Things That Go Crunch In the Morning

I had a rough night last night.

I must have fallen asleep watching tv last night, and some time during the night I took my glasses off and put them on the bed next to me. That’s not unusual in a hotel. On the bed next to me are usually my glasses, the remote control and my phone that doubles as my alarm clock. They generally stay right where I left them.

This morning I woke up and I didn’t remember taking my glasses off, so I really wasn’t sure where they were. For those of you that know me, I can’t see a thing without them. I felt all over the night stand and they weren’t there. I tried to feel on the usual spot on the bed that they normally would be and they weren’t there either. The panic is starting to set in.

I got out of bed and gingerly stepped around the bed, feeling around on the floor for my glasses. I came up empty again. I’m really starting to panic. I grabbed the covers from the bed and started to “fluff” them. When I lifted the blanket, I heard something hit the floor that would have had to been my glasses. Now we’re getting somewhere! Unfortunately, I had no idea where they landed. It sounded like they were on the same side of the bed that I was on, so that’s a start. Again, gingerly moving so as not to step on them, I still can’t see a thing. When I realized they were definitely not in front of me, I took a step back. Guess what I found.

Aargh.

Actually, my heel found my glasses. I was safe on tippie toe, but the minute I put the rest of my big foot down, crunch. The right lens popped out and the frame is bent to hell. This was not a good way to start my day.

This is the second glasses emergency from this audit. My first week here, I thought I forgot to pack my glasses. The panic that sets in is indescribable. I am far from home, in a strange place and I can’t see. It really is frightening.

I have never been a proponent of laser eye surgery. Just look at my sister Cathie for case in point. She ended up a poster child of why not to have the surgery. It just never bothered me to wear glasses or contacts. Heck, I’ve been in glasses since I was seven years old. I don’t remember any other way of life. Silly as it sounds, these two instances of glasses emergencies have made me start to think about it. I don’t know that I want someone to do unnecessary surgery on my eyes. Then again . . . I am afraid of this feeling of panic when I can’t see.

So, surgery? Or do the smart thing and just learn to not fall asleep with my glasses on and put them away properly at night.

Thanks, Jo!

I am in the middle of an audit in Buffalo. The only bright spot of this audit is the fact that my niece, JoBeth, lives only about an hour away in Rochester. She was nice enough to invite me over for a visit with her and her family. I’m no dummy, you know. A free meal plus family love is definitely a winning combination.

Last Wednesday after work, I programmed her address into my Garmin and away I went. What a great evening! Her husband Brad cooked one of my favorite dinners; bean casserole. Good thing I slept alone that night – the beans were awesome!

Isaiah and Noah were both getting over a case of the creeping cruds, so it took a little while for them to warm up to me. But after a warm up period I think all went great. When is the last time you played with Playdoh??? Whatever amount of time it has been, I’m sure it’s been too long. I haven’t played with Playdoh for probably 35 years. Man, I didn’t remember what I was missing! I was able to confirm that I am not very creative, although I am pretty fantastic in worm making. Yeah baby, I can make worms with the best of them. Brad was the bomb in the mushroom and poop making. Hey, we all gotta have talents. Mine? Worms!

We got to draw too. Isaiah, Noah and even JoBeth herself drew me pictures to put on my refrigerator. No one should have a naked refrigerator. I meant to take pictures of the artwork to post on here, but my weekend went by too quickly. I’ll try to add them later.

So, Jo, a special thank you goes out to you and your family. You guys definitely made my week! Thanks for that!

Just Missed

Another tragedy. How can 33 people be dead at Virginia Tech? How can these people just be going about their business, going to class, or in their dorms, and be shot down in cold blood?

Like most of us, I went to bed last night, thinking about this tragedy and watching CNN for any news updates.

After a restless night, I’m in the shower around 7:00 this morning when the alarm in the hotel went off. A loud piercing alarm was everywhere, with a voice-over stating to evacuate the building. We were to take the stairs, stay away from the elevators and all head for the lobby or other designated safe area. Where the hell is a designated safe area? What is the emergency? Is there a fire? A bomb? Another nut with a handgun and a brain tumor? I’m naked, hair full of conditioner and soap all over me, and I’m being told to evacuate the building due to an emergency.

With everything I was thinking about last night, I do not take this lightly. I jumped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around my head and was in the process of throwing yesterday’s clothes on while thinking about what I need to take besides my wallet, when the alarm suddenly stopped and the voice went quiet.

What does this mean? Are we safe? Should I still finish dressing and evacuate? Is it time to jump out of a window or is it too late for that now? Like an idiot, I just stood there, one leg in my pants and one leg out, stuck like that.

About five minutes later, a bell rang and another voice came on the loudspeaker giving the all clear. No explanations, no nothing. Just all clear.

The clothes came off and went back to the dirty clothes drawer, the towel was dropped on the floor and I got back in my shower to try to finish what I started. I don’t think I did a very good job since all of my body is now itchy from what I’m imagining is soap residue.

What is happening? Why the hell am I here alone? Why am I not home where I at least feel a little safer? This is definitely not a good way to make a living. I want to go home.

Damn That's Big

Last night I needed some down time.

I begged off from going to dinner with the other auditors and chose to spend the evening alone at the hotel. Delivery can be a wonderful thing some nights.

I had a hankering for pizza. Specifically Donato’s thin crust pepperoni pizza, the BEST meal EVER made by mankind. Dang, I’m drooling just typing about it. Anyway, that’s what I wanted.

Unfortunately, there is no Donato’s pizza around here. So, I checked the book in the room that generally gives you an overview and perhaps a menu of the local restaurants around the hotel. There is usually a list of restaurants that deliver to the hotel as well. Since this hotel has a very expensive steak place downstairs plus another restaurant in the atrium, they weren’t too happy about talking about the competition. So, it was on to plan B to find a pizza with my name on it.

I made the trek downstairs to talk to the bellman. He is usually the go-to-guy for food, so I thought he would know. And, he did not disappoint me. He said if pizza was what I wanted, I should call La Nova Pizzeria. The bellman found a menu for me and I took it upstairs to look it over. They had a lot of specialty pizzas, but call me silly but I still like just a good plain pepperoni pizza. I now wish I’d have looked at the menu a little more closely.

I ordered a large pepperoni pizza, thin crust. I figured I’d have pizza for dinner and the rest left for breakfast today. That was the plan anyway. Who’d have thought I’d get half of Italy delivered?

The front desk called that my pizza had arrived. I went downstairs to meet my pizza guy and I was absolutely shocked to see what he brought me. He had the largest pizza box I have ever seen. Holy crap, this thing was huge! I lugged the box up to my room and couldn’t find anywhere large enough to put it. I had my laptop opened on the desk, so there was not enough room for the pizza box there. I don’t put anything on a hotel bed bedspread, including myself, so I’m definitely not putting food up there. I ended up pulling a night table away from the wall so there was room to put this monster pizza box!

Ok, the pizza was pretty darn good. But I only ate two out of eight pieces, and I struggled to finish the second piece. I feel absolutely terrible that I had to throw out so much pizza, but there was no way I was going to wolf it down. The pizza was huge and each piece in itself was huge! It wasn’t Donato’s pizza but it was still darn good.

The moral of this story is nothing more than read the menu. Find out if a large pizza will feed 1-2 or 10-20! I’ll know better for next time.

All Aboard!

It may not be the trolley that takes you to the land of Make Believe on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, but it did take me where I needed to go!

As I mentioned in a recent blog, there is a trolley/electric train here in Buffalo. During our opening meeting with the client on Monday, he gave us the low down on the particulars of this mode of transportation.

The trains run about every seven minutes. They are free to ride, as long as the trolley remains above ground. When the trolley goes underground, there is a fee for that portion of the trip. I don’t have a clue just where the underground portion might be located and I don’t think I’m adventurous enough to find out on my own either.

Since I was the one choosing the hotel for this particular audit, I choose something close by the audit site. Since our audit is downtown, I did not want to be driving into and out of downtown every day. Hence, I chose a hotel right in downtown. Lucky for me, the trolley runs right by the hotel and straight down the same street to our audit site!

I’m trying to make it sound more exciting that it was, but I’m having a hard time with that. We decided that since the audit site was so close to the hotel, it wasn’t necessary to go over as a group since we wouldn’t be driving. Everyone had their choice on walking to work or taking the trolley. Tuesday, we had all separately opted on the trolley! Just as I sat down and got comfy and was ready for an exciting ride, I realized that my stop was only one stop away. Dang, talk about ruining my fun! Tuesday night we all had walked back to the hotel, which in reality is just two long blocks away. But hey! I rode the trolley!

And, I had so much fun riding it; I rode it again this morning! One whole stop away. Now I’m really trying to be a trolley expert. In case any of you are ever in the same situation, there are numerous doors up and down the trolley. You can enter and exit from any of them. I had erroneously assumed that all doors would automatically open. I had to figure out the hard way that there is a button on the side of the door, both inside and outside. First person at the door has to push the button. You know, everyone was watching me this morning, but no one would offer that little bit of advice to me. Go figure. They watched me fight with the door to get on the trolley this morning, just to give up and walk to the next door. These same people watched me try to get out of the trolley at the next stop, again, standing there banging on the door before I saw the button.

Hmm. At least I was good for comic relief for those morning commuters! Wait until tomorrow. I think I have this down pat now. I am a trolley pro over here.

Happy Birthday, Ron!!

Happy Birthday, honey! (Insert Happy Birthday song here!)

Can I Jump Now?

I had a few issues checking into my hotel last night.

We all left work at the end of the day and went to the hotel. The plan was to get checked in, drop off our bags and then head out to dinner. I originally was assigned to a room on the 11th floor. Cool, I like the view from up high. Unfortunately, when I opened the door to my room, I see the room was never cleaned. The bed was unmade and there were dirty towels on the bathroom floor. I don’t ask too much from my hotel room, but I really must insist on a clean room.

Downstairs I went for a half hearted apology from the front desk and a reassignment to another room. Now I’m down on the 4th floor. As long as it’s clean, I’m good with it. I open the door to my new room to find the bed made, the towels hung up; all should be good with my world. I do notice however that the room is very warm. I don’t like a warm room. Hey, at my age, I’m generating enough heat on my own; I sort of like to be in a cool room to help counteract the internal heat! I thought I turned down the heat in my room to 50 degrees and headed downstairs to meet the rest of the team.

Dinner was an event as my boss was in rare form. Being filled with testosterone as he is, he needed to be the one to drive us all to dinner. That part went ok. The way back to the hotel was another story. I’m not sure which part was worse. Him driving through a red light, almost blowing through a stop sign (until I screamed at him to stop), trying to ram a car that turned in front of him in the parking lot, or the car he tried to hit in the parking ramp for having the audacity to honk his horn at him while he stopped in the middle of everything trying to decide which way he wanted to go to park. Yeah, what a guy; what an exciting ride back to the hotel.

I get back to the relative safety of my hotel room only to discover that it is now hotter than heck in my room! Holy cow, I would have passed out if I had to stay in there long! I tried to open a window but alas, it is screwed shut. I turned off the offending heat and called the front desk. I was told that they would send maintenance right up. Mike the maintenance guy may be my new best buddy now!

He walked into the room and said “holy cow!” And I replied “no kidding!” He checked the setting on the thermostat and announced that at least the heat works! Unfortunately, it’s an old building and the heating system is funky as they (the management) can only turn on the heat or the air conditioning. You can’t have both options. And, since there is snow on the ground, they have the heat going. My room for some reason gets an extra dose of it. He made sure the heat was in the “off” position and he said he’s try to get the window open. Hey, that works for me. Before he’d take out the screws in the window however, I had to promise that I wouldn’t jump out of it! Ok, I had a bad night, but I wasn’t exactly ready to go splat on downtown Buffalo! I said ok, I’d promise not to jump!

As my new buddy Mike was unscrewing the screws on the window, I also had to promise not to throw water balloons out the window. Ok, that thought had not crossed my mind until he put it in there, but now it sounded like a good idea! Mike was on the last screw when he stopped and made me promise on the water balloons. Dang it! That could have been fun! But alas, this man is holding my life in that last window screw. I promised no jumping out and no water balloons. Finally, the window was open and semi-fresh air was flowing in. Wow. What a difference! In maybe five minutes, the room was 100% better. Mike said at least if I got too cold, I could turn the heat back on!

I left the window open about a half hour until I got chilly, then I shut it. The room stayed fine all night long without putting the heat back on. That open window was a lifesaver. And, I didn’t jump!

Turn Which Way?

When I posted about my new GPS, Jenny was disappointed that there will be no more getting lost stories on here. Well, Jenny, guess what! GPS or no GPS, I can still get lost!

We started a new audit today in downtown Buffalo. The company we are auditing actually has numerous buildings downtown, and all of them reference the main building’s address. That facilitates mail delivery all going to a central mail room and then the mail room passes along the mail to the appropriate buildings.

Sure that works for them, but it makes it hard for me to find the right building! My boss came to the audit in one car and I came in a second car with my trusty new friend, my GPS. Too bad it kept directing me to the wrong building!

I wasn’t sure where I should park so I called my boss to find out where he parked since I knew he was about 10 minutes ahead of me. He proceeded to tell me to park in the lot under the building. Fine. That sounds easy. Unfortunately, we drove around the block five times and couldn’t find the entrance to the underground parking ramp! He did warn me that the ramp was hard to spot, but it was there.

After five times around the block, I pulled over once again and called the boss. Now he said he just walked outside, and to look for him. Hmm. He’s a relatively tall guy, so I didn’t think I’d have trouble spotting him. I don’t see him anywhere. Then he said that the trolley is right in front of him picking up passengers, so look for the trolley! Again, in theory, this should be easy! Unfortunately, I was parked right next to the trolley tracks but hence, there was no trolley in sight. I was starting to think I might be in the wrong place!

We changed tactics and he looked for actual street names. My Garmin GPS is equipped to find intersections as well as actual addresses. Once I typed in the new destination of the intersection on which my boss was standing, I realized I was about five blocks over from where I should be. Sure enough, when I drove to the correct building, I found the parking ramp right away. Go figure!

So it just goes to show you. Even with a GPS I can still get lost!

That's All I Need

Oh, great. As if being afraid of dogs isn't enough, I just found out I also have to beware of the dogs' owners!

No Dogs Allowed

Today was a beautiful day in our neighborhood.

Ron and I were itching to be out enjoying the beautiful weather, but we did not want to be doing something productive like putting mulch down or cutting the grass. We wanted to go out and play!

The entire Cleveland area is full of Metro Parks. The Metro Parks are awesome facilities that are full of walking/biking/rollerblading trails, picnic areas, bathrooms and playgrounds. The county we live in, Lorain County, is full of parks of which there are still many we have not explored. We pulled out our trusty new GPS and found the location of all of the nearby Metro Parks and picked one that has remained unexplored.

We arrived at the French Creek Reservation ready for an adventurous day of hiking and playing. Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones that had that idea today.

I think every dog owner had that same idea, to go walking in the park. I take that back. Not just "any" dog owner, but any owner of a LARGE dog. In case there is anyone out there that doesn't know it, I am absolutely terrified of dogs.

The walking trails are maybe five feet wide. People were out in packs today with their dogs. I don't see just one dog walking at me, but there will be three of four in the group. 350 to 400 pounds of dog walking right at me. I definitely got a work out today since most of my day was spent climbing cliffs, or running around a tree, or walking in the mud to get as far away from sure death as I could. Poor Ron spent most of his afternoon running after me, trying to stay between me and all of those teeth, or just letting me try to break his fingers (I know I was holding tightly a couple of times! Sorry, honey!).

There was one instance where two women, each with a VERY large dog, were walking towards us. I climbed a hill and was trying to hide my big butt behind a tree. I thought I was okay until I realized that one of the dogs wasn't even on a leash. I guess I pointed out that fact louder than I meant to because the dog owner looked up and saw me crying hysterically trying to hide behind that tree. She apologized and put a leash on her dog. Too little, too late.

Why am I like this? Why am I so afraid? Not just a little afraid, not uncomfortable, but I am completely immobilized, crying uncontrollably, in absolute terror. No, I know why I'm afraid. What I need to know is how to I overcome this? How do I change? I am so tired of being afraid to go outside. Every morning I walk to my car with my "dog beatin' stick". That's just an axe handle that makes me feel better to walk alone out my door in case the neighbor's dog is once again off his chain.

I need to work through this somehow. I can't live like this. I am emotionally drained just from the terror of all of the dogs. Is this any way to live? Why can't I go out and enjoy the Metro Parks like everyone else? I see other people just walking by all of these dogs with no problems. Me, I'm crying like a baby and trying to climb to higher ground. How can I work through this? How do I get over being so afraid?

I Did It!!

I can't believe I did it! This isn't like me! This blog may never be the same. Heck, life as I know it may never be the same!

I bought a toy! I bought a Garmin GPS 550. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I may have to change my mind on how much technology sucks! This little gadget has already changed my life. Gone are the crying jags because I took a wrong turn and suddenly don't know where I am. Gone are the days of calling Ron in Ohio when I'm in Chicago to help me find my hotel again. Gone are probably a lot of blog entries complaining on how lost I have been.

My job entails travel. The joke around my office when I have to travel is not IF I'll get lost, but how many times and how many phone calls it will take to get me back on the right track.

Not any more. I now have Jack, the voice of my Garmin!!

The link above is the exact one I bought. Mine was a little cheaper, but not much.

Ron and I had gone into Best Buy the other night to price the GPS units. That's all I wanted to do. As we were looking at the display, an older gentleman walks up to us to tell us that he had a Garmin 550 himself and he loves it! This gentleman was just another shopper at the store, he was not a Best Buy employee. That fact was very important to me, as I wouldn't have put nearly as much weight in what he had to say if I knew he was a salesman for the store. He was just a regular joe that obviously loved his purchase and he wanted to let me know that.

We talked for quite awhile. Like me, his job takes him on the road a lot. He also used to be lost often! We even traded getting lost stories. He just couldn't say enough about the unit, and how easy it was to use, how useful it was and how happy he was with his purchase. The dang guy deserves a commission because he talked me right into it.

All during our conversation, we did have two Best Buy employees standing behind us, but they couldn't get a word in edgewise. When the decision was made, I turned and asked one of the guys to open the locked cabinet and hand me my GPS. I thanked my new friend, and Ron and I headed to the cashier.

Once outside, the Garmin was really easy to use. We let it guide us home and it was amazing! Turn by turn directions, and if by chance I take a wrong turn (yes, it's already happened!) the unit doesn't yell at me and call me a dumbass, it tells me it's "recalculating". In seconds, I have a new route to drive since I didn't follow the original route offered to me. So, maybe in GPS-ese, dumbass=recalculating. But, in Jack's voice, it sounds much nicer.

The coolest feature on this gadget is not the turn by turn instructions. It's the little extras in the device. For instance, one of the problems when traveling is finding good restaurants. No more. At the push of a button, I can pull up restaurants. From there I have a choice to search by ethnicity or an exact name. Say for example if I want a Mexican restaurant, it will pull up all Mexican restaurants in town and tell me how far they are from me. From there, I just click on one and it will calculate my directions to that establishment. Or, if perhaps I only want Chipotle's, I can type in their name and the GPS will tell me where all of Chipotle's are, and I can chose the one I want to head to. It's freakin' amazing! I can find post offices, government buildings, shopping centers, local attractions and hospitals, just to name a few.

As far as I can tell, it's also as idiot proof as it can be. Like yesterday for example. I had set a course to go home. In the middle of the trip, brother Michael called. I wanted to show him my new toy, and told him I'd meet him at his work. I have enough trouble finding his shop when I'm coming from home! Now I'm coming from a whole new direction! It was nothing to change destinations on my GPS, but the one requirement was that I had to pull over to do it. You can only push so many buttons while you're driving. In order to change something like that, you actually have to stop. Great safety feature.

Cool gadget. Cool toy. Best money I've spent in a long time. This thing is so cool, Ron had to go out and get one too! So, thank you to our new shopping friend at Best Buy. I can now see why he was so excited about it. This really is going to change a part of my life. For the better!

I Almost Behaved

Ron is away for a few days in Minnesota. While he's gone, I'm holding down the fort here at home.

I took Friday off just to enjoy a nice quiet day. Hey, I can be left alone without burning the place down! I wanted to run some errands that I just don't have time to do during the week, like getting the oil changed in my car.

One of the errands I had to do was to run to the aquarium store to return a hood for my tank that wasn't the right size. That's all I planned on doing at the aquarium store. No more fish, just a return. Ha.

Once I took care of business there, I did saunter over to look at the fish. I had a nice long conversation with one of the guys that works there about tank care, and about some of the species of fish. One of the next fish I wanted to buy, I found out that they would not be compatible with the fish we were planning for our community tank. That was good to know sooner rather than later! So, we walked around and talked about a bunch of other fish that would go with what we plan.

Ok, he sucked me in. I came home with six new gold gouramis! They really are cute little buggers. The best part about it is, I put them in the tank more than 24 hours ago, and they are all still alive!

Yeah, I think I'm getting good at this fish stuff. Sort of. I think I lost points however yesterday afternoon after the new fish went into the tank, I sat there watching them while eating a tuna fish sandwich. Yeah, well, it's a learning process to be a good fish owner. I'll get there.

03/22/25

Happy birthday, Mom.

I miss you.

Technology Sucks

Ok, you have to admit, sometimes it does. Or at least it sucks for the unqualified people in my age bracket. I am an expert in the “ON/OFF” button. Anything more than that and I am easily confused.

With my job, I use my credit card a lot. All of my travel expenses are going on my personal credit card and then I am reimbursed by my company. Right now, I have over $4,000 on my personal credit card, and the bill is due in a few days and they have not sent me all of the expense checks to cover this debt yet. I play this game every month, trying to cover my expenses so that I am not accruing interest charges on my credit card. It’s an ugly game some months.

My company is finally moving to the 21st century, as we are upgrading to company credit cards and on line expense reporting. There is good and bad to everything I do!

This is good, because no more worrying about paying my personal credit card by the 26th of the month when my company takes four to five weeks to reimburse expenses. This is bad because you almost need to be a rocket scientist to figure out the on line system!

I have been through the lengthy tutorial, twice. I just called my contact at corporate for more help. After all that, I still haven’t finished one expense report! And my first week of reporting is only a few postage receipts and some mileage, tolls and parking fees. Holy crap! Can they make it any harder?

After I get this stupid thing to balance out, I still need to scotch tape all of my receipts on an 8-1/2” x 11” piece of paper, put it through the copy machine, and then fax the copy to my corporate office.

Somehow I am supposed to push some magical button (I have not found this button yet!) and the expense report is sent right to my manager for approval. Then, when he is done, he will somehow send it to corporate for processing.

Corporate will then direct deposit any expenses not on my company credit card and they will pay the company credit card directly. I like that I’m not on the hook for all this money anymore on my personal credit card.

But, I have a feeling that my company credit card will max out before I figure out how to work the on line system! I want my nice, simple hand written form back! Technology sucks!

Our Family Is Growing!

Yes, Ron and I decided it was time - we needed to expand our little family. Thanks to my brother Michael, we now have a 65 gallon fish tank!

The living room floor has been braced for the additional weight, the tank has been filled and the first brave fish were purchased. We started with 10 little fishies, of which nine made it through the first night.

Day two of fish, day four of a full tank, we took our deceased family member and a small sample of our tank water back to the fish store. We found our water still had an ammonia spike, which our poor catfish could not take. So, we are down to nine little fishies.

We have four mollys, two black and two silver, and four red wag platys. To round off our first bunch, we have one algae eater, a plecostomus named Fred. Why Fred? Because Ron can say “Fred” a lot easier than he can say “plecostomus”! So, Fred it is.

I know, it's hard to tell, but in the picture above, aside from my reflection in the glass, what you're looking at is two of the red wag platys.

Here is one of the silver mollys and a red wag platy. Fred by the way, was too shy to come out for photographs. I'll have to get my people to make an appointment with his people and see if we can work out a photo session with him.

I can’t tell you how enjoyable our living room has become with our new addition. Oh heck, I would spend an hour in the morning, just staring at a tank full of water with no fish! Now that we have the fish in there, it’s unbelievable how entertaining this thing can be.

For now, we are sticking with our nine starter fish and see how we do. The tank needs to be up and running and get through its cycle before we go adding many more fish. Don’t expect us to get too extravagant! (Insert Michael here who thinks we need to put 100 fish in the tank! I don’t think so!!) But I do expect we will add at least a few more varieties of fish before we’re done.

And let me tell you, deciding on which fish to buy isn’t an easy task. There are so many varieties with so many different price ranges, which even staying on the cheap side there are too many to choose from. One fish store we went to even has the tanks marked as to which fish will work in a community tank, which is the kind of tank we are building. That sounded easy, as that should limit my choices, until you realize that there are still hundreds of tanks with just community fish in them! It’s unbelievable! There is just so much to know, so much to learn.

Ron and I are still fighting over feeding rights. I have a feeling we won’t be fighting so hard when it comes to the cleaning rights! But that’s ok. The cleaning will get done. As for the feeding, so we end up with fat, happy fish. Is that such a bad thing?

Happy Birthday, Bruce!

Today is Bruce Willis’ 52nd birthday.

It is beyond me why this is not a national holiday; it should be.

Bruce – call me! We'll celebrate!

(FYI - Ron and I each have one "gimme". Mine is Bruce Willis. His is Anya, # 10 from Deal or No Deal. Should one of these people ever knock on our door, the other one has to leave for awhile, no questions asked! C'mon Bruce! Really! Call me!!)

Duh

In spite of the snow on the ground, like I said, it is spring. I know it, because I saw that red-breasted robin in the yard yesterday.

Another reason I know that it's spring is because pre-season baseball is on WGN from Chicago. WGN and the Chicago Cubs! Ok, I know I've had a hard time being a fan since Mom passed away, and last year, I totally boycotted the entire sport because of the performance enhancement drug scandal. And, when one of my personal heros, Sammy Sosa, is found to be juiced up, what's the point. What can a girl believe in anymore?

The off season trades and talks have started to make me want to believe again. I may not attach myself to a fallen hero like Sammy again, but from the mutterings I've been hearing, I'm am starting to get excited about baseball again this season, especially for my Cubs.

Ok, Dusty Baker has finally been booted out the door. That's a good thing. Kerry Wood may not be 100% but Mark Prior is showing promise again. I like seeing Derrek Lee and Aramis Ramirez back in the line up. Yes, it's actually getting my blood moving a little bit this year! I know, 161 games from now, I may be singing a new tune, but for today, I'm excited about the possibilities of baseball this year.

But I digress.

The whole point of this blog was to tell you about sitting down to watch my first baseball game in well over a year, even though it is just pre-season. The Cubs for pre-season are part of the Cactus League playing in Mesa Arizona. It's a hot day today in Mesa, and my boys in blue are playing baseball in the afternoon sunshine, the way the game was meant to be played. I love to see the Cubs' blue on tv again, but wait! What's that? What is that atrocity of the ugly green hats with the Cubs' logo that is paired with their awesome blue uniform? Every few years, they have been known to change their uniforms a little but c'mon. Green hats with blue uniforms?

I am staring at the tv and asking Ron what is wrong with my world here! Then he points out that the opponents, the San Diego Padres, are also in those awful green hats.

Then it hits me.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Now throw them ugly hats out and PLAY BALL!

IT'S HERE!

The hell with the snow! Today I saw my first red-breasted robin in the yard!

Spring is HERE!

Not Putting My Best Foot Forward

Perhaps if I had put my best foot forward, I wouldn’t be in this predicament.

Let’s start with the beginning of the day. I was starting a new audit today. This one is over an hour away from me, and that’s in good weather. The storms aside, yesterday was a beautiful day in our neighborhood. I didn’t have a jacket on most of the day, the sun was shining, it was warm, a beautiful day.

This morning when I got up, I was shocked to see the ground covered with snow again. Dummy me; I didn’t look outside in time to leave very much earlier than I had planned since I didn’t count on bad weather. And, to put me farther behind, I forgot that on the first day of this audit, we have to pay to park in the parking ramp. We later got security badges that will let us into a free employee lot, but again, I needed cash for the ramp and I had a dollar to my name.

I did what I always do when I need emergency cash until I get to the bank. I asked Ron if I could borrow money from him! Would you believe this poor guy turned his pockets inside out and only came up with thirty one cents? Hello? The guy only has thirty one cents to his name? Not good. So, I also had to stop at the bank this morning for cash.

Then, the freeway was a nightmare. The further east and south I went, the worse it got. I even had to find an alternate route since the freeway I wanted was blocked with accidents. What a nightmare. I took the long way around, got confused, but eventually found my way. Not a good start to my day.

Then, we’re on site and my team and I are with our contact at the audit. One of the first things we do is get a tour. We need to know the important things like where are the bathrooms, the coffee pots, soda machines and ok, perhaps even the files. We went into the basement to the file room and we were on our way back up the steps to the third floor where we will be working most of the time, and in front of everyone, I fell up the steps.

I know, I should be happy that I didn’t fall DOWN the steps, but at my age, up the steps isn’t much better. I have a knot on my knee which is not a pretty color of purple and my ankle hurts. I’m not sure if my ankle is having sympathy pains for my knee or if I twisted that as well on the way down. All I know is that it has not been a stellar day so far.

To be honest, I’m writing this during my lunch, so I don’t know for sure if I’ll make it home in one piece! Wish me luck!

** Update!! **

I did make it home, but not without difficulty! I took a wrong turn out of the parking lot. The next thing I know is I’m calling Ron for help. He really did a great job trying to calm me down, and asked me the silly question of what road was I on. That was a silly question especially since if I knew what road I was on, I’d probably know how to get where I was going.

Somehow Ron was able to figure out where I was and get me on the right path to where I needed to be.

There you go. My day ended with me getting lost on the way home.

On the bright side, Ron bought me dinner and now I’m watching TV with my leg up. The last obstacle is making it up my own stairs to bed! Perhaps at least I won’t get lost on my way.

Where Are You, Toto?

Wow. That was close.

We were sitting here, having a quiet evening at home. Ron was upstairs in the computer room, and I was downstairs in the livingroom.

His phone rang first. As it was ringing, he didn't even pick up yet, and my phone goes off. What's the chances? Ron's sister Susan was calling him and my brother Michael was on my phone calling me.

Our respective siblings were calling us to let us know to hang on tight. A tornado was spotted on the highway over at I-90 and Route 57. For anyone familiar with this area, that's only a couple of miles away from us.

I knew the weather was awful, as we were sitting here listening to the thunder and watching the lightening. We were both oblivious to the danger of the tornado. Because of the heads up, we went into survival mode.

We packed a laundry basket of necessities and put it in our coal room. That's a room under our mud room that we figured was the safest room in the house. Big, cinder block walls, almost all underground, and no windows. In the basket were what we thought were necessities. A two gallon jug filled with water, a six pack of water, a bottle of wine (hey, you endure your emergency your way, I'll do it my way), a flashlight, crackers and blankets. We had all the doors open between here and there for easy entry in case of emergency and I had my sneakers on ready to run. We were glued to the TV to see where the tornados were headed. I don't think I've ever been that close to personal disaster before, and I hope to never be there again.

Thanks to Susan and Michael for watching out for their baby siblings! All is still standing here on our end of the state, thank goodness. Now I'll sleep with one eye open while listening to the storm that is still blowing out there. Welcome to spring.

Here is a picture of the sky over Lorain right before the tornado hit. Ugh.