You've got to be kidding

Seems like that was the phrase that pays over the weekend, and well into Monday.

Let's start with Saturday. 

I've got a peaceful.... greasy feeling....

What seemed like a great idea at the time (and I think it still is a great idea, but I would have debated that to the death on Saturday around noon) was to help collect hazardous household waste from Ledges residents and offer to haul it down to the Rock River Reclamation District drop-off on the southwest corner of Rockford. Mark Anderson was on board, and he scored a mulch delivery truck from Ack Ack Nursery in Rockford where he works occasionally and knows them quite well. We were supposed to meet at 9 am and take "donations" until noon, but i got held up because of Ann's 5k race running late (nice job, honey!) so I was at home with the girls for longer than I had planned. By the time I packed them up with me and headed over to help Mark collect the goods, he had the truck half full and was just about ready to pull the plug. Turns out when he arrived, at 8:40 am, there were already a half-dozen cars waiting to drop off decades of old paint cans, motor oil, antifreeze, pesticides, driveway salt melter, turpentine, spray paint, you name it. It absolutely blew my mind (and Mark's) to see how much crap people had been storing up with no place to put it. Thankfully they all didn't just toss it in the garbage... 

So we took another dozen or so cars, minivans and pickup trucks worth of waste over the next hour, and by 10 am we were jammed full. We decided that Mark would head over to a friends' house to pick up his materials to help him out, while I quickly crafted a sign that we could leave in the parking lot drop-off site that would tell people we had already left. We felt a bit bad abandoning out post 2 hrs early, but not that bad. We just couldn't believe the amount of material we had already. When we came back 20 minutes later there were another 5 minivans and trucks circling the lot looking for us... And I fielded 2 calls on my cell about the pickup.

The 5 minivans and trucks ganged up on us and we eventually found a spot for all of their junk too... then we hauled ass out of there before anyone else could see us...

I then took at least 4 more phone calls on the 45-minute drive down to the reclamation district, and disappointed a few folks along the way. Even though this place is open to the public, most would have rather had us take their crap for them. Can't blame a feller for that....

So we roll up to the drop off where about 5 people in white haz-mat suits are working dilligently, and they take one look at the landscape truck and shoot us a look that says "Aww helllllll no!" 

When they realized we weren't actually trying to dump a 1/2 ton of waste from Ack Ack, they agreed to take as much as they could for the time being, so we opened the back gate.

Then, the guy that was standing there (never did get his name) looked up into the truck and saw what we had collected....

First his eyes popped out of his head, then his chin hit his chest, then he looks up at me and says "You've gotta be kidding". Nope, we weren't. Unfortunately, I realized quickly that once we realized how much junk we had, we should have made some advance arrangements. But since we didn't, and we were idling there in the drop-off lane, we had to beg.

And beg I did... I mean, the thought of having to take it all back home and unload it ourselves was beyond comprehension. And I could see in  Mark's eyes he was thinking the same thing. 

"Ain't no way in hell we're unloading all this again...."

Mercifully, this guy took pity on us and agreed to meet us back there Sunday morning a 1/2 hour before they opened to help us offload all of the materials. (whew)

So, back we went to Bond Drive with a truckload of paint, oil, etc.

The we head back down there, ready for action on Sunday (and we get there EARLY, believe me) Just as we pull in, another mope with a flatbed trailer full of 5-gallons containers filled with oil pulls up. 30 of them. No shit.

Mark pulls the truck right in front of him (that was a nice move, Mark!) and we meet up with our friendly recycling guy. "That guy's not with us" we both told him as soon as we were within earshot. Thankfully Mark had also organized the mess into piles of paint, oil, etc so he knew what was what and we unloaded each separately. All told it took us 30 minutes to unload it all, and by our best count as we left, here's the approximate total of what we kept from the landfill:

450 gallons of paint

70-80 gallons of used motor oil

Roughly 12 gallons of antifreeze

At least 150 aerosol cans (paint, cleaners, etc)

Countless other small containers of everything from floor polish to driveway sealer.

That actually makes it all sound pretty manageable. But don't be mistaken. It was a total freakin' mess.

So, we get it all unloaded (the guy who helped us woudn't take a tip, we tried. He certainly deserved it. And his fellow employees who were about to show up had no idea what was waiting for them!) and as we're pulling out we hear him tell the guy behind us (with the 30 5-gallon cans of waste oil) that he can't accept it today (hee hee!) because they're slammed after making a special arrangement with us for Sunday morning. Mark and I couldn't have driven out of there faster.

Addie the Terrible

You may recall that last week Addie was having some issues. Well, she still has some issues. Only time will tell if last night's very early bedtime will have benefits lasting into tonight. But Sunday was the biggest trial I've had as a parent. Addie basically ripped our family apart temporarily, and I was so enraged that I literally thought about what I could smash apart with a baseball bat in the backyard. Long story short she just lets out these screams and cries when she doesn't get what she wants, and there's no turning back once she's started. If you let her cry, she spirals into an asthma attack. It's just mind-numbing when you stare at her and realize you honestly don't know how to get out of the situation. 

It's worth noting here that I began this post Monday, and am finishing it today (Tuesday). I clearly ran out of time, and my desire to get home in time to get a bike ride in took over. (I had a good ride, too. 23 miles of uninterrupted stress relief.)

So Addie was definitely in a better mood Monday night, with only a few meltdowns with Ann upon leaving the Y and arriving at home. I'm never quite sure what does it to her, but man.... when she gets the train rolling out of the station, it's hard to put the brakes on.

I have a bit more perspective on it now, 2 days out from the event on Sunday, and the big picture looks much better. In fact, I would probably change the subhead for this portion of the blog - but it's part of my mindset at the time, so there you have it.

Knuckleheads

Everyone deals with them at work, right? I got more than my fair share on Monday - I won't go into details, but a cool-down period was recommended by my editor and that turned out to be a good thing. And somewhere in the middle of all the driving I did yesterday, an older couple pulled out in front of me on Huntley Road (avg speed about 55-60) and had me locking up the brakes to avoid killing them both (and probably me) instantly. You know that feeling you get when your adrenaline spikes so hard that you might just have to wail on someone to get rid of the pressure? There you have it. Jerks.

What else is there?

Other things on my mind lately, a "thought roundup" if you will:

1- Triathlon training is reaching it's zenith, did 2 workouts yesterday. I'm going to ramp it up until early next week, then rest and eat a ton before the race in E. Grand Rapids on Sept 6.

2- Stress at work as I had to tell a long-time co-worker that he's moving offices to help out elsewhere. It's not like I had to tell him he's unemployed, but it's been hard nonetheless.

3- Had a great evening with mom and dad last Saturday as they stopped by briefly en route to Clearwater Lake. Looking forward very much to meeting up with them in Door County for the Labor Day weekend.

4- Clare's new schedule and kindergarten experience seems to be going smoothly, and an added bonus is that it's helping me get out the door by 8 pm to get here on time!

5- I really am a coffee weenie. Yep. I'm one of THOSE people. The guy who just HAS to have a cup of good coffee before anything meaningful can happen that day. The cheap-o coffee experiment proved that. This morning I was stoked about my cup of Starbucks until Ann crushed my spirit by telling me she had made the pot "half and half". Can you imagine? What an atrocity.