My previous entry got a little long-winded, so here are some other things that have happened recently.

Did I mention that on Memorial Day weekend, someone broke into my truck and stole my stereo?

I had been sick with bronchitis that weekend, and as a result, had been in my apartment without leaving since Thursday when I came home from work. Because I was so sick, for the first time since I got the truck, I completely forgot to take the face off the stereo and bring it inside with me.

Either that was a fine example of ironic timing, or else someone had been waiting for me to fuck up.

On Sunday, finally feeling the need to get out of the house, I was going to tan, and took out the garbage first. As I walked back toward the apartment, I noticed the rear sliding window of my truck was wide open.

I stopped dead, completely confused. Had I left the window open? But even if I do open that window, I only crack it a few inches, I never open it all the way like it was then.

I walked slowly to the truck, knowing the news wouldn't be good. I peered in as I got closer, and saw nothing but wires hanging from the dash where the stereo had been.

The truck was still locked. Someone had climbed into the bed, pried open the window (which I know is possible because I've done it myself once when I locked my keys in the truck), leaned in, and literally yanked the stereo out.

Mind you, this window isn't all that wide, so it had to be a fairly small person who did this. Probably a kid, or at least, the smallest one in the group.

Not only was I pissed about the stereo, but there was also a CD in the stereo at the time. I think that pissed me off more for some reason.

I've been a victim of a felony before, but dammit, this isn't Grand Prairie, this is Plano. I supposedly live in the most desirable zip code in the Metroplex (as some news story reported not long ago).

Harrumph.

So I called Scott. Turns out he'd been wanting a new stereo in his car, so he sold me his current stereo (yes, I'm his mother, but he needed the money to put toward the new stereo), and came over to install it for me.

Turns out the jerk who jerked the stereo from truck managed to blow a few of the fuses in the process, so we had to replace those too.

But now I have a nicer stereo, and you can bet that I will never, ever leave the face in again. I take that thing everywhere I go - work, store, tan, home - wherever. If I'm not in the truck, neither is the stereo face.

The only consolation I had is knowing that the stolen stereo wasn't working very well (skipping a lot when playing CDs), so I hope the bastards who took it are annoyed by that.

And I hope they're enjoying that Jessica Andrews CD too.

Did I mention that I decided to run some numbers to figure out how many employees my department is now responsible for?

Almost 1,000. (It was 943 when I counted a couple of weeks ago, and the new hire paperwork stream hasn't stopped flowing yet.)

That means in only six months, our employee population has increased by over 50%. (Mind you, those are net numbers - that means there were more actual new hires than 400, because we also had a high number of employees terminate during that period. That's a lot of fucking paperwork, let me tell you.)

Needless to say, my staff hasn't expanded beyond the two of us during that time. No wonder I'm feeling so overwhelmed. And there are still two new facilities which haven't even started ramping up their staff up yet.

I'm seriously burning out, but I just haven't decided what to do about it at this point.

Did I mention that I found out my sixteen year old son is no longer a virgin (and actually was fifteen when it happened)?

Uh. I don't even know what to say about that.

The Ex, of course, blamed it all on the fact that Justin now lives with my mother. I told him that was a bit silly; didn't he tell me himself that one of the reasons he moved Cody to another school was because there were about twelve pregnant girls at the junior high? I think that's a clear sign that teenage sex in Terrell runs pretty rampant. A kid who's going to have sex will have it wherever he can get it.

All I know is my risk factor for becoming a grandmother has now doubled. That's a scary thought.

I wonder if I can convince my grandchildren to call me "Girlie" instead of "Grandma"? Heh.