The road to hell is paved by Golden Eagle Construction of Uniontown, PA. I am absolutely sure of it. I have plenty of time to evaluate this in the morning as I sit in their one-lane-road-hell and watch them roll the hot top at 7:55 a.m. THIS morning was particularly pleasant since they hid their dirty work on the side of the road by a traffic light. The sign said "Left Lane Closed" but did I or anyone else in the left hand lane see it? No. And why? Because traffic had already stacked PAST the light and a big, old 18-wheeler was blocking it. But, of course, being a sunny, Tuesday morning as we sat - first at the light between the county home and the state prison and then at the next light at the King's which was advertising "Tropical Chicken" on it's sign - my fellow motorists were eager to keep traffic moving and slowed to let me scooch in just before I slammed into the humongous, blinking yellow arrow. NOT! No, what really happened made me think they should have the guards from the state Pen hanging out on Rt. 119 to cart people off after they gave into their closet Mike Tyson's and started swinging at one another. Nope, no one would let anyone else in. I finally took a chance and cut in front of an enormous garnage truck that was lagging behing by 10 feet or so. Not sure what was on HIS mind but as soon as I did, suddenly there were two more beside of me, others who had waited too long and who had the destiny of a morning wedged between the last car to get over and the blinking yellow arrow. First, I decided to let four or five go. To hell with those traffic bozos behind me who wouldn't give an inch and who had let me sit there! Damn the torpedoes! But then I realized I was in a little, bitty Saturn coupe and the enormous garbage truck behind me was driven by an equally enormous male who probably would just ram me and them scoop me into his garbage hull and squish me - and surely, none of my fellow motorists would utter as much as a peep in protest. No, I decided, I would let one in...but that was it. Besides, it was 7:58 and I was late for work in two minutes. So I backed off a little to let the equally tiny little green Ford in front of me when whoosh! Out of nowhere comes this 15 passenger airport limosine van. And he was obviously late. And in a hurry. He went so far up the little green car's ass that I was pretty sure they were sharing a bagel and coffee in the front seat. Then this snot-nosed, pre-pubescent kid hangs out the passenger window to start to yell at me AND at the driver of the little green car. My eyes narrowed. I would NOT be bullied after all of THIS!!!! He slid in behind me as he realized I was NOT letting him go and proceeded to go up MY ass. I slowed to a crawl in protest. Maybe not my finest move but hey, it was 8:00 and I was HIGHLY pissed off by then. We finally hit clear road, passed all of the full asphalt trucks waiting to back the mile and a half to the asphalt machine and as I suspected he would, the driver of the van swerved around me and then back around the little green car which had gotten in the left lane. He looked crazed. I thought about taking his numbers and reporting him but then decided, who would really care? There's no getting around it. Summer is the time of lightning bugs, balmy twilight evenings, and hot asphalt being laid at rush hour during the work week. It's not going to get any better until it snows. I guess I need to learn to love my alternate route...until, of course, they start to pave it.

And the verdict is..... SHE HAD THE KEYS!!!! I knew she did. Eventually she gave them up and Anthony went and got copies made. Unfortunately, her evil spell was cast and it rained for the entire time that said husband and son were at the beach. In the meantime, my Dad got three clams stuck in his stomach. There's a moral here but I am not really sure what just now.

Again, my evil WOSS of a sister is up to no good. My dad owns a camper in Ocean City and for some reason, lets everything that asks use it whenever they ask. Last week it was his teller at the bank. He doesn't know her other than her first name but she spent the week at the shore courtesy of him...and this is a man who videotapes from videocameras all over his business and home. 'Nuff said. Well, girlfriend was supposed to bring the keys back yesterday - and as I am sure you've figured out - there's only one set. MY spouse and kid arrived at my dad's last night to get said keys to drive the 4 1/2 hours to the shore this morning. Problem is there are no keys! My WOSS to the rescue! She calls and tells my hubby that she has a set and he can borrow them!!! That is until her no good husband puts in HIS two cents and all of a sudden the keys are as gone as Jimmy Hoffa's body! My dad, in the meantime, is sick and I mean REALLY sick. He's been yakking since Friday and finally saw the doctor today. Usual round of blood work and an appointment for a barium X-Ray tomorrow to check his gizzard out. I believe after his appointment and a well placed rant about how my idiot sister loses everything, he went back home to figuratively die. I can't blame him and I certainly wouldn't be giving a rats-ass about keys if I felt as bad as I am pretty sure he does and especially in this heat. My sister, on the other hand, I can blame. This stuff happens all the time. First it was the meticulously kept photo album of all my baby pictures. She has it and tells me all the time how she is looking at it, but can never seem to find it when either my Dad or I ask about it. I am not sure she has ever misplaced her kids but I don't doubt that it COULD happen. My mom once forgot her groceries at the local market and drove all the way home only to realize they weren't in the back of the station wagon. Maybe it's genetic and I got all the anal retentive genes. Who knows...I just thank G'd right? Well, right now I am just steamed. I am convinced she has the keys but just won't give them up for whatever reason. You can bet your sweet bippy that in two weeks when it's HER turn to go, she'll know EXACTLY where they are.

A little housekeeping today. First, I called my dad last night. I think my waste-of-skin sister is using her powers for evil against me. My dad was extremely quiet and even seemed a little pissed. I know she told him that I didn't think he gave Spud enough for Christmas (NOT said!) and I know that pissed him off. I figured he'd say something though if he was really pissed. The reality is that it WAS waste-of-skin sibling pissing him off but mostly because she had him watch her bad-ass 8 year old and then left him there for 2 hours longer than she said. Given dad runs a bar...he can't be watching an 8 year old in the bar. Of course, WOSS (waste-of-skin sibling) doesn't consider that. And the family dynamic is -naturally- don't tell anyone when you're all pissed off ... so ... She's having a birthday party for the baby on Saturday. Naturally she scheduled it at 5:30 when we were SUPPOSED to be going with dad to the race track to watch the Belmont. Somehow this has turned into a "thing" my dad and I do and I know it makes HER furious. Me, my dad and my spouse and usually 3-4 of my dad's friends go down to the track, bet on the Triple Crown (last year just the Preakness but this year the Belmont AND the Derby) and then go suck down raw oysters and wine all night. It's a lot of fun and I look forward to it. My dad and I have our annual argument over where exactly WERE we when Ruffian broke her leg? I always ask...he says "Uncle Fred's" and then I say "No, Uncle Merle's" and we argue for a while. Every year. It's a tradition. Anyway, I know she's all buggared off about the fact that he is spending time with me. What an idiot. Her consolation prize is that because she scheduled it this way, I have to leave Spud with her. She's okay with him and besides he is taller than she is and he'd knock her over if she touched him. Plus he's a huge tattletale - in this case, a good thing - and he'd be on the phone to the cops before she realized what she did. I think, though, it's kind of like being in the Hole at the State Pen for Spud...more on that later. Today must have been a mass suicide in our county...it was like a furry Jonestown....dead raccoons, squirrels, whatever, laying all over the place. Plus some idiot was apparantly hauling trash and lost a load on the main highway through the area. Lots of blowing neon pink and purple papers everywhere. Maybe it dazzled the assorted wild life into thinking today was a good day to try to run across a four-lane highway! And...on top of that, they are tearing down the mall. That's an oxymoron if you ask me. How can you tear down a mall? What area is so destitute that it cannot support a mall? I live near Pittsburgh and granted, we ARE lead cog in the rust belt and why on Earth ANYONE would live here is completely beyond me but we do...which makes me realize all the more how friggin pathetic I really am but I digress.... Our mall died. And it was my favorite. I had gone there with my grandmother as a child...rode the Christmas train, bought my first pair of boots to wear with my gauchos when I was 14 there...had my first Orange Julius there, many many memories. When I decided it would be a cool and profitable idea to make candles and sell them, I set up my first table there at a craft show. Didn't make squat but it was cool. And now they're tearing it down...for a...drumroll please.....Super Walmart. What is UP with that??? The Giant Eagle is probably freaking out because hardly anyone goes there ANYWAY and now all of sudden there's gonna be a Super Wally World down the street. Well, anyway, now I see every morning people stopping all decked out for work...standing there...mourning it. It's pretty sad when your mall dies. And, of course, that all ties into the stupid Mag-Lev, which, now that I think about it, no one even mentions anymore. We were in the running with Baltimore to get one...which would have been kick-ass if you ask me! We live out in the boonies and while we're only 35 miles east of Pittsburgh, people around here act like you have to pack all your clothes and take rations for two weeks and have a full tank of gas before you even consider setting out. The airport is even FURTHER out...YIKES....takes about an hour to get there so that's like - make reservations on the Concorde. I mean, like Alison for example, thinks driving out to Latrobe which is about 20 minutes west is an all-day excursion. My OB-GYN is out there and she's like - you're going ALL the way out THERE??? I drove into Shadyside every week for nearly 7 months to attend Introduction to Judaism classes and you'd think I was making Byrd's Expedition to the South Pole all over again! "Call me when you leave!" "Call me when you get there...call me when you leave to come home..." These people OBVIOUSLY have NO clue whatsoever. Sometimes I'd just like to drop them onto the DC Beltway at about 3:30 on a Friday and let them see what the world is REALLY like. Back to the stinkin' Mag Lev though. I am sure you can infer that since our mall died there really aren't a lot of corporations knocking at our door to build in our county. I mean, nothing says Loser quite like a half-torn down mall huh? But boy, an up-and-coming airport with tons of freight companies springing up around it like mushrooms will certainly spur development aparantly. So all the good jobs, needless to say, are at the airport. So...we get into this deal with the feds that we can be a test site for the country's first magnetic rail system and whiz our bumpkins to the airport area to work in less than 20 minutes. They'd give us seed money for development and all kinds of engineering studies and then, if we were REALLY good, we'd get the actual train!!! Sounds good huh? Sounded good until everyone in Penn Township decided that they weren't sacrificing THEIR high-priced, quarter-acres for THAT and started to picket and riot until the government basically said...we're sick of you. They might as well have sent an engraved announcement to Baltimore telling them we were GIVING it to them. And really, after the handful of newspaper articles about the sit-ins and the billboards, the Mag-Lev is about as dead as the mall. Speaking of which, the port was supposed to BE at the mall...guess that's a non-issue now. And lastly, I am dealing with this idiot school right now. I write contracts to put people into training -yep, I AM your hard-earned tax dollars at work. Well, to make a really sickening, long story short, I had eleven students in a beauty academy and there were some, ahem, financial issues such as not refunding Pell and PHEAA monies to the student...and so, well, there was a walkout, yada yada yada, and now no one is in school. So...I tell all the students WE fund to go to the OTHER beauty school and apply there. Cut our losses. Get on with life. Get a friggin JOB for G-d's sake!!!! Anyway, this new school, naturally, I haven't dealt with before...and naturally there's no existing Master Contract. So being the benevolent dictator of the contract department that I am, I waive all time requirements and decide to do it in two days instead of two weeks. MISTAKE! Suddenly they're on the phone freaking out on me...wanting faxed contracts, etc. so these girls can start Monday. Like we wouldn't pay them or something. And it was then I asked the question that will live in infamy... Have you ever been stiffed by a WIB???? My boss commented that it sounds nasty and then he made a face. Bet THAT statement comes back to haunt me. I meant it altruistically...I meant it in the kindest possible way....I MEANT it to get the point across that we would PAY them.... Oh well. I guess as my Uncle Joe, may he rest in peace, was right. I was and remain ROUGH around the edges. Until tomorrow.

The Story about the Cat Okay, okay�before I even start to tell this story, I have to make a startling confession. I sleep with a little piece of my very first baby blanket. Fine�there I said it. It�s out in the open�I am out of the sleep-paraphernalia closet. I don�t know why I even feel remotely ashamed by this admission as I realize there are hundreds of people sleeping with everything from a tattered stuffed bunny (okay, I am guilty there too) to a blow up doll. We do what it takes, I guess, in this hectic world to have a little down time just for ourselves. And for me, and apparently, my cat�that means a piece of 40-year old blanket. My cat, it seems, finds it to be irresistible too. Rhett is a dark grey cat with intense, blue-green eyes. He is 15 years old and is a Hemingway cat. We didn�t pick him because he had �thumbs� on his forepaws, we picked him because he was grey and matched our other cat, Sparki. When we liberated him from the shelter, I cradled him in my arms like a little baby�and he reached up and bit my nose. We took him home anyway. Rhett was about a year old and hadn�t been fixed yet. When we got him to our apartment, he humped everything in sight. Sparki started to look at me like, �either YOU do it or I will!� Things were getting pretty critical because Rhett was so hyper he would wait for you behind the couch and then jump out, full-clawed and attach himself by the claws and teeth to your leg. We took him in and did the deed. We had him fixed AND declawed all at once. Rhett, thus, became an indoor cat. Life was not without it�s moments. We worked in Northern Virginia and often, wouldn�t get home until well into the evening. One night, I opened the front door and there was Rhett, sitting in the entryway. He has a plastic bag over his head and was probably moments from death. After a little investigation, and freeing his very-wet head from the bag, I discovered we had left a box of Teddy Grahams on the table and Rhett had helped himself, although, in the process, getting the bag stuck on his head. Fortunately, it didn�t kill him and we still think back and laugh about it. Anyway�now Rhett is 15 years old and he has a thing for my blanket. Every night he comes in and hops up on the bed. Then he starts making the �dough� � you know, that kneady-thing that cats do to soft places�usually with their claws and usually something attached to or covering your skin. Then he starts to get �into� it. What do I mean � �into� it??? His hindquarters start �spasming�, he purrs to beat the band and he gets this weird look on his face. This goes on for about 10 minutes until he settles himself down and starts to fall asleep � looking suspiciously like he needs a cigarette. It�s gotten so bad, I just put the blanket out as an offering when he comes in. Like any addict, he�s on it like white on rice�getting whatever fix it is he needs to get. I am not exactly sure WHAT it is he is doing but it really is queer. I know that�s not a PC word but it fits�it�s just, well, queer. As in weird or strange. That cat OBVIOUSLY has some issues. And�it�s made ME rethink my sleeping paraphernalia! Like�.ewwwwwwww!!!!!