It's that time of the year. With the holidays just around the corner, the crooks are licking their thieving chops, revving up to take our hard-earned money. We worked long tiring hours for that money, and they're out there, sitting around on their lazy scheming triflin' butts, thinking of ways to 'part-us-from' that money.

The 'new/old/same'o, same'o' scheme is the credit card security scam. Read it for yourself at Snopes.com.

So, let's be prepared when they call. Hang up the phone, Do not answer any questions! HANG-IT-UP! If you are concerned about your business, your accounts, your credit cards, whatever…call your company yourself - direct!!! 

"Don't take no wooden nickels", as my daddy so aptly phrased it. In other words, don't get suckered. 

See Snopes for verification.

ReeSee & the Dog House

I lose more games of Spider Solitaire than necessary because I'm so danged persnickety. I have a hard time with the dynamics of the game. So, what's my problem?

I usually play the medium level of difficulty game with two suits, hearts and spades. The easy level game is way too easy, only one suit and, the difficult/hard level has all four suits. This one needs total concentration and attention to detail. I usually only play the game to kill time while I'm waiting for something or someone, while I'm on the phone,  or simply to wind myself down at the end of a period of chaos, to rest my frazzled brain.

I lose more games than necessary because I can only bring myself to play in-suit, most of the time.  Playing hearts on spades...is ... unorganized... unsightly somehow. Ugggghh!!! Black on red doesn't make a pleasing mixture for me. So, I sacrifice a few wins for the sake of neatness and order, it's something insignificant I can control.

I don't impose my unrealistic expectations for order on anyone else. I wait until they're out of my space to do any straightening, re-arranging, stacking, or bundling I find necessary. Don't want to get labeled a 'coo-coo-bird' around here.  

I prefer things in order, neatly organized, every button in a different slot. I secretly shudder at disorder and disarray...if it lingers too long. 

I hadn't planned to post. My intention was to simply update the space, it's been a while. Since Friday things have been up and down. Friday was busy but productive, in fact the past couple of weeks have been very busy. I woke up early Saturday morning feeling better than I can remember in a while, not a lot of things on my plate to do or take care of. What I call 'that-load-off-my-mind' kind of feeling.

Half way through my morning cup of delicious smelling, steaming hot, freshly brewed coffee, the phone rang. Someone informing me Mama was upset and crying (150 miles away, in her [our] hometown). I questioned and got to the root of as much information as the caller could offer and said I'd call her (Mama). I did and she was sniffling and crying explaining why she was upset.

It took quite a bit of self-control and a whole lot of patience, along with a truck-load of humor and silliness on my part to get her to see how ridiculous her 'so-called' upsettedness (I made that up) was. About 45 minutes later I told her that if 'X' happened at "Y" o'clock that night, then she could call me and we could both fall on the floor and wallow around bawling our eyes out kicking and screaming together over the phone. Otherwise, she really didn't have anything to be upset about.  

She felt better, I was verging on pissed. Had me thinking something dreadful had happened, people had died, gotten chopped up and run over by 18-wheelers and metro busses. Thought maybe she was going into cardiac-arrest or the house was burning down around her. It didn't stop there, the person who called me in the first place called back 3 more times, and someone near and dear to them called too - going over their sides of this mess. Rehashing what she told them, what they told her, the whole nine yards, all over again. It took some doing but I finally got them all settled and got off the phone.

By then I was really pissed at the nothingness of it all. My mood changed, I got DEPRESSED. Five whole minutes almost ten, I felt like crap, no, like I had been crapped on. Then, I snapped. "No way! It ain't going down like this, not today!" I sashayed my chubby little feet over to the cd player and popped on some music, that always puts me in a better mood. The old stand-bys weren't working, nothing made a dent in the funky mood.

Oh, I know! Earth, Wind, and Fire, "That's The Way of The World". Five times straight. Now it's getting better. One more time. That's it, that's it, this is good. So I let the boys work their magic, twisting and turning those golden voices down hills into valleys, around and into the nooks and crannies of my mind. Okay, one more time! That worked! I topped that off with Z-Ro and "Looking Good". I let him spin his tale and hynotize me with that glorious fast-paced beat about seven times and all was right with my world again. I ended in a better mood than I woke up in.

I didn't feel like blogging after that, couldn't get my mind right for it.