Dream

My back is feeling a little better today. At least the shooting pain is gone, but I'm still walking funny and if I sit in this chair I'm in right now for more than 5 minutes, I'll be a cripple again. So, here's a quick entry....

I had a dream last night that I went back to the spa, and because my back was hurting I was not able to do a good job shaving my legs. So I was laying on the massage table and I turned around and looked at the back of my legs. Instead of no hair, or maybe some stubble, I saw long hair growing, about 2-3 inches. Then I looked carefully at the rest of my legs and noticed that there were several places where long hair was growing. That's when I woke up.

Family weekend

My back is doing much better today. I'm also remembering to stretch. I did get that yoga DVD a while back, which mysteriously disappeared into my daughter's bedroom, never to be seen again. Today I will venture into the land of the unknown and retrieve it.

We had a nice day yesterday. We managed to get the house cleaned up, attend church and have family fun. We had some of my husband's family over and it was, as usual, fun. My nephew played in the pool most of the time. My husband, expert barbequeologist, made ribs and chicken on the grill. He used a dry rub and they turned out great. The meat was very tender and falling off the bone. The sides were potato salad and green beans. My niece and sister-in-law made chocolate covered strawberries for dessert. It was ordinary, but good food. After dinner we watched a recording of my nephew’s class putting on a www.jasminelive.online production of the Wizard of Oz. My nephew played the lion and he did a good job of it. It's fun to watch elementary school kids in plays and at the same time hear a running commentary from the participant. There were a couple of boys in the chorus that were really hamming it up and doing their own thing. The good witch Glenda had a problem standing still. She kept swaying back and forth like a hula dancer and fidgeting with her dress. We also found out that the sweet looking girl that played Dorothy punched my nephew and another boy. I never got the story as to why my nephew was punched, but the other boy made the mistake of killing a grasshopper. Sweet Dorothy appears to be an animal rights activist in the making.

After the storm

Today it was back to the daily grind. I talked to my mom several times today and also called her insurance company and made her claim for her. She is without power or water, but her phone works. She has some fence damage, a section of gutter came down and a section of soffit also. There are a few shingles missing, but no leakage. Her yard man is coming tomorrow to pick up the debris. She is okay, and that's what matters. My husband wants to go up there when the roads opens. She is resisting that and she also said she doesn't want to come down here. So we will have to play it by ear day by day. Lots of news and pictures about the hurricane are located at the Pensacola News Journal site.

The last few days

Not much has been going on the last few days. My daughter gave me 2 chaturbat DVD's for my birthday, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Zeffrielli's Romeo and Juliet. I had the day off, and I took the dogs to the groomers and then got my hair cut. When I picked up the dogs the groomer told me they had been "horrible." They behaved badly and howled and barked continuously. He was clearly out of sorts, and looked at them with a frown on his face and said, "They're not Atom." I felt really bad.

When my daughter came home from school that day she and Ryan had bought a small cake. Ryan had also bought me some flowers which I thought was sweet. Later that evening my daughter and I went to a discovery meeting at church. We had to attend Friday evening and Saturday morning. I felt so good afterwards. I made me realize how uncentered I had become.

One of the things I enjoyed doing was taking a test that helps you define your spiritual gifts. My working gifts are discernment, faith, intercession, and...I hestitate to write this because it's very unusual for someone of the reformed faith...miracles. When I handed my booklet to my pastor, I laughed but told him not to laugh. He did. But then he said it's good, that it goes along with faith. My waiting gifts are discernment (again), encouragement, wisdom, and jasminlive creative ability. Anyway, it helps the church see where they can best utilize you and what type of mission would be a comfortable fit.

Unfortunately, I have to work today, no more slacking off for me.

New funny thougts

I haven't been blogging much because I've been pretty busy doing that mundane stuff we all have to do. I'm in the middle of two books. It seems that I end up reading two books at the same time often, but it is never my intention. Right now I'm reading Patsy Clairmont's autobiography, "I Grew Up Little," and Joseph Conrad's "In the Heart of Darkness." My daughter brought home the Conrad novel because she was reading it in school. She was telling me about it and it sounded interesting. It's a short read and I have to finish it soon so she can get the book back to her class.

Game weekend

On Tuesday I was coming into the lanai area (it's a large screened area that encloses the pool) and one of the dogs tripped me up and I started falling forward. All I kept thinking was that I did not want to fall head first into the pool since it was the shallow end. I thought, "Oh, great, now I'm going to break my neck." But, thankfully, I fell on the concrete instead, thus I only banged up my knees.

I have my days all mixed up lately. I thought today was Saturday and that Saturday was Friday. Yesterday I had to ask twice what day it was. It's because my husband and I are working crazy schedules. He has had to work a lot of overtime.

Yesterday, I went with my daughter to a Bucs game. We were not there to watch. She is on her high school senior council and they are raising money for the prom. They are working a concession stand at the stadium in order to raise the money. The students have to bring one person with them to help out, preferably a parent. I have to admit that I was not thrilled about doing this. In fact I was down right cranky and dragged myself around the next morning getting ready to go. I wasn't being very nice.

After a gazillion things I had to do, like get gas for the car, and pick up some personal items at the drug store, I made it to the stadium and drove around in the pre-game traffic looking for the employee parking. Even at 8:30 AM the traffic was bad. Anyway, I'm driving down this maze of a road that is filled with orange cones. I'm in a long line following some cars, when all of a sudden the cop that is standing there holds up his hand and makes me stop, and then he cones me off!!! He tells me to go in a direction that I did not want to go in! I'm sitting in traffic with my jaw on my chest. I just can't believe it. I now have the choice of going into a $20 parking area or down the lane with incoming traffic. So I yell out to the cop, "But I don't want to go that way," All the time indicating I want him to let me slip into the lane I want to be in. So he screems back at me, "LADY, I SAID TO MOVE!!!" Given no choice whatsoever in the matter, I drive down the incoming lane all the time thinking I was going to get a ticket. Finally, I reached a coneless area where I was able to get back into my lane again. I was pretty much steamed about the whole thing, but I didn't get a ticket. Instead, when a guy that was standing outside the stadium came up to me and asked if I had any free tickets, I said "Bah!"

When we got to the stadium we had to sign in and then they gave us our uniforms which were red polo shirts and black aprons. At least the uniforms were clean and the shirts were comfortable and soft, unlike the stinky pirate shirt I had to wear when I worked on the ship last year. We had to work at the ******** concession which was located at on the second floor. We had no idea how to get up to the second floor. We asked for directions several times and every time we were sent to the wrong place or to a door that was locked. Finally, after roaming around for 45 minutes, and climbing up and down 500 billion steps, we saw a door that led to the clubhouse. We were late, but still well ahead of game time. My daughter's job was to dish up slaw and chips and mine was to press cuban sandwiches, cook and bag up the hot dogs and chase off roaches. I had to bang on the counter a few times to make those bold little suckers run off. Ew, ew. Good grief, I've never seen so many roaches! And yes, I've worked in food places before. Too bad they won't let you bring food into the stadium. Anyway, the prices are out of this world. A plain hot dog, with nothing else, costs $4. Apparently, the way drinks are served has changed too. You cannot serve a drink with the cap on because "fans" might throw them at people and put someone's eye out. Another thing that baffled my daugther and I was why some people would buy a ticket, pay $20 for parking, spend $7 for a beer and then stand in a clubhouse and watch the game on a television you can't hear over all the noise. What's up with that? Anyway, our fund raising duty and time went by quickly because we were busy. And in the end I was glad I went because I met some very nice people. So, with aching feet, we made our way home about 6 PM.