...Okay, so today we, J and I are traveling home from Cisco to work in the Dallas area for the rest of the week. He is in the gas guzzling truck and I am in my fuel effiecient van (I drove to Cisco from Arlington and back on less than 1/2 tank) following him. Our first stop as we leave Cisco is to fuel the big truck for the return to the metroplex. We are not going to run out of gas again. We agreed to follow each other to our turn off in Fort Worth---just in case. Well, JUST IN CASE happened in just 12 short miles. We were moving along nicely when I heard a popping noise. It took a few seconds to connect that noise to the black debree that was being flung from the rear of the big truck. It had suffered a blow out. J limped to the shoulder of I20, a place that we are becoming way too familiar with, and joined me in my air conditioned truck and called swb fleet services to get a replacement tire. We chuckled and said "what next"? Anyway, we were back on our way in about 1.5 hours and made the balance of our return without further incident. I did pinpoint our previous visit to the shoulder , of Thursday afternoon. It was in the east bound lanes of I20 at mile marker 403. So, if you find yourself there at any time in the future...think of me.
This weekend has been very uneventful. I lead a very dull and boring life...I went to swim Saturday morning. I had decided to swim 30 uninterrupted laps to test my stamina. After lap 10, the pool guy at 24 hour fitness stopped me and requested I get out while he added chemicals to the pool. It would only take about 10 minutes. So I and the other swimmer in the pool at the time vacated to the hot tub. Sure enough after about 10 minutes the pool guy came and said we could resume our swims. So, back to the pool we went. I had to retemper my body to the temperature of the pool. I swam 6 additional laps and decided that my efforts for the day were ruined and got out. I did get quite a bit of exercise before the swim because I spent about 45 minutes raking leaves in our front yard. So, I may have already pushed my stamina to it's limit. I do feel that I would have completed the 30 laps had I not been interrupted by mr pool guy...On a positive note--Danny is back. I called him on my way home from swimming and he had just gotten off the plane. It is nice having him home...even if I never see him, I know he is a phone call away....Jenny and Meredith, I am trying to lead by example to you both. Have you made entries in your journals today?
Someone posted a comment to the previous entry. The truck that ran out of gas was neither the 1991 Dodge Dakota nor the 1997 Chevy Astro Van. Rather, a very large 1ton truck that we are using to transfer tools, cable reels, ladders and other junk that is necessary to complete the job we are on now. It is a big boxy thing that is not aero-dynamic. The Chevy van and the Dodge truck get reasonable mpg rate. The 1ton gets about 7-8 mpg. But it is a necessary evil.
First of all I want to say that I did not quite trust J's (he refuses to tell me what the J stands for) paranoia about how quickly the vehicle we have been using drinks the gas. Almost everytime we pass a gas station he wants to stop and put more in. Today, we finish our work in Cisco Tx. We had planned to leave Cisco at 3:30pm to get back to Fort Worth by 5:30. I glance at my watch and it read 3:15. We ceased our work and began cleaning up and packing our tools for the day. We did not finish til 3:50pm. Anyway, we were heading east on I20, talking about whatever and I glanced at the fuel gauge and it indicated 1/4 tank remained. J noticed and more than likely thought to himself, "hey, we need gas" I think I saw a bead of sweat appear on his brow at that very moment...but, we started talking about whatever again and completely ignored the fuel gauge. It seemed a very short time later, I rechecked the gauge and the indicator was gone...it had disappeared in the dash and I believe we were continuing down the road on divine intervention. J noticed the gauge too and he tensed and became almost giddy. I asked him if he had ever run out of gas in this truck and he said he had not. We figured we had 13 miles to the next gas station which would equate to almost 2 gallons of gas. We both said, "maybe". Or then, maybe not...within a minute J said "uh oh" and the truck began slowing down. We were almost over a ridge to the next hill and hoped once we topped the ridge we would see a mobil, texaco or conoco, but no, we saw a Diamond Shamrock, one of the few stations that SWB no longer does business with. So we continued, hoping to get to a preferred gas station. In retrospect, we should have stopped there and put a few coins of gas in the tank because it was less than a minute later that we sputtered to a stop. We sat for a moment and J tried turning the key...miraculously the engine started and we continued on our trip to the nearest gas station. After about 1/2 mile the engine died again and this time for good til its thirst for petro was satisfied...We started walking a short distance to an overpass, climbed it and both of us using our cell phones tried to call someone that might help us. As we were doing this, a red pickup truck stopped and the man inside asked if he could be of assistance. He had noticed the truck on the road and thought we may need help. This very nice man offered to drive down the road and bring us back some gas. He refused to allow us to pay for it. When he got back we gased the truck and it started right away. We thanked him and asked his name. It is Joe Copeland of Sweetwater Tx....On the road again, with less than 1 gallon of gas we willed ourselves the 5 or so miles to the next station before the tank ran empy again. It actually died after we exited the freeway at the station, but started back up. We pulled up to the pump and tried to enter our purchase card info and found yet another station that SWB prefers not to use. J jumps back in the truck and says that we can make it to the Conoco across the freeway because it was downhill to get over there. So off we go again...J was right, we did make it. When he got out to pump the gas he realized he had left the gas cap at the other less desirable station. Luckily, when we returned there to retreave it, it was still there...I promise to never roll my eyes again when J wants to stop and refuel the truck...BTW, the whatever we were talking about was politics. This incident is just one more reason we should not be discussing politics.
Something I forgot to mention. Monday, Aprill 22 was the 37th anniversary of my father's death. And today is the 32nd anniversary of my first wedding. Just thought you would like to know.
The West Wing was really good tonight. It was a docudrama with people like Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Henry Kissinger, Bill Clinton and many staffers talking about their years in the White House. In one scene, Jeb Bartlet recited a few words of the poem High Flight. When I was a little girl, one of the TV stations in Wichita Falls had as their sign off, a video of jets in flight and the reading of this poem. At any time if I was still awake for the sign off I always watched this to the end. I never tired of it. Here it is for your enjoyment:
The poem, High Flight, has over the years become a mantra to pilots.
It is reproduced here as a tribute to, and in memory of pilots of all generations.
Mother got off to Wichita Falls at 8:30pm last night. I think she was happy to be leaving. As I was driving out of the airport I realized I could not find my parking ticket. I stressed til I got to the booth. Frantically, I told the attendant that I lost my ticket and I had only been there for less than 30 minutes, man did I feel stupid. He was able to verify my information and waived me on. Whew! I bet mother has the ticket in her purse...Today is kind of a big day for me. Last week my company truck went into the shop because the A/C had gone kaput. I thought it was going to be a case of adding freeon(sp) to it. Wrong! The whole system has to be replaced at a cost of $1300 to the company. The truck is a 1991 Dodge Dakota and has 150K miles on it. So, today I get a slightly less used 1997 Astro Van as a company vehicle. Life is good...
We, mother and I, are home from Houston, finally. We had a great time. The Confirmation was very nice. It went quicker than I thought it would (there were 200 Confirmees). Matthew was the 3rd in line for the Rite...Last night I mentioned we were at Margaret's house. After most of the family had left, Margaret, Kathleen, Courtney and I played pool. M&K were partners and C and I were partners. Of the six games we played only one was won by sinking the 8 ball(kudos to Margaret for that one). The rest were lost because the 8ball was sunk or a scratch was made while trying to sink it. C and I won 5 of the six games. I do have to mention here that there were 5 bottles of wine when the evening began...there were 5 empty bottles of wine when the pool games began. I had no wine. I think that Tim, Felicia and John each had a glass. That would leave the rest to be consumed by the team of M&K.--nuf said about that...Mother asked that I read Stepan's beautiful post from his journal on friday. When I signed on, I read my mail first. I got an interesting link from Patrick. Check it out. Well, tomorrow is an early day for me.
I am at Margaret's house watching just about everyone doing headstands from a flat on your stomach position and I decided to check to see what was happening on the net. I had to use Stepan's site to link to mine since I cannot for the life of me remember my url to get into my journal. So, I got a clue from Step that he had, as promised, added comments to my site. I looked and saw that 2 people had made comments, Elizabeth (you are too welcome) and Stepan(thanks, thanks,thanks)...Houston has been alot of fun so far. Last night Kathleen and I went through some old pictures of hers and found some that she is going to send to Patrick to scan for the family photo cd. One is a Christmas card with a picture of all of us standing in front of the Christmas Tree and the caption that read: Xmas at the Karl Ranch. There is another that was taken in 1958 and it included the entire family, minus Theresa since she was not born til 1960. Anyway, she will be sending these and others to Patrick to work his majic... I am being summoned back to the handstand arena. I have tried and I cannot do it. I will have to practice on my own and show my skills off next family gathering. I hope I have time to learn this skill...I hope Jen is having fun at the Danskin Triathalon Training Camp...Til next time.
One thing yucky happened to me yesterday at work. A bird pooped on me. I think that was the first time that had happened to me. It was a experience...I had fun seeing Peter Richardson. Meredith and Jennifer might remember him. I use to try to play matchmaker between him and one of them. He is a really nice person. He is now 35 years old and looks like he is 25. He is still single. He blames the 12 moves he has had to make with SWB in the past 10 years for his singledom. Anyway, he has quit SWB after climbing nicely up the corporate ladder to move back home to St Louis, Mo and work in the family business Shure Mfg Co...I left the party at around 4:30 so I could greet Matthew and mother when they arrived at my house. Mother and I are traveling to Houston this weekend to attend a Confirmation for Matthew and a celebratory brunch for both Matthew and Courtney. I made this rice dish with some drunken chicken that we had in the freezer. It was very tasty. While I was making it, Jerry complained that I had used too small a saucepan and the rice would not cook properly. Matthew made a comment about how crowded the rice was in the pan. So I dubbed this new made up dish: Rita's Crowded Rice Drunk Chicken Dish. Also, Matthew and I caused our saintly mother to say "bullshit" twice. She is funny...I spoke to Elizabeth last night. She called to thank me for passing on the information about grandpa's will. She was checking Ohio for copies of the will and it was actually filed in Wichita Falls. She got alot of good knowledge that she had been seeking from the will. I was glad I was the link to that knowledge. She is doing such a nice job of gathering all the information and pulling it from us...I gotta go get ready to drive to Houston.
I am too sleepy to post anything of substance tonight. I worked a very long day. Drove home from Jacksboro Texas in an unairconditioned truck that on the uphill is lucky to get up to 50mph. It is a necessary evil because it has this lift on the back that allows us to load and unload tools without alot of heavy lifting. I had some pretzels and a diet IBC root beer for dinner on the drive home. But lucky me...tomorrow I will get off work somewhat early to attend a going away party for a friend that is leaving the company and moving back to St Louis...As I type this I see that my son is online. I chatted with him a few moments ago. He is still in Puerto Rico and he reports that he won $125 at black jack last night. Yipee!
Well, tonight has been rather exciting. I was suppose to go swimming, but when I arrived home there was lightning and thunder going on and I didn't think I wanted to swim during a thunderstorm. So I decided to wait. I turned on the computer, logged onto AOL and cleared my email. While I was doing that the sirens were sounded for a tornado warning. So what did I do---take cover? Hell no, I went outside to see what I could see. What I saw was a tornado in the making. I ran and got my camera and took a few pictures of it...I was really more scared of the lightning. Maybe I will post some of the shots if I survive this stormy night...Another thing, ants have invaded my computer desk. I am annoying the crap out of Jerry because I have brought the dirt devil in here and each time I see an ant I turn it on and suck it into the bag. Just call me Rita, ant fighting warrior. I have to say, I think the ants are annoying me more than I am annoying Jerry. I will have to see if I can rectify that!...I guess I have decided not to go swimming tonight. I wonder if I can swim tomorrow night since tonight was too stormy. I have a limited membership to 24 Hour Fitness and can swim on Tu,Th,Sa,Su. Maybe I can invoke the Tornado Warning clause in my contract.
Ally McBeal was pretty funny tonight. I had to fight the urge to call Meredith a few times to ask her questions about some of the actors. Like who plays Claire and her betrothed, Jerome...On another note, Danny is in Puerto Rico. He left early yesterday morning and he is suppose to be there for 2 weeks. I called and spoke to Joanna. She was preparing to spend her first night in the new house all by herself. I should have called her tonight to see how it went. Maybe I will remember to do that tomorrow...I had fun today at work. We are on a job removing a bunch of equipment from a Central Office. This equipment left holes in the floor. I got to patch them. Some of the holes are about the size of a 1/2 dollar and maybe .5 inch deep---some of the holes are a bit smaller. They all have a metal anchor in them. Some of the anchors were protruding above the floor and had to be pounded down. I did not quite finish this task, maybe I will carve my initials in the last one I do. The fun part was mixing the cement and pouring it in and watching it dry.
Ok. This is my first time to do this, inspite of the previous entries. Meredith kept calling me today, anxious for me to get home and read the email she had sent. I could not imagine what was so important that she call me so many times: first while I was shopping at Steinmart on Hulen, second when I had gone over to Target, third time I was at Costco and the fourth and last time I had made it to my last shopping destination, Tom Thumb. When I did get home and signed in and double-clicked on "sunday work" and my new site popped up I was so excited, well excited and scared. Now I am going to have to come up with some intelligent and witty topics like the kids do. I do not want anyone ragging on my opinions. I think it will be nice to voice my opinions without interruption. Anyway I am rambling---and I have some learning to do. I wonder how one includes links in the text of these postings?
Even though Meredith is my favorite, Stepan is pretty good too.
Meredith is absolutely my favorite child. I don't care if she isn't getting married or giving me grandchildren or running for congress. She is and will always be my sweetest, smartest and loveliest child!!!!