The oddest thing...

I was on my way home from work today and as I pulled to a slow crawl at a yield sign I saw a smaller sign stuck in the mud beneath it. The smaller sign said, "For Sale...YOUR FUTURE...cheap."

That was it. It didn't give any explanation, it simply was there.

All the way home I was wondering...
...who made that sign?
...why?
...what could have possibly spurred someone to take the time to make a home made sign, go out in the cold and stick it at an intersection with no explanation?
...what does it all mean?

I guess I'll never know. Makes you wonder though. At least it made me wonder. Well, at least until I ate dinner. Then I kind of forgot about it until just now.

And now for something completely different...

You may now return to your regularly scheduled blogging.

The week that was...

Okay, I know it's only Thursday but, so far, this week has been one of the stranger weeks I've experienced in 17 years on the job.

It started badly, with a co-worker/friend reporting that she was assaulted over the weekend. I've been doing some counseling/supporting/listening whenever she needs to just talk about what happened. I know from personal experience that it will take her a long time to start feeling like herself again.

It continued to go South when re got the report that one of our long time consumers was arrested for a very serious crime. This man is 67 years old and it's likely he'll be going to prison for the rest of his life. What's extraordinary about this is that in all the time we've worked with him we never, ever saw any behavior or had the slightest inkling he would even try doing something like what he has been charged with. Still, the evidence is there now and so he will spend his last days incarcerated.

Then, a aeries of just plain bizarre things happened. People were saying odd things, out of the blue, which kept throwing everyone off. Weird stuff like "You look surprisingly good today." Now that in itself isn't so weird except it makes you wonder how the person was looking the rest of the time! Or this one, when a co-worker called a consumer, asked for him by name, and, with the person she called answering the phone, being asked "Do you want to speak to the white one or the black one?" There is only one. And he's black. So we don't know why he even asked that!

Yesterday, someone who is usually very sweet and nice just snapped at a co-worker. Apparently she thought the co-worker said something about her. The co-worker wasn't even speaking to her at the time but was, rather, petting someones dog and talking to the dog. The sweet, nice person would take no explanation or apology but just told the co-worker to "GO HOME!"

Today, someone came in for his health assessment. One of the nurses met with him to do this only to find out after the fact that another nurse had done it a week ago. The strange thing about this was that the nurse who did the original assessment actually helped the other nurse get all the paperwork together BEFORE the consumer came in. She knew she had already done it and never said a word about it. Just plain weird.

I'm sure today and tomorrow will bring more strangeness to the table. After that I just don't care. I'm off work all next week and thinking about this place, this job and these people is not in my schedule!

Heidi Klum is a bearded marionette....

I have always had really odd dreams. Ever since I was a kid I have had vivid, full color, detailed dreams that never make any sense and, often, are so funny that I wake myself up laughing out loud. Today when I came home from work I decided to take a short nap. I had a dream that was a combo of people I know, situations that never really happen and pseudo celebrities from the show "Project Runway". Basically, in my dream, I was somewhere - not really sure where - and I was just there, with nothing much happening, with some people from work. Then, Tim Gunn, from Project Runway, walked by and I said "Wow, Tim Gunn and he looks just like his mugshot from when he was arrested." To my knowledge, Tim Gunn was never arrested. But there he was and that was what I said. So I decided to see where he was going.

Next, someone who looked like Ru Paul came up to me and asked me if the bus was coming. I told him I didn't know but then also added "You look good for just getting out of jail!" Again, I have no idea why Ru Paul was in my dream and I have no idea if he was ever in jail! At that moment, Tim Gunn ran past with the police in chase and Ru Paul took off and they both got tackled and arrested and taken immediately to court which was right there where we were all standing.

So now I'm in court watching all of this and the judge comes out. It's Heidi Klum. Well, sort of. Because she was a marionette with Heidi Klum's face but she was a bearded lady and she was manipulating her own strings and she kept moving her legs all around crazily. I was thinking "Wow, Heidi Klum has a beard!" and then my alarm went off. My alarm makes this twinkling sound like fairies or something so even though I heard it I was still dreaming and thought it was a nice touch that there was fairy music for the bearded Heidi Klum dancing marionette.

Then I woke up.

I swear I have no idea what the heck this dream could possibly mean. I mean, why would I dream about these people and have them all in trouble with the law and have Heidi Klum having a beard?? I dream crap like this all the time. So weird but always makes for interesting sleeping! LOL

Another crazy dream...

Seems I'm on a roll here with the dreams this week. Last night I dreamt that I was driving home from somewhere and my car started burning. As I was driving I noticed rather large flames shooting out from under the car and then more flames coming in the car from the dashboard. My only thoughts in the dream were "This can't be good!" and "I'll just keep driving until I get home."

I think this dream is a metaphor for my job. It's going down in flames and I just keep on driving! The odd part of the dream is that at no time was I afraid of what was happening. That either means that it wasn't so bad or I have completely lost my flight response altogether.

So I had this dream...

I often have strange dreams. Some of them are so funny I actually wake myself up laughing out loud while I sleep. Last night I had one that was just plain weird!

It was Christmas and I was at my mother's house. We were getting ready for the family to arrive for the festivities. I was not dressed. I mean, seriously, not dressed. I was just wearing some underpants! And...no one seemed to care, notice OR think that was unusual in any way.

My mother was on the front porch with two huge bundles of fake evergreen garland that was wired together in a big bunch. Then, an ENORMOUS van pulls up in front of the house. Attached to it's side was one of those nylon toddler cozies that people put on the back of their bikes to take their kids out for a nice ride. The van door opened and my niece Tamatha and her husband Ron got out followed by my nephew Don and his little girl, Maddy. Then my other niece, Linda and her husband Josh get out and they're followed by their 15 children. (They don't have 15 children but in the dream they did!) Josh goes over the toddler cozy thingy and opens it. Inside, dressed in a snow suit is my older brother (their father/father-in-law). He is bundled up but freezing and shivering because they have driven to mom's from Illinois and he rode in that thing the whole way.

So, we usher them into the house. (Me...still in only my panties... and again, no ones seems to care.) Just then a huge luxury car pulls into the drive way. I know it's a luxury car because 1. it's huge and 2. it's covered in maroon velvet on the outside. My nephew Chris hops out and goes to the back door. He let's my other niece, Amy, out of the car with her baby, Sophie. Only Sophie isn't a baby. She is about one foot tall, talking and walking, and has bright red curly hair. Sophie runs up the porch steps and into the house. My mother says, "Oh Sophie! Look how cute you are!" To which Sophe answers excitedly, "Yeth, I am adowable! Ithn't Cwithmath exthiting!!"

Just then, the bundles of evergreen garland blow off the porch and my mother tells me to go get them. So, now I'm running and flailing about in her front yard, chasing the garland, in my undies. My mom comes out on the porch with a camera and tells me what a great Christmas photo this will make.

And then I wake up...

I have no idea what this dreams means or why I had it. Just plain weird!!