I don’t feel old. I don’t think of myself as being old.

But.....

At my job we have a huge age division.  It’s just by chance, but half the employees are over 45 and the other half are under 25. I think the only person in the warehouse that’s in his 30s is the asst manager.  So, in the eyes of half of my co-workers, I’m old.

The two people who work directly with me are 25 and 55.  And the other day the 25 year old was just awed that we remembered space missions that she’s only seen documentaries about.  She didn’t know that Reagan was ever shot.  She didn’t know there wasn’t such a thing as meth when we were her age.   After that afternoon’s conversation, I felt really old.

And then last night I went out with my co-workers.  And we ended up at a bar where the young desperate men and overweight girls with low self esteem hang out.  The dj was just playing noise.  I don’t know how to dance anymore... I felt really old.

  It’s not someplace I’d have gone, but a friend of mine who is my age talked me into it.  We were by FAR the oldest people there.  We found out our boss is younger than our oldest kids.   I felt really old.

And then some drunk kid who is a friend of one of my young co-workers looked at me and said I was pretty old “you must be like 30”   LOL!   Made my day!!!!!

Ladies, I’ve just returned from a three day trip, and I’m here to tell you—time travel is possible.  It is here and it is now!

Our time machine was a 2011 Chevy Impala.  No aftermarket modifications were needed.  We were piloted by a 53 yr old man who, thru magic unknown to his three passengers tripped us back into another era. We crossed the invisible time line in the cold dark snowy hours of Wednesday morning.

The first inclination that we had zipped back in time was when we stopped at a gas station for coffee and a potty break.  As we all clutched our environmentally friendly recyclable stainless steel coffee cups to our chests and looked about the convenience store for coffee we see a sight to behold.  Farmers standing around gossiping with the cashier, drinking coffee out of (gasp) those horrible old styrofoam cups.

Our next surprise came when we found one type of coffee and one only and one flavor of instant cappucino.  We filled our mugs and forged on. Our driver had to switch radio stations due to having driven out of range of the first one (or was it out of TIME of the first one????) The new station was playing the 70s rock of our youth.  Our 25 yr old coworker had heard almost none of the music we were listening to.  

 Reported for work at 8 am.    By 9 am we had a good start on our days projects and had drawn the attention of every employee in the store, and many of the customers strolling thru.  Why?  Because in a team of 4, we had 2 women doing “men’s” work.  Apparently in this town that seemed to have lurched us back to 1970, gender roles are very strict.

And then I began noticing the hairstyles of the men who wandered thru the store looking for nuts and bolts and oil filters and so forth.  There were more men sporting pony tails than I’ve seen in decades in the real world.

And when 6 pm rolled around, we stopped and bought our 6 packs of beer.  Fuly $3 cheaper than anything I can buy here at home.  

 We checked into our motel.  A lovely old A-frame lodge type place with a wing of rooms spreading out to either side.  We were disappointed we did not get rooms with the outside doors that we could park directly in front of.  the cinder block walls had a coat of fresh clean white paint and the carpet was new.  The bathroom countertop was imitation marble formica straight from 1972, complete with a beer bottle opener attached.  The room door was beautiful vintage wood with no safety chain, though there was a deadbolt.

At lunchtime of day 2 in our sojourn in another time, we ate at Taco John’s.  Do any of you remember how very very tiny the Taco John’s buildings used to be?  You ordered your food and took it outdoors to the picnic tables.  And it was a BIG deal when they added on seating space?  Yeah, well, this was one of those teeny tiny original buildings and the most they had added on was a solarium type structure to one side for seating.  Again our 25 yr old co-worker was mind boggled at the 1970s structure.

That night to round off our 1970’s experience, one of the 6 packs of beer we bought was GrainBelt.  I was not even aware it was made anymore.  (Maybe it’s not, maybe it was just part of the time warp experience!)  

This morning at break time, we realized there was a bakery across the street from where we’ve been working.  A real honest to goodness, old fashioned, mouth watering, make it fresh and real, BAKERY.  yes, we feasted on fresh rolls.

And this afternoon about one oclock, we called it quits, piled back into the time machine and headed for home.  Somewhere along about 22 miles out of town, our driver Gordon hit a pot hole and I swear I could feel us being sucked back into 2012 right there.

Here’s my horoscope for today that I just now read:
GEMINI You could find yourself sulking or worse if things don't go your way today. There's more than one way around that, though — you may want to try lowering your expectations temporarily!  

And oh boy oh boy was I sulking this morning when hubby made some sarcastic remarks about the Christmas decorating!  But we worked that out.

I stripped down the living room to bare walls, did some cleaning that hasn’t been done in awhile so I can start with a blank slate for Christmas decorating.

We’ve got delightful weather today.  Some pretty high temps for December.  So I did what any normal person of the North would do.  I hauled my decorations down out of the usually frigid attic, and I went to do the outdoor decorating.

I do this almost every year.  I pick I nice warm day and throw some lights at the cedar tree, and if time and energy allow and the weather holds (like today) I put ornaments all over said cedar tree.  And then I stand back and just enjoy my outdoor Christmas tree.  

And every dark December night when I come home from work, I love the lights of my outdoor tree being the first thing I see as I come over the hill, while on down the street, the Christmas decorations on the street lights sway gently in the wind.  It’s warm and welcoming even in the bitterest cold.

And then Christmas is done and over and January is here and it’s 10 below zero and I have to take those #.^xx% ornaments off and bring them in and pick up the ones the wind has blown off.  And one year I was digging wind blown ornaments out of the snow drift across the street.  

But, I love to decorate for Christmas, and as of this moment, I’ve got my vintage ornament wreath hung, the outdoor tree finished, the entry way door wreath hung and one nativity put up.

Also, we used to have a group for posting photos of our Christmas trees.  Anyone know how/where to find that?

Let me list the reasons.....

1.  I live in a house that was built to be a sheep barn.

2.  It is only 880 sq ft and fallng apart at the seams. And 9 adults, one 6 yr old, 2 labradors and 2 english mastiffs are TOO MUCH for my house to hold!

3.  My minor son got caught drinking this weekend.  I don’t care so much that he was drinking, but the fact that he was so stupid he got caught by a pretty easygoing town cop annoys the living daylights out of me.

4. Political ads and the news.  

5. 42 straight days of work with no days off. Headed for 47 before there is even a possibility.

AND last but not least.

6. Federal buraucracy.  When I got to work this morning, the tiny little mirror in the women’s bathroom was gone.  the nice little lady from the front office had brought one from home and put it in there because we had no mirror.   I had to stoop down to see into it(unless I wanted to check out my boobs!), but it was nice to have a mirror in there. We five women that work there aren’t vain, but we do like to know if our hair is standing on end or we have boogers hanging out our nose.  Thanks to some ridiculous federal regulation, we can’t have our pretty frilly girly little mirror hanging in a warehouse bathroom.  What the hell is this world coming to????

My young co-worker always marvels at the number of people I know and call friends.  She’s always like “You‘re always running into people you know.”   Well, yes.  

Monday, she had a rough day, and being closest to her at work, of course I heard all about it.  Her husband lost yet another job  (something in my head keeps saying LOSEER!).  Her husband’s ex wife accused her of child abuse.  

On the way home from work, we hadn’t even gotten out of town yet, I’m telling my hubby this.  He gets a kinda grin on his face and asks her husband’s name, so I tell him.  He gets such a big smile that his adorable dimple is showing.  By this point, I know that he’s got something “good” to tell me. and I’m bouncing up and down in the seat “tell me, tell me”

Well it turns out that my coworker’s husband’s ex-wife’s fiance is my husband’s good friend and co-worker.  We had a good laugh about the irony of that.

I have not, and probably will not tell my co-worker this.  I will try to mentor her to the best of my ability as far as the child situation goes without telling her I know both sides of the story.

I’d like to thank all of you who answered my question over the weekend about chosing a guy who is cute and dumb or ugly and smart.  

I asked the question on a whim and just for fun, because my cute little boss was being really stupid.  

 I’ve since asked the question of a couple of the gals at work.  Both chose cute, one because she doesn’t want some smart man making her feel stupid.  

So then I flipped the question and asked a couple of the older (my age) guys.  They chose an intelligent woman over a pretty one.  One guy’s logic,  “I have to listen to her, but I can flip her over, or put a bag over her head so I don’t have to look at her face.”  Crude, but logical.  

So, this silly little question from our discussion board is growing into a serious poll.  I’m anxious to get a few more men’s opinions.