Today’s Pet Peeve Rant is:

“Take and” 

Pronounced almost like “taken”.

Usage: 

“I need to take and go to the store.”
“I am going to take and go riding.”
“

Ok…. do I REALLY need to tell anybody why this is wrong?  Do I? Sigh….

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I had a strange dream Friday night.  I am just now getting to writing about it.  I was at the house across the street, trying to go in the door.  Instead of being on the front of the house where it is, the door was on the side.  It was an odd door and I seem to recall that it was a pocket door.  Not quite sure, though. Anyway…. there was an entity of some sort that wouldn’t let me in the door. There were people behind me, like I was leading them.  I spoke to the entity and told it that I was going to come in and get the cat and rabbit.  It spoke and said I couldn’t have them.  As I tried to enter the open doorway, a force pushed me back and I fought against it to get in.  As I was pushing through, I saw the white cat and white rabbit floating in the air as if someone was holding onto them.  I grabbed one and snatched it away from the entity.  I don’t remember at the moment which one it was, but I think it was the cat.  As I did that, the other broke the grip of the entity and scurried off further into the house.

The next thing I remember is being in my own house, in my bathroom, doing something to the ceiling light.  As I was working on it, a very small infant body — wrapped up like a mummy — fell out of the light fixture.

This concludes the weird dream.  Now… I’d like to know what that all  means.

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One of my nephews was working out of town over the last few days.  At one location, he and co-workers were sitting/standing beneath a tree when two baby squirrels came down the tree to stop on one co-worker’s shoulder.  They looked for a mother and couldn’t find any sign, so they decided to try to feed them and keep them safe.  My experience tells me that it rarely works; so it’s better to let mother nature take her course if your conscience will allow you.

Nephew brought the one here for me to see.  His little boy brought it to me while I was sitting at the computer.  When he handed it to me,  I knew instantly it was very sick.  It appeared to be having trouble with breathing and such.  It was very lethargic. As soon as I touched it, I could feel that it was wanting comfort and asking for help.  I know… that might sound strange.  But, it’s a fact.  I’ve always had this sort of empathy with animals of all sorts.  It’s one reason that I don’t hunt.  I haven’t hunted since I was a child.  I could if I needed to eat…. but I’d rather not. Anyway, the poor little thing was clinging to anyone for comfort.  It was nearing death and I knew it.  My nephew and I talked about what it needed to eat and that it should not be handled much because it was stressed physically.  I tried to prepare him that it was near dead.

It died a couple of hours later. I feel sorry for it.

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I had a busy day today.  I did a short appointment, patched the greenhouse, and worked more on the drainage problem.  I decided that the trough was too much of a problem to patch.  I looked at the situation again and decided to remove the trough and tie together the rear drain, rear gutter, and the front gutter drain with pipe. The trough was bricks laid into a V shape and cemented over to form a sort of drainage trench.  One side of it met the house.  (It was cracking away from the house, however.)  That redirected the water down the side of the house and into the front gutter pipe.  That’s the way it was supposed to be working, that is.  I decided that it wasn’t too much work to remove it and that pipe would be better.  The fact that the bricks were there already made it a bit below ground level; so it wouldn’t be too much digging.  I broke up and removed it (about 40 feet) today.

So, I need to go buy some pipe tomorrow.  I am deciding what I want to use.  I have a pretty good idea of how I want it.

However…. I am increasingly feeling a need to get on the motorcycle, point it a direction, and ride. Just ride.  No plans to stop anywhere. No plans to be anywhere. End up where I do and arrive back when I do. And tomorrow is going to be around 90 degrees.

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Another reason for my slow posting of late is that I have been so busy. I am trying to do my job and also take care of lots of things that need done around the house.

Over the last few days, my daylight “free” hours have been spent digging to stop the water from coming in the basement.  I got the old water line dug up and the section removed from the wall.  So, that won’t be directing the water into the house.  That’s when I discovered that the trough and drain were plugged up.  Over the last few days, my daylight “free” hours have been spent digging the drain up so that I could replace it.  I replaced the pipe and fixed it with a pop-up cap that drains water at the front hill near the road.  The pop-up cap also can be removed to clean out the pipe.  That has been back-filled over top of now.  And I need to repair the trough leading down the side of the house. I would have preferred digging up everything and sealing the wall again and replacing all of the drains with new. But, that requires time and money I don’t have. So…. that will have to wait until next summer.  Or whenever.

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Pet Peeve Rant of the Day is:

I’ve Got
You’ve Got
We’ve Got
They’ve Got

The word is HAVE, people!! “I HAVE a car.” Even, “I’ve a car.”  Never, “I’ve got a car.”  It is, “I have to go to the store.”  It is not, “I’ve got to go to the store.”   Better yet, “I will go to the store.”  Or even, “I must go to the store.” 

But…. NEVER “I’ve got.” Got it??? Oh, geeze……

It’s so prevalent that people even have me doing it! I HATE it!  It’s not proper grammar. So, STOP IT!

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Number 1,345 of the things that I think of and want to post but then forget again to post until I’m away from the computer is:

I got my Guitar Hero II a few nights ago and started playing it.  I liked what I got to play. After a few songs, the system came up with an error of “disc unreadable”. So…… I can’t play now and have to see about getting a replacement.

Which leads to Number 1,095 of TTITOAWTPBTFATPUIAFTC:

Over the last couple of weeks or more, I constantly am getting setbacks in one form or another.  I have had multiple parts ordered that were bad.  I have had things breaking all around me.  I think something is fixed and it’s not.  Things get delayed. I forget to do things that need done. Small jobs are becoming big jobs.  Big jobs are becoming even bigger jobs.   Add to that my nightly lack of sleep and my daily sense of exhaustion…. as well as my physical and emotional state…… and it might explain more of the mood I mentioned in my previous post.

Ok…. that sounds slightly like a whine.  It’s more of a statement of explanation.  I normally take things in stride and just roll with the punches. So… it’s less whine and more description.

Oh…. speaking of forgetting….(Number 795)  And….I got called for jury duty for Tuesday.  But, needed to call the jury line after 5 p.m. Friday to see if the trial is still on.  I forgot to call until Midnight last night.  But, I did call.  And the trial is off. So, I can now work on Tuesday.

Well… that’s a few of the number out of the way.  I’ll get to the other 10,000 in the future, I am sure.

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I’m getting in a mood.  It’s a bit complex and hard to describe.  But, one aspect of it is that my tolerance is low.  My interaction with people over the last few days has been…. uhm…… short.  Coinciding with that, ironically, is an increase in my mailing list postings/emails/I.M..  So, I have succeeded in ticking a few people off.  That’s nothing particularly new, however.

And sometimes, people need a little ticking off to wake them up. The young woman that I went to the hospital with…. the mother of my great-nephew…. for one. I just finished a conversation over I.M. with her, which she initiated, about her health and about taking her responsibility to raise her kids seriously.  I’m sure she’s ticked off right now. But, maybe it will be the impetus she needs to take her motherhood seriously. The same for my nephew. So, if that requires that I get to be the Ogre…. that’s fine with me.  Being seen as the big bad Ogre is little sacrifice if it results in the kids getting the best parents they can.

Fall is coming…. but it is unseasonably warm here.  So, sometime this weekend I would like to get out on the motorcycle for awhile.

G.G. told me this evening that she was disappointed in not seeing any posts from me. She said she came to read for entertainment…. and I said I wonder exactly how I’m supposed to interpret the word “entertainment”. I wonder…. is that “entertainment” like, “He writes well and paints good scenes and word pictures,” or is it “Ha! Ha!  He’s such doofus!” Or maybe something like, “He’s such a loser.  I didn’t realize studying freaks could be so much fun.” I’m sure she’ll tell me now 

One reason I haven’t posted much lately is because I get busy and forget what it is I want to post.  That… and I get so tired that I forget. I have thought of probably 20 things over the last few days that I wanted to journal about…. but right now I can’t think of them.  I probably should set up my PDA to make email postings and try to write them in it at the time I think about them.

Oh… one thing was about a scene in a show I watched.  It was……… “Ghost Whisperer” where she sees and talks to ghosts to help them cross over. The one I watched was about a couple that were in love. The man died young and the woman was left.  She said that she didn’t know how to go on without him and, “I don’t want to be here without you.”  The romantic in me says, “I want to have that kind of love.” I have loved that much… but it was one sided.  It wasn’t reciprocated. But, I don’t think it’s in my future. That’s a sad thing.

Well… I just fell asleep typing.

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Had a rough night and a rough day. I don’t sleep right. Some days, I feel it more than other days.  Added to that is a day that things just wouldn’t work right.  I wasted so much time today and part of it is because — I think — a new part I was installing failed.  I have already contacted the seller and am returning it to be checked/replaced. But, these kinds of days make it rough.

When I left for my appointment this morning, I saw leaves blowing off of a couple of trees.  Autumn is definitely just around the corner.

About 5 miles from my house, I was on a “ridge” road where the road runs along on top of a hill.  On the left is nothing but drop-off… and on the right are many side streets which meet it.  As I was approaching on such street, I saw a large Cadillac nearing the main road.  It paused and continued out onto the road without stopping; made a right and continued in the same direction I was going.  Then, she just went the speed limit after rushing out like she was in a hurry.  About a mile down the road, the Cadillac pulled into a grocery parking lot.  I pulled in behind.  When she got out of the car, I said, “You know….. you ran the stop sign and pulled out in front of me when there wasn’t a car behind me for a mile!” “I always stop at stop signs,” she said.  I said, “You didn’t stop and I should call the police on you.” “I’m sorry if I offended you,” she said.  I told her it was more than just offending someone, that it is about safety.  That I drive a lot and people do things like that to me all the time.  I said, “You pulled out in front of me when there wasn’t a car behind me, just so you could get here 30 seconds faster.”  She put out her hand and said, “Again, I apologize.”  I shook her hand and said, “Thank you.”

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When we were riding yesterday, I was in front with Rhillai behind.  When you ride solo, you watch out for yourself. When you ride groups, you point out possible road hazards when you come upon them. Sometimes, you don’t have time.  Other times you point out road hazards when you don’t even see them yourself. At one point yesterday, I was on a winding two lane road with Rhillai behind.  I suddenly felt this strong jolt and sharp pain in my shoulders, neck and back; and my teeth smacked together. I hit this “hole” in the road which I couldn’t even see.  When we pulled up at the next stop, I mentioned it and he chuckled.  He said, “I didn’t see it, but I saw you drop about a foot and back up.  So, I went around it.”  Well….. I’m glad I could be so much help.  :->

Well…. I’m out to the yard to start digging in hopes of preventing the formation of lakes in my basement.

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