Home again, Home again, Jigity Jog

First, this just in: I just spoke with the senior administrator at the high school this morning. When I called the school I asked to speak with "someone in charge," the secretary wanted to pass me along to the cafeteria manager. I told her I wanted a principal; I was tired of getting passed around about Kevin's lunch situation. The administrator did not know about the situation, would check into it and call me back. And he did. He said Kevin and his classmates will be receiving free lunch from now on until the system gets fixed. He said the fact that the food service will not be getting money should wake them up to the situation. Hallelujah! I'm not so much excited about the free lunch, but that someone is addressing the situation and the principal knows about it too.

And now back to the regularly scheduled weekend round-up.

I already posted about the Quilt Show that I went to on Thursday. Friday I headed off to play golf at River Pointe. It's a lovely course with lightning fast greens. We've got slower northern grass up here, different from what they've got down there. I had 24 putts on the front nine and got the hang of the greens so only had 16 on the back. My score: 60 + 52 = 112. I'm very pleased with my play on the back, I hit the ball pretty well.

Saturday I took a drive around the country south of town. Something I've never confessed here on my blog, I "collect" counties. There are 3200+ county-equivalents in the U.S. I'd been in 1145 before this trip, and added eight in Texas and one in Arkansas for a grand total of 1154 counties. I'd never been in Arkansas before so my state count is now 47.

Pictures from this drive (subtitled: Abandonment Issues)

The abandoned sugar plant in Sugar Land, TX


Abandoned rodeo arena near Kendleton, TX


Abandoned railroad bridge near Simonton, TX

The poisonous coral snake I saw while walking back up the path after taking pictures of the bridge (in flip-flops!) Sorry it's not a better picture, he and I were both in a hurry.

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Saturday afternoon was my cousin Jen's wedding. It was small and nice. After the ceremony I hung out in the sanctuary while the bridal party had the pictures done. At one point I plopped down next John, Jen's brother. (Yes, that would make him my cousin, too.) I said to him, "Do you know who I am?"
After a long glance, No
"I'm your cousin."
No way.
"Yes way."

That was fun, messing with his mind a bit.

My grandmother, my mom's mom, had five children but only two lived long enough to have children of their own. Two died in infancy, and Uncle Ray died when he was 36 from pulmonary hypertension (high blood pressure in the lungs). My aunt married her second husband and moved to Texas in the 70's so I have two cousins whom I don't see much at all. The last time my brothers and I were together with John and Jennifer was in 1986.

Anyway, I reconnected with John and met his wife and their two little boys, exchanged email addresses and web pages. They invited me over to their house after the reception, which turned out to be about a half-mile from my hotel. We swapped storied and tried to remember things from our childhoods. I got some scoop about their mom, my aunt, and her third husband and why they weren't at the wedding. I'm not sure whether to sad or glad I don't live closer to that part of the family. I want to know more but am glad I don't live close enough to worry.

Jennifer and Stephen


Jen's youngest tastes the (alcohol-free) champaign


My cousins once removed

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My husband's friend has a trick for car rental return and checking golf clubs. You drive up to departures and do a curb-side check-in, then return the car. That way you don't have to lug your bags and clubs from your rental to the rental van, then to the ticket counter.

So I'm all set to try this out when I arrive at the airport to fly home. Except the line at curb-side was way long and security was tight so I couldn't leave a car at the curb long enough to get rid of the bags. So I took the car back to rental returns and asked where to wait for the shuttle. The nice guy directs me to the shelter but I see other folks walking in the other direction. I've got a $5 ready for a tip to the driver for help with the golf bag. The driver finally shows up stopping in the opposite direction of normal traffic so I have to walk around the van to get in. And she offers no help. And no apology for pulling up in the wrong direction.

When she gets us to the terminal she drops us off at arrivals, not at departures, again no help with my clubs or suitcase. Grrr. I've got to make my way past baggage claim and up to next level for check-in. Thank goodness the golf bag had wheels so it was bearable, just awkward.

On the flip side, the parking shuttle guy at home not only helps me with my bags, he puts them into my trunk when we get to my car. I'm not sure $5 was enough.

And finally, I opened my suitcase (on both ends of the trip!) to find a love letter from TSA. My suitcase has a cool laptop compartment. I didn't feel like carrying my laptop with me at the airport so I locked it in the special compartment in the suitcase and checked it through. The notice of inspection was in with the computer in the locked compartment. I wonder if the TSA guys had seen a compartment like that before? I'd guess most people carry on laptops and not check a bag like that. Just my guess.

 

Weekend Stuff, Oh, and a Rant

Brrrrr. It was cold this morning, 34°! I had to pull out my gloves and hat for my walk.

Fern got me to take her and two friends to the movie on Friday night; we saw The Secret Life of Bees. She wanted to see it because it had Dakota Fanning in it, the other characters were played by Queen Latifah, Jennifer Hudson, and Alicia Keys. Given the demographic of the actors, the demographic of the audience was about the same. I didn't want to believe the stereotype that black audiences talk back to the movie, but they do. Oh well, the movie was still good, I enjoyed it. Nobody told me I was going to need to take tissues with me.

I went through my stash to find a fabric for the back of the wedding quilt I'm working on for my cousin. I have fabric stashed away in lots of different bins with no real method of organization. I always have to pull it all out to find what I want, and make a real mess in the process. That would be on top of the mess that already exists. Sheesh. So I decided it was time to sort the stash with some meaningful system: by color.

I need large vessels to put the fabric in as I pull it out. I need something large, cheap, but sturdy. I looked in the dollar store and the largest things I could find were baskets the size of mixing bowls and gift bags. Not gonna work. Then I took a field trip to the mega dollar store and scored a dozen small laundry baskets. I got most of my fabric sorted and found my biggest pile was of greens, followed by blues, and a pile a pieces that clearly have more than one dominate color and I don't know what basket to put them in.

Now I've got to figure out how to store the fabric so I can find what I'm looking for when I'm looking for it. But first I have to fold all these pieces into same-sized bundles. That's going to take forever. I actually have a smaller stash than lots of my quilting friends, but still, it'll take forever to fold up neatly.

I got the greens and purples folded and put back into their baskets, then changed gears. I got the wedding quilt basted and started quilting it. The pattern I picked will take a while to execute, but it should look good when it's finished.

Last night Dan and I went to the Rams Head to see Rodney Crowell. It was a good show, I didn't know his music ahead of time but enjoyed myself, nonetheless. He played for a long time so we got home later than expected and both kids were still up. Oh well. Kevin had given himself a nap after church so he was very much awake at 11:30 and I have no idea when he actually went to bed. He did make the bus this morning, though. That's the important thing, right?

I just spent far too long on the phone with the high school. Our high school is the largest in the state and until when and where they decide to build another school, our 9th graders have classes at The Annex, 10th 11th, and 12th grades are at the main building, along with all the special-ed kids. It's the only school in the district with a split campus.

Well, it seems the lunch accounts systems are separate for the two buildings. Kevin is classified as a 9th grader so his lunch account is at the annex even though he eats at the main building. Which means he has not been able to use the automated account system yet; we have to keep sending in money instead of a check, and I don't want to send in anything bigger than a $20. Dan got fed up with it and started asking who we (I) call to get this fixed.

It took calls on three different days to get a real person to answer the phone. Still, the person I spoke with passed me on to someone else and that person said she wasn't the correct person. Somebody in the registrar's office will have to set the mobility flag so the lunch system will work. Kevin isn't the only one in this boat, why do I have to call? Why can't they just do it for all the special-ed 9th graders? Why does system have to be split? Why doesn't the school district care and fix the system? Oh that one's easy. It only involves one school.

And, for what it's worth, this post might hold the record for the number of labels I tacked on to any given post.
 

ISO: Competency

For some reason when I bought my car, they forgot to install the clips that hold the floor mats in place so they don't scoot up under the pedals. And they didn't so they do. Anyway, I went to the dealership (trip #1) to get them installed and they didn't have any clips in stock so they ordered some for me. You think they'd be in the same package as the floor mats themselves, don't they kinda go together?

I get a postcard in the mail telling me my parts are in and to call for an appointment for installation. I do and the chick who needs to help me isn't available and I leave a message for her to call me. When she calls me I tell her the story and make the appointment for last night at 7:00.

So, last night at 7:00 I arrive at the dealership (trip #2) for my installation appointment. My service adviser chick is not there but someone else helps me. I've be told it's a very quick process, ten minutes, 15, tops. At 7:45 I start getting antsy and wondering where my car is. And hungry. Thinking it would only take 15 minutes, I left home without having eaten dinner. Silly me. The service adviser on duty tells me there are no service techs on duty who know how to install the clips and one guy has downloaded the instructions and is reading them. You're kidding me, right?

Why the heck did the chick give me an appointment for 7:00 if no one would be around to do the work efficiently? I finally got my car back at about 8:20. This particular dealership has a free car wash and vacuum for Honda owners to use. They had already washed the car for me so I wanted to vacuum it out. While I'm sucking out kid debris the first thing I notice is no clips were installed for the floor mat in the back seat. Second thing I notice is one of the front clips wasn't installed properly and comes out of the socket when I lifted the mat to vacuum under it. What is wrong with these people? Dinner was cold when I got home at 8:45. Sheesh.

I called the service manager this morning to complain but he was in a meeting and hasn't returned my call yet. Eventually I'll need to make trip #3 to get the rest of the clips installed. I should be compensated for this. Greatly.

Because I got home so late I really didn't get much more done on the quilt I wrote about yesterday. Argh!

 

How come bad days never get better?

The rain made the roads bad, but I made it to drop off the kids at day camp on time, then on to the radiology office to pick up my x-rays of my arm. But their printer wasn't working, so I only had a written report to take to my orthopedic appointment at 9:15. I arrive 10 minutes early, but at the wrong office. I called the number on the referral and went to the address listed. Someone had transposed the information for my benefit.

I got the directions to the correct office and the 20 minute drive took 45. Then I had to wait another 75 minutes to be seen. I had asked at the first office when I could be seen there instead of being late at the other, but she said July 10th.

This was all before lunch, too.

Sheesh. Ever had a day that couldn't get better at all?