Weird day

Weird things were happening yesterday.

First, the beater bar on my Kirby vacuum that I have had for 30 years, well, the end of the white side (those of you who have a Heritage II will know), melted while my daughter was vacuuming.  Probably had something to do with all the long hairs of her’s that were caught up on the side and on the thing that comes out and runs the belt around the beater bar.  But, still!  In the 30 years I have had this vacuum cleaner, I have only had to replace the beater bar like 2 or 3 times.

And now, for a Kirby infomercial.  Sorry, I don’t own stock in the company, nor am I a salesman, but I have to do this.  My high school senior daughter keeps telling me I need to buy a new vacuum (it’s so old, mom!),  but I can’t imagine that scenario – as I know how much I have spent on this one in the past 30 years.   Yes, it was around $800 to start, an exorbitant amount, BUT this Kirby Heritage II has/can suck up pennies, small pebbles, has only needed two or three beater bars (~$27), one light (~$20), and one fan (~$40), in 30 years – plus, of course, bags and belts.  Still,  I remember the first vacuum I ever owned – a Sears Kenmore (sorry, Sears, I have a sewing machine I like much, though) – cost $150, and it only lasted about 2 years.

I know others who have owned various and sundry vacuums costing anywhere from $100 to $400, through the years, and said vacuums crapped out within a year or four.

So I figure, if I had bought said vacuums, I would have spent $3,000 on vacuum cleaners.   As it is I have spent around $1,200 give or take. I know, it was a lot at first, but this baby takes a licking and keeps on sucking. Yes, this vacuum cleaner does suck, or it doesn’t? Or, it does??????

So, I go to the Kirby dealer, and the beater bar is wood.  WTF?  The guys says, “Yeah, the other ones were wood, too, only painted gray.  We haven’t had a metal beater bar since 1942.”  What!!!   Are you frigging kidding me?  Weird that, no? But,  hey, he gave me an otherwise ~$3 belt for free so, okay. Whatever.

So, next in this weird day.  My daughter decides that for toga day  – which I spent 2.5 hours helping her do this toga with a bolt of funky tye-dyed material I had  – about 4 yards – trying to wrap it in some togaty type fashion (Yes, I made up that word “togaty” ) – only to finally go with my original partially sewn design (which I came up with before we started the wrap idea) she finally agreed and it worked!  She couldn’t find appropriate belt in the drapery department at JoAnns or Hobby Lobby, so wants to do a leaf headpiece.  She calls me from Michael’s and says this leafy stuff is like $5 a piece, and doesn’t really specify how many pieces she would need – so I say – hey, we have tons of ivy outside, we could curve it into a headpiece and then she says “spray paint it gold” – so I say, okay…

Which we do. BTW, a small can of glittery gold spray paint costs $8? I think I would have said, how about just leaves, but I wasn’t at the store with her when she made the purchase.  Way to mark things up Michaels!

Then, I decide to help her out and spray paint the thong part of a pair of thong sandals in this gold glitter paint, and the can spritzes out nothing but gluish type residue, continuously, won’t stop – so, I’m like, fine, we won’t be putting a second coat on the ivy leaves.

And after the trip to Kirby dealer for beater bar and before the ivy glitter paint thing – I swept and mopped my kitchen floor – plus cleaned light fixtures over dining table and on kitchen ceiling fan   – which had lightbulbs to be removed first.  But, kitchen ceiling fan had CFL’s which I dropped and broke one, luckily before the sweeping and mopping.  Still, I didn’t don HAZMAT suit, but should I have????

Anyway, that was done, she comes home, we put together this ivy headpiece, go out on deck to spray paint it, and in the process, I cut too much ivy, whatever, get ivy stuck to my flip flops.  Later, go into her room to touch up paint we painted in August where someone hit it with something black, and she says after “Mom, take off your flips flops as they are tracking ivy leaves.” Darn, so I check and find one or two still stuck to my shoes.

But, the awesome, WTF, happened after she went to bed, after 1:00 a.m, to get up at 5:15 to do her hair and such, and I am walking through the kitchen, and see by the refrigerator something on the floor.  I am thinking, it’s a leaf that came off my shoe, and go to pick it up and throw it in the trash, but look closer, and

EWWWWWWWW….

It’s a slug!!! (This if for AngloSwiss)  Yes, a slug, in my kitchen, by my refrigerator.  I’m so non-plussed at this point that I just find two napkins, pick the sucker up, and throw him out onto my deck.  I figure I can deal with him tomorrow!

Oh, and I forgot to add that my computer was acting up earlier, Firefox wouldn’t load  right, Yahoo toolbar didn’t work right, reloaded it, and now it might be working, maybe, maybe not right,  and why do I keep getting “high traffic” on NetGear Genie when I have three tabs open and no one else is up to be on a computer?  and, I have just noticed how your know how you type something and it suddenly shows up a couple seconds later? Yeah, that’s happening.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that my TV is going out.  Granted we got this from my hubby’s work as “worthlessed” (he’s in the rent and sell business) – and this 42″ had a lighter streak down about the middle (not sellable, but not that noticeable) that we finally got used to or chose to ignore – and now had a black strip down the right side about  1/4 of the screen.  So, yeah, it’s pretty much done for!

And my other daughter is coming in less than two days with my two grand children, and WordPress has decided that it can word wrap in a space less than the screen (did it do this before and I just didn’t notice so much because my internet window wasn’t that big?

I think this is one of the weirdest days I have had in a while.  How about you?