So That's How it Works

Back in January, I got the idea that I wanted to join a gym. Curves specifically (a women-only, circuit work out place). Knowing that the monthly payment was not welcome anywhere in our budget, I tried to brainstorm the best (only) way to make it work.

So, I figured, if I could get a job there, part time, working say - one or two evenings per week, I would not only have a TINY bit of spending money, but would have a free membership, PLUS, would be killing two birds with one stone by working out on the evenings I'm already there working.

So, I went one morning, walked in & said to the employee, "Hi there. Can I have an application?"
She quickly cut me off, "Oh, we're not hiring."

I knew she wasn't the owner or the manager, so I was surprised to hear her answer that way. In my days of management at different companies, you always took applications of individuals who seemed like they could make an outstanding employee. I mean, I don't have MASTERS DEGREE stamped on my forehead, but you know what I mean.

I persisted, "Well, can I fill out an application anyway?"
Her: Sure.

The whole time I was filling it out, I had a feeling that my application was going to get tossed the minute I walked out the door. But, wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt & filled it out except for one phone number.
And the next day, I called back (figuring there'd be a different person working) to give the "missing" phone number.
"Well hon, I don't see your application anywhere. Hmmm. Maybe the owner took it? Well, I'll just write the phone number on a sticky note & put it in her box."

I wanted to tell her that I figured she could find the application because it's probably been shredded, but I didn't.

Granted, I'm not a fitness guru or have the body of Jane Fonda 35 years ago (or even today!), but I figure that I'm of a 'mature' age, have a decent education, lots of great work experience, & darn good references. Especially for a minimum wage job opening or locking a door to open a gym that pretty much runs itself. As far as I can see, the hardest part of the job is listening to a 70-year old woman talk about all the great deals she got a Dollar General that morning.

Fast forward four months. On a 'trial' (free) 3-week membership to Curves, I've been faithfully working my behind (well, one of the four) off. There is a young girl (like 20) who works there. She's very sweet. And she's VERY chatty. Like divulges lots of info. So, I said to her, "So Angie, have you worked here long?"
Angie: About 4 mos.
Me- thinking, hm, that's about the time I came in inquiring about a job.

Later, me: "Angie, do you go to church anywhere?"
Angie tells me the church she attends & starts telling me about allll the people who she attends church w/ who work out at curves.
And then.
She tells me.
"And you know Carol? She works here." She proceeds to describe the lady who "took" my application back in January & told me that they aren't hiring.
"well, Carol got me the job here. She really wanted me to get to work here."

Ahhh. Hm. So that's how it works?

PS Monday night, I heard Angie talking to a member, "So you said you were on a trip? In Albuquerque? Where's that?"

Apparently geography is not a job requirement.

Mystery Solved

I just learned that the dance of WALK IT OUT, was from Ed Sullivan..."Mexican Breakfast" was the name of the original song & here it is!

Mystery of the Binky Snatcher

As Gabe approaches two (our designated age for taking his binks away), we have limited his binky time to sleeping times (& church, to keep him quiet).

When we get him up in the morning, we have him throw his binky back into his bed (he usually complies, as he LOVES throwing things).

The last few days, I've seen him now & again, strutting around, or playing, with a binky in his mouth. And I've wondered, how in the world did he get it? I know when he throws it down, I double check to make sure that it's out of his reach.

Yesterday, (or 'last day' as Flynn has dubbed it) I went into his room where he was playing, to check on him, and there I saw it. He had his arm through one of the bars on his bed, sheet in hand, giving it a tug.

He has been pulling his sheet hard enough, to get the binky within his reach.

This might be harder than we thought.

You Are Now Entering Turdburg

Some people have their morning coffee.... they can't function til they've had a cup.

I have

my computer.

There are some days where I don't talk to anyone taller than 3 feet. So, my outlet is my computer. Spending five minutes here & there makes me feel like the walls surrounding my little abode, are a wee bit bigger than they actually are.

So, this morning, I stumbled into the livingroom, eyes still crusty, back still stiff, and I plunked down into the office chair.
Gabe was wide awake, he had been playing for a while when I 'rescued' him from his bed. So he had no interest in cuddling.

So, I engrossed myself in the computer. Finding out a bit about the world, the newest on Anna Nicole's baby-daddy-saga (not really), checking my favorite blogs....
when here comes Gabe, barreling down the hall, eyes twinkling like he's won a prize.

I just smiled at him & returned my focus to the monitor.

When then, I felt him drop it on my bare leg.

IT

was

a

turd.

Yep, a small ball of poop.

Now, I'm legally blind, so sometimes my eyes don't focus correctly.
But yep, after giving them a good rubbing, I concurred that indeed, my eyes were focused enough to see that I did have feces on my leg.

A good mom would think nothing of a little poopoo on her leg. She'd reach down & take it to the toilet. But not me. I stared at it. And I screamed. And then I started barking orders,
"Get me a kleenex!!"
"No, get me a wet wipe!!"

Then what followed was similar to a circus. You could call it Cirque de BM. Flynn trying to find the wipes, then taking the boxes of tissue off the box of wipes. Then trying to get the box open. All while I'm screaming, "WHERE IS THIS POOP FROM???"

After the doodoo had been removed from leg, I went into detective mode.
Just where did this mysterious turd come from?
You would assume it was Gabe who blessed me with the gift of brown...but he had footed pjs on.

So, I went on a hunt. No poo or hint of it anywhere. Flynn offered that she thought the turd was from "the hallway." Gabe just looked at me when I asked where he got it.
I was in a panic.

We never did find out for sure. Flynn still sleeps in a diaper as I have not even begun to work with her on staying dry all night...and part of her wake up routine is for her to take off her diaper & put on underwear. So, this poo mystery could've been best solved had I witnessed her diaper.

So, for now, I'll just spray the entire wall-to-wall carpet with Lysol.

Lots of Prayers Answered

Mystery swirls around abductions...
To those who track child abductions, the mystery surrounding the boys’ discovery stood out.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, about 58,000 children are the victims of non-family abductions. The vast majority of those children are returned safely.
An average of 115 cases, however, involve children taken by non-family members for long periods, put up for ransom or killed by their abductors. Of that number, about 60 come home safely, said center spokeswoman Joann Donnellan.
But what makes the boys’ case rare, Donnellan said, is the fact that a single abductor took multiple children. The case was made rarer still by the length of Hornbeck’s captivity, Donnellan said.
Investigators who made the incredible discovery turned Saturday from euphoria to some troubling questions.
• A uniquely joyful family reunionJan. 13: Craig Aker, stepfather of a 15-year-old Missouri boy who was found after being missing four years, describes his family's elation.
Nightly News“It’s hard to believe that somebody could be that brazen,” said Craig Akers, whose stepson Shawn Hornbeck was abducted in 2002 at age 11. “This has been going on four years, and he’s been right under our nose the whole time.”
Neighbors said Devlin hardly appeared to be keeping secrets. He had lifelong ties to this middle-class suburb of 26,000, family in the area and apparently no criminal record beyond a pair of traffic fines. He was often seen coming and going from his jobs at a pizza parlor and a funeral home, and nothing seemed odd about a teenager seen hanging around his place.
Neighbors didn't notice anything unusualThe landlord at the apartment, Bill Romer, said he was in the apartment once to fix a plumbing problem and saw the teen, apparently Hornbeck, sleeping.
“As far as I knew, that was his son living with him,” Romer said. “The kid’s bedroom didn’t even have curtains on the windows.”
Rick Butler, 43, said he hadn’t seen anything odd or unusual from the apartment.
Huy Richard Mach / St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Police escort kidnapping suspect Michael Devlin in Union, Mo., on Friday.
“I just figured them for father and son,” he said.
Harry Reichard, 33, who lives in the apartment directly above Devlin’s, said he would hear arguing and banging noises at all hours coming from the apartment.
Alma Rodriguez often saw the teenager riding his bike in the parking lot behind the complex. Her husband, Mario, sometimes saw him throwing a football with another boy. Hornbeck did not attend school during his time in captivity, his stepfather said.
Craig Akers said Shawn had seen benches plastered with his missing-person poster. The boy even told his stepfather that a picture intended to show how he might have aged since his kidnapping was an “insult.”
The case recalls the improbable survival of Elizabeth Smart, the Salt Lake City teen taken for nine months by a religious zealot. After her return, many questioned why she didn’t flee her captors, despite many apparent chances at freedom.
Fear used as a weaponStephen Golding, a forensic psychologist who examined the suspect in the Smart case, said captors often establish control over their victims through fear.
“People are led to believe, through someone taking advantage of their vulnerabilities, that leaving is not an option, that things will get worse for them or will get worse for others,” Golding said.
Both boys were abducted from rural areas of eastern Missouri about an hour from metro St. Louis. Hornbeck disappeared Oct. 6, 2002, while riding his bike in Richwoods in Washington County. Ownby was taken soon after getting off a school bus Monday afternoon in the Franklin County town of Beaufort, a beat-up white pickup seen by a schoolmate the only real clue.
On Thursday night, police in Kirkwood noticed a truck matching the description while serving an unrelated warrant at a nearby apartment.
‘It was quite euphoric’When FBI agents walked into Devlin’s apartment a day later, Ownby asked them, “Are you going to take me home?”, and another teenager in the modest dwelling identified himself as Hornbeck — reported missing 4½ years ago.
“Obviously it was quite euphoric,” FBI Special Agent Roland Corvington said Saturday.
Hornbeck’s parents dealt with their grief over the years by devoting themselves to bringing missing people home. They said having their son back was evidence for parents of other missing children to never give up hope.
“I still feel like I’m in a dream, only this time it’s a good dream, not the nightmare I’ve had four-and-a-half years,” his mother, Pam Akers, said at one news conference, draping her arm around her son.
At the other, Ben Ownby grinned as his mother recalled that soon after his return home, Ownby went to the computer to play video games.
“We’re just ecstatic,” Doris Ownby said. “Don’t want to let him go out of our sight.”
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed