Arghhh, I did it to myself

I had deemed 3 pm today as my last commitment to anyone that wasn't me. All I had to do was deliver the last family we adopted for the holidays and work 1 hr at the bingo hall for the lions club.

I arrived at the appointed meeting place at quarter til noon. They didn't show up until 12:15. I was getting grumpy. Partly because I hadn't eaten yet and mostly because I don't like to wait. I consider waiting as wasting time. Then they pulled up. They were an adorable couple and they had 3 of their 5 kids with them. I peered inside to see them all buckled up in car seats (which much relieved me) and noticed the 2 yr old had a large cast on her leg. I inquired gently what the cast was for. A neighbor had given them a trampoline 2 days ago. The 2 yr old broke her leg on it yesterday. I don't attribute that to lack of parenting at all but the inherent danger of trampolines. They were do genuinely grateful I thought we all might break into tears at any moment. I can honestly say I have not been so well hugged in all my life. (and I do church with some notoriously good huggers.)

Headed to the bingo hall and got there early. I had to stand around for about 30 min. Great! and I forgot my crocheting bag, so I'd have to sit there for atleast an hour and do nothing. Just put bamboo under my nails and get it over with. Due to arriving early I saw a woman I used to work with about 5 yrs ago. I knew that since I'd left the company, the company had shafted her. Fired her, gave her severance pay and then told everyone that she had quit. She has been working odd jobs here and there and said she had been laid off in Nov. and was desperately looking for work. I gave her my number and asked to contact me and I'd put in a word with the HR dept. From there I worked my shift and went home.

Yea, I was done with commitments for 10 whole days. I was planning to lay around on vacation, get a massage, take little princess horseback riding. You know, a lot of nothing.

Then I get the call. "Hello? this is L and I've got great news. Remember you offered to take me to midnight mass at the catholic church and I said I couldn't go since I had to work? Well, they are going to let me off at 3 pm and mass is at 11 pm."

Great! Another commitment. I'd done it to myself.

If it turns out anything like today. I'll be annoyed until I get caught up in the moment and am filled with the spirit and I won't be able to remember why I was annoyed in the first place.

I think I need to learn that waiting is God's time, putting me in the right place for the right reason.

In case you missed it--'Christ'mas

My mom called last night and said that several of the churches in her town will not have services on Christmas day. "They said it would interfer with the celebration."

What?

How can anyone profess to be a Christian and skip church on Christmas day because it falls on a Sunday?

"It's a consumer-oriented society," said one church pastor, which normally would have seven services on a Sunday. "That's not what Christ would have us do. He doesn't want us to go through the motions and carry on the routine." The church backs up their decision not to have services on Christmas day with the excuse that people want to spend time with their families.

Spend it together at church for Christ's sake.
(meant seriously and not as a swear word)

Imaginary Conversation

Ring, ring...
Police Department, non-emergency line, may I help you?

Yeah, I like to report someone driving unsafely on 281 North.

OK, how are they driving unsafely?

Well, they must be doing close to 90 mph. I know this because I'm doing 70 in a 55 zone and they blew by me like I was standing still.

Oh, is that so, and where exactly are you?

Uhhhhh, they're driving a white ford pick-up going North on 281.

Alright, let me get some information. What is your name and vehicle make?

I've got to go now. I see my exit. If you could just find that idiot and get him to slow down.

Yes, ma'am, we're are certainly trying.

You're only 15 years old?

What did we do before you were around? How did we get anything at all done?

The internet is only 15 years old? That boggles my mind. Look how dependent we have become in 15 years. Then I find this on CNN:

"In theory, no one is supposed to run or own the Internet, the most powerful network in the world and an entity upon which the global economy increasingly relies. In reality though, it is in the hands of an obscure American, non-profit corporation called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), based in California...the company could block access to domain names such as ".eg," thereby taking all Egyptian sites that end with .eg offline. The commercial and political fallout would be incalculable. And so, the stakes in the debate about who controls the Internet are much higher than simply a Web address system."

I had no idea.

What would happen if the internet crashed tomorrow?

Discuss amongst yourselves in the comments section.

The follies of my youth

Well....it all started back in probably 1980. You know how they call us white people? Well that's probably my fault. I am white to the point of being transparent. So a bunch of us "white" people decided that we wanted to be called "tan" and proceeded to slather our bodies with baby oil and iodine (not sure why iodine) and bake ourselves in the sun. Rarely did any of us become tan. Generally we became "pink" and sometimes even "red" but never really "tan".

So fast forward 25 years. The formerly "tan" people now seem to be more of a "leather" color and texture. The "white" are "white" again but with spots. Most of my spots are just freckles, some of which I had 25 or more years ago. But occasionally I find a "new" freckle and my doctor doesn't always like new freckles.

Yesterday I had a new freckle the size of a nickel removed from the side of my thigh. They cut it out in the shape of a cat's eye so they can stitch the ends together. All in all, totally painless procedure and only minimally uncomfortable the next day or so. Little princess enjoys seeing the stitches. "How many? How many?" Ten stitches for the folly of my youth.

Thought I was late but I'm right on time

My To Do List is steadily shrinking. But I have momentary pangs of "Oh my God, did we buy a gift for so-and-so". I told Big Daddy that we still needed to get something for his grandparents and he actually said after 18 years together, "Do we get them something every year?"

So I'm almost done with the 8 families we've adopted. Don't go thinking I'm a saint. I get sponsors to pay for it. I just shop, wrap and deliver. By tonight all gifts should be wrapped and ready to go. I still need to buy grocery gift cards and this year I thought it would be cool to buy each family a disposable camera and take the first picture of us delivering their gifts and then give them the camera to finish off Christmas day. They could even use their grocery gift card to pay for the developing of the film. I'm thinking we take for granted the ability to preserve our memories on film and if you can't buy gifts for your kids, you probably don't have many pictures of them either.

I thought this weekend that I was behind schedule and by doing so-created my own little pool of stress to swim in. But Angels were sent in the form of co-workers and church friends wanting to help and Big Princess coming home from college. And now, I'm right on time.

Ponder this

Little princess and I are on the way home from a Christmas party tonight and its getting late but I still have to pick up tampons. Well, Wal-mart is on the way and probably the cheapest but who wants to spend 20 minutes fighting for a parking space and then have to hike 5 miles to toiletries. Second best? HEB grocery store isn't exactly on the way but will be easier to deal with. Then before I get to HEB it dawns on me, Walgreens, easy parking, in and out, badaboom.

I whip into the Walgreen's parking lot and its packed. Looks like the high school parking lot after the football games. I look at little princess and say, "Surely everyone can't be buying tampons?"

"The men aren't," she says with a hint of disgust.

"Men buy tampons," I tell her.

"Well... not the lonely ones."

And there you have it.

Lonely men don't buy tampons.

Thoughts of Christmas

I really don’t have anything to blog about but I want to try the blogger for word software.  This actually been one of my biggest wishes.  “Why can’t I do everything I can in Word? Why can’t it be that easy?”  

If it truly works, I’ll be so jazzed.

Anyways, just another Friday night.  Home with little princess, Big Daddy’s sleeping, and I’ve decided to try a couple hot toddy’s to beat back this latest cold.  I’d wrap presents but they’re all in the bedroom and I’d wake Big Daddy.  I told him last night I needed him to take little princess and go somewhere this weekend so I can get stuff wrapped before Big Princess comes home from college.  He said (in a dazed voice), “Take little princess?  Where?”  Out.  “Out where?” Out of the house so I can wrap presents.  Go shop for me or go to the movies.  “Oh”

The girls have become really bad at snooping for pre-wrapped gifts and “figuring out” what’s inside the wrapping based on what they asked for and the size and shape.  So I think it was 2 years ago I came up with the brilliant idea of numbering the gifts.

Now if I only numbered their gifts and used 1 for Big Princess and 2 for little princess they would quickly figure this out.  So in my brilliance I numbered everyone’s gifts and double digits were for Big Daddy (33, 88, 222), Big Princess was prime numbers and odds (7, 39, 43, 103) and little princess was evens (8, 42, 96).  I then came up with math problems related to their numbers (just for the girls).  Christmas morning they came out of their room with calculators in hand.  I handed them their lists of math problems and actually was left in peace to make the traditional Christmas morning hot chocolate without them begging me to hurry and to let them start opening gifts before I was in the room.  

It was fabulous because even it they could decipher what one gift was, that number didn’t give away what other gifts were theirs.  And nobody wants the other person shaking their gifts, so no one messed with the gifts under the tree.  Victory is sweet.

I’d tell you what they’re getting this year but Big Princess reads my blog and leaves obnoxious messages.

Maybe this year I’ll letter the gifts and create a crossword puzzle….yeah.

Who's husband is this?

So this girl's idiot husband, well he like had a flat tire for over a week and he just kept putting fix-a-flat in it. Anyways, she gets home last night and its all icy and stuff, and he gets up to go to work at like 10 pm.

He's like, "my tire was flat again today, so I put another can of fix-a-flat in it and I went back later and it was like all leaked out on the driveway, so I was like 'what the hell!"'and I put the spare on but it was flat so I went to the gas station and put air in it."

Then this girl was like, "if you kill yourself today from stupidity I will never forgive you."

It's a Christmas Miracle

We are having the rare winter weather espisode for South Texas. Around noon the temperatures began falling and then by rush hour the rain came and met the freezing point around 7 pm. Roads were closed and children began to dream of the elusive "Snow Day".

Little princess kept running in and out of the house collecting things covered in ice, a raindeer Jack-in-the-Box antenna ball, a leaf, a rose petal, a rock, a stick. All of which were promptly put into the freezer for posterity and to show Big Daddy when he got up. "Mom come outside and look."

"Ah, no thanks. Its cold."
"I know but it so cool."
"No, its cold."
"Yeah, but its cool too."
"Well, its time for me to call DSL anyways."

I have been trying to get DSL up since Nov. 11th. Every day I call and spent atleast an hour on the phone with them. I did give them Thanksgiving Day off. About a week ago I added sending emails from my office to them. So they were hearing from me twice a day in one format or another. I'm pretty sure everyone in tech support from here to India has heard my name. They promise the same thing everyday, "It should be up by 5 pm tomorrow."

I wasn't all that encouraged since at the moment I don't have a solid green DSL light on the modem. But hey, its call DSL or go outside and look at stuff covered with ice. Atleast sitting on the phone with DSL will keep me warm.

Pam was super nice, compared to yesterday's Lisa who rudely slammed me on hold for daring to ask "What exactly is the problem?"

And lo and behold, its my Christmas Miracle!

The fourth light on the modem lights up solid green. I HAVE 4 GREEN LIGHTS ON MY MODEM!!! Thank the Lord! Because after 27 days I know God had to have a hand in getting that 4th light a solid green. Pam even stays on the line with me until I login and make sure I can connect to my work server.

Lord, please bless Pam during this Christmas season and grant the children of South Texas a Snow Day tomorrow.

Don't You Dare

I went shopping yesterday. Kind of an extended lunch. Hey, I was left alone in my department all day, I had to find something to do. I bought a van full of stuff for the 7 under-privileged families I'm in charge of shopping for.

Adorable Christmas dresses complete with stockings and Mary Janes, a high chair, socks, underwear, jackets, shirts, sleepers, stuff with Dora the Explorer on it. I tried to fulfill atleast one wish for each person. I mean when the only thing a child is asking for is pajamas, you gotta make that wish come true in a big way.

So the van is full and it won't fit neatly into my house and I need to get it up to the church for wrapping this weekend so I don't want to be moving it in and out of storage. I'm a little worried about it sitting in the van for several days until I get up to the church.

So....

I placed a note on top of the shopping bags that reads:

If you break into my vehicle
AND
steal these gifts
for underprivileged kids,
GOD IS GONNA BE PISSED!

That's my insurance policy.

By Special Request

The History of Big Princess

I forgot to mention here but Big Princess turned 19 this weekend. Hard to believe its been 19 years since I first saw her.

I was in the military when I had her so I didn't own my own life. People told me what to do almost every minute of the day. I was horrified when they expected me to exercise during pregnancy. "Are you kidding me?" And I made the mistake of eating for two (grown adults) and put on 60 lbs. My due date was 11/23 (little princess' birthday) and it came and went without so much as a twitch. I was told not to worry, first time moms tend to run long. Atleast that's what I think he said. The staff of doctors were foreign and I couldn't understand much of what they said.

So every day past my due date I had to listen to over 100 people say "what? you haven't had that baby yet?" I just wanted to scream at each of them "do I look like I've had this baby!" especially as I reach week 3 past my due date. I was only going into the office half days because the rest of the time I was too tired to move and spent the other 20 hours a day in bed.

Finally, the doctors said they would induce me as Big Princess was obviously shy and needed encouragement to make an appearance.

I was to be at the hospital at 5 am. I don't know why, you'd think they would want the mother to be rested, but no. My girlfriend and lamaze coach drove me the 20 miles to the hospital and I was getting more nervous the closer we got. After checking in, the nurse was to start an IV to give me the drugs. I don't know if she was bad at hitting a vein or what but after about the 11th miss I was hysterical and crying. The trauma of it all had started my labor but I still had to have an IV. The doctor walked in and and got it on the first try in the back of my hand.

Labor was slow and boring for the first 10 hours. Don't get me wrong, it hurt a lot. By the time it got regular I was exhausted and delirious. I remember the nurses all standing around watching the Cosby show and ignoring me. I vaguely remember a nurse telling me to be quiet during the contractions. Apparently I was screaming.

Around 10 pm the doctor said Big Princess' heart rate was decreasing during contractions and we couldn't wait any longer. It was time for a c-section. I was supposed to read this long ass document explaining the dangers and sign it. I was so out of it I couldn't manage my name so I signed an X. Then they took me thru long dark hallways to the operating room. While technically I was a wake for the surgery, I was totally out of it. Big Princess came into the world at 11:32 and weighed the unheard of 9 1/2 lbs.

When it came time to check out of the hospital 13 days later she didn't fit into the newborn size and I didn't have anything to take her home in. My friends had to run out and get a 3-6 month size outfit. She was a cute little thing with startling blue eyes who slept thru the night before we left the hospital.

The Fun Part

Down Canal Street we found the only working traffic lights in the city. There were some people out and about but by no means was it a crowd. The tolleys weren't running but the local buses were. We saw a 2 story pile of debris at the Child Protective Services building. They had apparently just chucked very thing out the windows on one side of the building. It had become two stories of office chairs, desks, carpet, ceiling tiles, and like debris. Next "A" sees that Popeye's chicken is hiring. They don't have windows, just boards where the windows should be. They advertised "Now Hiring-Apply inside-$9/hr" by spray painting on the front of the building. "A" was mad as she had worked there for $5.15/hr before the huricane. Her mother explained how it didn't matter since there wasn't any place to live so they couldn't come back even if they had jobs.

We found a place to park that only wanted $8 for the day. Go figure, there's only about 100 cars running in all of New Orleans but they figure they can charge them $20 to park. We walked to the river walk where the two of them could finally recongize their city and show it off to me and Big Princess. We caught a free jazz concert (almost unheard of according to "L") bought a bowl of jumbalya and I had to have a beer in New Orleans while sitting beside the Mississippi. We walked back to the van thru the historic district which looks great, bought a couple of souveniers, mardi gra beads, feathered masked, vodoo doll for little princess, you know the usual. As we're heading toward the van we hear music and see what looks like an impromtu parade. There's some people playing instruments and some dancing but no one is wearing anything that leads me to believe they are a group. Some guy is running down the side yelling "dat's Spike Lee, dat's Spike Lee". Good thing to or I'd have missed it.

At this point we are phyiscally exhausted and decide we'll drive around a little and see if any of the other wards have started repairing their communities. We see a Red Cross sanitation set up every so often still dooling out bottled water (remember its been 3 months since the huricane). We head towards the 9th ward, one of the hardest hit, as "A" wants to see the leevee and see if its truly been repaired or only make-shift repaired. We can't get back into that area as the military has all the roads blocked and is standing guard every so often. But I've got a local with me and we wind around and come at it from a different direction. We couldn't get to the leevee because there are no longer roads to it but we did get into the 9th ward.

Big Princess video's some of what we see:
cars on top of houses
piles of debris everywhere
a boat on top of a house
a pile of computer monitors the size of a school bus
a house in the middle of the street with an arrow painted on it pointing to one corner "Wicked Witch of the West"
Another home in the middle of the street simply had "please take" spray painted on it.
a whole street where the homes had come off their foundations and shifted a couple of houses down and to the back,
Most homeowners had spray painted their current contact number on the front of their houses.
Some people were living in camper trailers in their front yards. I don't know why. There isn't potable water or electricity.

So even this part was fun as we oo'd and ahh'd over the impressive destruction. I'm sure we wouldn't have enjoyed it if there were dead people or animals or even people crying and wailing. But it was deserted and quiet and we marvelled at what we saw.

We got out of town around sunset and ate Smokey Bones about an hour from New Oleans and stopped for the night as I was too tired to go any further and it had started raining. The next day we lounged until 10 am before heading to Houston to drop Big Princess off at her roommate's home.