disappeared.’

And so, the revelation for what it’s worth.  I was a Toll Collector on the HE Bailey Turnpike.  Exciting, right?

Go back to the clues:

• Outside, in the weather, in a ‘shelter’ – a metal and glass tollbooth.
• “Kind of” worked for the State – the way it’s set up here, the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority is actually a private company owned by the State of Oklahoma.  That way I didn’t get paid by the state out of the state treasury but got paid by the OTA out of turnpike proceeds.  I, though, got all benefits of state employment including the retirement plan.
• It was indeed open 24/7/365, three eight-hour shifts per day, including 11p-7a with some ‘alterations’ during Covid.
• Horrific accidents.  Yes, three times a semi rammed right into the booth I was sitting in.
  • The first time was a ‘glancing blow’ that did more damage to the truck than anything else because it was an old, original, solid steel booth.
  • The second time I was in a new booth that was designed to be temporary and (because of this accident) was done away with.  The booth was destroyed and I was lucky to not be injured in any way.  The truck stopped but then left the scene to go to the service plaza 1/2 mile away.  A witness said she thought he should come back; I told her he’d get his ass kicked if he did.  He was ‘caught’ at the plaza and, according to the OHP Trooper, was fined and ticketed to the point where he’d never be able to drive a truck again.  I was not physically injured, as stated, but I did suffer “PTSD-like” stuff because of that – I cannot fall asleep and stay asleep without “help.”
  • The third one was the worst.  Similar to the second, except in a better booth that saved my life, along with a barrier I’d taken for granted for years.  That driver was stupid enough to come back until I told him to get his ass back to his truck and wait for the cops.  His boss came down and fired him on the spot.  Again, no physical injury, but the mental stuff was even worse once I calmed down.
  • I was convinced that if another accident happened, I’d be dead.  I still do not like driving on major highways with large trucks.
  • I’m not getting into the numerous things I saw involving cars that were less lethal but still dangerous.
• Working “with law enforcement” is kind of a stretch, but I did interact with every LEO in the county.
• And, yes, it was boring at times – but I found that boring was not bad and was much better than any “excitement” – and was automated out of existence in other states long before it finally was here.  The thing that ‘saved’ the job here for as long as it did was the way the law was written – 100% of collections had to go into the till, no provision for credit card fees.  That’s been changed now, though, after the switch to automation.  (A lot of state legislators would not vote for that change when some of their constituents relied on those jobs, and the OTA could not do anything without legislative approval).

So, that’s it.

I didn’t mention it before because I didn’t mention it in real life either.  There are people that know me and have no idea where I worked except that I retired from the State.

I didn’t talk about my job for three major reasons.

1. If someone found out where I worked, they just had to tell me every sob story they had about a rude toll collector or a ‘coins-only’ gate that didn’t work, and I just really didn’t give a fucking shit.  Once I was off the gate area that part or my life ceased to exist until I went back to work.
2. Too fucking often people would complain to me about the very existence of the turnpikes.  Way too many times I heard (and still do) that once the roads were paid for the toll was supposed to be removed.  That’s not true.  In Oklahoma a vote of the people created the Turnpike Authority with the express intent of NEVER removing the tolls but instead using the money as a system of maintaining all of them and adding others as needed.  And, yes, others have been built (mainly around OKC and Tulsa) that were paid for by money I collected at a booth 100-200 miles away.  And there’s at least on turnpike in Oklahoma that runs in the red and has to be supported by the others.  The OTA would LOVE to make that a free road, but the state doesn’t want to take up the responsibility for maintaining it, so the OTA is stuck with it.
3. Way too often I’d get asked questions I could not answer because they were about things I was not allowed to talk about – even with my wife.  Mainly to do with money.

It was easier to just not say where I worked.

L is for LIFE and a part of my life I was really, really glad to leave.

I just took my wife to church.

It’s 26 degrees outside with a windchill of 16.

Just that short drive (less than a mile round-trip) froze me to the bone.  I’m sitting here typing this and still wearing my ‘coat’ and hat.

It’ll be 60 this afternoon.

Mr. B went outside when I came home.  He’s been an inside cat about 90% of the time.  Some of that has to do with the coldness, some of it has to do with an injury.  (And he’s already on the outside table looking in the window wanting back in … be right back).

Last Tuesday night I noticed he wasn’t lifting his tail when he walked around.  I touched it and he squealed.  It had been fine earlier, and he’d been in the house most of the day.  I don’t know if “someone” (not me) stepped on it or caught it in a door when she they blindly shut the door without looking, or if it happened outside.  He’s moving it more as the days go by, so I’m not too worried.

Anyway, he’s becoming more and more of a housecat.  Yesterday he spent most of the day upstairs with the girls.  Hell, I forgot he was in the house.

Last Tuesday we went to Bingo for the first time since early December.  BOTH of us won a game for $5.

The woman who runs the Senior Center wasn’t there.  Last June she slipped on some water that had come in the back door of the place (when we had all the rain) and had to crawl through the building to get to a phone.  And ambulance ride to the ER showed nothing but severe bruising.  She hobbled around with a cane for a couple of weeks and seemed to be fine.  Apparently though, not so fine.  She had some pain and had an MRI done that showed several cracks in her hip.  So … she wasn’t at Bing this past Tuesday because she was at home recovering from hip replacement surgery.  She’s a volunteer; would that qualify for workman’s comp?  Lawsuit?  Hmmm … we might not be winning any $$$ at Bingo for a while …

Also, on Tuesday my wife had her ortho-doc appointment.  X-rays showed no signs of arthritis in her hands.  They told her to keep taking the pain stuff that we had on hand (and that she says isn’t working) and put her on steroids.  If that doesn’t do any good, they’ll refer her to a rheumatologist to see about rheumatoid arthritis.

I think that’s enough for the day.  It’s now 29 outside, windchill 19.  I used to like winter better than summer, especially when I worked.  I could bundle up and stay warm enough at work as opposed to having the swarms of bugs around the lights all night long in the summer.  Now I think I’d be happy with 90 all year long.

Maybe I’m just getting old.

K is for … K?

I’ve been puzzling over this since I posted the “J” post.  Couldn’t really think of something “K” that I wanted to write about.

The last time I did this challenge fifteen or so years ago, K was for Kangaroo.  In fact, seeing that old post prompted me to do this again.  Reading that post and the comments from Emjay, her sister Jane, Flamingo Dancer, Steve Betz, GOF and Inga and a lot of other folks I’ve not “seen” in a long-long time.  People that just disappeared.

So … K?

Kaleidoscope?  Remember the song with the lyric “The girl with kaleidoscope eyes?”  She must have been freaky looking.

Kleptomania?  I’ll admit to one time pocketing something in a store.  I felt so guilty about it I threw the thing away.  If you must know, it was a small package of ink cartridges for a fountain pen.  Yeah.  I could NOT be a habitual thief; the guilt would kill me.

Kay?  A friend of mine when I was growing up, almost a ‘third sister’ because she was around so much, was named Dianna.  Her family called her Kay.  Kay was her middle name.  That was my first experience with people not being called by their “real” name (other than those called by a nickname).

Kitties?  No, I write about them too much.

Kilimanjaro?  I’d like to go to Tanzania one of these days but never will.

Yeah, a lot of “K” words.  Still undecided.  Still thinking about …

K is for KANGAROO.

A weird-assed animal.  Looks like a cross between a rabbit and a deer.  I’ve only ever seen them in a zoo, if then.  Quite honestly, I don’t remember.

I remember a TV show from long ago called “Skippy.”  Set in Australia.  Kind of the Australian version of “Flipper” (which I never saw) or “Lassie” (which I rarely saw), about a boy in the Outback of a “sheep station” and his friend Skippy, a little kangaroo.  I remember the kid lived in such a remote place he didn’t physically attend school, he ‘went to school’ via a short-wave radio.  Yeah, and all these people nowadays think they invented remote learning during Covid.

Anyway, that last paragraph was the kind of shit I wrote the last time that got all those Australians to comment.

K is for Kind of a Mess of a Post.

J is for JULIET.

We needed a new cat.

Joy was about 6-8 months old when Tiger died, and she needed someone to play with, someone to burn off energy with.  So, we needed a new cat.

And I wanted to get a male cat.  I’d heard that if you’re going to have two it’s best to not have two females since they’d compete for dominance.  And I wanted to get a kitten so that it would know it was entering Joy’s house.

A friend of my wife’s had a cat that had kittens that were ready to give away, and she told my wife she’d bring a boy kitten by for us to look at.  She brought TWO kittens, a boy and a girl.

We had virtually no interest in getting more than one kitten and really didn’t want another female … until we saw her.

The male kitten (who became Smokey) was HUGE.  Big head, big ears, big feet.  Next to him was a tiny little female who looked so vulnerable that there was no way I was going to let her be separated from her big brother.  So, we kept them both.  And thus, Juliet entered our lives.

Juliet was named after a character on the TV show LOST because my wife liked the name.  (Smokey was named after the ‘smoke monster.’).

Juliet was tiny and very energetic.  VERY!  And fearless.

As it turned out, it was a good thing we took both kittens.  Smokey, at first, thought Joy was his new mama and Joy very bluntly let him know that was not the case and that she wanted nothing to do with him.  So, he and Juliet played while Joy observed from a position on high where they couldn’t reach her.  Eventually they all got along just fine, but Juliet and Joy did indeed compete for dominance.  A competition that ended up with Joy thinking she was the boss and Juliet not really giving a rat’s ass.  When Salem and Jerry moved in from Michigan after my dad’s death they bonded in their hatred of the she-devil Salem.

When she was a baby Juliet sat in my lap all the time.  That was fine.  Joy wasn’t a lap cat, and Smokey was Mrs. GOM’s baby.  When Smokey later decided he wasn’t really a lap cat either, Juliet took up residence with my wife.  And that’s the way it was for a long time.

As older cats passed – Jerry, then Salem, then Smokey, then Joy – Juliet became the eldest.  Tux came along and while they don’t get along all that well because Tux is a brat towards her, Juliet is happy.  When “Buddy” came into the house (I call him Mr. B.  The B can stand for anything) Juliet wasn’t too sure about him, but she acts like she likes him now.

Anyway, Juliet.  She’s almost sixteen now.  She doesn’t seem to see all that well anymore, which is part of the ‘fussiness’ towards Tux.  She doesn’t walk as well as she used to mainly because she’s gotten obese.  She isn’t a lap cat anymore and hasn’t been for quite some time.  She spends 90% of her time upstairs where it’s warmer.  She gets on the bed every night and stays there until we go to sleep, then she moves to “her spot” at the top of the stairs until she thinks it’s time for Mrs. GOM to get up.  Then she’ll waddle back into the bedroom and meow loudly.

But, you know, I look at Juliet the elderly, obese, limping cat with the dim eyes and I still see Juliet the frightened little kitten huddled next to her big brother, not sure of what was going on.

J is for Juliet.

The Daily Prompt:

Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?

First –

When I was a baby, my Aunt Hazel made me a small brown teddy bear.  She made him out of scrap materials, including an old coat.  He was named Cocoa because of his coloring.

That bear is sitting on the upper portion of the desk I’m at right now.  He’s well-worn because he was well loved.

Second –

Sitting next to Cocoa is Bear, another teddy bear.  I’m not really sure where he came from, he’s just always been.  He was the one I always slept with as a small child.

Third (and this is a repeat from a post long ago) –

I have a large Texaco truck in my garage.  I’ve had that truck since I was about ten years old.  A friend of my dad’s had a Texaco station, and they were selling the trucks as a promotion.  My friend and I both got one.  My friend’s truck was smashed and “ruined” within a year … but then, he played with it and enjoyed it, so I guess it really wasn’t ruined.  I played with mine and it has scratches in the paint and a crack in the windshield but is in pretty good shape.  Many years ago, I saw the same truck – in rougher shape than mine – selling online for $500.

Yeah, I have a tendency to hang onto things.

If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?

“A Busy & Challenging Day Eventually Finds Girls Having Incoherent Journals,

Keeping Lovely Memories, Noticing Overweight Quails, Remembering

Sweet Times & Understanding Varied Wishes.

Xylophones.

Yours Zealously.”

YOU’RE WELCOME, ALL YOU FOLKS PLAYING THE ALPHABET GAME!

A “blast from the past” memory from childhood car trips.  No one does that anymore, too busy staring at their phones.