Wordless Wednesday

A Good Question Indeed

Who exactly DID piss off Mother Nature? Earthquakes in Virginia. No, not unheard of but truly not very common. I'd guess they aren't common in Colorado either. Hurricane this weekend.

I’m not discounting the earthquake of Tuesday, I’ll be the first to admit it was scary, I was in a less than sturdy building, and while I had to pretend to be calm, cool and collected, and responsible, because that is my job, I was pretty freaked inside. Worried about the house and kitties, couldn’t leave campus because it is rather what I get paid for, taking care of the buildings and operations. My leaving right then would rather be like a fireman leaving the scene of a fire in case maybe his house was burning.

Then I sadly told myself no tv for you this week. Why you might ask? Well, I’ll tell you. Guaranteed that every news person who can find a camera crew and sound guy will be out on the street interviewing people. And I quite frankly can’t listed to “I was so a’scared, I didn’t know what was happening!” “I was in my kitchen and the whole house started moving, I was just sure to all goodness that the roof was going to fall on my head”. “That was the worst experience in my life!” And I’m 8. And on, and on, and on. Yes, it would be fair to say that every one was a little shook up (haha), however why oh why do they have to find every a’scared person on the planet? And then play the same thing over and over and over. Go talk to the officers on the street, the rescue crews, the power crews, the building inspectors who could actually provide useful information to some. Oh wait, that isn’t news.

It is horrible about the buildings that are damaged. No doubt about it, but the problem with news on the street live, right now, as it is happening, is that they start speculating. Oh, they don’t tell you they are speculating, but we all know that once it is said then it becomes “the truth”.

Now we’re waiting for the hurricane. Yesterday it was sorta bad, last night maybe bad, this morning not so much, tonight huge. So my dilemma is, do I hit the market in the morning on the way to work for wine and snacks, or wait until tomorrow night. Storm is suppose to hit sometime Saturday night. Ain’t no way on this green earth I’m going to the market on Saturday morning, and while I don’t mind waiting until it blows over, I need my snacks. And if it doesn’t stop raining by Sunday night, then I have to shop in the rain and quite frankly I hate lugging groceries in the rain. I know, I’m a princess.

So my weekend plans are to eat, knit, have movie marathons, do homework and watch the weather. I’ll probably be cleaning up the yard on Sunday.

And please, who did piss of Mother Nature? C’mon, you can fess up.

How Do They Manage To Grow Up?

ring ring (my cell phone)

me: Hi honey
son: Mom? I got backed into by an escalade a little while ago and now
my neck is starting to hurt, do you think I should go to the doctor?
me: huh? did the police come?
son: No, it was here in the lot.
me: were you driving a customer's car (thinking OMG this is gonna
be expensive)
son: No mom, I was walking.
me: I'm sorry? Your were walking????? He ran you over?
Did you fall???????????????????
son: no, but almost
me: could not talk for the banging of the head against the desk


Two hours later and neck/back x-rays and a prescription for extra strength motrin, and a check of his kidneys since that is apparently where the biggest impact was, he is off for the rest of the day.

Overload

You know how you know that you need to get things done and then when you sit down to get to it, they all just fly straight out of your brain? Comeon, I know you know. Don't try to pretend Tinker is the only one in the world with this problem.

Things on the old homestead are achangin in the next few weeks. Good changes to be sure, but changes none the less. TinkerSon is moving into his own place. We're not sure if he is happy, sad or just conflicted about the decision. He has talked about it for quite some time, but always in the "next year" context. Then wham in less than two weeks it was I'm doing it, and apparently doing it now. It is good. He will take his stinky dirty clothes with him - big yeah on that one! Some furniture we don't want, haven't wanted for about the 7 years we've had it, but didn't quite know what to do with it. Give it away would be the logical answer, but something always stopped me.

He has in fact, gone through the entire house and tagged the items he would like to take. Except for my egg poacher which he at least asked for before packing, I'm glad to let him have at it.

So I decided last week while traveling that the next 12 months would be a good time to finally start getting my house back in order and taking it back so-to-speak. The first line item will be to walk through the entire house with a bucket of spackle and a putty knife and fix every ding, dang and hole in every wall in every room. To be fair, TinkerSon didn't make a lot of the holes, he is more for putting grimy fingerprints on the walls. Yes son, those are yours. You are the only one here anymore that can reach that high, and I can assure you that I am not the one reaching up to touch the ceiling just because I can.

So I sat at my desk this morning to start the list, think about what to eat next week and do homework.

Yeah. None of those things have happened yet and it's been over an hour. Intarsia has set in. Oops, I mean inertia. Oh wait, maybe I do mean intersia. Ya know, maybe I should just go finish my shawl. The shawl from my trip that has gone about the same way my last week has gone.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, there's always tomorrow!

Sing in peace this afternoon.

Home

Well, my return home wasn't quite as dramatic as my departure. Mostly because I didn't have to get up at 3 in the morning and while I still had a long drive to airport, it was in the afternoon, but WHAT was up with traffic in Charlotte? On a Tuesday? Ah well, because my mom stresses about missing airplanes, I had more than enough time, which was good because TSA seemed to be running a bit behind too. Maybe it is "summer" travelers and I fly more often during the school year.

But I needed dinner. After looking at all the mayo laden, soggy bread, greasy spoon places, and the $6 beer, I settled on a container of carrots, celery and cheese chunks. And then I broke my self imposed rule and bought a coke instead of water because the coke was cheaper. How wrong it that? But carrots and cheese (and only some of the celery) absolutely hit the spot and was only $4, fresh and yummy. Next time I'll have to remember to pack my own so that I can afford the water - becuse I always seem to forget to grab an empty bottle to carry though security and then fill up.

On time flight, yay! No storms in our area, double yay! Construction on the beltway not so yay but at least we didn't have to stop for long periods of time and I was home by 11. I'm a morning person, I go to bed around 9. This wasn't going to bode well for my Wednesday,

But I walked in the door of my house relaxed and happy. The kitchen was clean - tripple yay! And although the floor looked more like it belonged in the barn, the counters and sink was shiny, there were clean towels for my shower, and food in the fridge.

And Jack didn't shun me. This time I remembered to tell him bye I'll see you in a few days. I read somewhere you need to tell your pets good bye when you're leaving them for a few days so they don't get mad at you.

Well, he could be mad at me, that's okay, he usually gets over it, and there were two humans to cater to his every whim, but alas. He got after some roving on Tuesday, so I guess next time I need to tell him I'll see you Wednesday and then when I come home Tuesday it will be a bonus.

Now I just have to unpack.

Traveling

I’ve tried to become philosophical about travel over the years. When you drive, you can take whatever stuff you want and if you choose to throw 27 pairs of shoes in the back it’s all good. But driving can take precious time especially if you’re using vacation time from work, and the cost of gas and amount of traffic has made it a 50/50 prospect on what is more economical.

Flying of course can be stressful. You must plan what to take being sure to not to take liquids, etc. unless they are in the little clear bottles, in a clear quart size zip lock bag. Your luggage is subject to random searches if you can afford to check it, and even if you carry it on, it has to go through the screen thing and there is no telling what will trigger the TSA’s desire to spread your undies all over the floor of the security area.

So I take what I can carry only, a book, some change and a good attitude because there isn’t any point in fighting a losing battle

I decided to fly to my mom’s this weekend. My plan has been to catch the o’dark thirty flight - which means I’m up and out the door o o’dark thirty to make the hour long drive and still have time to park, catch the shuttle and get in line. By flying, my time from my bed to my mom’s front door is 5 hours. If I drive, the time pretty much doubles. So, I was on my merry way early, fortunate that no construction shut down the roads for long periods of time, and I was glad the deer on the side of the road stayed there. The shuttle bus in the parking lot was actually pulling up to the pick up spot as I was walking to it, and the morning was good. Except the loud guy on the bus who though everyone wanted to hear him shout about how someone in his office was panicking because, what if there is a problem, how will we reach you? The guy apparently said, I don’t care if there is a problem, figure out a solution. Oh, and the lady who was wearing some kind of long dress with very little top to it. SHE had a lot of top, and a black bra on as well, which you could see just as clearly as all her skin. I wonder what people think when they are dressing to travel.

The security line was long, but for a change I wasn’t worried, I knew I had time. By the time I got to the departure gate, there were only 5 people left getting on the plane. Not a problem, but the last 20 people had to check their bags, which wasn’t a problem either, then I don’t have to haul it over my head and it will be at the door when I get off the plane. Oh, no, not this time, I would have to go to baggage claim to get it. Bummer. Then the woman in the middle seat didn’t feel like getting up, and just tried to tuck her feet in and told me to slide on by. Right, I’d rather not stick my butt in your face. So she sighed and got up. I guess the flight attendants had had enough of people already too because before takeoff they turned off the overhead lights and left them off for the entire flight. That was okay, I got an extra hour of sleep. Except because of storms, the flight was an extra half hour long and I had plans.

The Charlotte airport was crazy busy at 7 am on a Saturday. Usually it has people, but not like this. Some girl came up and asked me if we were in NC or SC. I started to ask her if she had not taken geography in school yet, but then decided it wasn’t worth it so told her North Carolina, then had to not laugh at her relief. My first cup of coffee was from ‘bucks which I usually avoid like the plague, but that was all I could find. At baggage it took me 5 minutes to find my bag, no one was lingering, and someone had kindly hidden it behind a pillar. The car rental girl was bright and perky, but the guy on the other end was kinda a jerk. 80 miles later, I realized I forgot to grab my toothbrush and comb this morning, so make a quick stop at the drug store then drove to my mom’s place. But it was all good.

My mom lives in a retirement community. Usually, I get a visitor hang tag, park, go into the dining room and she is there with a friend or two and I get breakfast. Well. This time she forgot to call the front gate. And this time, the kid pretending to be security decided to follow all the rules and wouldn’t let me in because I wasn’t on the list. I said she’s in the dining room call there. He said, I called her apartment, she didn’t answer, there isn’t anything I can do until she calls me back. I just stared at him, he said sorry. Sigh.

So I went in to town where the farmer’s market was, walked up and down the two rows, then sat on a bench, grabbed my knitting and called my friend who I knew was up. She pointed out how as annoying as it is, at least they don’t just let anyone into a gated community, which would defeat the purpose of the concept, wouldn’t it. Yeah, yeah, but why did I have to get the new guy today? The others have always let me in.

And really, it wasn’t so bad, I had a shady bench and good weather, no water though, and the company of a friend on the phone. I relaxed for awhile and was happy because it is all about adapting.

40 minutes later, mom called to say she was in her apartment and talked to security. So my trip was 7 hours this time. Hope the trip home is smoother.

Not Without Me Again

Ha! She only thinks she is leaving me again to go visit her mom.

National Watermelon Day!

What a most excellent day. Too bad they didn't coordinate this day with National Night Out. Did anyone do that last night? I didn't but then I don't usually participate in neighborhood events, although I will go watch the neighborhood parade on the 4th of July.

And why would you plan a block party event like this without making it something like the first Saturday or Sunday in August instead of a specific day? The idea is good, but a heck of a lot of people work and aren't likely to take time off early from work (or at all) just to attend a block party. Are they?

Last night I went apartment shopping with TinkerSon. It was a quite nice place, sales pitch wasn't too heavy, but a little, although the woman was nice enough. He has been tasked with looking at the apartments, because prospective roommate works crazy hours, and then will be gone this weekend. So RM is finding places and TinkerSon is checking them out. I did metion that RM is going to have to come see before signing the lease. Part of me wants to point out that he has been asked to vacate his current premises by August 31st. That doesn't leave him a lot of time to find a place and get moved. And TinkerSon can be nice to a fault sometimes. Other times I definately see where he got the worst traits of both his dad and me.

Oh yeah, then TinkerSon said, if his current landlord won't let him stay for a few extra days until we can move, can he stay here?

sure.

Ten on Tuesday

Carole's pick for the week is romantic comedies. I don't think I have ten, but here goes, in no particular order:

Philadelphia Story
Princess Bride
Under the Tuscan Sun
Mamma Mia
Sabrina - both of them
Hello Doly
Kiss Me Goodbye
Singing in the Rain
Bringing Up Baby
Shrek