Here is something I usually see every afternoon as I go out to my car – this is the big hotel day care playground. At lunchtime I usually see the bigger kids, but in the afternoon it’s the younger ones – most seem to be about E’s size.
Traffic jam at day care. I can see the kids responding to mom’s anguish at getting stuck in traffic, now they can respond about their hard time getting stuck behind that rotten driver.
I had a good sized crowd over on Saturday. About fifteen guys all playing with toy trains. Well, not all, there was a bunch just sitting around the table eating and BSing. We have several guys that are very good at that, but we enjoy their company anyway. All without B – she is due back on Thursday afternoon (so you still have time to fly out and spend a few days before she gets here D). I made my usual ‘brats in beer’ for the group – they seem to like it, even though it seems like I just made them. But then I realized that I did do brats for the guys the last time they were here, last April. So even if that’s what I serve every time, I guess once a year is OK. Nobody complained – they just suggested that last time I make more. This from the guy that ate three. But when I said there was cake and ice cream he seemed OK with the transition, and proceeded to create a layer of brownies with a pile of ice cream on top, and covered it all with chocolate syrup. I had to apologize for not having whipped cream and a cherry to top it. I was debating about cleaning up afterwards, so that B would realize she is appreciated and that things don’t get done when she isn’t around, but decided against leaving a pile of pots in the sink.
I’m listening to Diana Krall on my Ipod. She is one of B’s favorite singers, and I just noticed that there are five of her albums loaded on here. I put all the CDs we have into Itunes and just load them all, might as well have them on hand. Diana will be in Vegas at the Hilton in early June. I had to apologize to B for not buying tickets – for some reason I didn’t quite feel like laying out $300 for two tics. That would pay for a lot of CDs. Those prices put Diana as being more expensive than going to see Aerosmith next month or ZZ Top last month. Looking at her web site she will be out at Yoshi’s in Oakland the weekend after coming here. We could drive out there to see the boys and then pay $25 each to see her there, at a club with only a hundred other people instead of a hall with several thousand at the Hilton.
I spent the past few weeks getting ready to play trains, fixing up my modules and all. So Sunday I started on a garage reorganization. I hit both Lowe’s and Home Depot to get some cabinets to replace the workbench. There were nice ones on display at Lowe’s, but none in stock. I looked a month ago and there weren’t any then either. So it was HD to pick them up.
I used to love HD over Lowe’s, but there seems to have been a recent attempt to save money by cutting back on employee salaries over there. They now have a bunch of those ‘self serve’ checkout stands, and usually only one live checker in the tool crib. I refuse to use those self serve checkstands and thus stand in the long line for the one real person. It’s not out of a dislike for automation, just a desire to talk to a real person. In keeping with the cutback theme it is now almost impossible to find a worker in the aisles of HD to get help. At least at Lowe’s there are little buttons in each section which if pressed will shortly result in a person showing up. No such buttons at HD. But they had cabinets in stock, so I purchased there.
After the driving around I was able to pull apart that one side of the garage and scatter everything around the floor. It took a while to pull out the workbench – it was twelve feet long and very soundly constructed. But it was mostly a repository for stuff, and thus not used for work. With cabinets below hopefully I will put things away and leave space for working. I did put together two of the cabinets (of course they come in flat kits) together before stopping at 9 to watch Dresden on TV. I hoped to get everything done and the garage looking neat before B returns on Thursday – this only gives me three nights, and tonight will be consumed with going over to daughter’s place and cleaning up the junk she left behind.
Back to the rain – trying to lay things out I put some of the lumber and big items outside in the yard. Figuring this was Vegas, and we have not had precipitation since December or so, it would be fine until I had room for it. So I was surprised to wake up this morning to the sound of raindrops on the skylight. Oh well, there wasn’t much but all the stuff was wet. So before work I pulled it all under the overhead, hopefully it will not be too bad. We probably only had a quarter inch or so of water come down.
Phone call last night requested me to put all of her leftovers out to the curb. It took them three days to load up the rental truck for the Portland trip – three days! Of course, to save money they rented the smallest truck. Then found out that only half their stuff fit in it, and the place they rented from would not let them tow a trailer. So they had to unpack and repack for THREE FREEKIN’ DAYS in order to fit things in. We learned after our first move to get the biggest truck possible, but do they listen? Of course not, why listen to suggestions from the old folks. So I spent Sunday morning filling up the pickup truck and bringing stuff they wanted to keep but had no room in the truck for over to our house to probably store forever because we know they will not come for it. And then to be told to bring the trash out, so that kills tonight cleaning up. And all this on top of losing E to the wet wilds of Oregon. B might fly up there a few times, but I probably will not get to see her again until Thanksgiving or Christmas. (new job, no vacation time until I’ve been here a year)
Well, I was so successful on Friday, let’s try it again. This is E playing her flute. I’ve got some video of here with the flute and B with the kazoo marching around the room. But out of deference to B I will not post that one. So here is E by herself playing a lively tune:
She's got the bobbing dance down fairly well. But I bought the musical instruments for use at her house, so her parent's could enjoy the entertainment. Maybe we can send her off across the ocean to join Rob's group.
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