Manscaping: verb:

A term used to define male grooming below the belt.   A male can use both an electric razor or a regular razor. A Mach 3 is preferable with the ladies on the testicular area. No female likes to deal with hairy balls, so men must education themselves on proper manscaping and maintenance techniques

This is a term I became familiar with via “Sex in the City“. It’s the male version of taking care of the “bikini area” for us females.

Never in my wildest dreams did I think Manscaping had made it to Mott, ND.  I thought it was one of the “Metrosexual” tendencies that you usually find in huge metropolitan area…I was wrong!

Not only is it in Mott, ND, it is in the locker of the Mott/Regent High School!

So ladies, guard your razors cuz you might be fighting your sons for them…ROFL!

I noticed after I got ready for work this morning that once again, there were construction vehicles parked in my back yard as well as cell tower parts. So I debated…and ended up picking up the phone and called the Sheriff.

I really like Sara, our Sheriff. She talked me down! LOL! She went out to the site, uniform and badge on, and told them, AGAIN that they were trespassing and that she’d talked me out pressing charges THIS TIME!

When I got to work at the library, I had the opportunity to talk to the man who actually pulled the permits for the cell tower and told him my problems. He then gave me the name, Max Thompson, of the AWS guy in charge of this construction project. I called and left him a message.

Having worked for AWS for many years, myself, I still have a few connections, and found out the name of Max’s supervisor and his number…the next cage I am going to rattle.

The beauty of the whole thing was that I stopped at the Convenience Store on the way to work and was telling my friend, Nan about how the morning had started.  There was a man in the store, who I did not recognize as a resident. He heard me telling Nan about the morning and started asking me rather pointed questions…making it obvious he was one of the workers from the cell site. He got an earful! ROFL!

Here’s the thing, dear readers, I’m really easy-going until you do me wrong…normally someone being inconsiderate wouldn’t  bother me this much…but this is on a rather grand scale.  And to think it could have all been avoided if someone, anyone, had just knocked on the door and asked, “Hey would it be OK if I parked my car on your lot?”.    Maybe these folks will learn the lesson by the time all is said and done? Nah, probably not.

We only have two cell phone providers for the rural parts of North Dakota…Verizon and the former Altel (since purchased by AT&T Wireless aka AWS).  About 18 months ago, Altel approached Rochell for an easement to put up a cell tower. My Dad taught me you don’t give away something like that, you rent or sell it. Altel disagreed with that philosophy so they got it from one of our neighbors.

So a surveyor was out and marked property lines, etc…but do you think those fucking idiots putting up the cell tower could recognize those markers? NOPE!

When they first came out to prepare that land where the tower was going up, they parked their equipment and port-a-potty in my backyard.  Now, let me just say, had they had the common decency to actually ask if putting that stuff there was OK, I would have smiled and said sure.  Since they didn’t, then I felt no compulsion to exhibit any decency myself.  Out I went to the only person working at the time and told him to get his shit off my property or face trespassing charges.

THEN, when they put in the road that leads to the cell tower site, they did it again…now you know why I find the whole marking of property lines the surveyor did was a ridiculous waste of time.  That time, I trudged out to where the workers were and said, rather loudly, “Which one of you is in charge and gets to talk to this bitch with an attitude?”. One guy, pretty sheepishly, stepped forward. He got an earful!

NOW, today, we have the semi delivery of the actual cell phone tower parts.  And again, nobody asks if they can park on my property, etc.  So out I went, in knee-high snow drifts, and whistled that high-pitch whine that I perfected at Dodger Stadium all those years ago, to get someone’s attention.  Once again, I stood toe-to-toe with someone who is incapable of understanding property line markers, and gave him half an hour to get his shit off my property or I would press tresspassing charges.

Un-freakin=believable!!!  To bad I live in the city limits,  cuz I could see myself standing on the back porch sending a shotgun blast in the air to get their attention. I bet they would have gotten that stuff off my property a lot faster then! DUMB ASSES!

During our phone conversation I mentioned it was snowing. Where he is at, in Seattle, snow isn’t as common an occurance as one might think. I told him it had started snowing before I got off work on Saturday and it was continuing through Sunday. I had been hoping the snow plows would come by before I had to leave for work on Monday cuz I HATE getting stuck in a drift!

So Porter says to me, “What’s the coldest you’ve experienced since moving to North Dakota?”

I said, “One morning last winter, I went out to start the car and the temp the car registered was -35. My car won’t start when it’s beyond -20. David and I didn’t think it was that bad, so we decided to try walking to school….BIG MISTAKE! We only made it to the end of the block when we decided to go home and skip school that day.”

Porter’s response…”minus 35?!?! HOLY SHIT THAT’S COLD”.

Porter shared the coldest he’d experienced was New Years in Providence and that was 10 degrees. HA! That’s short-sleeve weather here! (Not really, but don’t tell him!)

Today when I went to start the car it was -5 with a forecast of -10 to -15 for the rest of the week.   I think Porter is right, my blood has thickened and I’m dealing with it much better than I would have thought. But then I was the one in Vegas running around in shorts in the winter…not here though. LOL

So on the way, here, to the library. I stopped at the “C” store (C as in convenience or Cenex, can’t remember which), to get my morning Mocha. I park the car, get out, and head towards the door.  I notice that next to me is an out-of-state vehicle and assume it was a hunter’s vehicle.  I was right…I passed a guy in hunter garb and saw him get in the car. Then I passed another, older gentleman that had apparently bathed in Drakkar Noir this morning. As I took a second to recover from the toxic cloud of cologne, I notice that Mr. Drakkar got into the car with the hunter.  I did manage to hold it together until I got in the store, where upon I lost it to a fit of giggles.

BAMBI IS SAFE FOR TODAY…cuz he could smell that group of hunters from a mile off. Ahh…the joys and laughs of visiting hunters!

My almost 12 year old son would be the dude on the right and yes, he has a gun in his hand.  That is counter-intuitive to everything I ever heard or learned growing up in Los Angeles, or living in Las Vegas.  David had to attend 24 hours of “Hunter Safety” training and pass a comprehensive test before he could get a hunting license. He knows more about guns than I do, I think, and I was on a shooting league in Vegas way back when.

Both David and his Dad enjoy their early Sunday morning forays into the chaparal to try and roust a few pheasants…neither one has actually hit any though. They are even dragging my poor dogs out with them who have no training in hunting but seem to be naturals anyway. I guess I am the only animal lover in the family…I refuse to hunt or clean what they hunt, and if they ever do actually bad something, I suspect I won’t be interested in cooking or eating it either.

“Every party has a pooper that’s why we invited you…Party Pooper”. Yep, that’s me, a party pooper! (How much longer until hunting season is over???)

Life has been both blessed and cursed…Isn’t that usually life in general?  I guess the blessing and curses have been a little larger than usual.

I am the new librarian for Mott, ND. Which has definitely been one of the blessings. It’s a small library, I’m guessing only about 10 thousand titles.  All the titles are still being loaded into the computerized system that was purchased approximately a year ago.  At the time I took over and uploaded a searchable listing into the library’s homepage there were about 5500 titles.  I’ve loaded quite a few more, but no where near what had already been done.  I’m enjoying it immensely and just wish it was a job with more than 18 hours a week.  I’m still putting in my 12 regularly scheduled hours at the grocery store, which helps financially…I’m glad I could keep the hours at the store. My poor sister-in-law, Sonya, has spent a lot of time out of town lately and I’ve been helping to cover her hours at the store…I appreciate the extra hours/money, but it’s been exhausting.

Poor Sonya, and thus all of us, has been through the ringer. Her “significant other” from Vegas, Doug, has been hit with major heath issues. First he was hit by a heart attack. Sonya flew to his aid because I guess his family couldn’t or wouldn’t.  After he got home from the hospital, Sonya came home, and Doug followed her a few weeks later to do some of his R&R here. While he was here he passed out in the bathroom, which made us think he was having more heart issues. Long story short, it appears he has brain cancer. Final results of a brain biopsy are expected any second now…in the meantime Doug has deteriorated very significantly.  Doug’s insurance company wanted him treated in Las Vegas so they paid a private plane to come get him and Sonya. Poor Sonya is torn because he has no family in Vegas now that we’ve all moved to ND and his sisters, his only family, can’t or won’t come be with him. I can’t begin to fathom what Sonya is going through.  She is coming home on Saturday…with Doug’s urging and, I’m sure, a very heavy heart.

David is well and still growing…he is going to be 12 in December and he is 5’9″ and wearing a size 12 shoe and still growing…pretty significant considering he hasn’t hit puberty yet. I wonder how tall he is going to get? He enjoy lording it over me that he is now my height! Little turd! 6th grade has started out well…he was really looking forward to being in 6th. He admires his teacher and has since last year. He like that she doesn’t put up with any shenanigans…unlike last year’s teacher.  He still has issues with one boy in particular from last year…the reason I had to write the email to the teacher mentioned above.

Fall has appeared in our little corner of the world. Harvest is done and hunting season will be here in a few weeks. Then it will be time for Winter and that dreaded “S” word! I’ve actually had to break out the long pants a few days this week due to weather and temperature!  A blizzard, a big pot of soup and laying in bed with the hubby all day doesn’t sound half bad…at least being the librarian, I know I will have some good reading material for the snowy days!

It’s almost 3am…I suppose I should let the dogs out one more time than go in and snuggle up against that handsome, snoring guy I have in my bed. Life could definitely be worse.

The 2010 Census is a big topic around here. Everywhere I go I see ads suggesting I apply to be a census worker. When I check out the site…http://www.2010Censusjobs.gov/ I found the pay is good, $14.00/hour, in North Dakota. The work is in the evenings and weekends and is part time…which all sounds great! Paid training and there is a test on Tuesday.

I had a cousin who was very involved in the 2000 census and she loved working for the Census Bureau…I figured, hell it couldn’t hurt…the money is good and I have a tendency to be a social butterfly…why not get paid to gab with and get to know my neighbors.

We are all bundled in for the storm that was due to hit today.  Today we were supposed to get 3-4 inches of snow with sustained winds in the 30+ mph with gusts up to 60+ mph.

Saturday is supposed to be more of the same, but the winds shouldn’t be as strong.  Sunday the forecast is for less snow but more/stronger winds.

This morning started out with ice falling from the sky rather than snow.  The snow didn’t start until about 2pm.  I’ve never been in an ice storm. The closest thing I’ve seen is the movie, “Ice Storm”.  While most of the ice we have “hanging” off stuff (not so much hanging as collecting like some cubic stalagmite that juts out parallel to the ground on the East side of everything…yeah, I know, pics would be helpful), came from that weird heavy fog that’s been constantly present over the preceding 3 days of sub-freezing temps.  Today’s short ice storm added to what was already built up. Because of the ice build up and the threat of storm, David got let out of school at 1pm today…he was so heartbroken…NOT!

We, within the city of Mott, have been fortunate.  In the last 3-4 days, our power has flickered off then usually back on within a minute about a dozen times.  A lot of friends and family outside the city limits have not been so lucky.

Kenny and Michele live outside of town and have their electricity provided by a different company than those of us in town. They have been without power for 3 days.  The town where Brian works is without water because the pump station that brings in water from Dickinson is on a third power company and they have been without power for over 24 hours…and thus without water for over 24 hours.  MAN it would SUCK to be both without power AND water!

I guess all I can do is cross my fingers and prepare for the worst…30 gallons of fresh water is in the house, the fridge and freezer are stocked and if the power goes out, that stuff can go outside and remain frozen, and there is a gas barbeque outside in a pinch and lots of thermal blankets inside.  I don’t think it will come to that, but it helps to know that we would be OK…I’m still thinking we ought to save up for a generator, just in case.

Brian and I hosted Christmas Eve last night. Kenny, Michele, Jake, and Michele’s Mom, Betty joined us, Rochell, Gigi, and Sonya. I’d thought it would be nice to have a couple of pots of soup on the stove as well as some freshly baked bread for dinner. I had also been amassing some homemade goodies to serve, such as my Mom’s version of Chex Mix, Oreo Bon-Bons, and Almond Roca.

We opened gifts and laughed all night long.  That was the truly enjoyable part, that there was so much laughter.  Gigi looked at me towards the end of the night and said it was the best Christmas Eve she’d ever had.

The wind was howling as our party came to an end last night…a blizzard in the forecast. When David woke everyone up for Christmas Morning at 9am, a blizzard was in effect.

We had more presents to open since Santa had stopped by. And since no one could get out of their driveway due to the blizzard we decided to postpone Christmas Dinner until Sunday when Danielle and Cameron return to Mott.

Our Christmas day was spent lazing by the TV, snuggled under blankets, or napping in bed, or playing new games Santa delivered, or reading new books received the night before. Plenty of leftovers were snacked on, pop cans opened, and dishes dirtied…and it couldn’t have been better if we had planned it.

We had a MARVELOUS first WHITE Christmas in Mott, ND…I’ll be looking forward to Christmas 2010.

Here is wishing everyone’s Christmas was marvelous!