everyone is back home

Talked to Dan on his cell a little while ago. Everyone (except for me, as I am at work) is back home and doing very well. Bill is registered for all of his fall classes, and he has the specs for the laptop he needs for the college of architecture, so we can start pricing those out.

I spent the day before work not doing much of anything at all. I spent a lot of time with the cats and the dog. I called my buddy in New York state to make sure and his people are not in one of the flooded areas (and they are safe and dry). I went to Panera bread before work and got honeydew melon iced tea and some shortbread.

have a bit more time

I have a bit more time now, so can talk about the day a bit more.

Dan and Bill are having a great and productive time at orientation. For his first term, Bill will have a couple of architecture classes, a couple of honors classes, and a couple of classes that will go towards his general education requirements. They will be giving him credit for freshman English because of his high ACT score, and credit for some French and possibly math and science classes as well, depending on how his placement tests come out. And his first morning class is not until 10AM! That rocks!

Steven is having a great time staying at his friend and his family. He got to play soccer with their church group, and had a blast!

I spent the day running errands (including the computer errand). I was going to do some intensive cleaning tomorrow, but Dan encouraged me on the phone today to take a day off (other than work, of course) and just watch a movie or take a long bath and relax. I think I will do just that!

Today we had another bad storm. I noticed it was getting very cloudy as I was driving in to work. Just as I pulled into the parking structure, the power went out! I looked outside, and it was raining torrentially, and hailing really hard! But the backup generator kicked right on, so everything was fine. I was worried about the power at home, but one of my friends at work drives by my house on her way home, and she called me on her cell to let me know the lights on the outside of my garage were on, so I had power. I did a happy dance then - I did not want to come home alone to a very dark house!

Now my only worry is whether or not the poor old doggy could hold his bladder for the time I was at work...

I really want to talk about our visit to Taliesin, which was wonderful, but I have to get back to work now...

two weeks

Well, I took the computer in today. I won't be getting it back for about two weeks. That is a serious bite on the butt.

At least Dan and Bill are having a great time down in Indiana, and they are missing the terrible weather (and all the hail) we are having today!

Madison

I just talked to Dan on his cell phone. He and Bill are halfway to Ball State and Steven is safely at his friend's family's house. So I will actually have a couple of days to myself other than work. I will not know what to do with myself. Fantasies of long hot bubble baths and being able to watch chick flicks are dancing in my head, but I will probably just do extra housework and take apart the computer and take it in for its memory upgrade.  The computer repair place I talked to on the phone is very near a great little El Salvadoran cafe where I might treat myself to a wonderful lunch.

I have not talked much about the trip, as I have not had much time on either the work or library computers, but I have a few extra minutes tonight so I will talk a bit about the next stop on our trip, which was Madison, Wisconsin.

After finishing our visit to the Field Museum in Chicago, we walked back to our hotel across the street from Grant Park. We then got my little Jeep out of the structure and drove up to Madison, Wisconsin on I-90.

I have always been very fond of Madison. It is a beautiful small city with its downtown core on an isthmus between two large lakes, with a smaller lake also within the city. It is the capital city of Wisconsin, as well as being the home of a major university. We spent the night at a very inexpensive hotel out on the beltway, and ate dinner downtown at a great little tratorria which had great food and Italian soda. We walked around and allowed ourselves to be charmed.

links:

our cheap Madison sleeps: http://www.super8madison.com/

our charming dinner was at: http://www.foodspot.com/tuttopasta/

The following morning we went to Spring Green to visit the Frank Lloyd Wright estate.

Tigers game; still no internet

Friday night we went to the Tigers game at Comerica and had a lot of fun. They were playing against the St. Louis Cardinals and they won the game. There were a lot of hits made by both teams, and it was a lot of fun to watch. Also, a squirrel somehow got onto the playing field and ran around all over the place in the outfield. Everyone was laughing so hard its amazing no one wet themselves! Between innings the grounds keepers tried to chase it out of the stadium, and it ran into the bull pen. The grounds keepers then went into the bull pen with a big empty white plastic bucket. We never saw what happened after that, but hopefully the caught the little critter and set him loose outside.

We still do not have internet at home. AOL downloads patches and updates of itself automatically. It finally downloaded so much of itself that trying to start it sucks up 100% of the CPU, and the computer freezes up. Hopefully next week I can take in the computer and have more memory added to it! The computer is only 3 1/2 years old and was state of the art when I ordered it. This is extremely annoying!

Bill is feeling better from his sinus/ear infection. Steven is finally over his diarrhea. I was pretty sick yesterday, but am feeling better today - I am at work, after all.

Tomorrow Steven is going to a friend's house for a couple of days. Bill and Dan are heading down to Muncie for his college orientation. I was not able to get time off, so I will be home and working at night. It will be very strange to have the house to myself!

making it to the end of the week

Well, it has certainly been an interesting week since we got home. Poor Steven got sick on Monday and has been having diarrhea since we got home; he finally started feeling better last night. Bill has not been feeling well. He went in to the doctor today and has a sinus infection and an ear infection. He is now on a couple of antibiotics, and should hopefully be feeling better soon! I am just exhausted - the first three days of work this week featured overtime. I am hoping that tonight will just be for regular hours.

On the other hand, we made it through the horrible storms last night with no damage to ourselves or our home. Considering how near the tornados, hail, and flooding were we are very lucky indeed!

The computer at home is down and we will have to find time to take it in to get more memory installed so we can access the internet. But we have some alternatives in the meantime, as you can see by my entry here.

Bill will be going to his college orientation at Ball State next week. I am happy for him - I think he will have a wonderful time at college!

And tomorrow night we will be going to a Tigers game at Comerica. They will be playing the St. Louis Cardinals. That should be a lot of fun!

crazy weather tonight

We've been having crazy weather all night long. Every time I have been near a window to look outside it makes me glad that my department at work is two stories underground. Strong thunderstorms, golf all sized hail, winds, and torrential rains have been lashing our area of the state for hours now. There were many tornados in the county to the south of us and the county to the southwest of us. The closest have been about ten miles to the south of my house. We are under a flood warning, a flash flood warning, and a tornado watch as I type this.

King Tut and the Field Museum

After taking a shower I feel much more human. I will go upstairs and take a big whopping dose of naprosyn and go to bed in a few minutes. But first, a brief talk about the King Tut Exhibit at the Field Museum.

We had bought our tickets as soon as we knew the dates we would be in Chicago. We knew it would be very crowded, so we decided to go early on a weekday morning, in hopes of missing the possibly unbearably heavy crowds on weekends.

That worked pretty well. We had chosen a time that coincided with the time the museum opened, so we were able to walk right in and go straight to the exhibit, while there was a huge line of people there waiting to purchase their tickets.

I would really recommend buying tickets in advance if possible!

The exhibit did a very good job of placing Tut as an historical person - telling of the events leading up to his becoming King of one of the world's great super powers of his time, and how the last king before him (possibly his father) had made some huge changes in the state religion (to a monotheism), and how Tut tried to change things back to what they had once been (polytheism). They also explained the religious and cultural significance of the items placed in his tomb very well. At the end they showed some of the medical scans done on his mummy and offered possible explanations of how such a young and healthy man came to suddenly die (quite possibly an infection from a recently broken leg which might have gone septic).

Now, the dry climate of Egypt lends itself to preserving things that would have rotted in thirty years or less in my part of the world, much less the three thousand or so years since the death of King Tut. It was amazing seeing some of these things, knowing how old they are. There was a chair with its original woven seat. There were the sculpted wooden heads of a cow and a calf with the original paint still on them.

What was even more amazing is how beautiful many of the items were, and how well crafted they were. We might be hard pressed today to find craftsman/artisans with work of that high a quality. Most people just do not have the time to learn skills up to that level.

It was a morning well spent, and after the exhibit, we made sure to visit Sue the dinosaur, and some of the bird and animal halls. Dan wanted to see the man eating lions that inspired the film The Ghost and the Darkness, so we made sure to visit them.

Then it was on to Wisconsin! 

links:

Field Museum: http://www.fieldmuseum.org/

King Tut tour: http://www.kingtut.org/chicago/

some vacation links

I thought I would add some links to some of the things I have thus far talked about in relation to our trip. I will add more later, after I type in more entries.

the hotel near the Field Museum: http://www.hotelgrantparkchicago.com/

Chicago Blues Festival: http://chicagobluesfestival.org/

Chicago White Sox: http://whitesox.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/index.jsp?c_id=cws

Eleven City Diner: http://centerstage.net/restaurants/elevencity.html

fireworks over the Lake: http://www.navypier.com/

 

work is making me sick again

Yesterday, on my first day back from vacation, I had to start work early because of short staffing. Tonight that midnight person who continually calls in called in for both tonight and tomorrow. It was bad. It was really bad. We were already short for afternoons and that (along with the computers unexpectedly crashing) just took the cake. Thank God that this is her last week on the schedule to work midnights. The supervisors are pulling her. She will have six months to prove she can come in regularly to earn her midnight shift back. I honestly do not think that she can do it, if tonight is any example. So, two nights back, two nights I had to work overtime, and tonight I got no breaks and no lunch, and did not have time to use the bathroom until I had already worked my entire shift and half an hour of overtime. That is just pathetic.

At least the guy whose life I supposedly saved back in April is doing very well now. He had to have dialysis for a few weeks, but his kidneys have recovered well enough  to not require any for a week now. He is on a regular diet, and doing well with it. He is awake and alert most of the time. He is getting some intensive physical therapy and occupational therapy to build up his strength so he can start walking soon!

Chicago White Sox game & US Cellular Field

When evening came we went in search of the baseball stadium. We had bought a parking pass when we bought our tickets, and so we drove down there.

I had always heard that the area around that stadium was pretty frightening, and part of it was.  But there was also a nice residential area right near the stadium, too, with neat well kept little houses.

Our seats were very near the top of the stadium, and the views of downtown Chicago from the escalators going up were breath taking! We paused to take some pictures of the skyline.

The stadium was very tall. By the time we reached our seats (a few rows from the top) we felt we had been walking up a steep path in the Smoky Mountains. A guy from Ohio sitting near us kept making jokes about mountain climbing and needing oxygen!

The stadium was all high tech and glitz and gloss, and it lacked character and soul. It could have been any modern stadium in any city. There just wasn't anything particularly special or distinguished or fun in its design; it was very generic. You would think that with Chicago's rich architectural heritage they could have come up with something special. And it's not because the stadium is new - Comerica Park has plenty of character, and I have heard that the new Cleveland and Baltimore ball parks do, too.

The game itself was a fairly fun one to watch - Cleveland got far ahead early and the Sox made a valiant attempt to make a comeback in the bottom of the ninth inning ~ they made the score go from 10-2 to 10-8 before they lost. I can see why a team like that, which refuses to give up, won the championship last fall!

We must have been sitting in an unlucky section, as many of the Sox fans in our area of the stadium were loud mouthed and rude heavy drinkers. I am sure that this does not characterize the average Sox fan, but the ones sitting around us did somewhat mar our experience of the game. Luckily, there were a few Indians fans sitting next to us, with small children, and they were not drunkards, not rude, and not loud mouthed. So I am sure the game could have been much less enjoyable if not for the Ohioans beside us and the Iowans directly in front of us. And they were all shocked by the way the surrounding Sox fans were drinking, too. We're not talking a couple of beers to be sociable here - we are talking drinking to get drunk. At least when the Sox got far behind a lot of the worst ones went off to find bars and left the stadium.  

our first Chicago morning & the Blues Festival

Steven and I both woke up early that first morning. We watched the sun rising up over Lake Michigan together from the hotel room window. It was truly glorious! From an apartment, that would have probably been a million dollar view!

For breakfast we walked a couple of blocks to a classic Chicago Jewish deli/diner, called the Eleven City Diner. The food was very good, and we greatly enjoyed our breakfast.  They had this great French toast made with challah bread. Yummy!

Afterwards we walked up Michigan Avenue and did a bit of light shopping. We were actually looking for cheap tourist sweatshirts, as I had packed for mostly hot weather, and that first weekend was pretty chilly. Our destination was the northern end of Grant Park, where they were having the Chicago Blues Festival.

We sat near one of the little stages for a couple of hours and listened to some truly inspired blues.   While we were at one of the little stages, and in the middle of the day, the people playing were still recorded artists, and they were very very very good! We listened the longest to a singer named Shirley Johnson and her blues band. She was very  talented and her band was just great. We would have probably stayed longer, but it was a cool and windy weekend, and we wanted to go back to our room and get warm and rest a bit before heading out to the ball game...

 

the first night in Chicago

It is hard to believe that I am writing about a night that happened over a week ago! The time on our vacation flew by very quickly indeed!

We got out very late on our travel day. Dan and Bill worked most of the day; Steven and I spent most of the day cleaning in the house and getting everything ready to go. Bill took the dog to the kennel in his little truck and the dog jumped on him and they ended up in a ditch. Luckily, someone came along right away with a farm truck with a winch and pulled them out! Let's hear it for Good Samaritans!

Anyway, we got on the road in the evening. The drive went fairly smoothly, and we made it to Chicago in less than four hours, about 9PM local time.

Everyone was so tired we checked into our hotel (a new one to us, picked for its convenience to Grant Park and the museums, rather than our usual haunts in River North) and went pretty much straight to bed.

After being in bed for a little while, I started to hear booming sounds in the distance. I looked out the window and found fireworks over Lake Michigan! I could not get anyone else to wake up and watch them with me, but they were absolutely gorgeous!

    

the trip; a beginning

Well, I suppose I will start with a brief time line of the trip. I will later make entries expanding on some of the places we went and some of the things we did, all mixed in with regular entries of our daily lives.

Day One

driving to Chicago and settling in

Day Two

the Chicago Blues Festival

Chicago White Sox and US Cellular Field

Day Three

Field Museum and the King Tut Exhibit

Madison

Day Four

Taliesin

International Crane Foundation

Wisconsin Dells

Day Five

Wisconsin Dells

boat tour of the upper dells

romantic date

Day Six

Wisconsin Dells

duck tour of the lower dells

second date

Day Seven

returning to Chicago

Wrigleyville, the Cubby Bear Lounge, the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Stadium

Day Eight

Chicago shopping

the Blue Man Group

Irish pubs

third date

Day Nine

Father's Day

Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry; the frogs exhibit, and the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit

the return home

 

safely back

We got safely home yesterday, just missing drenching thunderstorms in Chicago and all across Indiana and Michigan. We kept finding water covered roads, but never quite caught up with the big, dark clouds on the eastern horizon.

It was a great trip, and I am trying to make up my mind how to best journal it - by day to day accounts, or in depth descriptions of the good parts, or by some combination of both of those.

I will try to make up my mind and get started when I get home from work tonight.

And, of course - my first day back at work, and they were short staffed and I had to start work early and put in some overtime..

What a drag.

my bags are packed and i'm ready to go...

Well, after another rough week we are nearly ready to leave on vacation. The bags are packed except for medicine and toiletries and a few odds and ends like the cell phone chargers. I have new memory cards for the digital cameras (mine is one gig - hee hee hee - it will hold hundreds of pictures even with my 4meg camera) and plenty of batteries. We all have enough clothes for eight days, plus at least once extra change each. Dan and I both have a nice outfit packed in case we get a chance to go to Pops for Champagne. And yes, I have all of the tickets! And directions to the hotels!

  <----Pops for Champagne

In the morning we have to wash any last minute dishes, take out the last bit of kitchen trash, and take the dog to the kennel. I even gave all of the plants a good soaking yesterday.

Wednesday broke my heart. It was the last time I will ever be able to work with John, one of the best pharmacists and nicest people I have ever known. He is transferring out to Las Vegas next week. His last day will be while I am gone.

Time for a shower now, and then a good night's sleep.

It should be a wonderful week!!!

graduation pictures

Here are a couple of pictures one of my sisters took of my older son after his high school graduation:

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j169/krobinettjones/billgraduation1.jpg

http://i80.photobucket.com/albums/j169/krobinettjones/billgraduation2.jpg

back to work

Last night (Monday) was the first night at work in quite sometime when I did not get stress diarrhea. I did get it starting this morning, though, so I guess it did catch up with me after all.

I hate coming in to work on the first night back after being off and finding something icky and alarming in my work email. This time there was something from a co-worker. The supervisor had said something she did not like, so she had to send me an email to share the nonjoy of it with me. I read it last night night when I first got in to work, and I couldn't believe it. I had a silent reaction of "Why are you doing this to me after my being off work for literally four of the best days of my life? Why? Why are you trying to stress me out the second I walk in the door and ruin my wonderful happy mood?" So I did not respond to the email, and did my best to ignore it. Of course, she had to track me down later and ask if I had gotten it. I explained to her yet again how this supervisor sometimes says things just to yank on people's chains and get them stirred up, and she must not take him so seriously.

Today another co-worker came back after being off for more than a week. I warned her right away not to read her emails! I told her the story and she had to shake her head. But she didn't read her emails, either.

I spent the day working on the laundry and getting ready for the trip. I went to the post office and put a hold on our mail starting this weekend. I went to the store and bought lots of drinks to carry with us in a cooler.

Tonight I got online and looked at the graduation pictures a company took. They have one of Bill walking up the aisle with one of his buddies, but none of him getting his diploma. Dan told me to check back tomorrow and see if they add more pictures to the site, as very few of Bill's friends were shown getting their diplomas, either. It is possible that they did not put up all of the photos yet. I do not want to place my order until I can get everything they have of him.

That reminds me that I must go to the electronics store and buy new memory cards for my camera and also Bill's before we go on vacation!

reflections on four of the best days of my life

Some of the things I loved this weekend:

Bill walking in the procession in the middle of the wrestlers. Those kids have been through so much together; it was great seeing them together again one last time.

Picking strawberries in our own garden for breakfast.

Seeing the happiness on the faces of the parents of the wrestler who got the full ride scholarship (complete with book allowance) at the community college. They looked like they would cry.

So many good meals; whether in Detroit's Greektown, at the great diner up the road, in Ann Arbor, or at parties.

Dan being the first to stand up to applaud and clap and yell at the end of the concert - maybe he is even starting to like some classical music!

Bill's quiet pride in his accomplishments.

Steven getting to be just a little bit bratty on Sunday when his very quiet and unassuming brother was suddenly getting all of the attention!

 

pomp and circumstance

Well, it is official, and one of the two finest sons in the world has now graduated from high school.

Yesterday was a nice day. My two older sisters came and spent the day with us. We all went out to breakfast at the good diner up the road, then visited for awhile, then went to Bill's graduation. Afterwards, we all went to Bill's favorite Mexican restaurant in Ann Arbor to eat dinner. We then went to the gourmet grocery stores to buy cheese, and went to one of the big book stores, and I bought Bill a big pile of architectural themed coffee table books.

I think Bill had a good day, and that is all that matters!!!

We looked at the folder of paperwork that his degree came in, and it turns out that one of the scholarships he was awarded on Thursday night was for $5000, which we had not known (they had announced he had gotten it, but not the amount). We just about fainted!!!  We will definitely be able to pay for the first year of university now without any problems.

I have spent the morning making reservations and buying tickets and putting vacation holds on our newspapers. I got tickets to the Blue Man Group  for while we are in Chicago (the kids wanted to go to that again); tickets to two Tigers games in Detroit, and I made camp ground reservations for a state park near Muncie for Labor Day weekend, so we can go camping and have a nice visit with Bill at the same time. I have also been doing lots of laundry, so we will have clean clothes for our trip, and tomorrow I will pay the bills and request our mail be held while we are gone.

Time to get ready to go to work now - yuck!!!!!

But we had an absolutely wonderful weekend, and I only have to work four days, have one day off to pack and do any last minute things, and then we will be on our vacation! the kids should have a wonderful time - two baseball games, King Tut, water parks, and Blue Man!

which general hospital woman are you? (quiz)

http://quizilla.com/users/SkyeKevinFan/quizzes/Which%20General%20Hospital%20Woman%20Are%20You%3F/

Emily!

You are Emily Quartermaine... OK, you are caring and kind, yes. But enough with the adultery already! And, word of advice, watch out next time you take a baby-sitting job for your local, middle-aged, moody mob boss/"coffee importer". There's a good chance you could end up as his fifth baby momma. Yikes!

what style of love do you embody? (quiz)

~ Agape ~


You are Agape - yours is like a spiritual sort of love. You love with every fibre of your being and you would do anything to ensure the well-being of your loved one, even if it involved self-sacrifice. You are happy when he or she is happy. Physical intimacy takes a definite back seat to emotional and spiritual connections, and that is perfectly fine with you.

http://quizilla.com/users/SkyeKevinFan/quizzes/What%20Style%20of%20Love%20Do%20You%20Embody%3F/

which fashion collection is most for you? (quiz)

~ Collection #2: Sultry and Sophisticated~

///

This collection is suited for someone who likes to project confidence! :) You like your clothes to look sleek and sophisticated. You don't want your outfits to look cheap (although that doesn't mean they have to cost big bucks!) You likely look best in darker colours and rich fabrics.

http://quizilla.com/users/SkyeKevinFan/quizzes/Which%20Fashion%20Collection%20Is%20For%20You%3F%20(with%20tons%20of%20pics!)

what does your anime self look like (quiz)

http://quizilla.com/users/yasasha/quizzes/what%20would%20ur%20animeself%20look%20like%3F

 

this is u as an anime

 

which hot celebrity guy are you most likely to date? (quiz)

http://quizilla.com/users/niclovesraviv/quizzes/which%20hot%20celbrity%20guy%20are%20you%20most%20likely%20to%20date%3F(please%20rate%20and%20comment)

you have raviv ullman hes really hot a talented actor,can play drums and guitar plus hes a big sweetie!

 

body doubles

Last night I saw the second doppelganger/body double of my life. Very weird experience when that happens.

The first time was on our trip a couple of years ago out West, the time we had such a great time in New Mexico and Colorado. I was looking out from the balcony from our hotel room in Colorado Springs and there she was - the clone or unknown identical twin of Dan's mean sister, walking across the parking lot with three pretty little girls with long blonde hair that looked just like her three daughters, and in the company of an unpleasant looking older woman. The likeness was absolutely amazing. Well, even though her first husband came from the Colorado Springs area, there would be no earthly reason for his mean sister and her daughters to be walking across the parking lot of that hotel in that city on that day. It was a completely uncanny coincidence and resemblance.

Last night I saw the clone of my mean former friend, walking down the sidewalk away from Greektown, carrying a blue cooler, and in the company of a very unattractive woman who looked to be at least ten years older than him. When I first saw this guy I wanted to quietly be sick because he looked so much like my former friend. Then I wanted to laugh. I can't think of anyone other than that pathetic man (who pretended to be my friend while he was using me and lying to me and who shunted me off as soon as I was a bit inconvenient) who would more deserve to have a girlfriend he is afraid of, AND who is ugly on top of that.  Well, of course, it could not have possibly been him, as there would be no earthly reason he would have been in Detroit last night, and this guy was just a doppelganger, and the woman he was with is probably the nicest lady you could ever hope to meet (which is infinitely more important than physical beauty anyway - beauty can fade or alter - a loving heart lasts forever). But it was still very very strange. And yeah - it was funny.

This may well be the meanest thing I have ever said about anyone in my life - but that former friend really treated me horribly, with no remorse at all, and after that last thing, I suppose that my opinion (at least for now) has slid down into deep contempt. And it was very funny - seeing that guy who looked so much like him brought home the utter ridiculousness of my mourning someone who isn't really worth knowing. Not to mention being afraid of him.  It's like being afraid of the monster in the closet and finding out that the monster is made of nothing more than squeeky noises and shadows and is as harmless as a baby bunny rabbit. I am an idiot!

Too bad it really wasn't him. To be dating a woman he fears is bad enough, but to have her be that unattractive on top of it? That would be priceless!!!  Especially since he's one of those guys always moaning and drooling over how "hot looking" various celebrity women are.  I have never really cared what people look like, but he has serious hangups about weight and society's warped definitions of beauty, so it would be truly classic for him to have an ugly and mean girl.The only thing that could possibly be more just in this world and this life would be if an ugly and mean girl was just using him, the way he uses other people.  Oh, that would have been priceless if it had been him!!!

And, of course, to prove once and for all what an idiot I am, I still miss this man ~ or, at least, I greatly miss the man I once thought him to be. And even knowing how cruel he can be - I still the miss the more positive things about him.

The other thing is - why do Dan and I keep seeing doubles of people neither one of us wants to see? Twice now, and it is doubles of mean people we want nothing to do with. In fact, those are probably the only two people in all the world we do not want to see!!!!!!!!  Why can't we see doubles of people we enjoy? Why not Danlo? Why not Dan's very nice sister-in-law from Utah? Why not my buddy from New York? Why not someone who looks like Martin Luther King or Mother Theresa????