L.M. of the U.

My friend Anne commented in the Lewistown post that Mike Waterman also goes by the title "Lord Master of the Universe", which is true, but only for a couple people, and I feel I should explain here, lest you think he has delusions of omniscience, or drinks heavily, or something like that....

I met Mike at a New Clerk's Workshop in Helena, where he gave a presentation on how to code everything in school bookkeeping to about 60 terrified new clerks.  All I remember about the presentation was that he used famous T.V. bars and the only one we got was "Cheers".  The codes were like Swahili, and I must confess, are only slightly better today. I flunked the workshop, but learned to knit.  That's another story entirely...

The next time I saw him was in Miles City, where again, he was trying to impart his love for and knowledge of school finance to a room full of jaded, middle aged clerks who REALLY came to the workshop to get away from the office and go to Walmart.  And (this is my theory alone) because I think Mike flirts a little with them, and they all secretly have a crush on him.  (You must realize that 99.999998% of school clerks are female.  He stands an easy 6 foot 2 inches, and when you walk into a room of school clerks, there's always a cluster of women around him. He can't help it...there's no one else to talk to. That, and he knows the Swahili of School Finance.)

Anyway, he walked up with his 3lb OPI badge that stated his name and title...it was impressive.  I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I read the badge and asked him who he thought he was, Master of Time, Space and Dimension? and he replied that, no, actually he was Lord Master of the Universe.  And I remembered it, and have referred to him as such, ever since.

Incidentally, he has a nameplate in his office with the title emblazoned on it; a gift from grateful rural clerks that he's helped with all school accounting aspects.  We still don't know the 13 digit codes, but we have his office phone number memorized and it's our lifeline when we can't figure out the Swahili on the computer screen in front of us. 

I'm going to get in big trouble for posting the picture of L.M. of the U., but that's a chance I'm going to have to take....it's just too good not to!  This is a Spirit Week photo from last year. At least that's what he tells me.  This may be how he dresses on Casual Fridays....

But wait! There's more!

I ALSO finished Les Miserables night before last!!!
I've been working on that tome since last spring....February, I think.
It's a magnificent book, and I wish I could pick it for a bookclub selection, but alas, it has 1260 pages of fine print, and I would be kick-ed out of my own club. 
Anyway, I just had to broadcast that, because it was quite a literary accomplishment, and worthy of a celebration.

Woohoo!

After that last post, I thought I should tell you about other things that happened this week, besides pest control. I really HAVE been doing more than trying to kill flies.

Yesterday, I drove to Lewistown for a mentoring session with my friend Mike Waterman, the Lewistown Public School's Business Manager and Financial Wizard.  We were setting up my school accounting system on Quickbooks, and he assured me that he had worked the finer details and awfulness out.  It would be a piece of cake.  No problemo.

When I got to Lewistown, the man was headed out the door to do a radio broadcast with his superintendant on the local airwaves.  I set up my computer and tuned in to hear the show.  Local, small town radio talk shows are difficult to describe.  You want to shut it off, but you can't, because sure as you do, the one big community shocker will occur and you will have missed it.  Little old ladies will be clucking, store clerks talking as they "straighten" the racks, the coffee bunch at the local greasy spoon shaking their heads and you won't have the faintest idea what happened on the radio at 10:23 a.m. because you impatiently shut the dang thing off.

Nothing of the sort happened, sadly, and when Mike got back, we got busy with the Quickbooks. Mike loves school finance. He's weird that way.  I  like him, but  it's still quite strange.  Most people tolerate school finance, some are rather interested, others have nightmares about it; Mike loves it.  I would say I fall somewhere between tolerance and nightmare, depending on the time of year. Mike has the same sort of humor I do, which is rare, and we laugh a lot through the torture, so that makes it a leetle more tolerable.

We had lunch, after a couple of hours of slavery, at Lola's, a little sandwich shop on Main Street.  They make crepes instead of tortillas, and about 20 different types of gelato.  Mike's wife, Lisa Waterman joined us for lunch.  Let me tell you a little about Lisa Waterman.  She's the healthiest person I know. She puts spinach in macaroni and cheese.  And I'm pretty sure she uses whole wheat macaroni, but I can't prove it.  Last year, when I visited them in Lewistown, she confided that she was doing two Beth Moore Bible studies simultaneously, but that neither group knew about the other group.  I find that hilarious! Would that be an infidelity? Or just a secret?

Mike bet me that I couldn't eat my whole crepe wrap with my hands without spilling. (Like eating a soft-shell taco) He said if I could do that, he'd buy my gelato.  Oh, YEAH, I got the gelato! There's no way I'd lose a food bet, with more food as pay-up. 

I won't bore you with the details of the afternoon. (Unless you, like Mike, love school finance...if so, I can email you the finer points.) We got Quickbooks where I need it to be, with the exception of being able to reconcile with the county Treasurer.  That's a little detail we need to work out.  Reconciliation is rather essential, I think.  Big Problemo. 

I finally left Lewistown around 6 p.m. and drove home, my head aswirl with numbers and codes and accounting nonsense.  Driving is good therapy, some days, and it was nice to have the time to unpack my brain before I got home.  Two hours of unpacking the brain can get down to some things that should be better left packed, but by the time I hit that, I was too busy dodging deer on the road to really start scraping the corners.

Most of this week has been consumed with school finance, and I'll be glad to be done with it for the weekend. So now you know, I do other things besides destroy spider webs in household appliances and scare flies!

A deep, meaningful post for your contemplation...

"She wouldn't hurt a fly..."

How many times have you heard that old phrase, and thought it meant the person was meek and gentle? Well, I'm here to suggest that perhaps it's not that she wouldn't hurt a fly, it's that she can't.

She's not coordinated enough.

I've been trying to put a hurting on the flies moving into our house for the winter. And it's pathetic, let me tell you. I don't know if it's my old lady no-line bifocals, my cheap (free gift from the insurance agent for spending $7900/yr) flyswatter, or my general clumsiness, but it's nearly impossible for me to actually get a fly killed.

They die laughing. That's about my only weapon...

The kids have been in and out of the house all week, with the warm weather and kittens, and each time the door opens, the force of it sucks about 5 flies in to our home.  These flies have come to Insect-opia, because there are more crumbs and spills in our day than June Cleaver saw in her entire life. They are happy. They sit around on my counters having little fly-parties over the Teddy Graham remains. They stick their nasty little fly-tongues out at me, when I go for the swatter. Apparently word has hit the streets that this is a safe place, except for the wind my swatter makes as it swooshes through the air over their heads.

The Farmer is a crack shot, and just like the Little Tailor in that Mickey Mouse movie, he can "kill seven in one blow".  There's no messing around, with him.  It's over, when he gets the swatter. Or even a magazine! But I can't wait for him to come home every evening, greet him at the door with a beer and a flyswatter, and request carnage.  He's had a long day; the last thing he wants to do is prove what a man he is by eliminating the bugs from our house....

So, I work at this every day, darn it, and eventually, I think, the flies will die of old age, or there will be a couple stupid ones that sit 25 seconds too long and I'll gain some advantage and confidence.

*Can you believe how pathetic my life is? I'm writing about killing flies, for pete's sake, on my blog.  And that's as exciting as my week gets, folks.  Stay tuned.  Next week, we'll explore why the Old Lady swallowed the fly....a question that has mystified generations of preschoolers. *Groan*

Wanted!

The Cocoa Kid

May be armed with dimples.

Height: Approx. 2 1/2 feet

Weight: Depends on what is in his pockets

Eyes: Green and twinkly

Hair: Sandy blonde (and when we say 'sand', we mean actual sand.)

May be traveling with small cats, assorted trucks and unidentified objects in the aforementioned pockets.

Recently potty-trained!!!

This hombre gravitates toward grandparents in possession of sugary treats.

Lock up your cookies, candy and frosting.

Reward!

(If you keep him, that is...)

"I'm just crackers for cheese!"

If you recognize that line, then you're probably a Wallace and Gromit fan, too. We adore this little claymation creation, in the Farmhouse, but it occured to me that not many, if ANY of our friends watch these movies, too!

We recently bought the DVD, "Wallace and Gromit and the Case of the WereRabbit", and have laughed our way through it twice or four times, now. I love all the British humor, the gentle pokes of fun at UK stereotypes, and the expressions on the character's faces.  In "WereRabbit" there's also a lot of gardening humor, which I laugh at, but that my family doesn't catch. Wayland likes all the gizmos and gadgets, and the kids like Gromit, the dog, who is the only one who really knows what's going on throughout the movie.

The next W&G movie due to come out is "A Matter of Loaf and Death" in which they run a bakery.  Gardening, baking, gadgets, British humor....how can I not love this?!