no, i haven't had my nervous breakdown yet. i wish i would. i am hoping i will. shall i try and force it upon myself? certainly, that would be preferable to having an anxiety attack on the plane on the way to san francisco! (shades of last year and the flight to seattle!)
i have pretty much finished up the prep on the trip and just have to put things in the folders. while trying to do that i am also trying to get my house in order as i have an appraiser coming in at some point in the next week or so to look at it. this has thrown me into something of a tizzy, in that we are going on vacation and now i need this done as part of my mortgage/loans refinance. i had hoped this wouldn't be necessary, but god is once again having a good laugh on my account. today i hope to discover some energy and do some touch up painting and maybe some outside work. i have to get the porch cleaned up and a bunch of stuff i could or should do on the inside. i am NOT motivated at all to do much of anything, but i am attempting to become a little less than lazy...
austin is still in the cast on his arm, but it comes off on monday thank god. then he will no longer have the excuse of the cast preventing him from doing the slave jobs i want him to do! we will have a lot to do on monday and tuesday, and i am hoping he will be up for the task. he is at his father's this weekend, so anything that needs to be done i will have to do myself.
last night i finished up his letters to the three colleges (lsu, unlv, clemson) that have been sitting around here for months. basically, all that is invovled is sending in the student athlete info sheets, but i did write cover letters as well. we are trying to see if he can get on the campus at unlv while we are in las vegas. i had hoped he could have that experience of being recruited without having other people from home involved. he is still pretty much a follower, and i wanted him to have the opportunity to have this be something that he got on his own. uncle bert called a week or so ago and said that his contact had come back with info on austin, and as a sophomore he was ranked as a mid-major prospect. this meant he was looked at as eligible to be recruited for lower division I schools and division II schools. however, they had him rated as a blue chip prospect as a junior, which means top of the line and he could do ACC or other large division I schools. apparently, he has been seen by major league scouts and they knew about him. they were impressed with his swing and the way he hits as well as what he was doing on the field. none of them, however, knew about the pitching. i have told austin that he has to get off of his ass and do something for himself physically or i am not going to fund the fall ball (if we even play at all.) he has porked up and has been pretty lazy all summer. he knows the rest is up to him and he can't glide anymore if he wants to continue to be a good prospect. i have been trying to do some walking and more exercise myself, as i need to be in better shape when we go on this vacation. austin has been walking with me when i can get him to go.
the girls are still freaked out without thing here, and it is a bit odd around the house. olivia has become a lot more needy and cries and meows a lot. she also hangs around more than she did before. freckles and olive seem to have been ok, especially freckles who probably is relieved he isn't here anymore. olive is more possessive and almost always is close by. i looked into getting a male rescue cat, but i am up in the air about that. my mother thinks i should just wait until austin goes to college and then get myself a maine coon kitten then. i think she is right. while it seems weird without him here, i don't know what they will do if i bring in someone else. they have so far endured his passing, my going off for a week and no air conditioning, and now they are going to be left for 3 weeks in the house with no one here. they will likely be feral when i return...
Friday, July 18, 2008
new york, new york, it's a helluva town...or is that just HELL?
new york in summertime. horrors! never again. maybe in the winter at xmas, but summer, not likely. not unless someone picks me up in an air conditioned limo from the airport where i have flown in on first class...
i have to say that other than the heat and the chinatown bus, things were fine. i have nothing but good things to say about the LATHAM HOTEL on 28th street. it was conveniently located 2 blocks from subway stations, east and west, and was in the heart of the financial district between 5th avenue and madison. the hotel is actually a hostel, and we had to share a bathroom. but we had our own key and the bathroom was clean, large and marble tiled. it was also right across from our room, so we knew when it was occupied. the staff at the latham were hugely helpful, even giving us our room at 9 a.m. vs. the 3 p.m. check-in. i am thinking that my state of utter exhaustion and totally drenched in sweat appearance helped. they were probably weighing out the two possibilities: rescue squad? give her a room? hmmm...let's give her a room! they did, and it was fine. the bed was comfortable, the a/c was working and was cold, we had a sink and cable tv. what more do you need when you are about to phase out of this world?
we took a nap until 2:30 and then took the subway down to houston street to katz's deli. this is where the famous harry/sally scene takes place in the movie. austin had a reuben and i had matzo ball soup. both good.
we took the 4 and the 6 subway to 161st street in the bronx: home of yankee stadium. we had good seats, got to see a good game with tampa bay (who were in lst place at the time.) the ride back was a trip...i have never been squeezed into anything like that! i was holding on to austin when he got in, but my ass was hanging in the subway door. i didn't think i could squeeze my fat in...that is, until i was crushed in by 3 more people behind me. it was quite the intimate situation! we laughed the whole way to grand central, where we made the switch to the 6! if you had farted in there you would have killed half the crowd and blown out a window!
we learned a whole lot about the subway system and austin pretty much had it down. he was frustrated with my inability to run down stairs and leap on a passing subway. i noticed there were no fat people in manhattan, and i know why...they are racing up and down the stairs to get to the subway, racing for the subway itself, pushing heavy steel cages to get through to the subway, and then hanging and bracing themselves on the subway itself. all of these are excellent forms of exercise...lifting, squatting, running, pushing. austin declared he could make it here, but doubted i could. maybe...
we went to papaya king for a hot dog in the morning, then over to times square and on to the grayline bus tour of upper manhattan. we got lucky, in that we did NOT want to sit on the top of the bus, so we got to the head of the long line and on to the bus because we craved the a/c versus the view. we saw what we wanted in the 2 1/s hours we were on there, and got off into times square again and wandered around looking at stuff there and at 42nd street until we saw the oasis in the sea of glitter: BUBBA GUMP SHRIMP COMPANY!!! having been already to 3 of them (chicago, charleston and mall of america), we gleefully went in and had a nice lunch! we bought a bunch of stuff (t-shirt, bear for amy, magnet, little shrimp stuffed animal) and back to the hotel, where we changed clothes and headed out for the sewer of new york, better known as chinatown. what a stink and how dirty! ick. i was NOT expecting that at all, having been to chinatown in san francisco, which is nothing like the one in new york.
all in all, i was glad we got to go to yankee stadium and austin had a trip to nyc. both of us, however, were on sensory overload and were glad to be back home when we got there.
i have to say that other than the heat and the chinatown bus, things were fine. i have nothing but good things to say about the LATHAM HOTEL on 28th street. it was conveniently located 2 blocks from subway stations, east and west, and was in the heart of the financial district between 5th avenue and madison. the hotel is actually a hostel, and we had to share a bathroom. but we had our own key and the bathroom was clean, large and marble tiled. it was also right across from our room, so we knew when it was occupied. the staff at the latham were hugely helpful, even giving us our room at 9 a.m. vs. the 3 p.m. check-in. i am thinking that my state of utter exhaustion and totally drenched in sweat appearance helped. they were probably weighing out the two possibilities: rescue squad? give her a room? hmmm...let's give her a room! they did, and it was fine. the bed was comfortable, the a/c was working and was cold, we had a sink and cable tv. what more do you need when you are about to phase out of this world?
we took a nap until 2:30 and then took the subway down to houston street to katz's deli. this is where the famous harry/sally scene takes place in the movie. austin had a reuben and i had matzo ball soup. both good.
we took the 4 and the 6 subway to 161st street in the bronx: home of yankee stadium. we had good seats, got to see a good game with tampa bay (who were in lst place at the time.) the ride back was a trip...i have never been squeezed into anything like that! i was holding on to austin when he got in, but my ass was hanging in the subway door. i didn't think i could squeeze my fat in...that is, until i was crushed in by 3 more people behind me. it was quite the intimate situation! we laughed the whole way to grand central, where we made the switch to the 6! if you had farted in there you would have killed half the crowd and blown out a window!
we learned a whole lot about the subway system and austin pretty much had it down. he was frustrated with my inability to run down stairs and leap on a passing subway. i noticed there were no fat people in manhattan, and i know why...they are racing up and down the stairs to get to the subway, racing for the subway itself, pushing heavy steel cages to get through to the subway, and then hanging and bracing themselves on the subway itself. all of these are excellent forms of exercise...lifting, squatting, running, pushing. austin declared he could make it here, but doubted i could. maybe...
we went to papaya king for a hot dog in the morning, then over to times square and on to the grayline bus tour of upper manhattan. we got lucky, in that we did NOT want to sit on the top of the bus, so we got to the head of the long line and on to the bus because we craved the a/c versus the view. we saw what we wanted in the 2 1/s hours we were on there, and got off into times square again and wandered around looking at stuff there and at 42nd street until we saw the oasis in the sea of glitter: BUBBA GUMP SHRIMP COMPANY!!! having been already to 3 of them (chicago, charleston and mall of america), we gleefully went in and had a nice lunch! we bought a bunch of stuff (t-shirt, bear for amy, magnet, little shrimp stuffed animal) and back to the hotel, where we changed clothes and headed out for the sewer of new york, better known as chinatown. what a stink and how dirty! ick. i was NOT expecting that at all, having been to chinatown in san francisco, which is nothing like the one in new york.
all in all, i was glad we got to go to yankee stadium and austin had a trip to nyc. both of us, however, were on sensory overload and were glad to be back home when we got there.
the 4th ring of hell...the chinatown bus
be careful what you ask for...you may get it.
hey, is that a chinese saying?
i thought florida was the 3rd ring of dante's proverbial hell, but i think i have found the 4th ring. it is called the chinatown bus.
first, let me state that for $60 round trip to nyc, you can't beat it. it would have cost $120 in gas alone to drive there for austin and i. throw in the tolls in delaware, the jersey turnpike and parking in nyc, and you have a lot of money involved, more than the individual bus fares. i also did not have to worry about negotiating the holland tunnel in morning and evening traffic or figuring out how to get in and out of nyc. if we had flown or taken the amtrak, the $120 we did spend would have made 1/2 of either fare for either train or airplane. so, that said, if i have to go back to nyc for any reason, i would still choose this option...reluctantly...but knowingly that i will have to remember three things: toilet paper, sit in the back of the bus, and drug yourself before you go...
staying up until 1 a.m. was a given, as that was when the bus was supposed to leave from the dollar general store on w. broad street. we arrived in plenty of time, as the bus did not show up and leave until 1:45. tony, a chain smoking, non-stop pacing/talking chinese, snatched the $5 from us to park at the dollar general store, and we took our place on the sidewalk with all of the rest of the refugees.
sometimes it doesn't pay to be a stupid, naive white person. i should have guessed we were in for a treat when the driver showed up with food (hmm, why are you late?) and then wouldn't let us on the bus until it was "cleaned up." tony had assured the rumbling crowd that it was a "new bus," but i am thinking that must be a mistranslation b/w chinese and english. also add the word "nonstop" to the list of misinterpreted words.
nonstop apparently means stopping several times to pick up stray chinese people. try fredericksburg (2 at the wawa), d.c. (2 more), baltimore (1 more). try stopping at a rest stop in the median somewhere in maryland so that we could mercifully go to the bathroom. this was after being informed "no toilet paper. too many people go bathroom!" this included austin, who had the runs and asked about the toilet paper. apparently this is also a chinese only piece of information, as those chinese who went back to the bathroom brought their own toilet paper.
besides being "nonstop" the bus had a driver who was barking chinese into a cellphone the entire first 3 hours of the trip, enough so that he didn't need a cellphone. i figured out later that he was apparently talking to the chinese bus network on the east coast to fill up the bus with the stray chinese. unfortunately for the person in baltimore, the bus was full...even though he had paid for tickets. another translation issue. apparently if you want a seat on the bus and don't want you ticket sold out from under you, you must show up at least an hour or more before the bus leaves. so the new translation: 4:30 p.m. really means 3 p.m. but, i digress...
charlie chan got lost in the rest stop...literally. he could not find his way out of the parking lot, having first turned the bus down an exit going to I-95 SOUTH, vs. the northernly direction we were supposed to go in. to correct this problem, he backed the bus slowly back up the exit ramp, turned around and ran over the curb, and then began to search for the real exit, which he missed yet again. mercifully, he heard austin and my whimpers of "no, no, no...go LEFT" and heeded our advice. after that, both of us fell asleep, sort of. i am vaguely aware that we did stop someplace else, but i don't know why or what for. at that point they could have been throwing off one of the stray chinese, perhaps in philadelphia. i woke up in jersey city as we negotiated our way to the holland tunnel.
we were unceremoniously dumped someplace in chinatown not near the actual place we were supposed to be. i still do not know where we were, but we did manage to drag our pathetic selves to a subway entrance.
the return trip was not quite the nightmare the trip down was. first, we had to find the place to go, which we did. secondly, we got there, but there appeared to be no seats on the bus according to austin. i checked, and saw no empty ones either. when i inquired i was told "plenty seats! you find seats!" we did...austin in the last row in the back by the toilet paperless bathroom, and i a couple of rows up (i had to ask as something was in the seat.) the chinese guy got on to get the tickets, which he had seen when we got on, but i had dropped mine on the floor in front. he allowed me to go up and down the aisle looking for it, not assisting me or saying anything (at this point i had moved next to austin i the back, as the guy originally sitting there had been on the wrong bus...and then subsequently kicked off.). we sat next to a nice guy who was moving to richmond. his experience summed up the whole problem: we were not chinese. apparently, he had gotten there at 3 p.m. and was first in line, but when they opened up the doors of the bus, he was subsequently flung out of the way as a mad dash of chinese people stampeded onto the bus to take the best seats...which they did in the first 2/3 of the bus. he went to the back, along with all of the other minorities. this was discrimination at its best: a chinese wanted a black woman's seat so he could sit next to the other chinese in the row. she was asked to move. she did. at the back of the bus were austin and i (the only white people), black people, an indian and two mexicans. the guy in front of austin was apparently a drug dealer and making deals on one of the two cell phones he was talking on ("yeah! ok. you have to put the $15,000 up front...") austin also learned that the dealer's younger brother was in jail and he was trying to get him out. i guess the two cellphones was a tip off.
the trip back reminded me of why we liked to sit in the back of the school bus when i was a kid. it is sort of like being on a trampoline. we got tossed up, a lot. but that was ok, as at least i could stretch my legs out and have a corner to lean in that didn't involve having a chinese person stretched out in front of me . (on the way up, he did, and i basically could have eaten a meal off of his head as he was almost totally in my lap.) nonstop once again had a different translation. we stopped at the median rest stop again in maryland where 30 chinese all smoked cigarettes. things were fine until we got past d.c. and began to have the chinese firedrill once again. stops in garden spots like dumfries, and again at the wawa in fredericksburg. i thought we were home free until he began to pull off the exits in RICHMOND...atlee/elmont at a 7/11 for a lone chinese, then the very next exit at parham at the DQ...same thing. how irritating! had i known i could have gotten off or on there, which is closer to home, i certainly would have done it. however, i lacked the knowledge, and therefore could not do it.
so, all that given, would you ride the chinatown bus? if you are cheap and have been to florida for an extended period of time, you would say YES...
hey, is that a chinese saying?
i thought florida was the 3rd ring of dante's proverbial hell, but i think i have found the 4th ring. it is called the chinatown bus.
first, let me state that for $60 round trip to nyc, you can't beat it. it would have cost $120 in gas alone to drive there for austin and i. throw in the tolls in delaware, the jersey turnpike and parking in nyc, and you have a lot of money involved, more than the individual bus fares. i also did not have to worry about negotiating the holland tunnel in morning and evening traffic or figuring out how to get in and out of nyc. if we had flown or taken the amtrak, the $120 we did spend would have made 1/2 of either fare for either train or airplane. so, that said, if i have to go back to nyc for any reason, i would still choose this option...reluctantly...but knowingly that i will have to remember three things: toilet paper, sit in the back of the bus, and drug yourself before you go...
staying up until 1 a.m. was a given, as that was when the bus was supposed to leave from the dollar general store on w. broad street. we arrived in plenty of time, as the bus did not show up and leave until 1:45. tony, a chain smoking, non-stop pacing/talking chinese, snatched the $5 from us to park at the dollar general store, and we took our place on the sidewalk with all of the rest of the refugees.
sometimes it doesn't pay to be a stupid, naive white person. i should have guessed we were in for a treat when the driver showed up with food (hmm, why are you late?) and then wouldn't let us on the bus until it was "cleaned up." tony had assured the rumbling crowd that it was a "new bus," but i am thinking that must be a mistranslation b/w chinese and english. also add the word "nonstop" to the list of misinterpreted words.
nonstop apparently means stopping several times to pick up stray chinese people. try fredericksburg (2 at the wawa), d.c. (2 more), baltimore (1 more). try stopping at a rest stop in the median somewhere in maryland so that we could mercifully go to the bathroom. this was after being informed "no toilet paper. too many people go bathroom!" this included austin, who had the runs and asked about the toilet paper. apparently this is also a chinese only piece of information, as those chinese who went back to the bathroom brought their own toilet paper.
besides being "nonstop" the bus had a driver who was barking chinese into a cellphone the entire first 3 hours of the trip, enough so that he didn't need a cellphone. i figured out later that he was apparently talking to the chinese bus network on the east coast to fill up the bus with the stray chinese. unfortunately for the person in baltimore, the bus was full...even though he had paid for tickets. another translation issue. apparently if you want a seat on the bus and don't want you ticket sold out from under you, you must show up at least an hour or more before the bus leaves. so the new translation: 4:30 p.m. really means 3 p.m. but, i digress...
charlie chan got lost in the rest stop...literally. he could not find his way out of the parking lot, having first turned the bus down an exit going to I-95 SOUTH, vs. the northernly direction we were supposed to go in. to correct this problem, he backed the bus slowly back up the exit ramp, turned around and ran over the curb, and then began to search for the real exit, which he missed yet again. mercifully, he heard austin and my whimpers of "no, no, no...go LEFT" and heeded our advice. after that, both of us fell asleep, sort of. i am vaguely aware that we did stop someplace else, but i don't know why or what for. at that point they could have been throwing off one of the stray chinese, perhaps in philadelphia. i woke up in jersey city as we negotiated our way to the holland tunnel.
we were unceremoniously dumped someplace in chinatown not near the actual place we were supposed to be. i still do not know where we were, but we did manage to drag our pathetic selves to a subway entrance.
the return trip was not quite the nightmare the trip down was. first, we had to find the place to go, which we did. secondly, we got there, but there appeared to be no seats on the bus according to austin. i checked, and saw no empty ones either. when i inquired i was told "plenty seats! you find seats!" we did...austin in the last row in the back by the toilet paperless bathroom, and i a couple of rows up (i had to ask as something was in the seat.) the chinese guy got on to get the tickets, which he had seen when we got on, but i had dropped mine on the floor in front. he allowed me to go up and down the aisle looking for it, not assisting me or saying anything (at this point i had moved next to austin i the back, as the guy originally sitting there had been on the wrong bus...and then subsequently kicked off.). we sat next to a nice guy who was moving to richmond. his experience summed up the whole problem: we were not chinese. apparently, he had gotten there at 3 p.m. and was first in line, but when they opened up the doors of the bus, he was subsequently flung out of the way as a mad dash of chinese people stampeded onto the bus to take the best seats...which they did in the first 2/3 of the bus. he went to the back, along with all of the other minorities. this was discrimination at its best: a chinese wanted a black woman's seat so he could sit next to the other chinese in the row. she was asked to move. she did. at the back of the bus were austin and i (the only white people), black people, an indian and two mexicans. the guy in front of austin was apparently a drug dealer and making deals on one of the two cell phones he was talking on ("yeah! ok. you have to put the $15,000 up front...") austin also learned that the dealer's younger brother was in jail and he was trying to get him out. i guess the two cellphones was a tip off.
the trip back reminded me of why we liked to sit in the back of the school bus when i was a kid. it is sort of like being on a trampoline. we got tossed up, a lot. but that was ok, as at least i could stretch my legs out and have a corner to lean in that didn't involve having a chinese person stretched out in front of me . (on the way up, he did, and i basically could have eaten a meal off of his head as he was almost totally in my lap.) nonstop once again had a different translation. we stopped at the median rest stop again in maryland where 30 chinese all smoked cigarettes. things were fine until we got past d.c. and began to have the chinese firedrill once again. stops in garden spots like dumfries, and again at the wawa in fredericksburg. i thought we were home free until he began to pull off the exits in RICHMOND...atlee/elmont at a 7/11 for a lone chinese, then the very next exit at parham at the DQ...same thing. how irritating! had i known i could have gotten off or on there, which is closer to home, i certainly would have done it. however, i lacked the knowledge, and therefore could not do it.
so, all that given, would you ride the chinatown bus? if you are cheap and have been to florida for an extended period of time, you would say YES...
Thursday, July 3, 2008
thankful thursday...
well, today was the day i scheduled my nervous breakdown, but it has not appeared. i am grateful for a lot of things, most of all just being able to be in my own house. i did laundry, cleaned out the fridge a bit (still have work to do), went to the store and bought up a bunch of food to make from recipes i got on the food network. i was amazed at how high produce prices have jumped in the last 2 weeks. amazing. green peppers were hovering b/w 80 cents and a dollar! i am waiting for my tomatoes to come in and cukes too! i have squash already and i am ready for some homegrown produce!
i have had to rethink my finances, and i am going to do a refinance on my house and roll all of this stuff into one loan. it will be a 15 year loan on the house and i can write the interest off on my taxes. with the other loans, i couldn't do that. this i can do. it seems scary, but in retrospect, it is going to be ok. i worry a lot about my finances and my future and wonder how i am going to get austin through college and retire when he is done. i can't seem to save anything, and these expenses are usually out of left field, like heat pump, cat death, car issues. all large chunks of change, both literally and figuratively.
the air conditioning in the house works well, and i am hoping it will be as energy efficient as they said it would be. my car cost me $60 to have the tire plugged (nail) and to be told that if i don't close the gas cap 100 percent, i will have the check engine light come on. expensive lesson to learn. i have had to bag using the ticket for austin to go to georgia, $118.50 down the drain. in the long run it is easier to keep him hear and lose the ticket money vs. sending him and having to pay for his expenses of being there and just watching things.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
home again, a different kind of hell, part IV
the ride home lasted FOREVER, but we got here to a house that was 90 degrees at 1 a.m. we ended up going down the street to meg's and i slept on the couch...and we have been camping since then. all the time i was in florida, i was back and forth on the phone getting estimates and trying to get the heat pump situation scheduled. my father and bebo were helping me, but i was still freaked out and i still am. it is going to cost me $6,312 to have the heat pump replaced...i will have to go to the bank and refinance for it. the good news is that i have a year to pay for it and nothing down now, but i will have to pay for it, so i will likely go and consolidate my loans out into one. the bad news is that i am living out of my car right now. i have stayed the last 2 nights at bebo's which is fine, if you don't mind staying with your ex-husband, which is also fine, just weird. i go over to my house each day and try to hang for awhile with the cats, who are all nutsy. my house has been invaded by ants EVERYWHERE, AND THAT IS MAKING ME CRAZY WHEN I AM THERE!!! they are even on my couch!
the heat pump guys are supposed to be coming tomorrow to do the whole a/c thing, and god willing, they will get it all done in one day. i am so wacko not being able to be in my own house. all i want to do is hunker down and relax, but i cannot do that anywhere right now. i am NOT relaxed...i am crying at the drop of a hat and definitely not myself. i don't even want to eat and my stomach is upset too.
i took austin to the orthopaedic guy yesterday, and austin is now out of baseball for the next 4-6 weeks, which means i have to try and cancel the airline reservation i made for him to georgia 3 days before we left for florida...why didn't i just wait? anyway, he is done, and he is not happy. baseball this year has been a disaster. his left hand has 2 spiral fractures in them, one at the base of his ring finger right at the wrist, and the other at the base of his middle finger just below that knuckle. he is in a soft cast until 7/21, 2 days before we leave for our trip out west. at least he will have the cast off then, god willing and the creek don't rise...the good news, and there is SOME, not much...but i am going to be a bit thankful, even though it is not thursday!
1) i got $900 from the feds for my little refund check.
2) bruce springsteen is coming to richmond again, and i managed to coordinate bebo, mary beth (my college roomie) and pam (my best friend) on the internet on friday morning to make sure we got tickets...we did...14 of them! 4 of them i will use, and the rest go up on ebay, hopefully getting a small fortune for them. i am not going to scalp them. i am going to put them up for face value and see what they get. the last time i did that, i got $225 for a $85 ticket. already an individual ticket is selling over $200 a piece. hopefully, once i get the tickets in hand, i can do this. i know i will have no difficulty getting them sold, as the concert sold out in a short time and they are a hot commodity. i am most excited about seeing him, as i have 3 times before and mary beth and i got on the floor the last time and it was just awesome! she and i are going along with pam and austin, who i am making go as i think he should have the bruce experience!
3) austin is now not going to georgia, so i am able to save a little on his expenses, but only if i can get something back on the airline ticket.
4) bebo has been totally cooperative and helpful, and that has been very good. also, so have my neighbors and meg. i sent the neighbors out to dinner last night courtesy of me and a parent who gave me a gift card, and i babysat for them while they went. the most fun i have had in 2 weeks was building two houses with little john out of megablox. i am thinking about going to walmart today and buying myself some just so i will have something mindless to do in the future when i get stressed out! :)
5) i have my first tomato and 3 squash off of my plants. hooray! cukes are on the way!
6) my knee, which went out horribly on thursday while i was in florida, is not bothering me right now, and i haven't had any headaches, YET...
7) it is austin's LEFT hand broken, and thankfully not his right hand, which is his pitching hand. the break is clean (a crack,not a huge break) and he is not taking painkillers, although the cast was bothering him a bit last night and i might have to do something with that.
8) right now, i am in a/c at bebo's, austin is still in the bed, and i am on the computer and have computer access. this is good...i have wawa tea all over town and food from ukrops at home, so i am thankful, really...
the heat pump guys are supposed to be coming tomorrow to do the whole a/c thing, and god willing, they will get it all done in one day. i am so wacko not being able to be in my own house. all i want to do is hunker down and relax, but i cannot do that anywhere right now. i am NOT relaxed...i am crying at the drop of a hat and definitely not myself. i don't even want to eat and my stomach is upset too.
i took austin to the orthopaedic guy yesterday, and austin is now out of baseball for the next 4-6 weeks, which means i have to try and cancel the airline reservation i made for him to georgia 3 days before we left for florida...why didn't i just wait? anyway, he is done, and he is not happy. baseball this year has been a disaster. his left hand has 2 spiral fractures in them, one at the base of his ring finger right at the wrist, and the other at the base of his middle finger just below that knuckle. he is in a soft cast until 7/21, 2 days before we leave for our trip out west. at least he will have the cast off then, god willing and the creek don't rise...the good news, and there is SOME, not much...but i am going to be a bit thankful, even though it is not thursday!
1) i got $900 from the feds for my little refund check.
2) bruce springsteen is coming to richmond again, and i managed to coordinate bebo, mary beth (my college roomie) and pam (my best friend) on the internet on friday morning to make sure we got tickets...we did...14 of them! 4 of them i will use, and the rest go up on ebay, hopefully getting a small fortune for them. i am not going to scalp them. i am going to put them up for face value and see what they get. the last time i did that, i got $225 for a $85 ticket. already an individual ticket is selling over $200 a piece. hopefully, once i get the tickets in hand, i can do this. i know i will have no difficulty getting them sold, as the concert sold out in a short time and they are a hot commodity. i am most excited about seeing him, as i have 3 times before and mary beth and i got on the floor the last time and it was just awesome! she and i are going along with pam and austin, who i am making go as i think he should have the bruce experience!
3) austin is now not going to georgia, so i am able to save a little on his expenses, but only if i can get something back on the airline ticket.
4) bebo has been totally cooperative and helpful, and that has been very good. also, so have my neighbors and meg. i sent the neighbors out to dinner last night courtesy of me and a parent who gave me a gift card, and i babysat for them while they went. the most fun i have had in 2 weeks was building two houses with little john out of megablox. i am thinking about going to walmart today and buying myself some just so i will have something mindless to do in the future when i get stressed out! :)
5) i have my first tomato and 3 squash off of my plants. hooray! cukes are on the way!
6) my knee, which went out horribly on thursday while i was in florida, is not bothering me right now, and i haven't had any headaches, YET...
7) it is austin's LEFT hand broken, and thankfully not his right hand, which is his pitching hand. the break is clean (a crack,not a huge break) and he is not taking painkillers, although the cast was bothering him a bit last night and i might have to do something with that.
8) right now, i am in a/c at bebo's, austin is still in the bed, and i am on the computer and have computer access. this is good...i have wawa tea all over town and food from ukrops at home, so i am thankful, really...
florida sucks, part III
the rest of the trip was miserable, hot, boring hell...when i left florida on saturday, i purposely shot the finger to the state as i crossed the line into georgia! as a matter of fact, i shot the double bird...if i could have rolled down the window and hauled my big ass out the window, i would have not only shot the state the finger every way possible, i would have cursed it as well!!!!!:) I HATE FLORIDA!!!! may i NEVER have to return there...god, what a boring,hot,miserable place it is!
so now i am in florida, which i didn't want to go to to begin with, and i am forced to watch baseball that doesn't include my son, who, by the way, now is an invalid on drugs who can't do anything, including taking a shower. i have to say that it was much less irritating to bath him when he wasn't covered in hair (say, i guess, when he was FOUR), than at 16 when he is a furball man...now i am back to literally washing his legs and butt and back...sigh...
i have to get up each day at 6:30 to take them to the ballfield, and the only consolation would have been a cup of coffee...IF i could have found a decent cup of coffee...damn, you would think at the southernmost tip of america you could get decent coffee...i mean, they could have THROWN coffee beans from columbia there, but apparently there was no one to CATCH them...i went to dunkin donuts, which is supposed to have the best coffee, only to have to throw the coffee in the sink, and then be cursed for an entire day with having some sort of oil from the coffee beans line my wawa cup, ruining EVERYTHING i drank out of that cup for the entire day...i had to scrub it a couple of times to get the smell out of there! HORRORS! :) (by the way, the worst cup of coffee i have every had came from some joint off of I-95 2 years ago at 3 a.m. in the morning when i was headed for..you guessed it...FLORIDA!!! that stuff was so awful it got me high as a kite on caffeine and at 6 a.m. i was calling everyone i knew on my cell leaving singing voicemails...totally wacked out and unable to sleep until that afternoon despite the fact i had driven all night from virginia to florida, 11 hours...) by the way, i got the third worst cup of coffee in my life the NEXT morning...after that, i bagged the coffee...
the humidity in florida rivals virginia, and it rains everyday. the condo, which the boys had all lauded as WONDERFUL, was NOT wonderful in my estimation and was shabby and lacked a lot of things, including a/c that worked in my room...after one night i cranked it down so i could sleep. it was an icebox in the rest of the condo, but not in my room...gas there was $4.19 and i stood for at least 30 seconds, speechless, when it rang up to $74 to fill up the van...there was nothing to see in jupiter, much to my disappointment, so i was pretty much relegated to my bedroom with the door shut, as our condo was the team meeting place were all of the boys were either
playing poker, watching movies, or playing xbox. i did see a movie one night (no country for old men, which i had seen before), but other than that, i did nothing. did find winn-dixie and went on a hunt for orange marmalade for my mother, who loves it but can't get it anymore in virginia. i ate so-so cuban food for lunch one day,and ok chinese another night. did have a cuban sandwich for breakfast one morning (ok,no big deal) and i was shocked that i couldn't find any oranges or tacky tourist places there...boring...we did go to miami on wednesday, and i stopped back at diggity dogs on the way down and bought all the fixin's again for chicago dogs, only this time i froze it all and brought it home for my dad for his birthday. i was orginally going to order it all from chicago and do a hot dog party for him, but i saved the shipping this way, and i brought it home.
miami was ok. we ate at the llth st. diner in south beach, which i had seen on the food network and the food was good. we cruised south beach, went to little havana, did a little walking around in coconut grove, but basically, miami on tv ain't miami in real life. nothing there that i would go back for i would say, and it was even hotter there than in jupiter. i was glad i went and it was good to get out of jupiter, but i don't see a need to revisit...the boys kept winning the baseball and we were the #1 seed, but got beaten in the quarterfinals (out of 72 teams). they got that far without austin and another pitcher, so who is to say what would have happened if they had played. unfortunately, austin didn't get to make the junior olympic team. the trainer spoke to me and said that they had been looking forward to seeing him play at the end of the week (he was going to pitch), but of course, his left hand got broken (best that vs. right hand, throwing arm.)
so now i am in florida, which i didn't want to go to to begin with, and i am forced to watch baseball that doesn't include my son, who, by the way, now is an invalid on drugs who can't do anything, including taking a shower. i have to say that it was much less irritating to bath him when he wasn't covered in hair (say, i guess, when he was FOUR), than at 16 when he is a furball man...now i am back to literally washing his legs and butt and back...sigh...
i have to get up each day at 6:30 to take them to the ballfield, and the only consolation would have been a cup of coffee...IF i could have found a decent cup of coffee...damn, you would think at the southernmost tip of america you could get decent coffee...i mean, they could have THROWN coffee beans from columbia there, but apparently there was no one to CATCH them...i went to dunkin donuts, which is supposed to have the best coffee, only to have to throw the coffee in the sink, and then be cursed for an entire day with having some sort of oil from the coffee beans line my wawa cup, ruining EVERYTHING i drank out of that cup for the entire day...i had to scrub it a couple of times to get the smell out of there! HORRORS! :) (by the way, the worst cup of coffee i have every had came from some joint off of I-95 2 years ago at 3 a.m. in the morning when i was headed for..you guessed it...FLORIDA!!! that stuff was so awful it got me high as a kite on caffeine and at 6 a.m. i was calling everyone i knew on my cell leaving singing voicemails...totally wacked out and unable to sleep until that afternoon despite the fact i had driven all night from virginia to florida, 11 hours...) by the way, i got the third worst cup of coffee in my life the NEXT morning...after that, i bagged the coffee...
the humidity in florida rivals virginia, and it rains everyday. the condo, which the boys had all lauded as WONDERFUL, was NOT wonderful in my estimation and was shabby and lacked a lot of things, including a/c that worked in my room...after one night i cranked it down so i could sleep. it was an icebox in the rest of the condo, but not in my room...gas there was $4.19 and i stood for at least 30 seconds, speechless, when it rang up to $74 to fill up the van...there was nothing to see in jupiter, much to my disappointment, so i was pretty much relegated to my bedroom with the door shut, as our condo was the team meeting place were all of the boys were either
playing poker, watching movies, or playing xbox. i did see a movie one night (no country for old men, which i had seen before), but other than that, i did nothing. did find winn-dixie and went on a hunt for orange marmalade for my mother, who loves it but can't get it anymore in virginia. i ate so-so cuban food for lunch one day,and ok chinese another night. did have a cuban sandwich for breakfast one morning (ok,no big deal) and i was shocked that i couldn't find any oranges or tacky tourist places there...boring...we did go to miami on wednesday, and i stopped back at diggity dogs on the way down and bought all the fixin's again for chicago dogs, only this time i froze it all and brought it home for my dad for his birthday. i was orginally going to order it all from chicago and do a hot dog party for him, but i saved the shipping this way, and i brought it home. miami was ok. we ate at the llth st. diner in south beach, which i had seen on the food network and the food was good. we cruised south beach, went to little havana, did a little walking around in coconut grove, but basically, miami on tv ain't miami in real life. nothing there that i would go back for i would say, and it was even hotter there than in jupiter. i was glad i went and it was good to get out of jupiter, but i don't see a need to revisit...the boys kept winning the baseball and we were the #1 seed, but got beaten in the quarterfinals (out of 72 teams). they got that far without austin and another pitcher, so who is to say what would have happened if they had played. unfortunately, austin didn't get to make the junior olympic team. the trainer spoke to me and said that they had been looking forward to seeing him play at the end of the week (he was going to pitch), but of course, his left hand got broken (best that vs. right hand, throwing arm.)
fry and fly...florida disaster, part II
well, so now i am on a different plane headed for charlotte, but i am late now,and it makes it almost impossible for me to make my 8 a.m. connection to fort lauderdale...problem here because bebo and i had decided i should just give him the keys to my car in the airport vs. leaving the keys in the car under the mat. the way this was working was that bebo drove to florida with austin and the hackers (dave, the coach of austin's team, and andrew, his son and austin's best friend) and he would fly home, leaving the car for me to drive back. i would leave my car in the richmond parking lot and he would use my car while i was in florida and i would fly into ft. lauderdale and then drive home when the tourney was over. simple plan...unless you don't meet in the airport...thus ensued a flurry of phone calls back and forth trying to see if we could meet at all. i got to charlotte, and then had to be told that although i was there before the plane took off (10 minutes) i was not going to be allowed to take it. this necessitated getting a new flight, which they had already done, but it would not be leaving charlotte until 1:10 in the afternoon (remember, it is only 8am when this is happening) and not arriving in ft. lauderdale until after 3pm. not satisfactory for me. so i am calling everyone (and getting no one) seeing if i can find someone who can get the spare set of keys out of the house and over to the airport. my neighbor finally was able to do this (bebo's plane didn't get in until after 2pm, so amy could manage it.) i am in charlotte trying to get another flight earlier, and bebo is leaving the ballfield and heading for the ft. lauderdale airport. he had stayed as long as he could to watch austin play, but had to leave and as soon as he left, they called him and said....AUSTIN HAD BEEN RUN INTO ON FIRST BASE AND HIS HAND WAS BROKEN....so his dad is on the way to the airport, his mother is stuck in charlotte on her way to the ft. lauderdale airport, and he has no one there. they take him to the trainer of the tournament who lets the paramedics look at it, and once they do that, they have to now take him to the emergency room,which they do,WITHOUT ANYONE KNOWING ABOUT IT. so here austin goes in the ambulance without anyone with him. they had to take him because neither bebo or i were there to sign off saying they didn't have to take him. some sort of rule. anyway, a mother that i don't know at all who was there (new kid on the team) did follow to the emergency room once they figured out where he was, and now i am in the airport in charlotte getting this info, but unable to contact austin b/c he doesn't have his cell phone on him and because carol's doesn't work in the emergency room...bebo is trying to decide what to do, but opts to come home as the airline won't change his reservation unless he pays $400, so austin sort of sticks it out, gets his hand x-rayed and then goes back to the ballfield about the time my plane lands in ft. lauderdale (i got a 10 a.m. flight out, but was still an hour away from him.) the 2 hours are spent with me either in the air trying to get a cell phone call out, or trying to field voicemail messages. austin did get one call through to me when they were trying to check him in, but other than that, i just had to wait until i got on the ground. of course, bebo had parked in the east jesus parking lot, which required a shuttle to get to, plus i get on the shuttle, put on my luggage, then when i go to get off, it isn't there...i am thinking "who in god's name has taken my suitcase?" but it turned out the driver had thrown it on the ground. now i get to negotiate the 
parking deck to find bebo's car and then get out of there...i call austin, and he is on happy pills and on his way back to the game to see what was going on, so i got his permission to eat in ft. lauderdale (had not since the night before) and i went to DIGGITY DOGS, which is a shack near the airport that sells authentic chicago hot dogs! got myself a dog and then they sold me the actual hotdogs, buns, peppers, relish and celery salt from chicago (they were frozen) and off i went to jupiter! i made the dogs for dinner that night. the hackers had never had them before and we all enjoyed them! that was the only thing good about that day...well, other than the plane didn't crash...
parking deck to find bebo's car and then get out of there...i call austin, and he is on happy pills and on his way back to the game to see what was going on, so i got his permission to eat in ft. lauderdale (had not since the night before) and i went to DIGGITY DOGS, which is a shack near the airport that sells authentic chicago hot dogs! got myself a dog and then they sold me the actual hotdogs, buns, peppers, relish and celery salt from chicago (they were frozen) and off i went to jupiter! i made the dogs for dinner that night. the hackers had never had them before and we all enjoyed them! that was the only thing good about that day...well, other than the plane didn't crash...ellen and the electrical boogies, part I
ok, so here is the list of DISASTERS THAT HAVE OCCUR ED SINCE I LAST WROTE . MONDAY NIGHT BEFORE I LEFT: ms. carter calls me with yet another parent complaining about me and why her child did not pass...which led me to have a total meltdown of anger, which resulted in the following, and i am NOT kidding...when i get upset, electrical disasters happen, and i am legendary at school for taking out the 3 xerox machines all at one time and crashing down my computer or anything electrical. this is really NO joke...it happens enough that austin gets furious because i generally take out the computer in the house and this time he said "dammit, mom, why don't you just LEAVE THE HOUSE!!!!"after i got off the phone with her, the following happened:
1) the electrical system on my heat pump fried. result: no A/C,and i still don't have it (hopefully tomorrow, a week later, i will. more later.) result: sleeping all night no a/c
2) i spend an hour or more transferring accounts from one computer to the other only to have them be wiped out by the norton thing on the computer (i think.) it reset the computer back months ago. all i did: gone. i will have to start over.
3) tried to get back into computer: would not come up
4) got back into computer: would not close down...
5) got up at 4am, totally discombobulated, got the the airport after 5am, everything going as smoothly as possible (no coffee, too late to stop at wawa), went through security, and they decided i was the terrorist of the day...now they are going through all of my stuff...
6) get to the plane, get on last (i always do as i hate to sit), and after the whole plane is loaded up and ready to go ON TIME...they come on and say they have just discovered a MAINTENANCE PROBLEM...AND WE WILL HAVE TO TRANSFER TO ANOTHER PLANE!!! the pilot and all the rest of the workers say "gee, this NEVER happens to us!" and i am trotting off of the plane thinking...YET ANOTHER THING I HAVE FRIED...no shit...we are on to another different plane....
1) the electrical system on my heat pump fried. result: no A/C,and i still don't have it (hopefully tomorrow, a week later, i will. more later.) result: sleeping all night no a/c
2) i spend an hour or more transferring accounts from one computer to the other only to have them be wiped out by the norton thing on the computer (i think.) it reset the computer back months ago. all i did: gone. i will have to start over.
3) tried to get back into computer: would not come up
4) got back into computer: would not close down...
5) got up at 4am, totally discombobulated, got the the airport after 5am, everything going as smoothly as possible (no coffee, too late to stop at wawa), went through security, and they decided i was the terrorist of the day...now they are going through all of my stuff...
6) get to the plane, get on last (i always do as i hate to sit), and after the whole plane is loaded up and ready to go ON TIME...they come on and say they have just discovered a MAINTENANCE PROBLEM...AND WE WILL HAVE TO TRANSFER TO ANOTHER PLANE!!! the pilot and all the rest of the workers say "gee, this NEVER happens to us!" and i am trotting off of the plane thinking...YET ANOTHER THING I HAVE FRIED...no shit...we are on to another different plane....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)