Adventures in Travel

Well I got up this morning a little before 4:00 a.m. to drive to a 9:00 appointment in Cincinnati. Last night we picked up my rental car since I don't want to put my travel miles on my car.

About an hour into Ohio my lovely Hyundai Sonata lost all power on I-75. Fortunately it wasn't completely dead, it did sputter along at eight mph.

So I crawled on the shoulder for a couple of miles to get to a well lit exit. In the meantime I called Hertz Roadside Assistance and told the lady who answered of my issues. She asked me to let them know when I get to an exit so they could tell the tow truck driver where to pick me up. However I asked her to stay on the phone with me as it was really creepy and I couldn't think of anyone else to talk to at 5:30 a.m. So she did and I'm now sitting here at a Loves Truck Stop filling myself with unsweet Iced Tea at the Arby's.

At least I have Internet here, a puzzle book and if worse comes to worse my Nintendo DS is in my suitcase.

The Canteen

Last night was the much awaited ‘Hilbert Canteen’. This is a social event for the students at Jenna’s school and since it was before Halloween they got to wear costumes.

Jenna chose a ‘Belly Dancer’ and she actually moves pretty good in it! She went with her friend Jamie who was dressed up in a red outfit with wings. However, since Jamie’s costume had come from a friend who was bigger than her, and was pretty low cut I did have to run home and get her another shirt to wear with it.

All in all they had a great time. They had pizza and got tons of pictures taken with different friends by the school photographer. They had a booth set up for Polaroids for $1.00 and they spent a fortune there.

I had signed up to be a chaperone. It had to be volunteer work because they couldn’t have paid me enough to it! Lots of kids, loud music that I was years away from being familiar with. NO Moody Blues or Kingston Trio. But all in all it as fun. Jenna and Jamie had a great time.

And it was a learning experience for me. I can now name all three Jonas Brothers.

***UPDATE**** OMG-Eric informed me that I had missed a younger Jonas Brother, Frankie, the Bonus Jonas. I stand corrected.

Habitat for Humanity

Well, despite Jimmy Carter's 'out in the wild blue yonder' comments recently I still felt motivated to go help the Sysco Grand Rapid's team on a Habitat for Humanity project.

So I drove in on a Friday evening and cashed in some hotel points for a free room so I could be up and raring to go Saturday morning at 8:00 am in the rain.

The group of us stood outside while the supervisor went over the rules and how Habitat for Humanity works. Then they started whittling down the crowd by talent level.

First they asked who could paint and some people went off with the paint person. Then it was who could do woodwork and that narrowed the group a little more. After about fifteen minutes I was the only one left standing when my call came out! 'Who is totally inept and construction ability deprived' and I jumped up and down shouting 'It's me it's me!!!'. So I got to follow around someone who was drilling holes in walls and then I put some plastic thing in the holes. I don't know if this was really something they needed to do or if they felt obligated to find busy work for me-but it was OK and I felt like I did something.

Next time I'll have to look for volunteer opportunities more my type. I'm still afraid that then the people move in the house might fall down due to the plastic things being put in the holes wrong.

A Day With Westland's Finest

Helicopter Moon Walkers Cool SWAT Team

Today was the much anticipated 'Open House' at the Westland Police Station. Fortunately for me Pattye, Julia and Muffin decided to go to so I wouldn't have to be embarrassed going on my own. I don't know how they liked it but I thought it was AWESOME!

I, I mean, 'we' got to see the Police Helicopter land.

There was a demonstration of a SWAT team which Julia and Nathaniel thought was too loud because they had real sounds of gunfire. But that was really cool-afterwards we all sat in the SWAT truck and talked with a member of the team. VERY COOL! I wanted to ask him if he had any B.O.L.O.'s on any perp's lately...but that's technical COP talk, that you lay people don't need to concern yourself with.

There was also an actual Police Cadet who got tasered. Apparently before they're allowed to have a taser they all have to submit to being tasered so this guy decided to do it for the audience. I felt bad for him, it looked like it hurt. The taser spit out darts that plunged into his back and it incapacitated him for about a minute. And they actually had to yank the darts out. But they said that it didn't hurt because he was so numb from the taser itself. And for those of you who want to know, if you touch someone who is getting tasered, the current won't flow to you like electricity would.

By this time Pat, Jules and Nate had wandered back off into the Moon Walk inflatable bouncer but I followed the crowd to the next demonstration-the drug sniffing dog. And I was so proud, I was standing there with my purse and I didn't even have cause to panic when the dog walked by me:-)

A great fun day for all of us....well, for me anyway.

A Great Soldier

My favorite soldier

Usually I hate sitting next to someone on a plane who insists on talking the whole time. This is usually my prime napping or reading time. Although I do get a lot of usage out of my Nintendo DS at 35,000 feet also.

But yesterday I sat next to a 21 year old girl with an ‘Army Strong’ T-Shirt on. Most of the plane in fact was military. Well she was telling me about life in the Military.

Apparently she joined the army three months ago. As soon as she got to Basic Training she was horrified. She proceeded to tell me that there were bugs in the barracks. And the mattresses weren’t nice, in fact they were quite used.

Not to mention that they had to wear those drab green camouflage outfits ALL THE TIME. And she even took off her shoe to show me the callous she had on her big toe from the uncomfortable boots they gave her.

And don’t even get her going on how early they expected them to wake up every day.

So after three months of Basic Training the Army decided that they needed to part ways, apparently she wasn’t Army material.

Unfortunately it was a quick 40 minute flight from Columbia SC to Atlanta GA. I was bummed when this great insight into her military career was over.

Official Quaker NOT!!!

Well after all of the excitement waiting to become a Quaker, I met with the ‘Clearness Committee’ after Church on Sunday for a couple of hours. We talked about everything from pacifism to tolerance (I assume they weren’t going out on a limb and didn’t mean tolerance of people who don’t look like us cause that’s just crazy talk) (that was humor)….anyway we sat around a table in a little library-like room and ate fresh fruit and talked about the responsibilities of being a Quaker such working to make changes whether they’re small changes to improve a situation or working towards big changes and so on. It was a fine talk-nothing really heavy. Kind of like a bunch of old 1960’s era peaceniks who grew up but still covet the tie dye t-shirts and love beads. No weed though.

Although I did 'fess up to them that if I ever saw someone hurting one of my kids or something I would not hesitate to pick up a club and beat their brains out. So......pacifism unless someone is messing with one of my peeps.

Anyway the bummer was that I missed a step. Now they have to report back to the Membership Committee who approves me as a member. Wow, it was easier buying a house. So the third Sunday in September I’ll be an official Quaker. They already assured me I passed. So I guess I won’t have to start wearing my burkha until then.

Sad Lincoln

Well this past week I was in Lincoln, Nebraska. The place was really nice. The people were outgoing and very friendly and yes-they called ‘pop’ ‘pop’ which I always consider a bonus.

The downtown area was very clean and safe and I went walking every night after work. And the minute I got out of the airport when I arrived I couldn’t believe how fresh and clean their air was.

But the entire week Lincoln made me sad. When I go around the cities that I visit I like to dig into the history of the place. And every plaque that I read on the historic looking buildings said things like ‘This building was erected in 1843 when some company came into town’ etc. The buildings were cool but all it reminded me of was that the history of that whole area was that Europeans bowled through the area, killed or displaced the Native Americans and took over.

I know that it’s not the folks alive today who did that so there were no bad feelings there, but every time I looked over that beautiful area it made me really sad to think about the history that this area was based on.