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!