Now that Nick Sheley (Mr. Armed and Dangerous Loony) is behind bars, and hopefully bound to stay there this time,  his former “rap sheet” is public knowledge.  This is spawning outcries of “WHY, why, why, was this person out on the streets to begin with????”  (If you’d like to read what I’m talking about, for brevity and accuracy’s sake I’ll give you the link to the Sauk Valley News’ story online that has it:  http://www.saukvalley.com/articles/2008/07/02/news/local/75f27bb2f1b0b38d7e4b9897599d43a4.txt )

Suffice it to say, the man has several felony convictions going back more than a decade.  This brings to my mind the question of: Why did the District Attorney keep letting him go?”  The logical answers include:  1. He was a snitch for the D.A.  2.  He knew several someones in high places.  3.  Mr. Gary Spencer (the D.A. in question) is incompetent.  4. Mr. Sheley had something on Mr. Spencer.

What’s the real answer?  I have no idea.  My personal gut feeling about it is that we’ll never know; but it’s probably a combination of the three. 

This makes me see red for several reasons, mainly among them being the fact that several people I know of who have done substantially less serious crimes have been over-harshly punished, while Nick Sheley seems to have had some sort of charm to use for staying out of jail.   It’s ridiculous.  I don’t pretend to understand all the nuances of our justice system.  But this is an outrage. 

The community in general is crying out for Mr. Spencer’s blood at the moment…not to mention general calls for his resignation.  I don’t see either thing happening, and I’m betting it’ll all be forgotten by the time he’s up for re-election.  People, unfortunately, have short memories.  *sigh*.

He’s caught. Hopefully for good this time.  They caught up with him in Granite City, IL, which is a suburb of St. Louis.   I can go back to not jumping at every unexpected noise.  Which is a good thing.

Right before we found out about his capture, Heather got hold of me wanting to know would I go see Wall-E with her tonight.  I did go, it was a cute movie.  Probably not one I’ll buy when it comes out on DVD or anything, but cute.

I’m tired, hot, bored, restless, and a bit disappointed tonight.  Disappointed with what?  Good question, since I really don’t have a clue.  I’m thinking my state of mind is probably hormone related again, *sigh*, since it’s nearly time for Aunt Flo’s monthly visit.  I should probably go get out of my too hot outfit (I knew I’d be cold in the theater so I put on jeans and a sweater), get comfortable under the fan in my bedroom and try to read myself out of the blue funk I’m sinking into.  Looks like Chris is going to be up awhile messing with Fedora 9 again.  I think this is his third time trying it out and every time it’s been an exercise in frustration and he’s sworn he’s sticking with Fedora 8 until Fedora 10 (or will it be Fedora X?) comes out.  So I’m going to clean up and go try to rid myself of hormonal excesses. 

All the furor over Mr. Armed and Dangerous Loony had died down yesterday.  No sightings since Friday, and strong rumors that he’d headed south.  Well, that’s what you get for believing the rumor mill and the local paper… he’s still around.  Shot four more people today, one a baby.  More tension at work tonight, Justina even came up with a plan of what to do in case he showed up at the store.  He seems to like to do that….they closed down a bunch of stores in Sterling, allegedly including the County Market over there in case Mr. Armed and Dangerous Loony decided he needed something.  Finally there are cops everywhere, which for some reason makes me feel better instead of the logical thing, which would be more nervous.  More cops = more suspicion he’s in the area.   The latest “news” is that he’s somewhere near Lowell Park.  Which, for those of you who aren’t local, is a huge park here, the main entrance is about three miles out of town past where I work.  But, it being huge, there are trails that lead to it all over the place, and one happens to come out about three blocks from where I live. 

Chris recruited Heather and Chad to stay at the house with Melora, and Alan and Chris came to the store to make sure we all got to our cars safely.  I must admit it was nice to have the bodyguards. 

The phone rang off the hook at the store tonight,  customers had heard different stuff…but it’s impossible to sort out what’s true and what’s rumor that way.  Again…I just wish they’d catch the guy, but he seems to be pretty darned creative at getting out of tight spots and eluding the cops. 

My personal opinion is, he wouldn’t still be around if he didn’t think he needed to be.  Which probably means there’s a few more people around here that he thinks he has unfinished business with.  NOT reassuring.

Ok, I’m fresh out of titles for posts that I know are going to be all over the map. I’ve used “Misc. and Sundry”  “Ramblings”  and all those. But I digress.  (Bet you guessed that already huh?).

The loony is still on the loose.  As far as we can tell, there has been no official confirmation of the shooting at the Rock Falls Walmart. (It hasn’t shown up in the newspaper here).  And there haven’t been any sightings since Friday.  The police did arrest a couple of his relatives yesterday, for aiding and abetting, but he’s still loose and no one seems to know if he’s even still in the area.  The comments section on our local newspaper is, as I’m sure you can imagine,  rampant with speculation.  Me, I just want him caught so I can go back to not worrying quite so much every time I have to leave the house.

Change is in the wind here, again.  This time it’s my fault.  I answered an ad for a Part time Administrator/sales person for Chapel Hill Cemetery.   That happens to be the cemetery about five blocks from where I live, the one I use as a shortcut when I walk to the shopping center that County Market and ShopKo are in.  When I called, the lady said that it was four hours a day for the Admin. stuff, and all that meant was learning to plot the cemetery so they know where to put new graves, and keeping their master records up to date.  That part alone pays 2.25/hr more than I make now, it has the shorter shifts I want (4 hours) and it’s hours that I can conceivably pull off while still taking Chris to work (10 - 2).  That phone call turned into a mini interview.  The lady I talked to was really  more interested in me doing sales.  I guess, indirectly, I do sales every day, and this isn’t like it’s door to door cold calling.  But I’ve never actually tried it, so we’ll see what they expect.   The job pays commission on sales, over and above the salary for the Admin. job.  As she put it, “This could potentially be very lucrative for you”.  I have an in-person interview on Tuesday morning.   I’m a little nervous because I don’t have any direct sales experience, but I AM willing to learn, and she seemed impressed when I told her that I like to feel like I’ve earned my paycheck, instead of doing nothing.  Y’all remember how much trouble I had with that when I was working for Walton….

Hopefully y’all realize that a new paragraph means I’m skipping to a completely different subject by now….*grin*

I made something for dinner last night I haven’t made since I’ve been here.   I don’t really know why I haven’t made it, I just haven’t.  But I was wanting an actual meal, not just “pick up what you find, everyone’s on their own” so I made hamburger steak.  Now, there are as many ways to make that as there are people who make it.  But mine’s pretty simple, and got rave reviews from Chris, so I guess it’s a keeper here.  It also has the advantage of using the same stuff I season my crockpot roasts with, so it works when I’m craving roast and don’t want to spend that much money. 

I know I haven’t said much about digiscrapping lately.  My mojo seems to have gone away semi permanently.  This isn’t good, as I have an assignment for the Creative Team I’m on.  We’re doing a collaboration kit.  We’ve picked a color swatch, and everyone’s picked something to contribute.  I took what I hope is the easy way out and picked word art and/or an alpha.  I got started on the alpha last night, after running around trying to find free fonts that are ok for commercial use.  There’s a REASON I don’t sell anything online…most of the graphics/fonts I have I have no idea where they came from and if they’re free to use or not.  Most of the time, since I’m using them for my own amusement, I just don’t worry about it.  But when you’re making something that’s going to be for sale, you have to worry about it.   I ended up having to make my own brush for paint shop pro because I had no idea where the one I wanted to use came from.  But I managed to create something similar, so it’s all good.

But before I tell you about that,  I have to say that I just can’t believe the response to that recipe I posted yesterday.  I posted it on three Yahoo groups I’m in too, and got lots of positive responses, including one that said she was thawing chicken to make it tonight.  Can’t wait to find out how it turned out for her.

Now, on to the crazy. We have an “armed and dangerous” on the loose.  Here’s the link to the online story from our local newspaper:
http://www.saukvalley.com/articles/2008/06/27/news/local/dc0ad0853745d3194d797938ef958b68.txt

 What that isn’t telling you, at least not yet, is that this guy walked into the Walmart in Rock Falls (20 miles from Dixon, where I live), shot his dad, and walked right back out. He’s still at large.  Chris has been on pins and needles about this, worried about my safety, all day.  To the point that instead of going home after work, he had his coworker bring him straight to the store and waited there with me for an hour til I got off.  Oddly enough, no one else seems to be real concerned, if they even know about it, and there aren’t any signs of an increased police presence here in town.  We saw not one police cruiser come through the store parking lot all night long.  Maybe they know something we don’t, but 20 miles isn’t that far, and if I’d just shot my dad, I don’t think I’d be staying in the town I shot him in….But then again, that’s why this guy is a crazy and I’m not.  And besides, what if he knows someone here that he’s decided he’d like to shoot? 

We’re home and safe with the figurative hatches battened down.  Hopefully the police will catch this guy before Chris has to go in for a five hour shift tomorrow, otherwise I’m not doing anything except taking him to work and coming home and staying behind locked doors until they do.

We all know about Chicken Alfredo.  And I guess you could add anything you wanted to the basic, but most people I know seem to keep it…well…basic.   Last week, Melora came up with a version of Chicken Alfredo with vegetables.  Tonight, I modified it yet more, and this is what I came up with:

 4 boneless, skinless, chicken breasts or thighs.
 Angelhair, cooked and drained
 4 green onions, chopped
 1 medium tomato, wedged, OR several grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
 2 yellow squash, cut into circles
 2 ears’ worth of corn kernels, cut off the cob (optional)
 1/2 package carrot chips, or cut your own.
 1 jar roasted garlic and parmesan alfredo sauce

 Seasonings as desired, I used onion powder, lemon pepper, parsley, and a pinch of Tony Chachere’s cajun seasoning.

Cut the chicken into bite sized pieces and saute in a little bit of butter or olive oil in large skillet until almost done.  Add veggies and cook until carrots are to your desired tenderness ( I like mine crunchy). Add cooked pasta, mix. Add sauce, and mix into other ingredients, simmer until bubbly. That only takes a couple of minutes.  

 This turned out absolutely perfect, and it didn’t heat up the house.  I use angelhair instead of fettucine because it cooks faster,and the veggies I picked are just what I had on hand and like.  You could use almost anything, green peppers, broccoli, zucchini….the possibilities are endless.  Serve it with a simple green salad and garlic bread, and voila! company meal.  Hopefully your company likes a lot of vegetables, though.  I think I’ll make this the next time I have a girlfriend over for lunch or dinner.

It’s baaaaack.  That time of month known as : PMS.  It sends Chris hiding under the bed, Melora to a friend’s (any friend) house, and turns me into a raving, crying, irrational lunatic. 

Today I got a private message on one of the boards I visit.  It’s a new place for me, and I’ve made all of one post there.  It was an admonishment to say “thank you” to the people that run the board and make sure it’s kept current.  Normally, I’d have probably figured it was a mass pm, and not taken it personally.  Today…. oh boy.   I replied that I have installed, maintained, administered, and repaired that type of online board for years now, and I was well aware of the amount of work it takes.  But I pointed out that I had only been registered for less than a week and had made one post.  That when I got around to actually downloading something, I’d be glad to leave a thank you in the thread, but since I hadn’t….Then I added that I was an adult, and a polite one at that, and did not need to be reminded to say “thank you” like a child receiving candy.  And promptly logged out with no plans to go back.  I can’t unregister myself, so I’m hoping the admin that pm’d me gets the hint and does so. 

Yeah.  It’s going to be one of those weeks. 

Well. We’ve already established that we’re not in Texas anymore, Toto.  But I have to admit, some Midwestern obsessions with types of food still baffle me.  Probably about as much as a Texan’s obsession with Chicken Fried Steak and brisket baffle Midwesterners. 

I stumbled onto a forum seemingly dedicated to pork tenderloin sandwiches yesterday.  13 pages of posts about ONE food item.  And I thought Texans were bad.  A pork tenderloin sandwich, for those not from the Midwest, is basically a chicken fried steak sandwich, only using pounded pork tenderloin instead of beef.   They’re good, but at least to me, not obsession-worthy.

I mentioned last night that we were having breaded (actually crackered) pork tenderloins for dinner.  That’s how I stumbled into the aforementioned forum in the first place, looking for side dishes to the tenderloin I was making.  Turns out, the only things I found were about sixty years old.  Seems like after someone discovered you could make sandwiches out of it, no one bothered fixing it any other way EVER AGAIN??!!??.  The most interesting sides I found must have a Polish origin, as it calls for cabbage and buttered noodles.  Which sounds pretty good, and is probably what I’ll do the next time we buy this.  The most common thing I found was just serve it with mashed potatoes and gravy, a la chicken fried steak, except with pork gravy instead of cream gravy.  Last night’s version was good, but it needed gravy, because to me it was dry. Chris loved it, though.  I’ll make sandwiches out of the leftovers today. 

And now for something completely different….we installed a bandwidth monitor on my machine so I can keep up with how much I’m using, in preparation for Comcast’s idiotic policies to become even more idiotic.  I’m about to test out how much bandwidth it’ll take for me to watch some old episodes of Smallville online.  Hopefully not anywhere close to the elusive Comcast cap, because I’m finding a bunch of stuff I haven’t seen yet and would like to catch up on.

The reason I hadn’t seen a new release from Susan Wittig Albert is because I already READ it.  It’s called “Nightshade” and came out in April.  Geez.  The problem is, I grabbed it the second the library had it, and then promptly forgot it was a new release.

On a whim, because it’s a beautiful day, and the top was down on the Tracker, and Chris had never been in it on the highway, we decided to go to Sterling to find Melora a birthday present or two, and Chris wanted an adapter so he could play the mp3’s from his EnV phone with the aux in input on the Tracker’s stereo.  It takes a standard headphone jack plug like an mp3 player, which is how I use it all the time, but the jack on his cellphone is smaller, so he needed something to bridge the gap.  We did find one, at Radio Shack, but we spent 11 bucks for a 3 dollar part, Chris said.  Probably because now they’re in demand.

While shopping for Melora, we ran into the semi-annual-huge-way-too-tempting sale at Bath and Body Works.  I can’t resist a sale, and the one they are having is a doozy.  I got the aromatherapy mandarin and lime “energize” body wash and lotion for five bucks apiece.  Regular price is $13.00.  Can’t tell you what else we got, cause Melora reads this and her birthday isn’t til Monday *grin*. But I can tell you that we got a heck of a deal on it!  I still want a full size set of the aromatherapy vanilla and lavender “sleep” formula, too.  That’s what we got Melora for Christmas, in a gift basket, and it smells so good I nearly didn’t let her have it!  But after Mother’s Day, I’m fully stocked on Moonlight Path body wash, lotion, and spray, and with the addition of the Mandarin Lime stuff I just got, plus the Irresistible Apple I already had, I should be set til, oh, say, Christmas…which is when the other part of the semi-annual-huge-way-too-tempting sale happens.

Also went grocery shopping today.  I think we’ve finally decided the grocery budget I’ve been doing my best to stick to lo these many months is not very realistic.  As in it’s not enough.  Not if we want to eat meat, anyway.  After three different places I think our tally for the week was close to $75.00 up from the $60.00 we were shooting for.  And that’s not being extravagant either.  We got stuff on sale, and I can tell you we didn’t buy steak. Not for lack of me wanting it, however.  Tonight the menu looks like:

Breaded (crackered, actually) pork tenderloin
home fries
corn on the cob

The rest of the week will be hamburger steak, chicken and rice,  hamburger helper, BBQ chicken, and assorted veggies/potato dishes.  We resisted eating out today, too, even though I’d have killed for Applebee’s.  But it’s just not in the budget right now.  Maybe after Labor Day when the crunch is over.

Melora got a new book for her birthday.  It’s  Ellen Dugan’s  The Enchanted Cat.   We’ve now been informed how to use our cats as barometers.  According to the book, if they’re sleeping with their chins up (heads upside down in those poses that would kill a human but cats make look effortless),  it means it’s going to rain or snow.  I checked our three barometers, and got the following inconclusive evidence:  Two chins down, one chin sideways.   According to the weather forecast, we have a 30% chance of isolated thunderstorms tomorrow, which would tally with the catly evidence,  since 33% is 1/3 of a hundred… or almost. 

Anyway.  Melora or someone has evidently invited the Brownies or Boggarts into my house.   Things are disappearing at an alarming rate, and this house is so small and so clean that there aren’t too many places to misplace things, so it gets frustrating quickly.  She swears she didn’t do it.  I know I didn’t do it, and I highly doubt that  Chris did it, since he doesn’t even believe in Brownies or Boggarts.  Or much else in the way of supernatural entities.   I’m actually not sure that I believe in them either, but there is sure as hell something weird going on around here.  I swear I am not that disorganized.

I’ve been looking for new online reading material.  In the process I’ve revisited some of the food blogs that I’ve read in the past.  Which has awakened the never-quite-dormant Texan hunger for good barbeque.  Unfortunately, this isn’t Texas, it’s Illinois.  And brisket here doesn’t come any way but corned.  I’m as Irish as the next person in this room, but sometimes corned beef just doesn’t cut it.  I want good old smoked Texas brisket, darnit!!   Not that I have a smoker, anyway, but I can get pretty close with  my crockpot and seasonings. It’s a gift. And I work in a grocery store, mind you. I asked Rose in our meat department about plain brisket.  She said they only have it on days they get fresh meat deliveries, which isn’t every day, and you have to reserve it in advance, plus that, it NEVER goes on sale.  Argh.  At least I’ve gotten close enough to my favorite Tex-Mex that I can deal. 

One thing that never seems to change though, is my penchant for musicals. (Yeah, I know, that was a REALLY bad seque, sorry) - I’m currently listening to the soundtrack from RENT, since Chris isn’t here to wince.  He can’t stand it.  But Melora and I adore it.  I so want to learn to play some of these songs on keyboard.

 Speaking of Chris, 2nd shift isn’t going as well as could be desired, since they evidently put him on one of the two jobs in the place he’s never done before.  And evidently it’s a tricky one that takes a lot of concentration.  But, on the bright side, the 2nd shift boss has a habit of switching everyone around every month so he should only have to do this job for a couple more weeks.  The sleeping as late as we want is pure ecstasy though… as least it is for me!  He’s on ten hour shifts today and tomorrow.  On 2nd shift this means staying late, as opposed to going in early, which puts him getting home after 1 a.m.   On days I’m off that makes me here for ten hours without him, which just sucks. On first shift, I was here just as long without him, but I was asleep for about half of it!  So I’m getting a lot more done, which was part of the pros of him going back to 2nd shift.  I’m dreading  his graduation, because him finding an IT job with second shift hours is …well, unlikely. 

I got an email from Amazon today.   The fourth book in Yasmine Galenorn’s Witch series is out.   I WANT IT!!!!!!!!  I’ll get the three I’m missing, eventually. I lucked into the one I have used.  Looks like quite a few of my authors are either releasing new material or working on new books.   The wonderful Dana Stabenow has just finished the sixteenth in the Kate Shugak series that is my absolute favorite.  Now I guess it goes to wherever books go when the authors finish with them until it’s published.  I don’t think I can wait, but Dana is kind enough to put some excerpts on her website, which MIGHT keep me from going completely insane before it’s released and I can get my hot little hands on it.  That reminds me (don’t ask me how my thought processes work, I don’t understand them either), I haven’t seen anything about a new release from Susan Wittig Albert, the author of another favorite series of mine.  I guess I’ll head on over to her website and see what’s new.