Oh, one of the things I really miss about the Midwest is the weather. I miss it for about, oh, a day. Then I'm glad I live in an area with steady weather. Well, except for when it's not.

And the colors! Oh, the colors! Yay, FALL!

Everyone, meet GEORGE!

I'm going to hug him and squeeze him and kiss him and love him and name him George.

Name that quote.

No, Willy isn't going to be upset by that dog, not at all. Why do you ask?

My whirlwind trip... right. So, Dad and I went right over to the house when we arrived home. I was both dreading going in, and incredibly elated at the fact that the tenants who were in the house had finally left. They had broken the lease when they moved out and, at this point, I could not have cared less. They were costing me MORE to keep in the house than they were paying me in rent, which pretty much defeats the purpose of having renters in the house.

Aside from getting a property manager so that I won't have to deal with this situation again, I'll be managing the house differently also in that I'm 100% sure I WON'T be taking a chance on another tenant who has bad credit. Which is not to say everyone who has bad credit is a horrible person, not by a long shot, however, there's a good chance at a direct correlation.

I digress.

So, Dad and I went to look at the house. Here it is:

I crack me up.

The first thing that Dad showed me when we walked over was where the house's well is. Locating this well cost me $800 last month, so I damn well wanted to know where the hell the thing was. It had gone out the month before last, when the wires from the electrical box to the well shorted, as the owner two before me hadn't, well, bothered to actually insulate or protect the wires from the environment.

There are a lot of things that owner didn't do.

Next we wandered into the house. Knowing my nose is pretty much useless at this point, I immediately turned to Dad when we were in the house.

"What do you smell?"

"Nothing. Why?"

"Does it smell like mold?"

"No."

"Anything? Musty?"

"No."

F---ers. was all I could think in response.

I wandered through the house, looking at the work that had been done by the previous tenants, the work they were doing in exchange for reduced rent. The work was done was okay, I wouldn't say good. They kept all of the extra supplies I had bought. They left the windows unscraped and overpainted. And they have horrible taste in color.

The carpet was stained in a few places, so I was no longer surprised at their retarded insistence that I have the carpets cleaned three months AFTER they had moved in. Completely unsurprised, actually, as I had suspected this would be the real reason.

Still, the place didn't have any holes in the walls or broken windows or apparent damage to the insides. I have no idea if they were spiteful enough to send chemicals into the plumbing to ruin the septic system or not. At this point, I'm just going to have to hope for the best.

And find a property manager.

So, yeah, I hopped off the plane (well, rather, didn't hop back on to the second plane), and dashed off to Indiana to spend the day with Dad, check out the house, visit briefly with Jessica, and head back home.

On the way to the house, we stopped by one of Dad's businesses. He had asked if I was hungry (I was) and was interested in a sandwich. I mentioned that I had pretty much switched to a vegetarian diet, and that I didn't think that he had anything, as I wasn't really interested in a salad at the moment.

No problem, he said, the vegetarian patties are aMAZing, I should try one. Well, if a born-and-bred meat eater says the veggie patty is good, it's worth trying, so off we went.

We arrived at the store, and went in the back door. Dad went to the front and I stood in the back and waited for him to return. I successfully managed to stand in exactly the wrong spot for my entire duration in the back. When an employee came back to put something in the freezer, I was standing in the way. When I moved out of her way so that she could open the freezer door, I was then in the way for the next person to wash her hands in the sink I was standing in front of. When I moved out her HER way, I was then in the way of the first woman, who had left the freezer and was now on her way to pack up the packages of meat on the counter I was standing in front of.

Eventually, I went to huddle next to the back door, and hope that no one wanted to come through that door before Dad and I went out it.

As I stood there, I looked for words. If there are words around and I'm not busy, I will read them, like it or not, boring or not. Sure enough, there were words. In particular, an employer's required posting of the minimum wage.

I looked at the posting, then turned back around to look at the timesheet posted on the bulletin board behind me. I looked at the names on the timesheet, recalling the name Dad had used for the woman who went into the freezer, and looked up her hours for the week.

Earning $5.15 an hour, working 30 hours a week, that woman was earning just over $150 a week.

$150 a week.

I assumed Dad was paying her minimum wage. If he weren't, fine, $184 a week.

I stood there, more than a little thoughtful, and wondered how the hell someone lives on $184 a week, before taxes. That's $720 a month, give or take. A month.

How?

How can you live on that?

Yes, yes, I know, I know. You do. You do because you have to. And, sure, people who work at Dad's place receive a free meal every day they work, so there's some help. But still.

If I hadn't already pretty much stopped spending money except for when I have to, this would have caused me to stop.

Once again, a group of us all went travelling together. This time, heading home, instead of the east coast(ish). A group of about 10 of us were flying from Florida, through Chicago on our way home. Our layover in Chicago involved a plane switch, so, despite my decision to "step off the plane" and stay for a day, I walked with the group to the next gate.

As we arrived at the new gate, Andy pondered, "I wonder if we flew Shamu."

The rest of us thought about Andy's pondering for a bit, and concluded that yes, based on the whale and underwater decoration in our previous plane, we were on the Shamu plane.

"But which one?" Andy continued.

Uh...

Turns out, there are three Shamu planes. I didn't have anything else to do. Dad wasn't going to be at the airport for another hour or so, so I told the group, to most everyone's surprise, that I'd go see. I hadn't told anyone other than Andy and Chookie, oh, and the rep at the gate counter, that I wasn't continuing on home, so most everyone was concerned I'd make it back in time for my flight. Given my flight is tomorrow, I think I'll be okay...

So, I hoofed it back over to the gate we had left, to check out the plane. Yes, indeed, we had just flown Shamu:

But WHICH ONE?

I walked up to the nearest gate agent, and asked, "Hey, so, do you know which Shamu that is?" pointing to the plane out the window.

"That? Shamu? Oh, yes, let's see," he said. In his best VOA, answered, "that's the fourth Shamu."

I paused.

"Your website says there are only three."

He paused back.

"Oh, yeah, right. That's the third one."

Oooooooooh-kaaaaaaaaaay. So, apparently he didn't know either.

We did, however, fly one of them!