Tuesday, May 17, 2005

Where's My Ride?

So, we had an accident a couple weeks ago with a result of putting one of our vehicles into the body shop for some severe reconstructive rear end surgery. That leaves me and the kid sharing a ride until we get the other car back. It's not like that is a hard thing, because honestly, our schedules mesh fairly well so that there is not much of a conflict.

Then, the guy I work with decided he'd like a week off and asked if I would work full time this week (normally I only work 15 hrs a week) so now I'm pulling 40 hours and trying to stay awake a full day plus having to shuffle around for a ride. My daughter's work day begins at 9am and since her place of employment is only a few steps from my place of work, I simply run out the door here and pick her up. When she finishes up she walks over gets the car, and then comes back here to fetch me home at 5. Simple plan.

Now, a while ago, when she was way less responsible, and things like staring at Brad Pitt in a wet shirt, could get her so side tracked she'd forget to come get me, I used to sit and stew while waiting on the car to come wheeling up the street to pick me up. So, of course, last night, the first night she had to "fetch me" I really expected to have to call her and remind her that she had forgotten her poor old decrepit mother.

I walked down the steps of City Hall at 5. Looked up and down the street at the parking spaces in front of the building, and not to my surprise, none of the spaces were filled with our car. "Just as I thought", so I sat myself down on a bench at the bottom of the steps and prepared to get agitated. Offers for rides started rolling in as one after another of my co-workers left the building and passed me sitting there. I kept confirming that I had a ride, but still couldn't see our car headed up the street, so decided to give the kid a call and kindly remind her that I was sitting stranded in front of City Hall. No answer at home. Then she would be here any second now, because, heck it's just a 5 minute drive. I decided I'd play Tetris on my phone while waiting and began trying to open the menu and get to the game. (yeah, that didn't work)

Totally, frustrated, I was interrupted when a gentleman who had been in my office earlier doing research opened his car door, hailed me and asked "Is that your ride?" and pointed to my daughter now parked directly across the street from me. "Oh, yeah, thanks" I smiled and feeling like a total goof got up, crossed the street and piled into the car.

My daughter is now having some kind of fit. It seems she had been unable to find a parking place on the street when she arrived early, so had parked in the city lot across the street. She said "You looked right at me, then just sat down. Then, I tried to call you on your cell phone and say 'look up' but you were trying to call me and your line was busy." She laughed some more at me, then said, "I finally just gave up and when the parking place emptied I moved over to the street space and YOU STILL DIDN'T SEE ME!" She then looked me like I was completely senile, since evidently I am. "I don't think you would have ever seen me if that guy hadn't told you I was parked here. I thought I was going to have to get out of the car and go get you."

She's probably right. And lets give her credit. She was on time, she didn't forget me, at all. So there's that. Of course, that was the first day of the week. I hope for the rest of the week I'll be able to find her when I finally finish my 8 hours of hard work and stumble exhaustedly down the front steps of City Hall. One deserves to be chauffered after a hard days work in the mines.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Could You Move His Blood?

It is definitely spring. The neighbors grandkids are noisily playing outside and they always just kind of pour on over into our yard. There is something fascinating about our drive which has always been a big attraction to kids in the neighborhood, especially when there are no cars parked in it. (I say that like I don't know what it is... but I do. We sit on a hill and have a very steep drive. It is great for all types playing, but especially riding bikes down at a breakneck speed out into the road. Even the smaller kids love the speed they get up to on their Big Wheels. Yeah, it's scarey but thankfully no one has gotten killed or maimed yet!)

In the case of the neighbor's grandkids, it is more of an expansion of their small yard into our's, giving them a greater area in which to grow their imaginations. Trust me, these kids do not lack in the imagination department. It makes having them about just a tad bit entertaining. So when I heard their chattery noise I looked out the window to make sure it was them and quickly ascertained that it was. I watched them for a few minutes surprised at how much they had grown over the winter when they hadn't been tromping about our yard. They were completely oblivious to me staring at them from my living room window and went on about racing up and down our drive, spilling back down the hill into their grandparent's yard, plastic, colorful guns extended outwards, happily shooting each other and falling over dead as the action dictated they should. I grinned to myself, let the curtain drop and returned to the unimaginative task I had been doing before I went to spy on them.

I lost myself in reading when the jangling of the phone jarred me back to reality and I hurried to pick up the phone. My daughter was calling about some silly question or other and I was surprised when I checked the time to see that she would be speeding up the drive in just a few more minutes. I decided it was time to de-kid the drive before we wound up with various mangled body parts scattered over our yard and the neighbors.

I stood in the door watching one of the boys, squatting down, busily tearing something to bits and piling it in a nice little pile in the drive; right about the place where the front tire on the car usually comes to a halt. I was a bit curious about the characteristics of said pile, like did it contain any sharp pointy bits, you know? I called out to the kids and mentioned that my daughter would be coming in from work in just couple minutes and asked if they would leave the drive. They just stood there looking at me as if they were trying to figure out if they should shoot me with one of their guns or tie me up to a tree somewhere.

The boy creating the pile, stood and looked over at me, and then said "Somebody broke a pen and left it right here. See it's all torn up" he pointed at the bits and pieces in the drive.

"I see they did," I replied giving no indication that I knew exactly who somebody was.

He looked at me quite seriously, "You see, we're pretending that that's his blood there" not bothering to enlarge upon exactly whose blood his blood was, yet pointing to the stack of bits and pieces on the drive and the puddle of black underneath.

"Hmmmmmmmmmm! Looks like thats working really well" I said, shaking my head up and down in mock seriousness. "So, do you suppose you might be able to move his blood and parts out of the drive. Perhaps if you rush it to the hospital they can reinfuse it back into him."

He gave me one of those "kid glaring at a crazy adult" looks, shrugged his shoulders and continuted to stare at the puddle of blood on the drive. He kicked the pile with his foot, scattering the bits and pieces then trundled off the drive and back down the incline into his grandfather's yard, raising his gun into the air and firing off a volley as he ran after the other kids who were dissappearing around the corner of their grandparent's house. I grinned and walked back into the house just as I heard my daughter rev up the hill into the drive.

Another day safe fom the venomous evil ones that haunt our neighborhood. The only indication remaining behind of the close call we had was a dark puddle of blood in the driveway that still marks the spot where the poor, injured/dead, friend/foe suffered a fateful blast that ended his life/removed him from action... until the next sunny day when no cars will be parked in the drive.

Monday, May 09, 2005

OCD? Moi? I Think Not!

My daughter has always raised a skeptical eyebrow in my direction due to my eating habits. I like getting my food carefully organized and then going about eating it in sections. In other words, I have to eat all my carrots, then my potatoes, then my meat, or whatever, always saving what I like best for last. And M&Ms ... if I buy a bag, they have to all be sorted by color and then eaten in some order I dictate to myself at the time, usually having to do with beginning with the M&Ms of the least amount. You know if I have 3 yellow, 5 reds, 6 greens... well that is the order in which they must be eaten.

Now, I'm sure you are finding this really fascinating, as would anybody, or you are raising a skepital eyebrow thinking me to be entirely weird. But since I am now taking a break and to go with my cup of coffee, I just bought a bag of animal crackers out of the candy machine... I find myself sitting here sorting my animals so I'll know which one I have the most of this time (it's hippos), I realized this was a fun little oddity about myself and that maybe I'd just share it with you for the heck of it. I quickly made the decision and started typing right after I popped a headless camel into my mouth.... hmmmm, sweet flavored cardboard. yummmmy!

Oh, the headless camel? Well, I have to eat all the broken pieces before I am allowed to start on the intact ones. Wow! I have quite a menagerie this morning. Since you are dying of curiosity, just so you'll know, the fewest ones are ponies, owls and bunny rabbits. I guess I'll eat the bunnies first. But wait! they're so cute, maybe I should save them for last just to be different. Ahhh, decisions.

Please remember, I said this was a little oddity about myself. I am not OCD... at least not a lot! Besides at my age it's OK to wear purple (which I'm doing today) and its OK to have a few little personality quirks. I like all my quirks and plan to keep them. Oh, Would you like a hippo? I have lots.