Iowa - The Final Destination

All right!  Iowa has made the big time in this Borderland Beat's re-reporting of WHO's news video.  After watching this video it would seem Iowa is the final destination of all the drugs crossed over from Mexico through Arizona's desert just because I-35 & I-80 meet up in the middle of the state.

So if this is true I give credit to the University of Iowa, one of my alma maters   The U of I is consistently in the top 5 party schools in the United States year after year.  This year the Princeton Review ranks it at #4, behind University of Mississippi, University of Georgia, and Ohio University.

Come on, University of Iowa, you can do better.  Party hardy!

Scum-Sucking Dominican Leeches

Watch out! Here goes a long-winded rant.

The dead brother-in-law bought 3 weeks a year for 3 years vacation time at International Vacation Club (IVC) in the Dominican Republic (DR) for a grand total of $2000 and the assholes don't issue refunds if not used even if you are dead.  In fact, they wanted me to take over his contract. Fat fucking snowball's chance in the DR that I will ever set foot in that tropical banana republic hell populated by sleazy scum-sucking leeches.

He spent two nights at their compound last June, so I hope he enjoyed his $1000 a night hotel room.  He actually contracted for more than more than $4500, but he financed $2900 and was paying $99 per month by automatic debit. That stopped after we closed his bank account.  In November I called and cancelled his reservation for December 22 - January 9.  He was planning on abandoning his motherless children during Christmas to go visit his piece of ass Ana Luisa Lora.  I've seen her photos on Facebook and I am not kidding when I say she's a piece of ass.  A big fat one and she's still boo-hooing on his Facebook page. I've got a mind to send her a message from him beyond the grave. The bitch has the Lincoln Navigator that Asshole Alfonso shipped to the DR and should rightfully belong to the boys.

OK, back to the IVC rant.  Apparently the day after the brother-in-law died, this shyster operation pulled $983 out of his bank account.  It was for the reservation in December. Why? I don't know and I can't get a straight answer out of the idiots who answer their 1-877-258-8311 toll free number.  He's already paid more than $2000. If I can get through, they usually hang up on me. Since I cancelled his reservation in November, I was told a refund for the $983 would be issued. Yeah, right. I've been told a refund was issued on January 17 and mailed to Asshole's address after I told them to make the check out to his estate and send it to my sister's address. Yeah, right, the check is still in the mail. I've spoken to the customer service manager Rosa Beralca on numerous occasions. Today I was told they screwed up (so what's new?) and they are reissuing another check. I informed them today that all communication from now on would be by email.

My sister is at home now waiting by her mailbox and holding her breath.  Oh, God, please, I can not take another asphyxiation death so soon.

My Dog Smells Dead People

There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.


Weird things have been happening since the day I moved into my nephew's house.  Like one of the first nights my Miss Daisy Dog, who is half blind and deaf but still has a great sniffer, pointed her nose at the corner of the door leading into the garage and growled.  The same garage where my brother-in-law died.  She did it again two more times that night so I knew if I wanted to get any sleep someone was going to check out the garage. And it sure as hell wasn't going to be me.

I've survived gun battles, grenades, narco-blockades, attempted truck stealing, and a pistol at the head of a drummer in Reynosa, but I was too chicken shit to open the door of the garage because my dog growled. I was alone in the house and wondering who to call.  A neighbor? At 10:30 at night? Even if you don't know any of them or even have a phone number?  911?  Does a growling dog constitute an emergency?  In the end, I called the number on the card left by the police officer the day he responded to the 911 call my nephew made when he found his dad.  At least he knew the story about what happened here and, maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't think I was a big flake. He sent over a couple of patrol officers and they banged on garage door announcing, "Marion police."

If his ghost was in the garage, he was gone by the time the police arrived.

The water softener isn't working. The water in Marion is worse than the water in Mexico. The TV in the living room makes everyone look like green men from Mars.  The light on the front of the house quit working for a while. I replaced the light bulb to no avail. It magically started working again.  And the garbage disposal quit working so my other brother-in-law (not Alfonso) replaced it.  He's also replaced a leaky faucet, wax ring on the toilet because of a leak, and a grounded electrical outlet that kept tripping.

Then there was the home phone problem.  I could call out or receive a call for about 10 seconds and then would be cut off on every single phone in the house. I bought a new phone and still the same thing so Mediacom came out and replaced the modem. After that I was able to call out, but sometimes ringing in it would be dead and the caller would get a message saying the number was temporarily unavailable. This is not acceptable when trying to reach a 13-year-old who is home alone.  Mediacom came and replaced the modem again except this time the installer couldn't test it because apparently the whole neighborhood was down due to a cut in the fiber optics.  For 3 days.

Everything was working for almost an entire week when today the phone, internet and cable goes on the fritz. Then the smoke detectors go off.  All of them. At the same time. Which apparently is a frequency the dog can still hear because she went nuts. And then just like that they stopped until 5 minutes later they'd go off again. This continued for about 3 more rounds while I tied to figure out which one is the bad boy.  Andrew had a piano recital so I ended up disconnecting all detectors and tomorrow I will buy new ones.

Obviously the phone, cable and internet are back up and I was able to post this. For how long, who knows? And, please, Miss Daisy, please don't smell any more dead people.

Remember The Teachers For Valentine's Day

I knew it was coming.  Valentine's Day.  The little one came home with the obligatory class list so he can give a card to everyone.

"No," I tell him, "you can not just give a card the classmates that you like.  Yes, you must include the girls." 

The little one has finished addressing the cards for his 1st grade class and tonight we made little presents for the teachers. We bought everything at Dollar Tree for less than $9 and made 18 of these.  I already had the ribbon and I thought I had a big heart punch but I couldn't find it so I used my apple punch instead. 

1. Using cupcake papers, I stuffed them with mint candies. When I teach I like these for a little breath refresher.  

2. Put a pencil in the center. 

3. Wrap with cellophane using ribbon to tie.  Curl the ribbon.

4. A heart punch would have been better for this Valentine gift, but apparently I only have a little one so I used my apple punch instead. 

5. Force child to write who it is from.

6. Use cellophane tape to attach to pencil

and VOILA!

I am done with the Valentine stuff this year.  I have a whole year to plan for next year. I am that organized. Yeah, right.  

Learning Another Language - Sarcasm

Even though the boys' father was from the Dominican Republic, they have learned very little Spanish. That's because my sister took care of them 99.99999% of the time until she died and she didn't speak Spanish. One night as I was tucking the little one in bed he asked me what is a coño?

"Where on earth did you hear that word?" I asked.   

"My dad called us coños," replied the little one. 

Nice. It means "pussy" but I didn't tell him that. I just said it's not a nice word and we are not going to use it. Hopefully, he'll forget that word soon.  But I am not perfect.  I've been known to let loose a few bombs on occasion. It's not part of my everyday vocabulary, but I remember my older boys running for the hills when mom was mad. And they knew when it was time to scatter by the amount of sh's and f's peppering my tirade. 

I've been known to speak Sarcasm too.  That's why I should never be allowed to teach a kindergarten class. They just won't get it.  Today the boys were fighting over which stool to sit at the kitchen counter. After listening to about 5 minutes of bickering (damn, I have patience!), I finally snapped, "Why don't you two fight about something dumb instead?"

It shut them up for about 5 seconds while giving me the deer in the headlights look. To which the little one said seriously, "We are fighting about something dumb."

Ya think? 

I got a laugh out of the older boy. 

So later I was cleaning out my desk when I ran across some handwritten quotes that I used to have on my desk back in the day I worked in a computer/network department.  Here's a bunch of my favorites:

• Well, this day was a total waste of makeup. 
• Does your train of thought have a caboose?
• Did the aliens forget to remove your anal probe?
• And your crybaby whiny-ass opinion would be...?
• A PBS mind in an MTV world.
• Okay, okay, I take it back. Unfuck you!
• Too many freaks, not enough circuses.
• I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just wanted paychecks.
• How do I set a laser printer to stun?
• What am I? Flypaper for freaks?
• Ahh, I see the fuck-up fairy has visited us again. 
• Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
• How about never? Is never good for you?
• I like you. You remind me of when I was young and stupid.
• I'm already visualizing the duct tape over your mouth.
• It might look like I am doing nothing, but at the cellular level I am really quite busy.
• Any connection between your reality and mine is purely coincidental. 

I probably won't be using most of these on the nephews, but I can't promise on one of those frustrating days that one or two might not slip. 

Comparing Apples and Oranges

Where am I living now?  Here's some clues.

1. No dogs or cats roaming freely on the streets.

2. If more than one car pulls up to a 4-way stop nearly the same time, all cars will wait at least a minute or two before pulling ahead.

3. This is considered a racy joke - What did the plow say to the tractor?  Pull me closer, John Deere.

4. People are taller than me and I am 5'8".

5. Most women wear faux fur boots without a heel. 

6. I haven't seen any boob cleavage, male or female.

7. People are talking about how warm the winter has been with highs reaching into the 40's.

8. No vendors selling anything on the side of the highways. 

9. Finding produce such as jalapeños is not always guaranteed.

10. And (oh, the horror), I can't find any fresh corn tortillas.  

I am having serious tortilla withdrawal symptoms.

Mother Goose the Racist

I was unpacking my books that I hadn't seen for a while here in the frozen tundra called Iowa when I ran across this colorful, friendly looking book that looks ever so inviting to children.  I don't remember where I got this book or how long I've had it,  It's copyright date is 1931.  Contrary to the popular belief of my nephews I AM NOT THAT OLD.

So I'm flipping through the book reading about Humpty Dumpty and Little Jack Horner when HOLY COW I found this.

We used to recite it back in the 60's. And we really used to say it complete with the N word. Before you all start beating up on me (notice the ya'll has been changed to you all now that I'm back in Iowa), we hardly understood the significance of what we were saying at age 5 or 6 especially since the metropolis of Swisher, Iowa had population of 500, all of them lily white like me.  I do remember that sometime by the late 60's, probably not coincidentally about the same time as the civil rights movement, Martin Luther King's speech, and the Black Panthers' Ten Point Program, we were informed to change the N word to tiger. 

Even so, when my book fell open to this page it shocked me.  And jarred my memory of the days when we used to recite it.  And a good reminder of how far we've come since 1931.