THE PAIN IN MY BUTT

We have bees. Not by choice. My sister bought them before she left for Alaska and just kind of ditched them. So for the past year, we’ve left them alone and they’ve left us alone. A few months ago, some guys from the local bee association came by to check on them and saw that they were in good shape. Honestly, I’d pretty much forgotten about them. After deciding that we shouldn’t let free bees go to waste, we decided to get involved. Since we don’t know the first thing about beekeeping, we bought a book on the subject and contacted a friend who’s an expert. He showed us how to extract honey. A few weeks later, we pulled about a gallon of liquid gold from the hive. We could’ve taken out more gallons, but then nothing would have been left for the bees sustenance through the winter. It’s not a good idea to completely rob them or else you’ll have to provide them sugar water as food, which can’t be as good as their own honey. I would say our first venture in beekeeping was a success. We even attended our first bee meeting ever. Not only was it interesting, they had a potluck buffet to boot–and who never says “no” to good food–this gal, (2 thumbs pointed at myself).

So, back to the pain in the butt thing. One night, I came into my dark living room and decided to sit in my favorite chair. I accidentally sat on a giant wasp. He stung the fire out of my butt, then when I tried to swipe him off, stung my hand. He was huge. Of course I crushed him afterward, even though he was going to die anyway, but I had to exact revenge. I spent most of the night with an icepack alternating between my butt and my hand. When the Benadryl kicked in, I finally had relief. But for the next few weeks, I couldn’t sit without feeling the welt on my hiney and then as the pain went away, the itching started and it lasted for more than a week. I think the offender in question was a Japanese Wasp. They’re known to hang outside beehives and literally eat little honey bees. From what I’ve heard, they can destroy an entire hive. Honestly, I can’t think of a more useless creature and I have a keen remembrance of the pain in my butt to prove it. Life’s always exciting around here . . . I just wish it weren’t so painful.

Take care, All.

P.S. I have my books up on Barnes and Noble site for any Nook fans out there.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/unplugged-hillary-bergeron/1112136489?ean=2940014942355

And as always, Unplugged is available on Amazon. This is the 2nd edition. I went in corrected mistakes in the other addition and added a little more here and there.

When someone says, “Oh, she’s so hot,” it’s not because I’m really really good lookin’.

Is it my imagination, or have the summers been hotter than they’ve been in the past few years? We’re in the midst of another heat wave across the east and this time I’m almost prepared–mentally. I knew it was coming and I’d devised a personal SOP (Army’s Standard Operational Plan) on how I was going to handle it. First, I’d have 360 fan coverage, if that wasn’t enough, I would shed clothes until I reached optimal comfort. If that didn’t work, then the unheated hot tub. When I was too shriveled to sit any longer, then I’d have to spend the day at the library or go window shopping until the stores kicked me out.
A few days ago, news stations blasted that we’re going to be hit by record high temperatures. My anxiety rose much like a thermometer in a sauna. For the last few years, it’s been so hot in the summer I’ve about cooked from the inside out making me feel as though I’m in a state of constant, never-ending menopausal hot flashes. Right now, it’s night and I’m sitting in a room with a fan blowing on me from a few feet away and it isn’t enough.
All last winter, Mt. Bob and I have been scheming on ways to keep the house cool for the following summer. More fans–ice blocks in front of fans (not practical since we’d have to first freeze huge blocks of ice), spending most of the day in an unheated hot tube and window air-conditioner units. We thought we were onto something with getting a small window unit and running it for a few hours a day.
Mt. Bob set to work investigating this brilliant plan. How much power does it use? Can we run it off the inverter? If we ran it off the generator, how much would it cost per hour for that small measure of comfort? We even called a solar company and asked their opinion. Our hopes dashed as the man laughed at us, then he said that maybe we should just open a window. When we mentioned our windows were all open and that we lived in the deep south, he callously said “that’s your first mistake, I’d never live in the south.” So disheartened and slightly annoyed at his rudeness, we gave up the idea of a window unit. I’m sad to say another summer will go by without finding a way to cool the house from the incessant heat.
My friend’s house, which is located in a holler and is surrounded by huge trees, is comfortable, while mine feels like the inside of a pizza oven in the middle of the night. To escape, we used to be able to jump in the car and go somewhere. It didn’t matter where, just as long as the air-conditioning was blowing in our faces. But for the past few years, the air-conditioning broke in not one, but our second car as well. Talk about bad luck. We’d kicked around the idea of getting it fixed, but decided that eating and paying our bill was probably a better plan, although there were times I seriously doubted our judgment–usually when beads of sweat were rolling down my back.
This year, I’d decided I’d had enough. I pulled up to one of those mom and pop service shops and asked to have it looked at. An hour later, it was fixed and I only had to shell out fifty dollars for this priceless gift. Now I’m irritated that I’d spent the previous two summers arriving at church with my hair wind-blown–and not in a nice carefree way, and it would’ve taken only fifty bucks to save myself the personal harassment of nature’s beast (heat).
Feeling emboldened, I brought in the second car and it was fixed too, but this time for quite a lot more–I don’t want to go into details, it’s still too painful to talk about. Now I have two cars, both with air-conditioning. Now if there’s only something I can do about my house everything would be perfect…or at least I wouldn’t completely melt.

Take Care, All

Here’s the trailer for my new mystery novel:

Exercise equipment and good clothes hangers.

I admit that I occasionally use my treadmill for a clothes dryer. Why waste the space when you need it? But since the treadmill purchase, I’ve used it quite a bit. Yes, there were long stretches of laziness, but then I get back into a routine when I’m not in the midst of some cold, flu or injury. But since good health is a life-long endeavor, I’ve decided to try harder to be good to my body. This is the only one I’m going to get and I can’t run down to Wal-Mart and pick up a new trim model, although that would make a great science fiction novel–so I’ve got to take care of the one I’ve got. Come to think of it, the only model I could afford was the lumpy cellulite-infested model anyway–sexy body 10.1 for $29.99.

So since I can’t purchase my healthy body, I realized I was going to have to work for it. I’ve discovered exercise equipment is something I never have to purchase brand new. All I have to do is wait until about April or May and there’s an abundance for sale on the secondary markets. I’ve been working out with hand weights for quite some time and we decided it was time to upgrade to better equipment. So the hunt was on for a good home gym. Yesterday we found one. Since my husband was singing the praises of an AB lounge, I decided to pick one of those up too. As we trekked across Tennessee yesterday, we came across people selling their equipment. They all had something in common–they both gave excuses why the equipment didn’t work for them–too busy, too much space . . . lost interest after buying it on a late night shopping network (at least she was honest about it). I decided I didn’t want to be that person. I didn’t want to sell my home gym for a fraction of the price with a guilty expression, making noises about why I couldn’t exercise. It’s just way too embarrassing. Oh, something else, these people are so embarrassed, they just want to get what they can for it, so offer a lower price and they’ll usually take it. They just want the equipment out of their house so they don’t have to be reminded that they need to use it–I know, I’ve been there.

While putting it together and cleaning up the weights, I came across a very pregnant black widow spider–another drawback of buying something that’s been in the guy’s garage for any length of time. Also there are some pieces missing, but we’ve been able to find alternative pieces to replace them. I’m looking forward to doing this. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll be that old woman in the body building competition the media writes about. I’ll be the one with all the stretch marks and the obnoxious amount of scars and that layer of fat I just couldn’t get rid of no matter what I do.

Take care, ALL.

If you haven’t had the chance to see my book trailer, feel free to take a look.