"....'This Is Dedicated......'.......aka.........'Sherrie.....Sherrie Baybee'.................."

Good Evening;

Well it's another day that I'm in a non-writing mood, and I do believe I am entitled to a few, after more than 27 months of almost daily journaling....lol.

But here is a short rundown of my Friday...(and only because I ran into one of my loyal readers in Starbucks today who told me she's become addicted and needs her daily fix of 'Dave's Daily Drama' as FOX45 put it....and I know how painful withdrawal can be, and I'd never knowingly wish that on anyone!).

I was up at 8:30 am. when my phone chirped, thinking it was a text I grabbed it and nothing was there, so I just figured that it was the 'finished charging' signal, not remembering that it was the noise it makes when the power cord is disconnected from the phone or the wall. I attempted to go online and kept getting messages that the wifi was not available and there were NO networks in range, secured or unsecured, and that the Internet connection was disabled.

So.... I'm cussing like a longshoreman...(or my first wife in the delivery room............lol!)...and trying all kinds of things to bring it up, knowing there are at least half a dozen networks in range of me here at the shed. No luck. This kills the better part of an hour and a half and the lantern is getting dim because it needed a charge even before I started. I go to plug it in and...nothing, it does not get brighter nor doers either charge indicator light come on. At this point the light bulb above my head comes on, (and today it was above my head...as in the comics.....'Eureka!'.....yesterday after the testing, I could have played Uncle Fester from The Addams Family with a real light bulb not the battery operated prop!......which I had one of as a kid.....but that's a whole 'nother story.....lol!), and I realize that the power is out. Which gets me to wondering if someone pulled the plug to my extension cord...and hey, by the way..what are those voices and noises that I've been hearing and not focusing on, all my attention being drawn by the absence of wifi,...right outside! Well....I peek out the door and see the B G & E trucks with the cherry pickers extended and men working on the main feeder lines, and notice all the light are out in all the stores and traffic signals......and, well.....duuuh, no power....no wifi!

So I get up and head over to the Giant and learn that the power went out about.....uh huh...8:30 am.! The store was open with lighting and all computers and cash registers backed up by a generator.....which does not have the capability to carry the massive load required to power all the freezer and refrigeration units, (it would have to be half as big as the store to do so!).

And just an Op/Ed comment on the behavior of some of the narcissistic, ignorant, and self-centered assholes in Pikesville, (and don't worry, this is an all-inclusive equal opportunity rant crossing all religious, racial, ethnic, age, and gender lines!)

To try to save as much of the food as possible by keeping in the cold, Giant blocked off the freezer aisles to do the same thing you do at home...open the doors as minimally as possible...and the open front cool and cold cases were covered in plastic sheeting taped shut.

Well.....these idiots shoved the barriers aside, (and they were dozens of nested shopping carts...UPSIDE DOWN!!!), went into the aisles after being asked not to over the PA system, and either ripped open or pulled down the plastic sheets or stood there with the doors wide open, staring, with their mouths open and drool running down their bovine faces, or they talked on their cell phones having conversations so inane that it made Charlie Sheen's and Moammar Kaddafi's recent screeds seem like Nobel Prize worth material!!!

Oh, and you did NOT want to be near the deli counter, the comments I overheard had me begging someone I knew behind the counter to give me one of the rotisserie skewers to shove in one ear and out the other!

Yeah, anyway, it was 11:15 am. by the time I got out of there and the power had just come back on for that part of the grid sector. I walked past the library on my way to get on the bus to my appointment with Prologue at Noon. The power was still out on this block and the library was closed. I just had to drop a book in the night drop outside and headed around the corner towards the bus stop, when I mentioned to this woman that the library was closed due to no power. She responded with an eloquent and intellectual "Hunh??" and I elaborated and spoke quite distinctly and slowly, "Noooo Poooowweeerrr!" She came back in an accusatory manner, as if it was my fault and blaming me would bring back the magic lightnings...."you're kidding!"...(exclamatory....Not...interrogatory). So I admitted it and told her, "Yes, I'm kidding, I want all the books for myself, and no one can read any, so, I'm out here in front of the library telling everyone it's closed so they won't be able to read my books and use up all the word before I get to them!". Meanwhile I did not know that right behind me was one of the librarians.....who, as the woman walked up to the door herself and shook it, [it's an electric eye operated sliding door....lol], ignoring the other dozen people standing outside waiting to see if the power would come back on soon, who told her it was closed and locked, and tried to push it open.....looked at me and smiled and shook her head and said...."What a moron!", and we both cracked up.

Anyway, just after I got on the bus, (and THAT was a fun ride with a maniac driver and no working stoplights!....I'm STILL puckered up!.....lol!), my phone rings and I get a call saying there is an emergency...I need to come by immediately...(and this is something that must remain private for the sake of others)...so I called Prologue at 11:25 am. and got no answer and the stupid automated voicemail dumped me, so I waited 5 minutes and called back again. This time I got the receptionist/operator, who told me my caseworker was not in the building..(and she had told me she would be in the office all day)...so I left a message with her to deliver to my caseworker that I called away at short notice for an emergency and would not be in. When I got a chance to check my e-mail around 4:00 pm. I found a message asking if I had forgotten the meeting or if I was sick. This not the first time I have left messages with one of the 2 receptionist/operators, in person and on the phone, that never got delivered, disappearing into the ether, never to be seen again. NOT a very professional way to staff the 'first contact' a caller or visitor has to the company...is it?

I finally went to Starbucks later, for the first cup of coffee too, any longer and something was gonna snap!, and a woman sits down next to me and says "I know you".... "we've met before"! It was a woman who I met in the Giant, (who used the "I know you!" at our first meeting also....lol.

We talked for a good while, and she tells me she reads the blog everynight, just before she goes to bed, that my life and stories have become habit forming, an addiction.....lol.

Needless to say I was, (and still am), very flattered! She also asked about my friend Allan, (who stopped in to see me yesterday afternoon, before I went down to Monkee's), and used to be good friends with him and his ex-wife.

SMALLTIMORE in action!

Then it was read and eat dinner and read some more until it was time to get the 9:10 pm. bus back to the Plaza Station, and the next bus up to Pikesville, the Giant, where I didn't get anything because a case of indecision threatened to become a case of anxiety, then the gas station, where a dollar bet paid me $2.00, which kept getting reinvested and splitting 2 games for a $2.00 win and a loss, for a dozen games until I got 2 losses in a row, and that means it's time to quit!

Then back in here to the shed around 11:20 pm.....annnnd ...back to you Chet....

(don't get it?... never mind, you are probably too young...[Enjoy It!!!]...but if you really want to know...Google, "Huntley and Brinkley"). Now I'm about to get off line before my hands freeze, particularly the fingers, and I start to scream out obscenities to make them hurt less...(it's a fact....saw it on Mythbusters!), and/or the battery runs out of juice.

Later.......................Dave

(And I said I was not gonna write.........lol!)