Another wedding

I was a week behind on when I should have gotten my hair done, but my hair person was on vacation. I was trying to negotiate with him about checking with me before he scheduled trips, but he didn't agree. The result of this little debacle was that I showed up at this wedding looking a little worse for the wear. I told the mother of the groom that I did it just for her, so that every time I stood close to her she looked marvelous. It seemed to work because she did look marvelous. And it was a very fun weekend. And for the record, I behaved myself all weekend. There was no butting in the buffet line, and no public humiliation.

Public Humiliation

We were publicly humiliated at a wedding last night and I think I really need to give my side of the issue before things get out of hand. We had to drive 30 miles to get to the reception after the wedding. Plus there was a bit of lag time, on top of the travel time. Let's just say that the natives were getting restless, and hungry. Now, I was sitting at a table with relatives of the groom, which should have given us license of some kind. And the Aunt of the groom and I are really a bad combination. Now, we were trying to ascertain just how the tables were being dismissed for the buffet, and for the life of me, there just didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason. I must have blacked out because the next thing I knew, we were all in line for the buffet. And the MC was saying something like this, "Now, people, if we could just wait until our table is dismissed, we could minimize confusion and mayhem." I have to say we were not repentant at all, and thoroughly enjoyed our ill gotten food. And the son of my friend, the aunt, who happened to be a groomsmen, came over to our table later. He said, "I looked up and there was my whole family in line...I was so proud."

Now I ask you. Once you turn 60, doesn't that give you some sort of carte blanche to do crazy old lady things? I mean, how old do you have to be? It's not as if I whacked someone with my cane. I don't have one of those yet.

The Delta Debacle

Have I mentioned how much I love Delta? We are forced to fly Delta because it's the one my husband must use when he travels for business, so I don't want any comments about us changing over to a different airline. Retirement looms on the horizon, but until then...

Here is my diatribe after my flights on Thursday last week. Nothing leaves on time or arrives on time and everything is always always overbooked, sometimes more overbooked than other times, but always overbooked. Other details vary. This time our pilot called in sick 10 minutes to take off. One must assume he called from the bar at the airport. So we sat and waited for the new guy to arrive. Well, he sounded like he might have been almost 14. He starts up the engine, and it dies, so they have to bring in the starter cart, or in layman's terms, the jumper cables. And we're off to Detroit, because no matter where you are flying from or to, now that Delta owns the skies, everyone is routed through Detroit. And next to Delta itself, I think I hate Detroit next worse. Since everything is always screwed up with flight times, I mean why even give a flight time, they could just say, "Hey, come on over, hang out at the airport, and eventually there will be a plane going somewhere close to your destination. So, inevitably you have to race like crazy down through Detroit's little rain forest place, which I'm sure would have a calming effect if everyone wasn't late and in a massive hurry. And you arrive at your gate only to find your plane has been delayed. But this time, we left the gate only to sit in line on the tarmac for an hour, AN HOUR, since only one runway is open. And I really timed it. There were 25 planes in line on one runway, waiting to take off. The one thing they have over Northwest, which used to be my airline of choice, is that they serve peanuts, but you have to be in the peanut zone.

I'm waiting for the day they require you to hold someone on your lap or pay a penalty.

Vacation Fun

I was remembering the episode on Sesame Street, years ago, when Grover is the waiter, and he keeps telling his customer they are out of every beverage he names. In desperation the patron asks what they DO have. Grover says "We have milk". to which the customer orders milk. Then Grover says, "Sorry, we're out of glasses."

We are staying in Helen, GA, this week, and we have little Will with us. After nearly falling in the rushing river, landing on my back on slippery rocks, and seeing my life flash before me, and being reassured by the Rocket Scientist that I'm fine, I don't need to change before going out to eat, we arrive at the Huddle House. Huddle Houses are about 1/2 step up from Waffle Houses, FYI. Our waitress arrives to take our beverage order, and the first thing she says is, "We're out of a few things tonight. We don't have anymore waffles, ketchup, or rutabagas." Immediately you envision a troupe of Cloggers arriving to spend the weekend and eating tons of waffles with rutabagas on them, and instead of syrup they want ketchup. So we order 2 milks and a coffee. She bounces back a few minutes later to tell us they are also out of milk, but they do have ketchup packets. So we order. I order chopped steak with mushroom gravy and mashed potatoes and green beans. Wayne orders chicken fried steak with white gravy, a baked potato and green beans. Will wanted chicken fingers, and fries, although he seemed a bit obsessed with strawberry jam on something. Soon the food arrives. For Wayne, his chicken fried steak, with gravy and potato, no beans. For me, chopped steak, mashed potatoes, no beans, no gravy. For Will chicken Fingers, and fries. Little Miss Sunshine assures us she will return with both the beans and the gravy. Five minutes later she bounces back with one order of beans, and flashes this huge smile, as if she has just solved cold fusion. I ask her if we are to share one order of beans, or if another one is forthcoming, and where is the gravy? Another 5 minutes pass, and she returns to tell us the bad news, they are out of beans now, do I want another side? And here's the gravy, no mushrooms. By now, my potatoes are cold, and I really don't want another potato as a side, so skip the side, deduct it. So we manage to finish dinner. Will did eat one chicken finger, and Wayne's toast with strawberry jam. The bill arrives, it has the milk on it and no deduction for the missing beans. And when we returned to the condo I looked in the mirror and realized my whole rear end is wet, and I'm covered in dirt and moss, and I will have to kill Wayne. Life in the fast lane.

My alien cat

My cat is trying to make me lose my mind. He follows me from room to room and just sits and stares at me. Repeated attempts to discover what he may want are futile. Nothing works. I read a book once that asserted that cats are really aliens waiting to take over the earth. Maybe he's trying to tell me the time has come.

Department of Abused Apostrophes

Last week, while traveling, I ran across a sign that said, "Acupuncture and Herb's". It made me wonder who would name a child Acupuncture, and what sort of business it actually was, since obviously, it belonged to these 2 people. Another mystery to solve.

Cars on Fire

Driving along, minding my own business, this morning, my steering wheel started smoking. I'm no expert on cars, but it seemed like this was not a typically good thing to happen. Since previously this week, my electronic windows had begun to function in a completely random fashion, I was afraid to roll the windows down, unless they got stuck down. But the smoke was beginning to blur my vision, not to mention the smell was getting bad. So, do I pull over and abandon the car, or carry on? I carried on, but decided to have my girlfriend drive me home. Turns out that the electrical harness was toasted. Who even knew there was a harness for the wiring. Is it sort of like a bra for wires? But I was told that I was lucky the car didn't burst into flames. Nice to know. In all of this debacle, my running lights were on and wouldn't turn off. I didn't even know I had them. And, where in the world was my owner's manual? There are so many questions that need answering. All in all, not a good day. But my trusty mechanic, Chris, called to ask me if they could keep the car overnight, to test everything out before I got it back. That seemed like a no brainer. The next time it smokes, it could blow up. Who wants that?