Life Snippets

A lot has been going on, so it's been hard to fit in time to write about it. This post is just chock full of little things I've been thinking about or have enjoyed.

My dad alerted me to this article in the Greensboro, NC newspaper, about his long-time neighbor, Hilda Fountain. She just turned 101 years old, and as you can see, still has a great sense of humor. I guess I'll have to take the photo off if I ever make this blog public, but for now, enjoy this photo from the article!


Hilda is really an inspiration. She is so "with-it" and has such energy, even after dealing with breast cancer at age 98. It would be so wonderful to still be able to contribute to society, grow plants and harvest vegetables, and have all my faculties when I reach her age.

I debated long and hard about whether to do this, but in the end, I let Beccano have his Christmas gift early, even though he was once again slacking off on school work. I just could not figure out how to hide this huge guitar anyway. It's a Fender Jaguar bass. with an apparently very cool red head stock. To make it even cooler, he let me get him red Converse All Stars to go with the bass.



The good news is that because the bass is going out of production, it was deeply discounted. Better news is that I could get it at Danny Ray's rather than the big guitar store in town! Always happy to support local folks' businesses. Wow, Beccano is a happy boy with this, and he seems fine about not getting a lot of Christmas gifts, since this pretty much ate up his share, plus a bit. Now he has all the guitars I am going to get him for a decade or so, at least.

We had a stressful, yet fun, week at work last week. The Big Boss came to visit, so we all had to be in the office, looking busy. Of course, I don't think he even popped his head into the room where all the regular people work, but we had it looking good anyway. I even brought cookies, and the Ninja Genius guy made pumpkin bread. In the spirit of Halloween, Tuba/Train Man decorated our collection of buffalo using the office supplies I had lying around. One buffalo is going as the Easter Bunny for Halloween, while another has buffalo wings. The third is a pirate (that is an earring and eye patch on the left buffalo).


Sometimes we get a bit giddy after a lot of technical crapola. I was describing how there had been a mistake on a document, and my attempt at fixing it had made it worse, when I came out with this gem of a statement, "Two wrongs make a very wrong wrong." Everyone insisted it HAD to go on my whiteboard with another couple of little gems, after which Ninja Genius just had to add his two cents.

We survived one of those "team building" outings with the Big Boss, which mainly for me involved not eating fried food and watching the guys play pool in a smoky bar. I did at least get to have a free beer. I did my best to be friendly and act smart, since they are still trying to get me a permanent position. I tried to appear valuable.

At least all this stuff has helped the time pass waiting for Lee to get finished with his endless work trip. He got sick over the weekend, and I know that must have been hard. I hate being sick all alone.

I got cheered up a bit, anyway, with more enjoyment of the high school band. Here's a bonus shot of them in the stands playing the school song, which none of us parents have any idea what the words are, other than "O Shenandoah."




A real highlight of the past week or so came Saturday night. I decided I didn't want to spend Saturday night alone (Beccano had a date to see a movie with his girlfriend and a few other people). So I called Tuba Boy at the college and asked what he was doing. He said it was R's birthday--this is the girl from another country in their group, and it is her first birthday away from home. He was willing to eat with me, but also wanted to share her birthday with her.

So, his entire group of friends decided to join me at the Mexican restaurant near our house, where we had a very fun meal. She got sung to by the staff and had to wear the giant sombrero. Plus she got her first fried ice cream. It was incredibly cute. She is just one of those people whose adorableness quotient is very high.

Then they all trooped over to my house (8 kids in total) for tarot readings. They are all very interested (I had talked to the girls about it a bit in their suite last time I saw them), but one girl especially seems like she may be a real tarot person some day. It was a LOT of fun, though that many readings is tiring! They played with our dogs, which pleased the dogs a lot (they miss Lee). The kids paid attention, as much as college kids can, and asked lots of good questions. What struck me is how very lucky Tuba Boy is to have been assigned such a great group of kids to live and work with. Only one kid who was there was not a member of their "Living Learning Community," and he was the boyfriend of one of the girls--fit right in, though. I really enjoyed being around such a pleasant, intelligent and open-minded bunch of young people. Whoever assigned the living arrangements is a genius. They are like peas in a pod. What fun to get to know them all better!

I'm still trying to carve out time to write more. I just get real tired lately. All that reading and staring at the computer screen, I guess. But I really do like my job, so keep your fingers crossed that it stays!

Best Weekend Ever

According to the kids in the band, this was the "best weekend ever." Things did come out rather magically for them, and I actually had a good time, too.

Friday was the homecoming game. The tradition is for the cool kids to buy or make each other these "mums," which no longer have actual mums like they did when I was a teen. It's all plastic. Here is Beccano wearing one that his friend J. gave him to wear because he hadn't managed to give it to his intended recipient.

Here we see J's girlfriend, who although a freshman, seems to have gotten the spirit big time, huh? That is how you kept seeing kids--some had so many "mums" that they were weighed down, or had created special holders for them. Not my favorite tradition.


Another tradition is the homecoming football game. Tuba Boy and Debate Boy came to that and wandered around getting hugged. You had to find something to do, because the football game was just pitiful. Neither team had any defensive line (our team has three very large boys on crutches at the moment--so large they were in the newspaper!) which could explain our issue. So, there was lots of scoring and watching the quarterbacks run around looking for someone to throw to, since there was no one able to sack them. We enjoyed the other team's band show at halftime, and were thrilled when Homecoming King was the drumline captain.

And we were shocked when after the other team scored a touchdown at the last minute, their kicker missed the extra point, letting our team win their first homecoming game in 6 years. Not exactly a stirring victory, but it counts. Then, at the end, when it was our band's turn to play, their band LEFT (which NEVER happens--we watched the other team last week when it was their homecoming). And worse, their coach kept their football team on the field after the band was announced, and had them doing jumping jacks in front of the band. Then apparently they made threats and spit on the band. Yeah, like the band kids had anything at all to do with their defeat. I am still working on the letter to the principal of that school. What bad sports.

Saturday continued being good. I ditched the kids and spent some time at the yarn shop, which I hadn't done in a long time, and that was good. After that I had a "lunch/dinner" in the middle of the afternoon with two other band moms. We decided we did NOT want to eat any more stadium food, so we got Mexican and figured it would hold us all evening. It did. And I listened to a LOT of band mom gossip!

Then all us band parents loaded into buses and went to Kyle, Texas for another competition. Although it was not rained out, it sure was nippy out. We watched a LOT of bands, some of them with pretty spectacular shows. All sorts of props, sound effects and such. But, when they finally got around to announcing the results, we were sad. They announced all the people in our group through second place and still hadn't mentioned our school. We figured we didn't even merit a teeny little trophy. But, no! The announcer said our band was first in its class. What we hadn't realized is that the last three bands were in a larger category than us (didn't even know there WERE bigger high schools). Now, you may recall that in the last competition, our kids came in last. So, we were (and are) pretty shocked, but for once in a good way.

I must say they did look and sound better. Obviously practice helped, and I think the slackers were intimidated into trying (and some kids were taken out). I was really happy the color guard won, even though they had inadvertently left their sabers at the school. They looked very good with the "air sabers" and didn't drop a one of them!

Sunday I'd planned to spend with my friend Jody, but she didn't feel well. But, the yarn shop was open in the afternoon for the yarn crawl, so I headed over there for some laughs and that, along with working some extra, filled the day. I didn't go to church, because being out in the wind and cold for two nights had ruined my throat. I didn't have much voice!

The most fun I had, though, was getting to go to Waterloo Records with both my kids. I really treasure any time I can spend with Tuba Boy, now, so getting to do stuff with him on his fall break was nice. We all got CDs and listened to parts of them, then had a nice Chinese dinner. I was glad that Tuba Boy insisted I go, even when I hadn't felt like it. And I got more knitting in (I was making mitts for a band kid).

The other good part of the weekend was that I got to talk to Lee a bit more, since he wasn't working the night shift on the weekend. Three weeks is LONG. I hope he makes it!

So, that about catches you up from rainy and chilly Austin. Back to your other blog reading!

Rain Rain for Homecoming

We had a few nice, if muggy days, but today it rained a LOT. Looks like it's drying off just in time for the Homecoming football game, which will be good! I am looking forward to having Tuba Boy home for a few days on his "fall break." I know he will be busy seeing friends and I will be doing a bunch of stuff too (marching band contests stop for no one), but it will be nice to know he's home for a bit. With Lee out of town, I will take all the large male relatives I can get to fill the house!

And here's a photo of him and Beccano from last week when we visited his college. Each of them had bought the same mirrored sunglasses, separately, and had wanted to show the other one their purchase. Cute. I know Beccano will be glad to have his brother around to go places with this weekend and Monday. I guess I don't have Monday off, but I can work from home, at least.

It's been another busy, busy week of meetings and more meetings. But, an advantage of them is sometimes you get to see newborn babies. This is Fiona at 11 days old. She is blurry because she is a Wiggle Worm! Flings herself back and forth all the time. I do love that name, and it reminds me of a friend we had when my kids were very little. Fiona was a great friend who moved back to England when her husband's time with the weird mathematical software company was over. But we sewed, cooked, knitted and chatted a lot while she was here!


I am excited, because next month I get to start a new tarot and spirituality group. I'll get to resurrect the tarot blog, I guess! Probably I should record the reading I did last week on there, too.

I am looking forward to the next week or so, because Beccano and I got some good food to eat at home, and I don't have quite so many meetings. That will be nice. I've been decluttering a little bit each day, but still, there is a lot to do. I can tell that my bedroom and the media room look better, though! And that is what counts.

I'll try to write more after weekend fun.