Sometimes it's hard to be good or do good. I seldom spend a whole day trying to be good or do good things, so when I do try I guess I expect the universe to recognize this attempt & support me. This Sunday after braving the ice & snow to go to choir & church, I delivered some homemade cookies & brownies to my nephew Jay who was driving back to school. Since I had offered to drive another nephew, Brooks, to the airport in Pittsburgh, I hurriedly went to fill my car up with gas. I stepped right out of my car into a huge mud puddle that totally covered both of my suede (& only) boots. Frustrated I proceeded to pump my gas & accidentally touched my car with my cream colored corduroy pants & got a huge black mark on them. I went home to change my pants & hopefully dry my boots. I threw my boots in the clothes dryer & my pants in the washer, then got a quick bite to eat. I did manage to get my boots fairly dry & put them on & prepared to leave. I was going to visit my parents & write checks for their bills before we needed to leave for Pittsburgh. Grabbing my coat I (fortunately) noticed that one of the cats had thrown up on it. GEEZ! So I quickly throw my coat in the washer, my pants in the dryer, grab another coat & leave for my parents house to pay their bills before picking up Brooks.
Brooks & I leave a little early for Pittsburgh due to weather concerns & have a nice chance to visit during our trip. On the way I find that I have exhausted my windshield wiper fluid so we stop near the airport so that I can buy some. Brooks puts it in for me & fills it to the gills: however, it won't come out to wash my windshield. After dropping him off at the airport I decide to run my windshield defrost hoping that my frozen fluid will begin working, but that doesn't help. I have to stop several times to wash off my windshield. It is now dark, snowy, icy, & it would be difficult to see even with a clean windshield.
Finally I arrived home safe & relatively sound but feeling I deserved an easier time in a day I was just trying to be helpful!
Monday, February 19, 2007
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Real Life
The recent news is giving credibility to the shows of both Jerry Springer & Maury Povich. There was a time when their guests & topics seemed absurd; however, our news is currently filled with such absurdity.
Anna Nicole Smith's recent death has brought forth at least three additional men who claim they are/could be the father of her baby. I have to believe that if her companion, Howard K. Stern, were actually the father, he would have already taken a DNA test. Not only are there several claiming paternity, but also, there is a fight over her burial.
Last week we had the astronaut who drove cross country in Depends to confront & possibly kill her rival. This seemed to captivate the attention of many since it is believed that astronauts are among the best & brightest in this country.
Of course the antics of Brittney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan are always front & center news. Understandably, Paris needs this kind of press since she is famous only for these types of activities. Brittney & Lindsey, however, did have careers which, in my opinion, are not served well by this kind of publicity.
Today we have the father who assaulted his son's wrestling opponent on the mat after his son was pinned. Whoa! He is making the soccer moms look really good.
Jerry, Maury, you have only to turn on CNN to line up your next guests!
Anna Nicole Smith's recent death has brought forth at least three additional men who claim they are/could be the father of her baby. I have to believe that if her companion, Howard K. Stern, were actually the father, he would have already taken a DNA test. Not only are there several claiming paternity, but also, there is a fight over her burial.
Last week we had the astronaut who drove cross country in Depends to confront & possibly kill her rival. This seemed to captivate the attention of many since it is believed that astronauts are among the best & brightest in this country.
Of course the antics of Brittney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan are always front & center news. Understandably, Paris needs this kind of press since she is famous only for these types of activities. Brittney & Lindsey, however, did have careers which, in my opinion, are not served well by this kind of publicity.
Today we have the father who assaulted his son's wrestling opponent on the mat after his son was pinned. Whoa! He is making the soccer moms look really good.
Jerry, Maury, you have only to turn on CNN to line up your next guests!
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Car Escapades
Yesterday I decided it had finally become warm enough to rinse my filthy car off. I had applied Windex to all my windows in an effort to be able to see while driving, but my car has had to be parked on the street at work several times lately & became disgustingly dirty. Well, I went to the touchless automatic car wash & paid for the basic wash. After fighting to get each of my dollars inserted & accepted, at long last I received the message to drive into the carwash. The door was down so I assumed someone else was in there. After waiting several minutes I realized that no one was inside & the door was not going to open. So I pushed the "refund" button; however no refund came out of the machine. I pushed this button several times to no avail. Amazingly, the door suddenly came up, & I started to drive in. It dawned on me while I was driving forward that no instructional lights were on, such as "DRIVE FORWARD." I became rather panicked at the thought of driving in & having the door close permantly behind me--a claustrophobic's worst nightmare! So I left after taking down a phone number on the building to call & attempt to get my money back.
On my way to work this morning I went to the drive-thru at my bank. After exiting & before I could get my window up, a huge truck zipped by me splashing water in through my window. No only did I have mud spattered on my car & my jacket, but also I had several huge spots of mud on my face. I continue driving to work trying to dab at the mud on my face with my gloves. By the time I got to work I had only succeeded in spreading the mud out & looking like I had just returned from a round in the mud wrestling pit. Before I went into my office, I sat in the back parking lot with tissues & hand sanitizer & removed the mud from my face. What a way to start the day!
On my way to work this morning I went to the drive-thru at my bank. After exiting & before I could get my window up, a huge truck zipped by me splashing water in through my window. No only did I have mud spattered on my car & my jacket, but also I had several huge spots of mud on my face. I continue driving to work trying to dab at the mud on my face with my gloves. By the time I got to work I had only succeeded in spreading the mud out & looking like I had just returned from a round in the mud wrestling pit. Before I went into my office, I sat in the back parking lot with tissues & hand sanitizer & removed the mud from my face. What a way to start the day!
Monday, February 05, 2007
The Green Eyed Monster
Most of my friends are teachers, & I am sooooo jealous of them as they spend weeks on end in the summer enjoying travel & fun. However, I have never been more jealous than I am today as I prepare to go to work in 4 degree weather. In the past two weeks we have had school cancelled for a dusting of snow, for water problems, and now due to extremely cold weather. Oh, I know teachers work hard when they have school, but having so much time off certainly would make the hard work worth it for me! I'll think of my teacher friends as I don my longjohns & brave the elements to get to my job.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Partners in Crime
My son, Trent, was informed by the man who rents his townhouse that two trees had been damaged in a storm & needed to be removed. He offered to cut the trees down himself if Trent could get someone to remove them. Since Trent lives in Baltimore & the townhouse is in Morgantown, he called me to see if I could arrange for the trees to be hauled away. I in turn asked my son, Adam, who lives in Morgantown, to drive by to assess the scope of the job. After driving to the townhouse & emailing me a picture, we both agreed that we could handle the job ourselves. So a couple of Saturdays ago in 19 degree weather, Adam & I borrowed a pickup from my dad, bundled up, & drove to the townhouse.
We had planned to fill the truck with the trees & drive to Fairmont to dump it all on my dad's compost pile or in the woods on my property. Somehow the small pile of trees loomed much larger when we actually got up close. We realized that it would be at least two full loads of the pickup. Not wanting to make two round trips to Fairmont, we filled the truck & began to scout around for a place to unload the chopped down trees. Fortunately, we did not have to look far; there was a wooded area in Trent's development that appeared to already contain a couple of discarded Christmas trees. Adam parked the truck, & we quickly unloaded while glancing around to be sure no one would see us. (We did remember the dumpster incident from a few years ago when Trent was nearly arrested for illegally dumping trash in a dumpster . . . who knew putting trash in a trash container was illegal!)
Adam suggested that we scout out another location to dump the second load. This time we feared we might be pushing our luck to stay in the neighborhood to get rid of the trees. After driving through Suncrest we decided that the woods around a college apartment complex would be a suitable spot. (We had seen "no dumping" signs in Suncrest & rationalized that we could then dump where these signs were not posted.) Our assumption was that college students would be sleeping at 9 am on a Saturday & that we could go unobserved, just in case. We returned to the townhouse & loaded the truck back up. We drove back to the apartment complex & moving with lightning speed, we were stealth in getting rid of the remaining tree branches. Mission accomplished!
We had planned to fill the truck with the trees & drive to Fairmont to dump it all on my dad's compost pile or in the woods on my property. Somehow the small pile of trees loomed much larger when we actually got up close. We realized that it would be at least two full loads of the pickup. Not wanting to make two round trips to Fairmont, we filled the truck & began to scout around for a place to unload the chopped down trees. Fortunately, we did not have to look far; there was a wooded area in Trent's development that appeared to already contain a couple of discarded Christmas trees. Adam parked the truck, & we quickly unloaded while glancing around to be sure no one would see us. (We did remember the dumpster incident from a few years ago when Trent was nearly arrested for illegally dumping trash in a dumpster . . . who knew putting trash in a trash container was illegal!)
Adam suggested that we scout out another location to dump the second load. This time we feared we might be pushing our luck to stay in the neighborhood to get rid of the trees. After driving through Suncrest we decided that the woods around a college apartment complex would be a suitable spot. (We had seen "no dumping" signs in Suncrest & rationalized that we could then dump where these signs were not posted.) Our assumption was that college students would be sleeping at 9 am on a Saturday & that we could go unobserved, just in case. We returned to the townhouse & loaded the truck back up. We drove back to the apartment complex & moving with lightning speed, we were stealth in getting rid of the remaining tree branches. Mission accomplished!
Friday, February 02, 2007
ground hog day
I've always found ground hog day confusing. Yes, I know that if a certain ground hog in PA ("Phil") sees his shadow on February 2, it means six more weeks of winter. What I don't know is which scenario do we hope for. Is six weeeks a good thing, as in we ONLY have six weeks of winter left. Or is it a bad thing? I wish someone who enlighten me.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)