The Virtual Wren

5/2/2011
Dear Diary,

What a day it's been...

No joke, that. It really has been a day.

I asked, when I took Emily to school, if the buses were running. If they weren't, I wanted to make plans for that. But I was assured that, yes, they were running their regular route. Just before I left work today... and I do mean just, I'd already clocked out... I got a phone call from Emily. One of Mom's friends was driving her to my work because the bus had put her out at the elementary school- about 5 miles from my house.

Say what?!? The bus driver just put her out, essentially on the side of the road, far from anywhere she should be. And this on a day when I have no way of calling anyone and, once I get home, no one has any way of calling me. I can see me hunting all over everywhere for my child and not finding her... and that's if she was safe. I don't want to go into the thoughts of her either trying to walk home through the tornado damaged area or, even worse, accepting a ride from a stranger out of pure desperation.

Yeah, I intend to go off on someone in the morning at the school. If I have my way about it, that bus driver will be looking for employment elsewhere and in another field of work entirely.

About work- they have me scheduled for three different departments this week, sometimes at the same time, on six consecutive days for a total of 45 hours. Now I don't mind working that... but I have already approached the store manager about the overtime because I don't want to be the one in trouble for it. I also reminded him that I don't have that cloning thing down yet and he was the one to mediate between departments as to who gets me when. Sometimes I feel like a bone being fought over by a pack of rabid dogs and I can do without the extra stress. I'm perfectly happy to do any of the four jobs they want me for... but I can only do one at any one time and paging me to floral when I'm in fruit or the front when I'm in floral just reduces the actual work I can do. You can tell me to water but you have to give me time to water- if you pull me off that to carry out or clean up a spill, the watering does not get done. If you pull me off cutting fruit to make up bouquets for people, the fruit does not get cut. You'd think they would have figured this out by now.

On the nice side of the day, I got a couple of charms in the mail.



This one is supposed to be a lacemaker but she looks like a quilter working on a lap frame to me. If you need more explanation as to why I would have a quilter charm, you don't know me and what are you reading this for?



This second one is the Hermatige- home of Andrew Jackson just outside of Nashville. I visited it quite often growing up and, while no specific memories of it come to the front, I always thought it was the ideal 'house in the country' that I wanted to have one day. Ok, I was young. As I grew up, the house I wanted shrank simply because I'm not crazy about housework and the bigger the house, the more housework you have.

The other nice thing is that the electric company sent a truck (ok, three trucks) to check and see if our power was back on. Someone had called and reported that our power was out. I don't know if that was Eliz or 80s or someone else- I didn't do it- but they came today to fix it. As it happens, our power outage was already fixed when they fixed the main lines. I did ask about phone and internet and was told that right now they are concentrating on getting everyone's power back on and fiber optics was secondary to that. He did check all the lines here going to the pole and they're all fine- the break is a lot further down. I already knew that but he said since he was already here, he wanted to be sure that when the trunk lines were back up, I'd have no trouble.

I must say, I am impressed with our power company. They're been working like dogs to fix all the storm damage as quickly as possible and they're doing an amazing job. Yes, my internet is still down... but the poles themselves got ripped up and broken never mind what happened to the wires. So not only are they having to resting miles and miles of wire, they're having to set the poles to run it on as well. I found out that my fiber optic comes out via Apison Pike and if you looked at my earlier pictures of Apison Pike you can see why I am in no mood to be critical.

Having said that, I do wish I had my internet and phone back. (Tiny private selfish growl)

Since I don't, I'm going to go indulge in a nice hot shower (at least the phone can't ring while I'm in the shower!) and then spend a little time quilting in some good lighting.

I rock!! I got my camera today and it took me less than 6 hours to figure out how to go around the software (which I can't load), charge the battery and figure out all the settings to make it do what I want. So here is the first of the pictures with the new camera:



Wok: This is a three prong charm.
1) My Dad cooked- a lot (he had to... he worked 2nds so Mom wasn't at home to make his lunch or pack his supper. And all my memories of Dad cooking are in the summer because I was still in school in the winter when he left for work). And mostly, he cooked Chinese. All my summer memories of him cooking, he wasn't grilling or bar-b-quing like most dads- he was stir-frying.
2) When we ate out on the weekends, we would usually eat Chinese. Dad would talk in Mandarin to the servers which tickled them and we would order one dish apiece (four of us) and then share about. We tried to have one person order a beef dish, one a chicken dish, one a seafood dish and one a pork or vegetarian dish so we got a good sample of everything. One time, we were eating out and there was a commotion at the next table. We looked over and we were seated next to Johnny Cash and his family. Mom hissed at us not to stare so we politely left them alone.
3)The third memory I have concerning woks was in second grade. We had a student teacher from Taiwan (I don't remember his name) and one day he made lunch for us all in the classroom and taught us how to eat with chopsticks, a skill I have retained to this day.

I'll be updating the charms I've already posted and I should have bathroom pics soon.

Jim called tonight. He's going to be dodging a warrant and his cat died. More guilt... can't he call me when he's happy about something?

Emily is spending the morning with Mr Tim. Mom has taken my car and gone to church and then to lunch. I am *blissfully* alone right now!

I notice that I have the very best luck with smellies when I can't smell a thing at all. A long time ago, when I was in Paris, I had a horrible head cold... a lot like the one I have now. I could not smell, not nothing, not no how. And there was a tour of a perfume factory on our itinerary. This was delightful until we got to the gift shop at the end and I couldn't smell anything to know what I wanted to buy! So I got one because it was a beautiful bottle shaped like a rose, three tiny bottles of Santal and a small bottle of Muguet for my mother. The rose shaped bottle turned out to be Si Jolie which is one of my favorite rose perfumes, the santal was the best sandalwood I'd ever smelled up until that time and the Muguet was... muguet. Which I love. On the way out, I stopped at a street vendor and bought the charm I had told everyone I was going to get in Paris:

L'Arc de Triumph


Mostly because when I told people I was going to Paris in the spring, they would comment "Oh, you'll have to get an Eiffel Tower for your charm bracelet". Now, I think the Eiffel Tower is one of the ugliest structures on the planet, so I would indignantly reply "No, I won't! I'm going to get a L'Arc de Triumph!" (In some ways, I was rebellious in my teens... it was just not as obnoxious as to be very noticeable.)

This whole little story brings me to this morning. Last night, I put in a bid on an ebay auction that was reasonable but not horribly over the top and went to bed. The auction ended around 3:45 this morning and with this cold I was not staying up to put in a last minute bid even if I lost it. But I didn't... I won it! An imp of Mabon, an imp of Scorpio (don't know if I like this one or not.. it's the discontinued Celestial, not the 2007 version), an imp of Hellion (I know that will go straight to the swap pile) and testable sniffies of Egg'd Mailbox (never tried) and F54 (!!!!!!!). From a seller that I know from the forum so I know she's legit.

I have the best luck with smellies when I can't smell a thing.

And now I have a Book of Days to work on while Emily is working on her Science Fair project and a brand new Quiltmaker magazine to peruse in the bath. Maybe if I add Karma to the water, my head will open up enough for me to smell it!

I'm having a busy weekend. I finally got into Dad's computer... and he had hundreds (not exaggerating, here) of files... letters, stories, rough drafts, articles. All of which need saving. He had a CD burner on his computer... which is great as far as it goes... but he also was using MSWord for XP which my computer will NOT handle. So I am having to open all the files and save them as plain text documents to be burned. This is made more difficult by the fact that Dad kept his desk top and his files just like he used to keep his desk top and files in his study... maybe he knew the system but no one else did! And, darn it, I keep stopping to read the stories and then realizing that I've been sitting in an uncomfortable position on the floor in February and I'm stove up. I'll have to stop and take regular breaks on this.

I also had a brunch date with a girl friend today which was marvelous. I know poor Em was a bit bored but she behaved really well. She also cleaned up the rest of her room while I did chores yesterday so she's been allowed a little bit of TV and a couple of games of Clue with me.

No perfume samples yet so perfume reviews will have to wait.

Mom tells me that she's seen a large coyote across the street so the cats need to stay in the house. They aren't going to like that much.



This is (obviously) a charm of Winnie-ther-Pooh. Not only was he one of my first books but he was one of my first stuffed animals. Which I still have. And people tell me I'm a bit like Pooh... one of them went so far as to get me copies of The Tao of Pooh and The Te of Piglet. I guess I am a bit tao in my outlook... I never really thought about it until it was mentioned to me.

I have today off! Of course, I have to work late on Wednesday and work this Sunday but I have 7 whole hours without the girls! How delicious! The first thing I am trying to do is catch up on correspondence and lj... then I'm going to sew and watch last night's episode of 24.



This is a kind of boring addition to my bracelet. It's Mt Vernon... which I have visited on the same trip that we went to the Smithsonian and Colonial Williamsburg and Monticello... all of which I found more interesting than Mt Vernon. At the Smithsonian, one boy came up to me and asked me where I was from and when I told him, he asked me if I was used to wearing shoes yet. I still feel I should have cold-cocked him for that!



The tricornered hat from Colonial Williamsburg. We ate at a period restaurant... which was very good... and every single person on the trip (about 40 kids and teachers... it was a school sponsored Spring Break trip) except me got food poisoning. I must have the fabled cast iron stomach. I thoroughly enjoyed Williamsburg!

Well, I don't know anything more about Dad than I did this morning.

What I do know is that the Marchand De Vin sauce is not worth the amount of time I spent on it but it is better the second day. It is also really good on potatoes. I also know that if I want fruit for either me or Emily, I will have to buy it daily... Liz has eaten almost all the fruit I bought for this week Saturday and Emily and I haven't had a taste for it. I am especially angry about the blueberries. Both the girls love them and could have easily eaten all that I got but I intended to share them out between them... one by one if necessary. Now Liz has gone and eaten all of them when Emily was the one who asked for them. (Why not buy more blueberries, you ask? Because they are expensive and because Liz believes that a serving of anything is all we have in the house. If I had bought four times the amount, they would still be all gone.)

I also know that my cats approve of this quilt. Every time I go to work on it, I'm dumping at least one cat off.

Work.. we don't want to think about work today. I can't get Outlook Express to behave and Sarah shared a bit of timely personal information with me that I would have guessed even if she hadn't told me.

Second charm story:

There is a beetle on my bracelet... that opens to four Beatles singing "Yeah Yeah Yeah". This is a recent addition but it has a looong back story. When I was very small, the Beatles were all the rage. Not ever being one to follow the crowd, I had no use for them for two reasons. First, I heard them compared with my favorite band, the Monkees. to the Monkees' detriment. Second, I had to wear, every week on Saturday, one of their sweatshirts with an awful pair of olive drab polyester peg leg pants... the kind with seams sewn up the front to imitate creases. So I hated them for years. Then I heard Paperback Writer on the radio when I was about 11 and decided it wasn't fair to hate a band without ever listening to them. I am glad I have my extreme youth to blame for not realizing how good they were back in the day... but in 1964, I was only 1. They are still not my favorite band, that honour goes to a-ha, but they come in a close second.



and a picture of the first charm.

I found the perfect book charm for my bracelet! It's a locket that has a place for 4 pictures (hildebrants shrunk very small, I forsee) and two pages that could be engraved in the center. I had them engrave the cover with "The Hobbit" and "JRR Tolkien". Perfect!

This is a good thing because I wasn't able to get several other things that I needed today. It's too soon to refill Emily's script and every place that sells Frontline for cats closed by noon. Which was before we even got out of the house what with Saturday cartoons. And if Emily doesn't stop being a slug-a-bed during the week, cartoons on Saturday morning are going to go away. I hate it that she can get up to watch cartoons but can't roll out of bed so I can get to work on time.

Yesterday was a complete bust.

There was a ton of things to do when I got to work. Not leftovers or anything, just a busy day. Just as I was getting caught up, I had to leave because Mom called and told me Emily was running a fever. She'd been complaining of a sore throat and headache before so the fever was doctor time. (Two days in a row... pity it couldn't have hit her a day earlier.)

Well, she's sick enough... scarlet fever again. In desperation, I finally gave her an Aleve to get her temperature down enough that she could keep something on her stomach. Poor little kidlet... she felt pretty rotten until I did that. The Motrin and Tylenol just weren't working for her. I swear these new medicines don't work as well as the old ones... St Josephs aspirin was always the standard when I was growing up. Two would knock out fever or minor pain but you could eat half a bottle and it wouldn't hurt you. (I know, I did that once.) Without the fever, she slept pretty well last night.

I also got a couple of the charms I found in the mail... and they weren't right after all. Not sure what I'm going to do about that.

And Emily has decided that she wants her own charm bracelet. She wanted one that I had ordered because it had one charm I needed on it until I explained that a charm bracelet is something unique to you. So now we're looking for charms for her... ballet slippers, a panda bear (for our visit to the Memphis Zoo) and a pair of cowboy boots. She'll add more as she grows.

The odd thing is that while I was at work, Emily decorated the Christmas tree so Christmas is all finished except the waiting. All things considered, this is a good thing!

I wasted an unusual amount of time last night surfing around on ebay looking for silver charms. Many years ago, I had a silver charm bracelet... in fact, I'd had it all my life. In college, someone broke into my apartment and stole it and a few other things as well and, while I was furious, there wasn't much to be done about replacing it.

Ebay has changed that.

The problem is that, while I can find several of the charms I cherished, the mexican sombrero is not the one my Dad's friend brought me when I was 3... the viking ship is not the same one Anne got me in Iceland... the matador and fan aren't the ones I bought for in a little backstreet shop in Spain where I couldn't speak to the shop keeper at all (he spoke Spanish and Italian and I spoke English and French... we haggled in sign language. And yes, I did haggle!) Others I'd like to have back are the Italian silver St Terese roses and the miraculous medal that Andy gave me when we were about 4 or 5, the L'arc de Triomphe that I bought in Paris because I said I would never have an Eiffle Tower and the thistle someone brought me from Scotland. The ones I'm finding are not as detailed or as pretty as the ones I had.

On the other hand, I woke up this morning and realized that, while I would never have gotten rid of it, I am not really a charm bracelet kind of person. I do too much with my hands and I would almost never wear it. So it's foolish to go looking to replace something that a) I can't replace and b)I would never use.

Bother.