When are your friends not your friends?

I'm experiencing post event letdown.

I hate it but I recognize it. In the weeks leading up to the event, I'm a whirl wind of activity. The closer it gets the faster I go. People start to bombard me with calls, emails, questions, suggestions. I work harder, later, to fit all the work in a 24 hour day. Sleep takes a backsit, as do tasks I deem unimportant at the moment. I wake up in the middle of the night remembering details to be addressed. I stress until the event is well underway and there is nothing I can do to change the momentum.

Then its over.

I'll get thanked a hundred times and then nothing. I don't hear from anyone. I have to go back and take care of the tasks that go set aside. Life as usual must be resumed. Its a let down to say the least.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't like it when things don't happen as I expect or planned.

I knew by Saturday night I could relax and start to actually enjoy the event. The prep work and details were handled. Time to relax. I let the girls take my car and head to the coast for 15 hours of fun until the event was over and it was time to head home. We met back up the next day at the coast. I had a friend who was going to come down late Saturday and had even called the beginning of the week to confirm we were still on for the weekend. He'd pick me up and take me down to the coast to join the girls. His last words were "I'll call you when I'm on the road."

I didn't hear from him Saturday afternoon but I didn't stress. He knew I was relying on him to get to the coast and I was sure he'd call if something changed. I called around dinner time and left him a message letting him know the girls had taken my car and I was waiting. People began departing around 5 pm. "You need a ride?" "No, I've got a friend coming to pick me up, go ahead."

Finally as the sunset I realized he wasn't coming. Thankfully a friend and his girlfriend had stuck around and I was able to catch a ride to the hotel. I figured he must have been called into work and didn't have time to call me but I was sure I'd hear from him later that night. Next day no word but I had my car back.

No call from him at all on Sunday. I was a little worried that something had happened. Monday I called him again. No answer, so I left a message. Tuesday another coworker mentioned he had been trying to reach him as well. I mentioned how odd that was as I hadn't heard from him either. She said she had called his assistant and he was in a meeting.

Ah ha! I emailed him asking if he was dead because I couldn't imagine another reason he would leave me stranded. He replied pretty quick that "no he was alive... but you haven't gotten ahold of me yet. I'll call you as soon as I get out of my meeting."

Today, almost 5 days since he stood me up, I emailed him as soon as I got to work. "I had no idea meetings lasted so long." Still no answer. I emailed him at 5 pm assuring him that my cell phone does indeed work after 5 pm and while I am curious to hear his explaination as to what happened, I won't be curious for much longer.

I'm starting to sound like a pissed off girlfriend which isn't my intention but sonofabitch, I think I deserve an apology and an answer. No friend deserves to be treated like this.

I Used the Deacon Card...

I went to the hospital to a young lady who's mother is a member of our church. I received an email that she had her baby 7 weeks early and the baby was under 5 lbs. The mother is a very sweet girl of 19. I know that's not really a girl but she just seems so very young.

She was very excited to see me and asked if I wanted to see the baby in PICU. "Of course, I'd love to see her." Then she looked a little worried. She said the nurse on duty down there was mean to her and would I be mad if they wouldn't let me in to see the baby.

"Would I be mad?" I wondered why she thought I'd be mad. Disappointed maybe, but mad?

We trucked down to the ward, washed up, gowned up and just kinda slide in the room. She is a very beautiful baby with extremely long fingers and toes and lots of hair. She has some monitors but is breathing on her own and feeding from a bottle. She's only in PICU due to her low birth weight. We oooh'd and aaah'd for close to 10 minutes before the nurse walked up with a clipboard and said "What is your name?"

"PSILY, the mother's deacon."
"You're not on the list. You have to go."

The nurse then lectured the mother about only the 5 people on the list were allowed to see the baby and the list cannot be modified. I was like, holy hell, no one else is allowed to see the baby and its going to be here for 5 weeks.

Ok, I am mad. I pulled the deacon card and still got the boot. Maybe I need to make me an "official" deacon id card.

Its not what you think...

We teach JAM.

Which is the 4th thru 6th grade Jesus and Me class.

Today's Sunday School lesson was the wrap up of the 10 commandments. I did the first 4 dealing with our relationship with God last week. We played a game where only half the kids knew the rules but held all the kids accountable for the rules. "Hey, that's not fair. I didn't know I could answer the question if she got it wrong." Well kiddos, that's why God gave the Israelites the 10 Commandments (not suggestions).

I saved the rest (to include the adultry one) for my co-teacher cause I knew he could handle it better than me. We spent a lot of time on lying and stealing. One child wanted to relate a story of a time when she stole something. She saw a friend's pencil and wanted it, so she took it and when her friend asked her if she had it, she said no. We explained that she violated 3 commandments, not just the stealing commandment. Another child said she couldn't come up with one time she had ever stolen anything. Knowing her older brother, I suggested maybe there was a time she "borrowed" something of her brother's with his permission. "Oh, that's stealing?"

I told the class, "Yeah, according to little princess, she has never stolen anything, only borrowed stuff."

In worship service our row went Big Daddy, me, Adopted Princess, little princess, a girl from my Sunday School class "Blondie". Blondie goes up to the front for kids' story time and when its over she comes back to our row. She looks at little princess and says "you stole my pen and paper."

To which little princess looks her in the eye and says, "No I didn't, I'm just borrowing them."

Blondie looks at me and I just shrug and mouth the words, "I told you so."

Help! I need the number of a 24 hour repairman...

A friend at church mentioned her nephew is coming back to town and asked if we had any work for him. Last time he was here, oh maybe 2 years ago, I had him do some odd jobs. He's extemely qualified to do any home repair under the sun. I told her I had a couple of projects I needed done and to let me know when he arrived.

A couple days go by and I mention to Big Daddy that the nephew is returning and I'd like to get him to install a dryer vent and take out the sliding glass doors and wall it in with a regular door.

"What?! I can totally do those jobs."

You can? Then why has the dryer been vented into the bathroom for 6 years?

"Well, I didn't know you wanted it fixed."

Ok, then... draw up your plans and lets get it started.

"What? like now?"

Let me just say that Big Daddy has plenty-o-skills. Handyman isn't one I would put at the top of his list, or even on, say, page 23 of said list. Jobs usually involve swearing, breakage, more swearing, calls to the 24 hr. plumber, and more swearing (usually by me at this point). The end result usually isn't what I had in mind.

Fast forward to the weekend...

"Do you have any computer paper?"

Hmmm, I don't but check with little princess. What do you need it for?

"I'm going to draw up the plans to do the dryer vent."

Hey, I'm online, let's look it up on a DIY website.

"A what?"

A Do-It-Yourself website...

"I don't need no stinking website."

I look it up anyway and read it to him. It talks about what a bad idea it is to vent your dryer into your house, fibers, lint, fire hazard, CO posioning...

So when are you planning to get started?

"Oh, I don't know. I just signed up for vacation in February."

I'm totally worth it

We had our dunking booth today at work to raise money for the MS150 Bike to the Beach that actually takes place next weekend. Originally I wanted to wax the guys legs for charity but they wouldn't go for it, most of them already shave their heads so that wouldn't work. Then I suggested pie throwing but the boys said that would be messy.

So I set up a dunking booth. The team would get dunked and the volunteers would take the money, chase the balls, help the riders in and out of the tank. We charged $10 for 3 balls. Not bad considering you got the chance to dunk the company's top executives with no fear of repercussion.

Big Daddy has asked me if I was going to get in the tank.

No, its just the riders. I'm in charge of the volunteers.

"Well, I just think people would pay good money for the chance to dunk you."

I know I pull a lot of pranks and stuff (stuff being the key word here) but I didn't really think I'd have to get in the tank. I mean, who wouldn't be happy with dunking the president, COO, Comptroller, and a couple of VP's.

We started with the people lower on the food chain and worked our way up to the president. I worked the crowd, encouraging people and talking to a couple of vendors that showed up for the event. I even talked one vendor into contributing $500. Very exciting stuff! I had the director of engineering announce to the crowd the vendor's very generous contribution. All of a sudden, the president steps up and says "and he'll double his contribution if a woman gets in the tank. Pick a woman." And the president points to the crowd.

The crowd goes wild cheering and the poor vendor looks around in terror. He doesn't know anyone but a couple of guys in the engineering department. Suddenly the crowd starting chanting "PSILY, PSILY, PSILY!" The vendor looks at me in relief that he no longer has to name someone to get dunked.

I always knew I was worth $1,000.

In my dreams

Big Daddy called me twice to ask if I was on my way home. "Nope, still shopping." The phone rang again and it was little princess.
"Are you on your way home?"
"No, why?"
"Daddy wanted to know."
"I said I'll call you guys when I hit the highway. It won't be much longer."

I had planned to be on my way home between noon and 3 pm. I finally told my girlfriend that I had better get going as it was my 20th wedding anniversery this weekend and I probably ought to get home before the sun set. I hit the road at 3:30 pm and phoned home to tell Big Daddy I had an ETA of 6:30 pm. "Get ready. I'm all yours tonight."

When I tire of listening to my own singing while driving, I start calling people to pass the miles (hands-free, don't panic). Who has nothing better to do than entertain me? Workout Buddy.

Hey, what's up?
Nothing, just watching Cops. (I've never been to his house that he wasn't watching Cops... seriously.)
You want to work out tomorrow?
Sure, what time?
Well, its our 20th wedding anniversery, so we'll spend the day together so let's make it late.
20 years? Wow! What do you guys have planned?
Oh, I don't know. He's called me 3 times to find out if I'm on my way home. I called him and told him I'd be home by the stroke of 6:30. So I'm imagining a trail of rose petals thru the house leading to the bedroom. The bed is covered in rose petals, tons of candles burning, he's showered, freshly shaven and waiting (eagerly) to massage my tired body... with lotion and pleasure me until I fall asleep from exhaustion.

Hello? PSILY? Wake up... I think you've fallen asleep at the wheel.

I opened the front door at 6:29 pm. Huh, no rose petals. Heck, no flowers period. The house is quiet and I walk to the bedroom. Oh, Big Daddy is waiting for me in bed... alseep.

A little is never enough

I came to Houston for a business meeting today. All well and good.

Now I'm in Baytown and a friend's house, sleeping in her daughter's bed. I met her kids and husband for the first time tonight. They may think I the funniest thing since Seinfeld... or they may think I'm insane. But I like them, a lot. We're planning a girl's night out with our daughters in Marble Falls cause we both think there's more fun to be had together.

Tomorrow we head into Houston for shopping... and more fun. I haven't enjoyed myself this much in years.