Mom’s Day Off (Are you sure you want to do that?)

On Mother’s Day, I called home. True, it was less than my sister did—she was actually visiting home. The call was twice the fun, as I was able to talk with Mom and T through the miracle of speaker phone. Mom was enjoying a lovely leisurely late afternoon while Dad cooked the family dinner. In the middle of our conversation—or rather the end, as it turned out to be—Tali went outside to see how the preparations were coming. Yes, that’s right, outside. See, Dad was using dutch ovens (of which we have three) in his effort to give mom the night off. To give Dad his due, he cooks tasty dutch oven dinners and desserts. Well, as I chatted with Mom, I suddenly heard my sister screaming her head off. I mean, REALLY screaming. So, I asked what in the world was going on outside. Mom, looking through the window guessed, “It’s probably a bee.” T does react in a rather exaggerated fashion to the threat of flying insects, but the screaming continued and was joined by Dad, although I couldn’t make out what he was yelling. At that point Mom calmly (after all it was her special relaxing day) said, “T’s having an emergency; her pants are on fire.” Then the room went quiet. So there I was, a voice coming out of a little box just wishing I could look out the window, when, HARK! Who’s that there? “D?! Hello!? D?! Is that you?!?” D was walking through the kitchen, and I was able to use him as my eyes to get the following information: T was on the ground wearing charred, ripped up pants. I instructed him to have them call me back the minute they could (which I was sure T would do anyway). Here is what happened in her own words:

I was standing next to the dutch oven (which had been cooking for a while) to dump in the bowl of potatoes, when I realized that I was standing right on the pile of coals that had been sitting on the oven lid. I stepped off and saw some smoke and thought the bottom of my Adidas sandals must be melting. No big deal. I then saw that the bottom of my too-long jeans were black and smoking. I asked Dad, who was standing nearby, if I should be concerned, if I was going to burst into flames, if I should pour water on myself just to be safe. But Dad insisted I would be fine and was not the least bit alarmed. Of course, Dad is never the least bit alarmed. Not 30 seconds later, the bottom of my jeans burst into flames. I screamed, and Dad rushed over and started beating at the flames to put them out. It didn't work. I continued to scream, for I can't quite describe the panic of seeing yourself on fire. I mean, when fire strikes, there is no possible way to stay calm. Stop, drop, and roll didn't even cross my mind. My only impulse was to run around like a crazy person. I eventually did make it to stop and drop, but only because Dad told me to get on the ground by saying, “Get on the ground!" So, there I am on the ground, and by this time I can feel the flames burning my flesh. It was by far the most painful thing I have ever endured. It was only a few seconds of flesh-burning before he got the flames out, but not before a nine inch section of skin had been burned off the back of my left leg.

For any who know T, she adds that she is accepting “all kinds of well-wishes and cards and gifts and assurances that I might still be desirable [even with a disfiguring scar].” To the lessons she says she’s learned through this experience (1. If you are cooking with a dutch oven, do not wear jeans that are too long. 2. If you are cooking with a dutch oven and you must wear jeans that are too long, at least make sure you are not wearing your favorite pair. 3. If you are cooking with a dutch oven and you must wear jeans that are too long and they happen to be your favorite pair, hose yourself off at the first sign of smoke.) I would like to add a few observations. First, things happen FAST. To be sure, this was not entirely a case of spontaneous combustion; however, once your clothes light up, there is really no way to prevent injury entirely. Having a hose sitting near the pit of coals is nice for putting them out when you are all finished and have the time to walk around the house and turn the water on, but an “off” in-case-of-emergency/only-you-can-prevent-forest-fires hose provides a false sense of security. I advise having a waterbottle or bucket ready for REAL emergencies—the kind in which something needs to be put out fast. I intend to do this at all fire activities from now on. You just never know, and when something happens, it happens fast and the result is painful and ugly. Second, events like this, though tragic, make great fodder for Mother’s Day tributes. Mom takes the night off, the kids catch on fire and pandemonium ensues. We want Mom back!

(Photo above taken a week after the incident. Ouch!)

Updates for the Faithful

1. (Entry "Check it OUT!") I have been informed that the elusive $50 grand prize for Penny-A-Page has, indeed, been earned on not one but TWO occasions, both by the same dedicated reader, D. As an update to this update, I have also learned that, interestingly, D no longer participates in the program. He now fills his summer with less lucrative pursuits, although we all recognize that there are many interesting and worthy activities with which to fill our short vacations. Here’s hoping he’s doing some of those.
2. In an effort to protect the innocent, I refrain from using names, preferring to use first initials instead. This has caused some confusion in the past and produces a degree of ambiguity that I would avoid if it could be done without compromising what little anonymity the people I write about possess. I apologize for the confusion. I would also like to add that it was reported to me that a certain someone’s first name was written in full more than once in a single post. I have considered looking for this post and changing it, but I have begun to think that maybe he isn’t so innocent after all… A warning to the people who believe they have been featured in my posts: Your days of anonymity may be dwindling.
3. (Entry "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.") The locks at my office have been put on a timer. They unlock at 8 AM and lock at 5 PM. I am still free [forced?] to entertain myself 7 hours every day (not including my hour lunch). Business as usual.
4. (Entry "Gramma Nut") The flyer I made for my “professional editing service” actually worked! I put it in just 4 buildings on GT campus—a pilot study, if you will. A couple weeks later I was contacted, and I completed my first job last Saturday. It’s kind of exciting!

Check it OUT!

Penny-A-Page is in full swing. I always look forward to it so much. I do enjoy reading—and getting paid—but I think it’s the elusive $50 maximum reward that makes me so excited that I begin scheming weeks before the contest actually begins. (For anyone unfamiliar with Penny-A-Page, it is a summertime reading incentive program, funded through a generous grant from mother N. Each participant records the titles and number of pages of all the books they read throughout the summer, and at the end of the summer receives 1 penny for every page! You won’t get rich with this program, but if you like reading recreationally anyway, why not end the summer with a little spending money? There is a cap at $50, although no one has ever reached it.) In order to reach $50, one must read 334 pages per week, or, approximately 56 pages per day (not including Sundays). Certainly possible, but making comebacks is difficult. A strategy—or reading list full of books you know you’ll like and finish (no payment for pages read of a book that wasn’t finished)—is necessary. It's fun to keep tabs on what others are reading and how high their page count is. Every year I tell myself, “THIS is the year! I won’t let the $50 get away!” And every year I end up solidly in the $20’s. And yet, I always believe and am always determined that this WILL be the year! So, in spite of the fact that I must admit I have already slipped behind in my fail-proof reading list, I just know that THIS really is the year! $50 will be mine! The early success story of this summer, however, goes to B. This is B’s second Penny-A-Page season. Last season he ended at just $1.19. This year he has more than doubled that amount already! He turned in a list of books to me, which I order from our city library system. I love libraries; just the idea of them! They have more books than I would ever have access to otherwise; I can “try-out” books, rather than having to buy them and later realizing I didn’t want to read them in the first place; I don’t have to store tons of books at my house that I only read once; if you have a big library system (like we do) you can get ANYTHING, almost any book or magazine and tons of movies; they give homeless people a place to go; and, it’s all for FREE!

"Bra-VO, Washerwoman!"

I felt married for the first time in my life on Friday. That’s the day I came home to a washer and dryer all hooked up in our closet, just like they’d always been there. I think I like them; it’s simply a little shocking that I own them—more so than, say, cars and tables and couches and curtains…wait, I don’t own curtains... I haven’t done any laundry in these machines, but B has. Hmm…yes… I’m going to LOVE them! We’ve talked about getting a set many times. But, like most big-ish decisions, we both think it’s a good idea at different times. For example, B thought we should get a Wii when we first got married, but I wasn’t so sure. I kept thinking it over, considering the benefits, and eventually I agreed that a Wii would be an excellent addition to our home and our game collection. Only, there was no one to agree with, because by that time, B had decided that we really didn’t need one and wouldn’t use one. Although a bit let down, I talked myself right out of wanting one again. Sure enough, a while later it seemed like a good idea to him again, but I was no longer interested. For better or worse, this yo-yo phenomenon plays out repeatedly with us. And while “worse” may be obvious, I’d like to state that in terms of “better” not only do we avoid bad decisions indefinitely (ok, and good ones too), I also get to sing the song “Yo-yo Man” in my head. And that’s fun. So, who was the impetus to Friday’s purchase? Well, maybe me, I guess, but it definitely came as a surprise to both of us. I believe it was an act of Providence, albeit a very long, drawn-out, and complicated act.
It all started a couple months ago when I noticed my car wasn’t running very well. It felt like it had absolutely no power. Finally, it got to the point that something had to be done, but without B around to take it in and lend me his car so I can go to work, I was having a hard time figuring out how to get it to a shop. Then last week, when I was really starting to get worried, I received a safety recall notice from Nissan. I called the dealership and was informed that there were actually two safety recalls on my car. So, I arranged to take my car in Thursday, and they said they’d provide me with a rental. I can’t believe the timing of it all! My car was sick, I couldn’t find time to take it in, I put off having it seen, I get a RECALL, my car gets a bunch of work done for free, and now it’s fixed! The hitch in the undertaking was that the rental company was [conveniently] out of compact cars, the size that Nissan reimburses them for. I feel this is a scam, and it will certainly used as evidence in a future post on suspicious business activities. I ended up with a truck. A truck with a back seat. I did manage to seem unhappy enough that they lowered the difference between what Nissan pays and what the truck costs so that I would only have to pay about $3 per day (plus the extra gas, of course). Good enough. It was a nice truck, even if I DID have to call someone from my office to come down to the parking lot and show me how to get the key out of the ignition. When I told B about it, he said, “Is there anything we need to move?!” I said no, but I thought of a washer and dryer—not because I wanted one, but because they are the only thing we don’t have, and last I knew, B wanted them. For the record, I have been content washing our clothes in the apartment laundromat. There was one time I was interested in getting a nice pair, but that opportunity passed. B has gone back and forth, but since I do the laundry anyway, convenient or not, I get to make the final decision, and, like I said, I don’t mind the laundromat. So, we have a truck…and I decide to just look at Craigslist and see if anything catches my eye. Of course, it’s unlikely that anything will work out—which is fine. After all, I’d be picking B up at 5 A.M. the next morning, so the pick up would have to take place between 6-7 A.M. I sent a couple emails anyway. When I told B what I had done, I found that the pendulum had swung back in the weeks since we last discussed this. Oh well. That’s fine with me; I don’t need one either. I’ll just tell the people I’m not interested if they call. Well, they called, and they happen to live in our apartment complex! What are the odds?!?!?! Obviously, it was meant to be! So, at 5 A.M. I pick B up and let him know! [He laughed, as though I’M the crazy one. I’m so sure!] Then at 6 A.M., as I had arranged, we pick up a friend and take him to breakfast as thanks for agreeing to help move the washer/dryer at 7 A.M. Fabulous. The car got fixed, we got a washer/dryer, and we went out to breakfast. We are so blessed.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

What do I really DO at work? I mean, for the company? Well, booking flights, hotels, and cars for everyone in the company working at our U.S. offices and jobsites takes up most of my time (45 minutes/day). I also coordinate conference calls for all of our U.S. operations (30 seconds/day). I receive all FedEx/UPS deliveries (10 minutes/day [spent chatting with the delivery people]). I am the office fire warden (2 one-hour-long meetings and 1 fire drill per year [TODAY’S THE DAY!!!! But nobody knows…hee hee…any minute now…]). Finally, I provide conversational therapy and boost office moral. Everyone has to walk by my desk, and I’m always happy and willing to listen to them chat or complain, I tell them funny stories and explain the news (since I have all the time in the world to read up on it), and I occasionally hold multiple choice office polls! Sometimes (1 hour/week), coworkers (the ones who know just how bored I am and how much time I have to fill with whatever I want) ask me to do favors for them, like printing labels, ordering baseball tickets, and stuffing envelopes. I love it when they do this and I always readily agree to help out—so far anyway. This may soon change; I have a new responsibility now.
See, after our office was robbed a few months ago, the powers that be decided to upgrade from a simple lock-and-key door. Now we will get in and out of our office suite with access cards. I am in charge of activating and assigning access cards. As they are used, information (time and user) will be stored on my computer. I don’t know what this really does to prevent further theft unless it is suspected that one of our employees is the thief (highly unlikely, as a different office on our floor was robbed the weekend after we were…). Cameras are also being installed at all three doors, and somehow this information is supposed to be accessible at my workstation as well. This all really won't add anything to my workload and I should still have about 7 hours per day (not including my hour lunch) to entertain myself. The responsibility (and annoyance) is that everyone who doesn’t work here (delivery people, copy machine repair men, clients, even our own people who are based out of other offices) will need to be let in. Enter “the buzzer.” Yes, I will now have to push a buzzer to let everyone in! Everyone. Probably even my coworkers who are on their way back in from lunch or from a bathroom/smoke break. Our own people walk in the door hundreds of times a day. Even the people who are not "our own" generally know us and what they need to do here, so they don't need me to notice or help them—I don’t work at a doctor’s office. I would much prefer a keypad (or a retina/fingerprint/voice scan!) so that people who work here and constitute 99.98% of the door traffic can always have their access ticket with them. The craziest part is that the buzzer is also an intercom system. Like I’m going to stare straight out the glass doors at someone and say “Yes? What do you want?” “Is he expecting you?” “Ok, you’re clear. [BUZZ]” I’m so sure. Of course everyone gets to come in and may be shooed away personally if they happen to be here by mistake (or be unwelcome). This really never happens. I guess I can harass people leaving work early as they wait for the elevator. And I can say things like, “I am the great and powerful wizard of Oz!”
So, now that we've been wired for sound and video, this is my full time job: pushing a buzzer. I’ve said all along that I’d love to actually have something to do for the company, but now, after learning what that something is, I think I may quit. I must not be cut out to be a full-time working woman. [sigh] Anyway, if they really do expect me to use the intercom and to interrogate people before letting them in, they should have at least installed a trapdoor. Then I’d really have some options.

The One-Eyed One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater

That was me yesterday—all but the purple part. It all started with a Saturday-morning notice from our apartment complex stating that pest controllers would be fumigating our homes on Monday. In preparation for this event, we were instructed to move EVERYTHING in the bathroom and kitchen that isn’t nailed down...somewhere else. All cupboards, countertops, and drawers must be empty. Additionally, nothing may be placed next to a wall. This proved quite a task for me, occupying nearly the entire weekend. Now my house resembles a mountain range—three peaks in the living room (in the general area where the couch, table, and desk once were), two in the bedroom (where the bed and dresser once were), and one in the bathroom (hidden behind the shower curtain)—and no, that’s not all our stuff. Our closet [which, truth be told, should be called the second bedroom] is still half full (the stuff on the floor has been moved from the edges) and B took a carload of stuff with him when he left that morning for the internship in Orlando. Still, this project took me till midnight Sunday/Monday to complete, and if I don’t smell poison when I get home, people will be eaten. But, looking on the bright side, as one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eaters tend to do, this has kick-started my “spring cleaning” efforts. I’m suddenly ready to vacuum against walls and wash baseboards, cupboards, and drawers. Many of our regular weeknight activities are on hiatus for the summer, and without B around, I intended to use many of my free nights cleaning and organizing everything we have. Now it will simply use up fewer free nights. Also, this exercise has proved once and for all that even WITHOUT any of our furniture, we will not be able to leave Atlanta in anything less than a moving truck—and I’m willing to leave the house as it is now in order to prove this point to certain unbelievers. I do wonder though how people, knowing they need a truck, determine the size or [mercy!] the NUMBER of trucks they need, as I suspect they do not regularly pile everything they own in the middle of the floor (although they may think they do). It's really a very educational exercise.
So, Saturday afternoon, after my workout and in the midst of ransacking the bathroom, I got a call from B to tell me that he was almost there and that he had just realized he forgot something important: his clothes. [silence] Not his workout clothes; he had brought those clothes. But he was not going to Orlando to work out; he was going there to work. I have no words to describe how I felt about this. These forgotten clothes have been selected over the last month on several shopping trips. They are not only meant to cover the body, but also to make a good first impression. But nothing could be done to get these clothes to him in time for church or for his first day, so B did a little desperation shopping. I helped out by making a mad trip (in more ways than one) to the FedEx pick up point late Saturday afternoon got a few items winging their way “overnight,” which isn’t really overnight on a weekend.
Sunday morning I threw in my contacts as I was heading out the door. They didn’t feel right and everything looked blurry. Rather than wait for everything to clear up and become comfortable, I throw a bottle of eye drops in my bag. On the way to church the blurriness didn’t go away, and I determined that it was in just one of my eyes. It was so severe that it was almost like not wearing a contact—which is exactly what was going on, in that eye anyway. How could I walk out with only one contact? Half way through church when the other eye went back to being uncomfortable and went from clear to blurry I realized that I had actually put both contacts in the same eye. I'm amazed that for about an hour the double contacted eye had been clear (during the times that I covered the blurry eye with my hand). I had no idea that could work. Sometimes I feel better about the real story being the one in which I actually put both contacts in the same eye—sometimes I don’t. Finally, last night I had some stuff to take to the garbage place. There was quite a large pile of trash outside the compacting conveyer contraption leading to the enclosed dumpster. Among the trash there was a perfectly good very tall rolly set of Sterilite drawers! Perfect for organizing something, which is what I’m about to be doing for the next few weeks. I wanted it, but I don't normally (or ever, in my memory) pull things out of the trash, so I was too embarrassed to wheel it across the parking lot. I decided to take the top two drawers, and I planned to come back for the rest later—with the car. 11PM seemed like a good time. But, it was gone. Now it's back to the dumpster with these two drawers. Ah, what might have been.