The other day on the way home from work I turned onto a street and there was a pickup stopped in my lane. He was talking to somebody parked on the side of the road. I didn't give it another thought, because I could just drive around since there was nobody coming in the opposite direction. No harm no foul.

But then...

The guy in the truck decided to punch it and try to race me so I couldn't get back in my lane.

What a fucking asshole.

I should have just laid on the horn when I came around the corner.

What is it with people? What was the thinking here? HE was in the wrong, I was just trying to get home after a long day at work without interrupting his conversation.

I guess some people are just assholes.

And then... then... I came home and found it not overly hot, so I decided to pull some weeds out of my plant and flower beds. Which was a mistake. Even though I was done in 35 minutes, I was physically wrecked. Sore legs. Acing back. So embarrassing. I guess maybe I need to do stuff like this more often?

When my mom was in the memory care facility, we made a lot of trips to Fred Meyer. The store has everything she could possibly need, from clothes to toothpaste. On bad days I would either take her to the Freddy's just down the street. Or go alone.

But on good days where I thought she could handle a lunch out? We'd go to the Freddy's 10 minutes to the north where there was a restaurant she liked. On very good days when it seemed she could be out longer, we drove to the Freddy's 20 minutes to the south. There's an Indian Restaurant there I love, and they were happy to make something that mom would like.

I ended up at Fred Meyer every other week when I visited her so I could get whatever my mom needed. But it's the trips we made together for lunch and shopping at Freddy's that I remember whenever I drive by one of their stores. I'm sure we must have done that 30 times. Maybe more.

Now it seems as though the Freddy's to the north is closing, and the one to the south may be closing as well (I know the QFC to the south is closing). I can't help but be a little sad, even though I never shop there now that mom is gone. My nearest Fred Meyer is a half-hour away, so I only get there when I'm already in the area.

Back in the day you may have been able to "find it at Freddy's" (as in the commercial below), but now you're going to have a hard time finding the Freddy's to find what you're needing to find....

What a shame.

But I'm glad they were there when I needed them.

I have been trying to fill in some gaps in my collections on eBay whenever I have a dollar to spare. Most of the sellers on the platform are exceptional. They are honest about the item... they want you to be happy with your purchase... they go above and beyond if there's any issue. All the great experiences I have is what keeps me coming back.

And then there's the scams.

I bought two prints. I only received one.

Then I looked back through the comments from other buyers and found out that the seller does this ALL THE TIME. But it gets worse... the print I received was not authentic! The seller denied it, but let me return it.

Then the seller refused to refund the entire purchase price because the item "was not returned in the same condition." Fortunately, after I found out the seller was a scammer piece of crap, I thought to take a ton of photos.

Not only was it returned in the same condition I received it... I used the same packaging... THEN ADDED EXTRA PACKAGING AROUND IT!

But nope... the seller knew they were caught with a fake and claimed "damage" to get money out of me. Naturally I reported it to eBay. And, because other buyers had problems with the seller, I had my full refund within the hour. The fact that eBay stepped up to protect me from an obvious scammer is what will keep me a customer. But it doesn't make it any less stressful knowing that more scammers are out there.

One thing you can bet on... I will be reading the customer reviews very carefully going forward.

I wish I knew how I could be this tired all the time but never be able to sleep.

There are times that so many things are going wrong in your life that there's just no response to it all. Which essentially leaves you with two options. 1) let it all overwhelm you and just pack it in... or 2) carry on the best you can until things (hopefully) get under control and you can breathe again.

Thanks to this motivational pep-talk from Elmo, it looks like I'll be carrying on for another day...

And so... let's go.

When I got home from work today, I saw a medium-sized brown spider... barely visible on my floor because he was the same coloring. Which is ultimately my way of saying that I barely avoided stepping on a spider when I got home because I didn't notice him until the last second.

Then I did what I always do... run and get a small paper cup and a piece of stiff paper so I can scoop him up and take him outside. It's just a small kindness towards a Tony life that feels better than squishing the poor thing who happened to end up in the wrong place.

After dumping him in the shade outside my front door, the little guy started SPRINTING towards my front door. He was perfectly happy indoors, and decided that's where he was going to be.

After yelping while jumping back and saying "GAH! YOU DON'T WANT TO GO BACK IN THERE... MY CATS WILL EAT YOU!" I jumped inside and closed the door in time to keep him on the other side of it.

Then went to a window so I could look at him glaring at the front door.

I should not be surprised at all if he's back inside tomorrow.

So there I am petting Jenny, my skittish orange cat, when my phone rings. Because of my job, I can't turn my phone off or set it to only ring for known callers, because I can have people calling from anywhere at any time. And I have to answer.

And so I do.

After Jenny gets scared by the ringing and goes running upstairs.

At which point she hangs up on me.

Outright LYING to people over their finances is about as low as it gets. Fuck you. Making it sound like you're some official calling about a person's credit cards like there's a problem when you're just another fucking scammer asshole credit card consolidation company trying to drum up business by throwing out some random number and hoping it hits.

This scammer piece of shit should consider herself very, very lucky that I don't have the ability to make people's heads explode over the phone.

VERY.

When I got home I went to put away my garbage cans, but the clover in my front yard was full of bees! So I guess I'll wait until tonight so I don't disturb them.

Ever since I put out the bee watering stations, the number of bees which inhabit my yard has at least doubled. They're everywhere!

I'm so happy that I begged the HOA to let me keep it instead of spraying herbicides all over it. The stuff has pretty much taken over my lawn and I'm 100% okay with that!

This evening I was going through some of the memorabilia I've got stashed in my garage, looking for an old photo.

Along the way I started looking through some of the stuff that my grandmother saved, including a box of things from my grandfather's old barber shop. Including a photo of my grandfather standing in his old barber shop that was taken long before I came along...

According to the calendars on the wall, this was taken in April of 1941.

Also in the box was an atlas. Specifically a war atlas which was printed sometime in 1942, complete with a scary General Douglas MacArthur portrait. It was put together soon after the USA entered the war after Pearl Harbor on December 8th in the previous year...

You can click to embiggen so you can read it.

Inside is some rather cool historical context for the day. Like when The United Nations was an important part of America's alliance with the free world...

You can click to embiggen so you can read it.

And there's a recap of how we got to where we were...

You can click to embiggen so you can read it.

You can click to embiggen so you can read it.

And then? BLAM! A summary of America's defensive capabilities and a history of using them in the war...

You can click to embiggen so you can read it.

In the middle is an atlas with maps of the world and commentary on their part in the war effort. And then there's a plan to smash the Nazis! Back when we actually fought Nazis...

You can click to embiggen so you can read it.

History fascinates me in a way that few things do.

Finds like this bring it to life.

And, just like that, Summer vacation is over.

Now I need a vacation from my vacation...

...which is how you know it was a good vacation.