Hello, Is Anybody Out There?

This was the scene from my front door this morning. Under those clouds lies a large mountain. On that mountain at around 10,000 feet lies a cell phone tower covered in ice and snow. It has been that way for about 2 weeks now bringing with it no cell service. If you have been trying to reach me I'm not ignoring you I'm just not in service.

Merry Christmas From Us To You,

I sent cards (Bernie helped me find the mailbox. It was scary but I did it) I hope everyone got them. With Jackie in Kansas and Bernie at work it will be a quite day. We'll go in town later and I will try and call everyone. I hope the day brought many smiles to the kids and peace to the adults (Not! I hope all the kids are running around crazy yelling and playing, driving there mom and dad nutz) Bernie and I received very nice gifts from each other. I got an ipod nano and Bernie got a digital video camera. Alas, Santa could not fit a house in the sleigh but all is not lost however, the box (my term for the trailer) is easy to clean. Love to everybody and be safe.

Update.

Well the homeless thing just got better (really, in a way). We took down our offensive fence so now our dogs can run freely and pee happily on every ones grass (ha.ha.) I went and got a storage bin in town, we put everything from our offensive tent in it. Funny thing about that they gave me bin #51, I now call the storage bin Area 51. We looked yesterday at our holding tank only to realize our tank had not cracked. Upon investigating further the sewer line is backing up, funny thing, its on the State side. They will have to fix it or move us to another lot. I have a nice one already picked out. So we'll see what happens. On Tuesday, Jackie leaves for 3 weeks, she's spending Christmas in Kansas with Maggie so she is excited. It's cold here and snow is expected tonight goody, goody. I'm still having evil thoughts about taking the dogs for a walk down to the housing guys place he might appreciate the yellow snow dotting his front yard ( hand slap, bad Karen).

Homeless Again?

Last January unable to pay for rent in Texas on our measly income Bernie and I decided to come back to Arizona. We sent Bernie to Arizona first to start working for the State again and I would follow later so that we both were not unemployed at the same time. As it turned out our lease expired on March 1st and the State still had not called Bernie. Unable to pay rent in Texas I gave up the house, the job, and put everthing in storage. Jackie and I then drove to Corpus Christie and lived/vacationed on the beach. After about a week I got out of my snit, a brief visit to Fort Hood, some monetary help from Jayne and April, and we drove home to Arizona. In late March Bernie finally got called to work at Fort Grant, unfortunately we had no where to live in this area. Bernie's parents graciously bought us a small travel trailer and we put our name on the housing list. That was in March and now 9 months later we are still in a 12x25' travel trailer. My storage bin in Texas is larger. We have made the best of the situation, with the 3 of us jammed in here, we try to be patient. It seems however it's always something. First, the sewer leaked, we got that fixed. Then monsoon storms hit, the roof leakes(we have caulked, asphalted, everything it rains, the roof leaks). Then the hot water heater gets stupid we get that fixed only to run out of propane every 2weeks because the cold weather up here uses lots of propane to keep the water warm. We use a space heater and electric blankets to keep warm. While I'm whining and complaining its best for me to say that this situation has not been unbearable just complicated. We have looked for homes to rent in the local areas but, most are out of our commute range as we work different shifts (they won't let us work on the same shift) we would double any commute and the closest city is 35 miles away. The other factor is price, rental homes average $1000.00 in this area way more than we can afford and still have money for two commutes to work. So we stay in our travel trailer and hope we get a house soon. The icing to this shit cake is yesterday with the temps. in the teen's our holding tank cracked now all our water spills to the ground. NICE. I got a visit from the housing committee this morning they want our fence down because we did not get their permission to put it up, and the tent we have been using for storage needs to come down because it looks like somebody is living in it, they can't have that, they are here to help. By the way they say " houses are hard to get into you have to be on the list" . Mother Fuckers let people jump over us on the list and move in, there's even people living in houses here, that own houses in town. So no using water, we'll have to drive to the truck stop for showers. We are grateful to have a job a lot of people these days don't. Having a home to go with the job would be even better.

Successful Event

This weekend I dragged Bernie and Jackie out for some exercise and participated in the Arthritis Foundations Jingle Bell 5k/walk. Bernie and I also enlisted friends from work Hanna and Reno. Hanna brought her daughter who in turn, brought a friend. So the 7 of us left Fort Grant at the butt crack of dawn ( you know I really hate mornings we can just go from 3am to noon and not hurt my feelings any) and drove to Ried Park in Tucson. Hanna being a true soldier drove with the young ladies ( 3 teenage girls yikes! that was brave) while I rode with the men ( much safer). We had an excellent time the walk was a nice 3.something deal and only a few old people passed us. The dog costume contest was great we all vowed next year we are dressing up even more and the dogs are going to. We contributed 180.00 dollars to the Foundation and hope the next event will be even a bigger success.

South of the Border, Part 2, Karen

My first trip to Mexico as an adult was to Tijuana. OH YES! I figure if your gonna do something you might as well go big. Hello Revolution Blvd. ( If ya been there then ya know what happens in Mexico stays in Mexico) nothing like bars, whorehouses and shopping malls to stimulate a mind. This was a safe, no mishaps trip. The same can not be said of my most recent trip.

It starts out innocently enough ( Karen has not seen a doctor for her Thyroid meds. so a quick trip to the pharmacia and problem solved). Now usually I'm pretty skittish about driving into Mexico, in fact, I always park and walk across. My mother-in -law however drives across frequently to visit, shop etc... on this occasion Bernie, myself and his parents drive across. After finding a pharmacia and making our purchases it is decided in honor of my birthday, dinner was in order. Bernie's mom drove us to a lovely restaurant called La Reforma it is a family favorite and I am delighted they shared it with me.

The excitement begins on the way to the port of entry ( the border). Picture if you will looking out the passenger window seeing the border wall from the wrong side when BAAAM!!! T-boned in an intersection in Mexico. Suddenly Soldiers start yelling at us to move ( hello!!! we just had an accident I thought we stayed put. Ha!! American thinking.) low and behold the accident happened in front of a Military Generals house, so we had to move right away. Bernie's mom is trying to make the van move, the soldiers are yelling, it was crazy. Unfortunately the tire was all twisted up so moving anywhere was not going to happen. The van could not move under it's own power so the equivalent of the state police were called. After much discussion most of which I did not understand, because my gringa ass don't speak Spanish, we were "invited" it the local police station/jail. Now I must say when a cop wearing a fully automatic weapon tells you to get in his truck I comply. I've never been carted off to a Mexican jail so this was kind of exciting.

Little Miss Mishap!

Hey I'm Jackie!(aka Little Miss Mishap). So i was at school and in 4th period(gym). I was playing frizbee and WHAMOOOOOOO! Stupid boy knocked me over well lets just say i have a busted foot and he walked away. No sorry nothing! Mom was so cool when I got home she looked at my foot and went ER here we come. So another day in the life of Little Miss Mishap.

South of the Border, Part 1, Mom.

Mexico, my first memory of this county involved a restaurant in a cave ( seriously). I was terrified of the Mariachi band and hide under the table for the entire dinner. This experience set the stage for many other trips that would have strange happenings.

I would like to say this segment involves mom, my intent is not to embarrass. It is kind of funny some of the things that happened (now that many years have gone by).

My first trip to Cholla Bay, Sonora, Mexico was over the Memorial Day weekend. Mom was pregnant ( about 5 months, so if you've been pregnant you'll relate) with Jayne and were we on the way home, the line to return to the U.S. was very, very,very long. We had been sitting in the truck for hours and mom had to pee badly. Stopping somewhere was out of the question because we would have lost our place in line. Mom being practical and doing what she could given the situation peed, in a cup in the front seat of the truck. ( I might have been traumatized for life but, I had to pee just as bad. I waited, I was 10 . ) Unfortunately, this was not the only bad event that occurred to mom in Mexico. For this next event you need to understand that mom is allergic to tomatoes. I think she forgot that when she drank to many Bloodymary's. This was the one and only time I have ever seen mom drunk it was hilarious until she started yakking. Yuk! I related these stories first because mom has had as many misadventures as me. I think there might be a genetic link to mishaps. Mexico seems to have some dramatic effect on our family because we do things we would never other wise do. Next, South of the Border, Part 2, Karen's Mishaps.

ITS TRUE

OK! Miss Mishap is the perfect name for me. Ask anyone close to me and they will tell you so. Hell could freeze over and I would fall through the ice, get rescued by the fire department only to have their truck run out of gas. My "adventures" can go so awry that some days I'm convince a curse has been placed on me. ODDLY I have a co-worker who's grandfather is a true voodoo priest (go figure). There are some days I think about calling him and having a goat sacrificed, or something bigger, just in case the curse thing is for real.

By the way thank-you Jayne, the flames and quote on this page are great. I bet Mom still gets freaked out if she hears a smoke detector howling while she's in the shower (oooopps! so I burned some popcorn, we were able to get the soot off the ceiling eventually).

Are you ready? set... GO!

Hi, this is Jayne. I am Karen's (aka Miss Mishap) younger, and tad bit less accident prone, little sister. I have started this blog for Karen to document life as a mishap waiting to happen. She is famous for the crazy situations she gets into and I thinks she should share "the good, the bad, and the extremely funny".

Also? I want pictures, and a few entries from Jackie. How is life as the daughter of Miss Mishap?

Now get posting Karen! Love you.