Pat Winnie, this one's for you!

I got an email this morning from Pat Winnie. For those of you who don't know Pat, she's a friend and former co-worker from Pleasanton. She said it has been 21 days, we need more blog! It made me literally laugh out loud, so here I am. I think part of it must be that you read about my mundane life and breathe a sigh of relief that yours isn't so dull. Again, I'm performing a service for you! And what thanks do I get??


I said I'd tell you about my trip back home back in July. I went home for Stacey's 40th birthday (my daughter-in-law). On Friday, Carlos dropped me off at the MAX train station ... I wanted to leave at 3:00, but he kept getting involved in one thing or another and it was closer to 3:30 by the time we left. It's an hour and a half to the airport and I was going to be cutting it close. Naturally when we got to the transfer station (blue line to the red line) the next train sat there for what seemed like an eternity but was more likely just 5 minutes. Finally made it to the airport and the line to go through security was LO-O-O-NG! Now I'm nervous. (Seriously, how nervous can someone be who's had the experience of flying with no money, ID or credit cards?) All for naught. I made it to the plane with time to spare. Trip home uneventful. And it took me an entire paragraph to tell you that! LOL


Stacey's party was really nice. Eric had blown up a lot of pictures of her from each decade (1 to 10; 10 to 20; 20 to 30 and 30 to 40) and had them strung and hung all over the house. A great day spent with family and friends. Lots of good food and even better company. The next morning I was on an early flight back 'home'. VERY short trip ... too short. Little Miss Ellie was very shy around me. I think it's as much the haircolor change as anything else.


Carol picked me up at the train station and we spent the next hour or so looking for a farm where we could pick our own fruit. It wasn't worth finding! The farmer spent at least 20 minutes talking about his loser son and another 20 sharing his political views. We finally picked some blueberries and raspberries (which weren't all that good) and left.


This past weekend I drove up to Washington. My sister, Lynne, lives in south Everett. Her daughter, Amber, got married the previous week (08/08/08) and they were having a reception on Puget Sound. It's about a 3.5 hour drive. Not bad! I used Maggie (Carol's nickname for the Magellan GPS) and chose "most use of freeways". Completely bypassed Seattle by way of Renton and who knows what all. I know for a fact that I could have just stayed on I-5 all the way but wanted to see where Maggie would take me. It was all good until we hit this 2 lane highway that is used by every trucker who drives through that state. Speaking of which, if you're ever driving in WA be sure to obey all speed limits. The WA highway patrol is out in full force all the time. I saw at least 3 people getting tickets.


Since I'd just completed my on-line traffic school (I told you about that, yes?) I was not looking for another ticket. I got one in CA last April about 2 weeks before moving up here. Signed up for traffic school and then forgot all about it. Had to request an exension and finally completed the darned thing. You have to print out the test, take it to a notary public, fill it out in front of them, have it notarized and then mail it back to the traffic school. If you pass, they send you a certificate which then has to be mailed to the courthouse. I sent it express mail just to be safe. Do NOT want to go through that again. That was my first ticket in 30 years so I figured I was well overdue. :0 )


Anyway, back to WA. I took Friday off and drove up. Got there around 2:30 - 3:00. I took Lynne and David to dinner. Ate at a really nice Italian place that Lynne said has excellent food and you never have to wait for a table. Yeah, right! There must have been 3 soccer teams having their team party! She left her name and phone number and we walked down the street to Starbucks while we waited! The food WAS good (garlic, artichoke, spinach and parmesan calzone-YUM). On our way home, Lynne turned to me and said "so, WHEN are you going home?" Huh -I had thought I was going to Amber's reception ... but ...


We laughed. She was thinking that she hoped I'd be there long enough to help her with her computer, but that's NOT the way it sounded. I warned her that it was going into my blog. I now have witnesses for how she mistreats me.


Of course we won't talk about how David and I laughed ourselves silly when Lynne was retelling the story of how Joan and I played a dirty trick on her. Lynne had showed us a house a block or two from hers that she admired and she really wanted to meet the lady who lived there so she could see the inside. We told her that we'd gone right up to the front door and told her how much our sister loved her house and she invited us to bring her over the next day for tea. WELL! She was so excited she could hardly stand it. Yes, I know it was mean. Unfortunately, at the time we thought it was hysterical. We finally broke down and told her because we couldn't hold in the laughter, and to be honest, I couldn't stand to see her so excited about a lie! She was heartbroken. She got the last laugh because she DID meet the lady, and she did get to go in and see how she'd decorated. Guess she showed us!

Going to Amber's reception was a bit of a challenge. David and Lynne have a TomTom GPS. It said we had reached our destination when we were on a gravel road facing a stand of trees with a driveway on our right and a highway on our left. No park in sight. I said TomTom is pretty dumbdumb; David said several things I can't repeat. He started calling it the "bitch in a box". Then Lynne told him we're trying to get to Kayak Point. Turns out David knew right where it is and TomTom had taken us way out of the way. Thus his epithet.

The reception was really nice. We were at Kayak Point park, right on the water and the weather was BEAUTIFUL. It had been so flippin' hot the day before (much cooler in WA than OR, though) and while I was basking in the shade and sea breezes it got up to 103 in Hillsboro! I know this because when I got home, Cal had IM'd me that it was 103 in Hillsboro and he would be Oregone! LOL Lynne took a picture of me holding a book with the sea behind me (yes, I was reading whenever the opportunity presented itself) just so people could see I was really there and I'm crazy about reading. Or maybe just crazy.

As for work ... I finally got access to the T drive (which is the telecom drive where all our files are stored) and Carlos told me to look at the on-call schedule. I'M ON IT!!!! I wrote Peggy and told her to picture my knees knocking, my hands shaking, my heart pounding and my eyes tearing up. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I know that we can get alerts (via our cell phones) that we have to "clear" and sometimes we have to call the vendor to fix things. She assured me that Donna is flying out that week to train me and for me not to worry. (Sure!)


I'm scheduled for 9/11 to 9/18 .. so every one of you had better say prayers for me that week. Being on call is a 24hr proposition and I think we're covering all 3 sites. Thank goodness it's just once every 8 weeks. I'm getting stuck with New Year's day but Peggy's got Christmas day.


Oh, I also need to let you know that even though I originally planned to come home Labor Day week, I've rescheduled. Eric is perhaps going to have elective surgery on September 24, so I'm going to come home that week instead. He has Chiara malformation (something for those of you who are intrepid, to look up) also known as Arnold-Chiara malformation. He's meeting with his neurosurgeon on the 19th and then he'll decide if he is going ahead with the surgery.

In one of life's odd twists (or as I like to say .. God's little coincidences) one of the girls I work with has the same condition and she had the surgery 3 years ago!! She gave me all her contact information so Eric could get in touch with her to ask whatever. He's emailed her a couple times. I'm sure being able to talk to someone who's successfully been through the surgery was helpful.

Calvin has to have eye surgery and he's talking about maybe scheduling it for the same week so I'll be home. Hopefully not on the same day! You can see that will be one busy week for me but I hope I'll be able to touch base with some of you. I plan to drive down the 20th and I'll have to drive back up the 27th.

I'm actually supposed to be working on some files for work and here it is 9:30! I've got to scoot, so behave yourselves and stay tuned!