Luck

I have a lot of luck. Some of it bad but most of it good.

Bad Luck: I was on my way to a movie on Sunday afternoon and I stopped for a bite at McDs. When I came out I had a flat tire.

Good Luck: I looked across the street at the Firestone and their service bay doors were open. I figured I could limp my car across the street and I did. They would be happy to take a look at my tire but it could take up to an hour.

Bad Luck: The TV in the waiting area was tuned to a Rambo marathon and there was someone watching it. Ugh.

Good Luck: I had my phone so I could always throw birds at pigs for an hour to kill the time.

Bad Luck: My phone was almost dead.

Good Luck: I had my book. Bill Bryson's "Notes from a Small Island" and as luck would have it the next chapter was all about Coronation Street. Which many of you will know made me think of mom and that always makes me happy.

Good Luck: They couldn't find anything wrong with my tire, so they didn't charge me anything and they sent me on my way.

Bad Luck: They couldn't find anything wrong with my tire. WTF. Could someone have let the air out of my tire? And then put the cap back on? Unlikely, but the WTF!

I have driven on the tire for a full day now and it does not show any signs of loosing air. So we will keep that one in the good luck column for now.

Texting

Uncle Marcel had a post the other day about excessive texting. The question was raised (I think in comments) if texting was really needed. We just heard yesterday that Aunt Monica was in the hospital and it brought back a flood of memories, one of which was about texting.

I never texted so much in all my life as when mom was in the hospital. We were all keeping such crazy hours and while it was important to remind one sister or another to bring my red sweater back to the hospital when she came, it certainly was not worth a phone call which might wake them up after just falling asleep. In normal-world if you did not want to be woken up by a phone call you could simply turn off your phone. But in hospital-world you NEVER turn your phone off. EVER. You can also text multiple phones with the same message. So sending out a "the doctor wants to meet us all at noon" text to everyone is waaaaaay shorter than calling each person. Especially since saying such a message out loud is very hard with a large lump in your throat. So we texted, a lot. Certainly not, the 6000 messages per month that some teenagers are averaging, but a lot for an old fogey like me.

I still use texting sporadically. I think I mentioned in Uncle Marcel's post that I sent Jonathan his first text message a few months ago. We were all in Chicago and I, as usual, woke up early so I texted Jonathan's phone asking if they were up and ready for breakfast. If I had called them on their cell phone I certainly would have woken Lyle up and I may have woken them up, too. But with a text I could tell them I was up and if they were up too, they could tell me where they were and I could meet them. All without waking anyone up.

Lyle and I both have full email access on our phones so we use that more often than not. So, if I need him to pick up milk but I know he is in the middle of teaching a class (hence I can't call) I can send him an email knowing that he will get it before he comes home. Before we had email access this is what I texted most.

I sent Krista an email about Aunt Monica, but she might not have email access. Maybe I will send her a text later. It is non-intrusive and it will just let them know we are thinking of them.

Ash Cloud

So all day on Thursday we heard about the London airports being shut down. We did not think too much of it since we didn't know anyone flying into London. We knew that Elaine and Oscar were flying to Paris to start a 4-week long exchange program at the University of Toulon. Friday morning we got an email from Elaine saying that they had traveled for 9 hours on Thursday and ended up back at home. That is when we started hearing about the rest of Europe being impacted by the ash cloud out of Iceland. So, though Elaine and Oscar should have been in Paris and then Toulon by now, they were home for two extra days. She kept her homeness a secret from those that would have sucked her back into work mode. Rebecca and I got her out for the pedicure we were not able to fit in before she left. And we were finally able to have the dinner that kept getting put off because they were busy getting ready to go to Toulon. They were ready, they just weren't gone.

They have tickets to fly to Madrid today with a connector flight to Marseilles. In case they get stuck there (the last look I had at the cloud had it extending over Southern France as well) at least Oscar has family in Madrid. They are actually pretty lucky, they got stopped in Chicago so they were easily able to get home to a warm bed, fresh clothes, good friends, etc. The poor people who are stuck AWAY from home are really having a hard time. I certainly would not have an easy time tacking four extra days of expenses onto a vacation. I know some people are just sleeping at the airports, but eating at airports is expensive. I have a friend who flies for United and she did not get stuck, but she knew of a bunch of European crews that were stuck in Miami until they start flying again. Good luck all you weary travelers.

In Common

One more thing I have in common with Mom: neither of us has ever ridden in a police car. At least I still have time.

The thing that reminded me of this is that when I dropped my car off to be repaired yesterday the owner of our local service place gave me a ride back to my office in his pick up truck. His unbelievably gigantic pick up truck. I had a hard time climbing into the passenger seat of this pick up truck. Which reminded me of the time mom thought she was going to get to ride in a police car. We (Gretchen, Gordon, Mom, and I) were stuck on the side road in a blizzard. We called the tow truck but it was a long wait. Actually, I use the term "side of the road" loosely. I think if you could have discerned lines or anything we would have, in fact, been in the middle of the road. But since you could not see any lines and we were stopped we will call it the "side of the road." While we waited a police SUV pulled up behind us. The officers seemed to be annoyed with us being there but they did feel obliged to wait behind our car with the lights going so no one would hit us. They did not feel obliged to offer the use of their car so we could keep warm. When the tow truck arrived it was clear that only two of us could ride with the tow truck driver so the officers reluctantly offered to take the other two. Mom got very excited because she had never ridden in a police car before. Unfortunately, she could not climb into that giant SUV and the officers were not inclined to help even a little bit. So Mom and I climbed into the more manageable tow truck (and the driver helped) and Gretchen and Gordon climbed into the police car.

Funny how memories are triggered.

For the record my car actually had a broken axle which was fixed for about $150 and a broken oxygen sensor which was another $150. They have ordered the pieces necessary for me to roll my window down so that will be nice someday.