I think the horrible drive back from Texas and almost getting arrested caught up with me about mid-week, y'all.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights I got home from work around 7:00, ate dinner and went to bed. I am not a good sleeper and yet I slept from 8:30 or 9:00 until 6:30 the following morning on all of those nights.
Oh. I did that on Saturday night too.
I still feel tired. But I think I'm tired now from what I did on Saturday of this weekend and not the last one. And I think this coming Saturday I need to knock it off having busy or crazy Saturdays.
I woke up early on Saturday morning because I was the party animal who went to bed at 8:30 on Friday night as though I am 102-years-old. I lounged around in bed watching TV and finally decided to get up around 8:00.
By 10:30 a.m. I had eaten breakfast, made 6 chicken meals and put them in the freezer, had a 3 pound roast beef cooking away in the crock pot (I am SO excited about my lunch today because that roast beef is the bomb, ya'll), had about 6 quarts of taco soup cooked and cooling off to be frozen, and then by 11:00 I also had a big pot of pasta with tomato basil sauce done to eat on all week for dinner. I hate cooking so much and I don't want to do it on a daily basis. This will cover me for lunches and dinners for at least 2 weeks, and probably longer. I try to bring my lunch to work every day because I work in Buckhead where you can't get cheap lunches out. I can eat from home for a couple of bucks as opposed to the cheapest place I've found around my office which is a minimum of $8.50 for a sandwich and a drink with no sides.
If you want the recipes, here are the ones I made (look at y'all.....getting recipes from someone who doesn't know how to cook):
Balsamic Roast Beef
Taco Soup - I can't find a link online so here's what is in it:
2 lbs ground beef
One small or medium onion depending on how much you like onion
1 packet of taco seasoning
1 packet of ranch dip/dressing mix
2 cans of corn undrained
1 can of kidney beans undrained
1 can of pinto beans undrained
4 cans of stewed tomatoes
Brown the ground beef and onion. Pour all of the other crap in the pot (I had about a cup of beef broth left over from the roast beef I had put in the crock pot so I threw it in the pot too. I also put a couple of cloves of crushed garlic in there.). Bring to a boil, then reduce and cook for about 30 minutes on medium. Allow to cool completely, then put in freezer bags if you want to freeze it. I'm not even a good cook and this was DELICIOUS.
Mexican Chicken - I can't find a link to this one online either.
Put frozen chicken breasts in a freezer bag (I had 6 breasts)
Pour a jar of salsa in the bag (I used a 24 oz jar I think)
Add 2 or 3 cloves of crushed garlic.
Stick it in the freezer. When you get ready to bake it, take it out 24 hours ahead of time and put in the refrigerator. As it thaws, it will marinate in the salsa. Pour it all in a casserole dish and cook for 1.5 hours at 350 degrees. When it comes out of the oven, cover it shredded cheese. I can cook this on a Sunday and have dinner that night and for the entire work week ahead. Oh the joys of living alone and not having to share!
A friend of my mom's brought the Mexican Chicken to her while I was out in Texas. It was delicious so I got the recipe from her. She also gave me the taco soup recipe but she didn't actually bring any of it to us, so hers probably would have been even better.
And here is the recipe for the One Pot Pasta I made. I don't care for spinach so I left it out. I have to be honest....this was not my favorite. If I ever made it again I would add a whole bunch more seasonings or something because it was pretty bland to me.
Anyway, by noon I had enough meals made up for a long time and I had my kitchen cleaned so I decided if I sat down I wouldn't get anything else done because I was already a little tired if I'm being honest.
So I went outside and blew leaves, raked leaves, bagged up many bags of leaves, and then I decided to pressure wash the back of my house, my deck, and my deck furniture.
That all took me about 5 and a half hours and I went back in my house exhausted, sore and soaking wet. I took a shower, ate some roast beef, got the roast beef put away, washed the crock pot, and then I was in bed AGAIN by 8:30.
I woke up in the middle of the night and had to pee because I drank about a gallon of water before I went to bed and I could barely walk to the bathroom I was so sore. My feet almost made me cry. My thighs and butt were screaming at me from bending and bagging up leaves. My forearm muscles were pleading for mercy from using the pressure washer.
I found my plantar fasciitis sleeves and put them on before I got back in bed.
Yesterday morning I huffed and puffed, and grumbled and oohed and aahed and struggled and finally made it down the stairs.
I made a grilled blueberry/cream cheese sandwich (I only made a single sandwich and OMG it was SO GOOD that I wanted 10 more!) for breakfast as a treat and then slowly made my way to the sofa. Where I stayed for the entire day with a pillow, blanket and the remote. I could barely manage to get up when I had to pee, I skipped lunch because I was too sore to move and get up to make anything, and I generally laid there feeling sorry for myself.
I did manage to make a sandwich for dinner and I took it out on my back deck so I could eat on my freshly cleaned table and enjoy the beautiful weather for a few minutes.
And now I will try to make it through the week from the stupid time change and will probably be in bed by 8:30 several nights again.
My life. So full of excitement.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Wednesday, March 5, 2014
And now I will tell y'all how I almost got arrested the other night. Or morning. Well, it was in the middle of the night.
By the time I was almost arrested, I was so tired I almost didn't care because they might have a cot for me to lay down on and go to sleep in jail.
I had left Texas around 11:00 a.m. Atlanta time on Saturday morning, and I forgot to tell y'all this yesterday, but I stopped at a gas station there and bought a lamp as I left.
I had stopped at the Duck Dynasty place.
I had stood in the middle of the expressway seeing bodies for quite a while that had been ejected from a car in that horrific accident near Jackson, Mississippi.
I had taken a 50 mile detour through Mississippi country.
I had eaten dinner with my aunt and talked to her for a couple of hours.
I had driven through Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And Birmingham. And Anniston.
I finally got to a suburb of Atlanta (which I will not name in case the police department googles and finds this post) around 3:00 in the morning. And I was bone weary tired. I wasn't sleepy, but I was completely fatigued after 16 hours on the road. I had half a tank of gas and only 30 minutes to drive until I was home, but I decided to stop there and fill up my car because gas is a lot cheaper out there than in town where I live and then I wouldn't have to stop this week and pay more to fill up. And I wanted to pick up a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread so I would have something for breakfast on Sunday.
This was a huge mistake.
I stopped at the pump for gas. I then went inside to get my milk and bread. When I was inside, there was the cashier (a young lady), a man buying something, and a sheriff's deputy buying a snack of some sort. I walked back out towards my car at about the same time the deputy was walking out. We never spoke to one another.
As I was getting in my car, he flew backwards out of his parking space and then proceeded to speed through the parking lot of the gas station (y'all know how some cops drive like their butts are on fire for no reason?) and I saw him go up a little cut through driveway into the parking lot of a business next to the gas station. There were 5 more cop cars sitting there. It was 3:15 a.m. and apparently there wasn't much going on so they were just hanging out.
I got my purse and milk and bread settled in the seat next to me, cranked up my car, and proceeded to turn on my mp3 player. Now I will admit that I had been playing my music way louder than I should have been for several hours by that point because I was trying to keep myself alert. So it was rather loud when I put my car in drive and pulled away from the pump.
I heard the thud of something hitting the side of my car as I drove off from the pump and thought, "Crap. I must have forgotten to close my gas cap." And sure enough, I saw it open in my side view mirror.
I stopped by another pump, got out of my car, walked around, screwed the gas cap back on and closed the cover. I then got back in my car and drove up to the exit of the gas station. Suddenly a cop was flying across the parking lot towards the exit with his lights on so I sat there thinking he had just gotten a call and I would let him get out before I pulled out into the road.
Only he stopped right at my door and got out of his car.
I had no idea what was going on, so I turned my music down, I rolled down my window and very politely and cheerfully (as cheerfully as I could sound after 16 hours on a hellish road trip) said, "Hi, officer!"
Through gritted teeth, a red face (he was a redhead and you know how red they can get in the face when they are pissed off), and almost spitting at me he was so angry, he screamed at me, "IF YOU DON'T GO BACK IN THAT STORE RIGHT THIS SECOND AND TELL THAT YOUNG LADY WHAT YOU JUST DID, I AM TAKING YOU TO JAIL RIGHT NOW!"
I looked at him blankly because I had no idea what I had just done.
And he just stared at me so I said, "Um, I'm sorry, but what did I just do?"
"DON'T EVEN TRY TO ACT LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW!" he yelled.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I honestly don't know what I've done wrong," I responded.
"YOU DIDN'T HEAR THAT NOISE?"
"I heard my gas cap hit the side of my car so I got out and put it on and closed the cover."
"YOU'RE GOING TO SIT HERE AND TELL ME YOU DIDN'T HEAR THAT NOISE?"
"I'm sorry, sir. I really don't know what you're talking about."
"DID YOU NOT SEE 6 COPS SITTING THERE? WE ALL HEARD IT. YOU HAD THE GAS NOZZLE STILL IN YOUR CAR AND YOU PULLED THE HOSE OUT OF THE PUMP!"
"Oh. I am SO sorry. I honestly didn't realize I had done that." I really didn't because.....16 hours on the road....hellish trip.....loud music which muffled the sound......mind not working very clearly by that point.
He then proceeded to yell at me (again) that he would tote me off to jail right that second if I didn't go back in the store and tell the lady what I had done.
"I will be more than happy to do that, sir. Again, I am very sorry. I honestly didn't realize I did that. And yes, I saw 6 cop cars sitting next door. I would never have done something like that and driven off had I realized it. Especially not in front of 6 police officers. It was a total accident."
"YOU NEED TO GIVE ME YOUR IDENTIFICATION AND I'LL BE HOLDING ON TO THAT UNTIL YOU GO INSIDE AND RECTIFY THIS SITUATION," he yelled.
"Yes, sir," I mumbled as I got my license and handed it over.
I proceeded to back up, turn around and drive back to the front door and park. He was hot on my tail and we walked in together.
The cashier was over on one side of the store cleaning some stuff and she looked up. The officer didn't even speak - he just held up two fingers and very aggressively and angrily waved her over to the counter. Her eyes darted to me in shock and she came over and walked behind the counter.
"THIS YOUNG LADY JUST DROVE OFF WITH THE HOSE STILL IN HER CAR AND IT PULLED THE HOSE OUT OF YOUR PUMP. AND THEN SHE WAS GOING TO JUST LEAVE THE PREMISES," he loudly said to her.
And I could have jumped over the counter and hugged her when she replied, "Oh, that's no big deal. It happens a lot."
At some point another officer had walked in and was standing near the door and he was snickering when she said it.
She asked him if gas was spewing out of the tank or anything and he told her no. She again told him it's not a big deal.
The officer called in my license number and when it came back that no one was looking for me I think it made him even angrier. He really seemed to want to take me to jail for some reason.
I looked at the cashier and said, "I really am incredibly sorry about this. It was an accident and I didn't realize I had done it. I've been driving home from Texas today and I'm very tired and apparently my head is not clear right now."
"Oh wow. Texas? That is a long way and I can only imagine how tired you are," she replied.
Then Mr. Officer said again, "DID YOU REALLY NOT SEE 6 COPS SITTING THERE WHEN YOU DID THIS?"
I looked him straight in the eye and said, "Sir, yes I saw y'all. I've apologized and I've tried to explain this was an accident and I was not aware of what I had done. My brother is a sergeant with the ________ Police Department. I have a lot of respect for law enforcement. I am an upstanding and very law abiding citizen. I haven't even had a speeding ticket in about 20 years. All I can say to you and this young lady is that I am very sorry."
"WHERE DO YOU WORK?" he barked.
"At a law firm," I said and I thought the other officer was going to pee his pants at that point he was shaking so hard and trying not to laugh out loud.
"WHAT IS THE NAME OF YOUR FIRM AND ARE YOU A PARALEGAL?" because apparently I seemed too stupid to be an attorney.
I told him the name of my firm and that I am a legal assistant. He wrote all of that down on the very official scrap piece of paper he was using. He then made me write down my social security number and he got my phone number.
He then slapped my license down on the counter in front of me and barked at the cashier, "YOU GET EVERY SINGLE BIT OF INFORMATION FROM THIS LADY YOU NEED SO SHE CAN TAKE CARE OF THIS. YOUR HOSE IS JUST OUT THERE ON THE GROUND!"
The cashier replied, "I don't think I really need anything from her. We'll just call in a work order and they come fix it. It's really not a big deal at all. It happens a lot."
He then proceeded to explain to me that he would be preparing a report that would be on file with the police department and if I needed a copy I could get one.
"ONCE THIS YOUNG LADY GETS ALL OF YOUR INFORMATION, YOU ARE FREE TO GO M'AM."
"Thank you, sir. I hope you have a really good night," I responded as he turned his back to us and walked towards the door.
"What an asshole! What is his problem?" the cashier said as the door closed behind him.
"You have no idea. Before we came in here he threatened to take me to jail!" I said to her.
"For pulling the hose out??? It happens all the time! I really don't think I need anything at all from you, but in case he's out there watching us, just give me your name and phone number so he won't be after you," she said.
I asked her if she wanted me to go get the hose and bring it inside to her and she said no, that we would walk out there and take a look. We walked out and the hose had come unconnected at a joint. Nothing was broken, but it was too far over our heads for us to screw it back in. She kicked it off to the side and said not to worry about a thing and she headed back in. The two cops were still sitting in the cars next to the pump.
I walked back over to my car and proceeded to try and leave again. The cop followed me. Really?
Luckily, as I got back on I-20 he chose to leave me alone.
I finally got home at 4:00 a.m., which was 17 very long hours after I left my mom's house. I unloaded my car, left everything next to my front door, ripped off my bra and collapsed on the sofa because the thought of walking upstairs to my bed was more than I could handle.
I talked to my brother (the cop) about what happened and he told me I would not be out of line if I called in a complaint against the officer because he was way over the top. He said technically the officer did nothing wrong, but he was a total hothead and there was no need for him to speak to me the way he did or handle it that way. He said the fact that I wasn't charged with anything would make my complaint carry even more weight because I still felt the need to call in and tell them how I was treated. But he said it will take a lot of my time to deal with it. And I don't think I want to give that guy another minute of my life so I probably won't.
It's been 3 days and I haven't heard a word from the gas station company. Like the girl said, I guess it happens all the time and it really wasn't that big of a deal.
I just know I am not going to be looking forward to another road trip for the next 100 years or so.
I had left Texas around 11:00 a.m. Atlanta time on Saturday morning, and I forgot to tell y'all this yesterday, but I stopped at a gas station there and bought a lamp as I left.
I had stopped at the Duck Dynasty place.
I had stood in the middle of the expressway seeing bodies for quite a while that had been ejected from a car in that horrific accident near Jackson, Mississippi.
I had taken a 50 mile detour through Mississippi country.
I had eaten dinner with my aunt and talked to her for a couple of hours.
I had driven through Tuscaloosa, Alabama. And Birmingham. And Anniston.
I finally got to a suburb of Atlanta (which I will not name in case the police department googles and finds this post) around 3:00 in the morning. And I was bone weary tired. I wasn't sleepy, but I was completely fatigued after 16 hours on the road. I had half a tank of gas and only 30 minutes to drive until I was home, but I decided to stop there and fill up my car because gas is a lot cheaper out there than in town where I live and then I wouldn't have to stop this week and pay more to fill up. And I wanted to pick up a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread so I would have something for breakfast on Sunday.
This was a huge mistake.
I stopped at the pump for gas. I then went inside to get my milk and bread. When I was inside, there was the cashier (a young lady), a man buying something, and a sheriff's deputy buying a snack of some sort. I walked back out towards my car at about the same time the deputy was walking out. We never spoke to one another.
As I was getting in my car, he flew backwards out of his parking space and then proceeded to speed through the parking lot of the gas station (y'all know how some cops drive like their butts are on fire for no reason?) and I saw him go up a little cut through driveway into the parking lot of a business next to the gas station. There were 5 more cop cars sitting there. It was 3:15 a.m. and apparently there wasn't much going on so they were just hanging out.
I got my purse and milk and bread settled in the seat next to me, cranked up my car, and proceeded to turn on my mp3 player. Now I will admit that I had been playing my music way louder than I should have been for several hours by that point because I was trying to keep myself alert. So it was rather loud when I put my car in drive and pulled away from the pump.
I heard the thud of something hitting the side of my car as I drove off from the pump and thought, "Crap. I must have forgotten to close my gas cap." And sure enough, I saw it open in my side view mirror.
I stopped by another pump, got out of my car, walked around, screwed the gas cap back on and closed the cover. I then got back in my car and drove up to the exit of the gas station. Suddenly a cop was flying across the parking lot towards the exit with his lights on so I sat there thinking he had just gotten a call and I would let him get out before I pulled out into the road.
Only he stopped right at my door and got out of his car.
I had no idea what was going on, so I turned my music down, I rolled down my window and very politely and cheerfully (as cheerfully as I could sound after 16 hours on a hellish road trip) said, "Hi, officer!"
Through gritted teeth, a red face (he was a redhead and you know how red they can get in the face when they are pissed off), and almost spitting at me he was so angry, he screamed at me, "IF YOU DON'T GO BACK IN THAT STORE RIGHT THIS SECOND AND TELL THAT YOUNG LADY WHAT YOU JUST DID, I AM TAKING YOU TO JAIL RIGHT NOW!"
I looked at him blankly because I had no idea what I had just done.
And he just stared at me so I said, "Um, I'm sorry, but what did I just do?"
"DON'T EVEN TRY TO ACT LIKE YOU DON'T KNOW!" he yelled.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I honestly don't know what I've done wrong," I responded.
"YOU DIDN'T HEAR THAT NOISE?"
"I heard my gas cap hit the side of my car so I got out and put it on and closed the cover."
"YOU'RE GOING TO SIT HERE AND TELL ME YOU DIDN'T HEAR THAT NOISE?"
"I'm sorry, sir. I really don't know what you're talking about."
"DID YOU NOT SEE 6 COPS SITTING THERE? WE ALL HEARD IT. YOU HAD THE GAS NOZZLE STILL IN YOUR CAR AND YOU PULLED THE HOSE OUT OF THE PUMP!"
"Oh. I am SO sorry. I honestly didn't realize I had done that." I really didn't because.....16 hours on the road....hellish trip.....loud music which muffled the sound......mind not working very clearly by that point.
He then proceeded to yell at me (again) that he would tote me off to jail right that second if I didn't go back in the store and tell the lady what I had done.
"I will be more than happy to do that, sir. Again, I am very sorry. I honestly didn't realize I did that. And yes, I saw 6 cop cars sitting next door. I would never have done something like that and driven off had I realized it. Especially not in front of 6 police officers. It was a total accident."
"YOU NEED TO GIVE ME YOUR IDENTIFICATION AND I'LL BE HOLDING ON TO THAT UNTIL YOU GO INSIDE AND RECTIFY THIS SITUATION," he yelled.
"Yes, sir," I mumbled as I got my license and handed it over.
I proceeded to back up, turn around and drive back to the front door and park. He was hot on my tail and we walked in together.
The cashier was over on one side of the store cleaning some stuff and she looked up. The officer didn't even speak - he just held up two fingers and very aggressively and angrily waved her over to the counter. Her eyes darted to me in shock and she came over and walked behind the counter.
"THIS YOUNG LADY JUST DROVE OFF WITH THE HOSE STILL IN HER CAR AND IT PULLED THE HOSE OUT OF YOUR PUMP. AND THEN SHE WAS GOING TO JUST LEAVE THE PREMISES," he loudly said to her.
And I could have jumped over the counter and hugged her when she replied, "Oh, that's no big deal. It happens a lot."
At some point another officer had walked in and was standing near the door and he was snickering when she said it.
She asked him if gas was spewing out of the tank or anything and he told her no. She again told him it's not a big deal.
The officer called in my license number and when it came back that no one was looking for me I think it made him even angrier. He really seemed to want to take me to jail for some reason.
I looked at the cashier and said, "I really am incredibly sorry about this. It was an accident and I didn't realize I had done it. I've been driving home from Texas today and I'm very tired and apparently my head is not clear right now."
"Oh wow. Texas? That is a long way and I can only imagine how tired you are," she replied.
Then Mr. Officer said again, "DID YOU REALLY NOT SEE 6 COPS SITTING THERE WHEN YOU DID THIS?"
I looked him straight in the eye and said, "Sir, yes I saw y'all. I've apologized and I've tried to explain this was an accident and I was not aware of what I had done. My brother is a sergeant with the ________ Police Department. I have a lot of respect for law enforcement. I am an upstanding and very law abiding citizen. I haven't even had a speeding ticket in about 20 years. All I can say to you and this young lady is that I am very sorry."
"WHERE DO YOU WORK?" he barked.
"At a law firm," I said and I thought the other officer was going to pee his pants at that point he was shaking so hard and trying not to laugh out loud.
"WHAT IS THE NAME OF YOUR FIRM AND ARE YOU A PARALEGAL?" because apparently I seemed too stupid to be an attorney.
I told him the name of my firm and that I am a legal assistant. He wrote all of that down on the very official scrap piece of paper he was using. He then made me write down my social security number and he got my phone number.
He then slapped my license down on the counter in front of me and barked at the cashier, "YOU GET EVERY SINGLE BIT OF INFORMATION FROM THIS LADY YOU NEED SO SHE CAN TAKE CARE OF THIS. YOUR HOSE IS JUST OUT THERE ON THE GROUND!"
The cashier replied, "I don't think I really need anything from her. We'll just call in a work order and they come fix it. It's really not a big deal at all. It happens a lot."
He then proceeded to explain to me that he would be preparing a report that would be on file with the police department and if I needed a copy I could get one.
"ONCE THIS YOUNG LADY GETS ALL OF YOUR INFORMATION, YOU ARE FREE TO GO M'AM."
"Thank you, sir. I hope you have a really good night," I responded as he turned his back to us and walked towards the door.
"What an asshole! What is his problem?" the cashier said as the door closed behind him.
"You have no idea. Before we came in here he threatened to take me to jail!" I said to her.
"For pulling the hose out??? It happens all the time! I really don't think I need anything at all from you, but in case he's out there watching us, just give me your name and phone number so he won't be after you," she said.
I asked her if she wanted me to go get the hose and bring it inside to her and she said no, that we would walk out there and take a look. We walked out and the hose had come unconnected at a joint. Nothing was broken, but it was too far over our heads for us to screw it back in. She kicked it off to the side and said not to worry about a thing and she headed back in. The two cops were still sitting in the cars next to the pump.
I walked back over to my car and proceeded to try and leave again. The cop followed me. Really?
Luckily, as I got back on I-20 he chose to leave me alone.
I finally got home at 4:00 a.m., which was 17 very long hours after I left my mom's house. I unloaded my car, left everything next to my front door, ripped off my bra and collapsed on the sofa because the thought of walking upstairs to my bed was more than I could handle.
I talked to my brother (the cop) about what happened and he told me I would not be out of line if I called in a complaint against the officer because he was way over the top. He said technically the officer did nothing wrong, but he was a total hothead and there was no need for him to speak to me the way he did or handle it that way. He said the fact that I wasn't charged with anything would make my complaint carry even more weight because I still felt the need to call in and tell them how I was treated. But he said it will take a lot of my time to deal with it. And I don't think I want to give that guy another minute of my life so I probably won't.
It's been 3 days and I haven't heard a word from the gas station company. Like the girl said, I guess it happens all the time and it really wasn't that big of a deal.
I just know I am not going to be looking forward to another road trip for the next 100 years or so.
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
How I unexpectedly saw Pocohontas, Mississippi and had a police officer threaten to arrest me in Georgia in the same day
Hello, y'all!
As usual, things have been crazy in my world. I was supposed to leave last Sunday morning, the 23rd, to drive out to Texas to my mom's. She had a hip replacement the week before and I was going to help her out once she got home. Instead I spent Sunday the 23rd in the bathroom and in bed because I had food poisoning. So I left on Monday the 24th instead.
The trip out was great! It was long (11 hours) but nothing crazy happened. I just drove and drove and drove down I-20. Between my house in Atlanta and my mom's house in Texas there are 4 turns. Doesn't that seem insane? A 700+ mile trip with only 4 turns involved. The most disappointing thing was that I couldn't binge on junk food while I was driving which is what I always do on road trips because my stomach was still a little gross feeling after the food poisoning the day before. Instead I had ginger ale, Gatorade and stopped for a bowl of soup in Vicksburg, MS.
My mom was doing really well from her surgery. She has minor pain but she says it's nothing compared to the pain she had been living with on her bad hip. She can't bend over yet so I helped her get undressed and dressed, cleaned her incision, helped her with her physical therapy each day, helped her get in and out of the shower, kept her house picked up, dishes done, and answered the door approximately 43584502384 times each day because so many of her friends and people from their church stopped by to visit, bring food, etc. The only things I had to make were toast, one turkey sandwich, and a bowl of soup because people fed us dinner every single night I was there and we normally had leftovers for lunch the next day. Her husband was getting ready for a huge meeting at work this week and I helped him with some stuff too (typing up meal menus, forms, etc). And I know that doesn't sound like a whole lot, but we honestly barely had a minute to talk to each other one-on-one or relax because we were busy almost every minute of every day and the week was over before we knew it.
I did take a few minutes one morning and raided her gift wrapping supplies to try and jazz up her walker a little bit and make it a little happier. Y'all don't laugh - I had very limited stuff to work with, okay? I gave her a little basket to carry small stuff like her cell phone, etc.
This past Saturday I came back home.
And it was one of the worst days I've had in a very, very long time. It was kind of like hell if I'm being honest.
It started off okay. When you're coming through West Monroe, Louisiana on I-20, the Duck Commander Headquarters is approximately 5 blocks off the expressway. I've only watched Duck Dynasty twice so I would not say I'm a fan, but since I was so close I decided to stop. I pulled in the parking lot, jumped out and took 3 photos and got back in my car. I did not go inside.
I don't know these people but I want to know why this man thought he needed to hold these poor kids up against the wall as though they were going to run away. And I think he thought they might cast him in the show with the beard and the clothes. There were a few men wandering around the parking lot with a similar look so I got out of there.
This is some sort of camper/trailer thing they had in the parking lot:
And here's something they don't show on TV. I assume they don't anyway. I don't watch the show so maybe they do, but this is what's behind the Duck place. Glamorous, huh?
At this point in my trip I was a couple of hours into it and things were fine. I just kept driving and driving and driving. And then I crossed the bridge over the Mississippi River:
Mississippi is when things went bad, y'all.
I have some family in Jackson and I had arranged to stop and meet one of my aunts at Cracker Barrel as I went through. I told her I would be there between 3:00 and 4:00. I called her at 3:00 when I was about 30 miles from Jackson to let her know how far away I was and she said she had been out running errands and got done early so she was already there sitting in a rocking chair waiting for me.
And then everything changed about 15 minutes later.
I came around a slight curve in the road and saw the most horrific thing. A semi was stopping and pulling into the emergency lane. A pick-up truck had stopped at a weird angle in front of me. And cars had stopped in the emergency lane on the opposite side of the expressway and people were running as fast as they could through the median to my side of the road. More people were jumping out of their cars on the other side of the road. Right in front of the pick-up truck was an SUV in a crumpled mess laying on its side in the eastbound lanes.
Then I saw the people scattered all over the expressway.
The SUV was in the left lane where I was. A lady was two lanes away in the emergency lane where she had been thrown from the car.
Y'all, it was the most awful thing I've ever seen and it had happened mere seconds in front of me. Had I been just a couple of seconds further up the road, that SUV could have flipped right into me.
I sat in my car and I prayed for those people. The lady in the emergency lane wasn't moving. People were running from everywhere. I have no medical training and I figured I might just be in the way since there were already so many people swarming around the scene so I did what I knew I could do. I prayed hard.
A man was in the median next to my car sobbing on the shoulder of another woman. There were two young (pre-teen) boys sobbing and wandering around in circles.
I saw part of a person sticking out from under the SUV. I saw a teenage boy sitting up in the median where he had been thrown. I saw part of a person in the road in front of the SUV (he was partially hidden by the car). There was another person completely hidden from my view by the car.
Within a couple of minutes police cars started coming. An ambulance or two showed up. A fire truck. Then the life flight helicopter came and landed in the middle of the expressway.
What I learned later was that a bunch of people were headed westbound from a church event. I guess they kind of had a caravan of vehicles. A rear tire blew out, the driver lost control, flipped across the median and landed in the eastbound lanes. In all, there were 8 people in the vehicle and 5 of them had been ejected in the crash. Three people were life flighted. Four people were in critical condition. But miraculously there were no fatalities. Most of the people I saw running across the median as I drove up were people who were in the caravan and they knew them. I found out the man I saw sobbing in the median was the brother of one of the victims. Oh, y'all. It was so awful. I've looked online to see if I could get an update but I can't find anything new about the accident.
I spoke with my aunt several times in the hour or so I stood there in the middle of the expressway. I told her I didn't know how long I would be there and to not feel like she needed to wait. Eventually a police officer told us they were shutting down the expressway probably for hours and we needed to cross the median and head back westbound. I said a final prayer and then followed his instructions.
I had less than a quarter tank of gas so I stopped at the first exit I came to and as I stood there filling up I realized the man at the pump next to me had been standing on I-20 with me a few minutes previously. I told him I was trying to get to Atlanta but had to meet my aunt at Cracker Barrel and asked if he could help me get around the accident and back on I-20. He told me it was going to be a long detour but he wrote down directions for me. I called my aunt and told her where he instructed me to go and that I was driving to meet her but I had no clue where I was or how long it would take.
"Do you see Highway 80?" she asked.
"I see cows."
"Do you see a college?" she asked.
"I see more cows. Oh wait. Now I see a horse!" I responded. "But no college. I'm definitely not seeing a campus of any sort."
I went to Flora, MS. According to the internet, the population of Flora in 2012 was 1,896 people. There are probably more cows than people living there.
Then I saw a sign that I was in Pocahontas, MS. Do you know what? I've never heard of that place before I was driving through it on Saturday in a completely unexpected turn of events. I have been to Pocahontas, Arkansas though. I spent an entire weekend there for a family thing.
By the time I sat at the scene of the accident and then went on this approximately fifty mile detour through the country to get around it, my poor aunt had been waiting at Cracker Barrel for TWO AND A HALF HOURS, y'all.
And I couldn't possibly rush through dinner and then jump in my car after she waited that long. So we sat and talked for over 2 hours. By the time I was getting ready to leave Jackson, MS it was already 9:30 p.m. Atlanta time. She begged me to drive an hour to her house and spend the night with her and my uncle, but I just wanted to be home by that point....even though I knew home was still a minimum of five and a half hours away. I promised her if I started feeling sleepy or thought I couldn't make it that I would stop and get a hotel room, and then I hit the road again.
Aaaaannnnd crap. I can't finish this because I have something I have to do here at work. So you'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out how I was threatened by a police officer with arrest before I made it home. It's really a post all of its own anyway.
As usual, things have been crazy in my world. I was supposed to leave last Sunday morning, the 23rd, to drive out to Texas to my mom's. She had a hip replacement the week before and I was going to help her out once she got home. Instead I spent Sunday the 23rd in the bathroom and in bed because I had food poisoning. So I left on Monday the 24th instead.
The trip out was great! It was long (11 hours) but nothing crazy happened. I just drove and drove and drove down I-20. Between my house in Atlanta and my mom's house in Texas there are 4 turns. Doesn't that seem insane? A 700+ mile trip with only 4 turns involved. The most disappointing thing was that I couldn't binge on junk food while I was driving which is what I always do on road trips because my stomach was still a little gross feeling after the food poisoning the day before. Instead I had ginger ale, Gatorade and stopped for a bowl of soup in Vicksburg, MS.
My mom was doing really well from her surgery. She has minor pain but she says it's nothing compared to the pain she had been living with on her bad hip. She can't bend over yet so I helped her get undressed and dressed, cleaned her incision, helped her with her physical therapy each day, helped her get in and out of the shower, kept her house picked up, dishes done, and answered the door approximately 43584502384 times each day because so many of her friends and people from their church stopped by to visit, bring food, etc. The only things I had to make were toast, one turkey sandwich, and a bowl of soup because people fed us dinner every single night I was there and we normally had leftovers for lunch the next day. Her husband was getting ready for a huge meeting at work this week and I helped him with some stuff too (typing up meal menus, forms, etc). And I know that doesn't sound like a whole lot, but we honestly barely had a minute to talk to each other one-on-one or relax because we were busy almost every minute of every day and the week was over before we knew it.
I did take a few minutes one morning and raided her gift wrapping supplies to try and jazz up her walker a little bit and make it a little happier. Y'all don't laugh - I had very limited stuff to work with, okay? I gave her a little basket to carry small stuff like her cell phone, etc.
This past Saturday I came back home.
And it was one of the worst days I've had in a very, very long time. It was kind of like hell if I'm being honest.
It started off okay. When you're coming through West Monroe, Louisiana on I-20, the Duck Commander Headquarters is approximately 5 blocks off the expressway. I've only watched Duck Dynasty twice so I would not say I'm a fan, but since I was so close I decided to stop. I pulled in the parking lot, jumped out and took 3 photos and got back in my car. I did not go inside.
I don't know these people but I want to know why this man thought he needed to hold these poor kids up against the wall as though they were going to run away. And I think he thought they might cast him in the show with the beard and the clothes. There were a few men wandering around the parking lot with a similar look so I got out of there.
This is some sort of camper/trailer thing they had in the parking lot:
And here's something they don't show on TV. I assume they don't anyway. I don't watch the show so maybe they do, but this is what's behind the Duck place. Glamorous, huh?
At this point in my trip I was a couple of hours into it and things were fine. I just kept driving and driving and driving. And then I crossed the bridge over the Mississippi River:
Mississippi is when things went bad, y'all.
I have some family in Jackson and I had arranged to stop and meet one of my aunts at Cracker Barrel as I went through. I told her I would be there between 3:00 and 4:00. I called her at 3:00 when I was about 30 miles from Jackson to let her know how far away I was and she said she had been out running errands and got done early so she was already there sitting in a rocking chair waiting for me.
And then everything changed about 15 minutes later.
I came around a slight curve in the road and saw the most horrific thing. A semi was stopping and pulling into the emergency lane. A pick-up truck had stopped at a weird angle in front of me. And cars had stopped in the emergency lane on the opposite side of the expressway and people were running as fast as they could through the median to my side of the road. More people were jumping out of their cars on the other side of the road. Right in front of the pick-up truck was an SUV in a crumpled mess laying on its side in the eastbound lanes.
Then I saw the people scattered all over the expressway.
The SUV was in the left lane where I was. A lady was two lanes away in the emergency lane where she had been thrown from the car.
Y'all, it was the most awful thing I've ever seen and it had happened mere seconds in front of me. Had I been just a couple of seconds further up the road, that SUV could have flipped right into me.
I sat in my car and I prayed for those people. The lady in the emergency lane wasn't moving. People were running from everywhere. I have no medical training and I figured I might just be in the way since there were already so many people swarming around the scene so I did what I knew I could do. I prayed hard.
A man was in the median next to my car sobbing on the shoulder of another woman. There were two young (pre-teen) boys sobbing and wandering around in circles.
I saw part of a person sticking out from under the SUV. I saw a teenage boy sitting up in the median where he had been thrown. I saw part of a person in the road in front of the SUV (he was partially hidden by the car). There was another person completely hidden from my view by the car.
Within a couple of minutes police cars started coming. An ambulance or two showed up. A fire truck. Then the life flight helicopter came and landed in the middle of the expressway.
What I learned later was that a bunch of people were headed westbound from a church event. I guess they kind of had a caravan of vehicles. A rear tire blew out, the driver lost control, flipped across the median and landed in the eastbound lanes. In all, there were 8 people in the vehicle and 5 of them had been ejected in the crash. Three people were life flighted. Four people were in critical condition. But miraculously there were no fatalities. Most of the people I saw running across the median as I drove up were people who were in the caravan and they knew them. I found out the man I saw sobbing in the median was the brother of one of the victims. Oh, y'all. It was so awful. I've looked online to see if I could get an update but I can't find anything new about the accident.
I spoke with my aunt several times in the hour or so I stood there in the middle of the expressway. I told her I didn't know how long I would be there and to not feel like she needed to wait. Eventually a police officer told us they were shutting down the expressway probably for hours and we needed to cross the median and head back westbound. I said a final prayer and then followed his instructions.
I had less than a quarter tank of gas so I stopped at the first exit I came to and as I stood there filling up I realized the man at the pump next to me had been standing on I-20 with me a few minutes previously. I told him I was trying to get to Atlanta but had to meet my aunt at Cracker Barrel and asked if he could help me get around the accident and back on I-20. He told me it was going to be a long detour but he wrote down directions for me. I called my aunt and told her where he instructed me to go and that I was driving to meet her but I had no clue where I was or how long it would take.
"Do you see Highway 80?" she asked.
"I see cows."
"Do you see a college?" she asked.
"I see more cows. Oh wait. Now I see a horse!" I responded. "But no college. I'm definitely not seeing a campus of any sort."
I went to Flora, MS. According to the internet, the population of Flora in 2012 was 1,896 people. There are probably more cows than people living there.
Then I saw a sign that I was in Pocahontas, MS. Do you know what? I've never heard of that place before I was driving through it on Saturday in a completely unexpected turn of events. I have been to Pocahontas, Arkansas though. I spent an entire weekend there for a family thing.
By the time I sat at the scene of the accident and then went on this approximately fifty mile detour through the country to get around it, my poor aunt had been waiting at Cracker Barrel for TWO AND A HALF HOURS, y'all.
And I couldn't possibly rush through dinner and then jump in my car after she waited that long. So we sat and talked for over 2 hours. By the time I was getting ready to leave Jackson, MS it was already 9:30 p.m. Atlanta time. She begged me to drive an hour to her house and spend the night with her and my uncle, but I just wanted to be home by that point....even though I knew home was still a minimum of five and a half hours away. I promised her if I started feeling sleepy or thought I couldn't make it that I would stop and get a hotel room, and then I hit the road again.
Aaaaannnnd crap. I can't finish this because I have something I have to do here at work. So you'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out how I was threatened by a police officer with arrest before I made it home. It's really a post all of its own anyway.
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Um. Yeah. So all of this happened recently. And it's not even everything.
Oh wow. It's been two weeks since I've posted, huh?
I think I've been busy doing a lot of things that I could blog about, but now I can't remember a lot of it. But here are a few things.
1. I almost got covered in a lot of jelly at the grocery store and then I saw some cowboys riding horses through downtown Atlanta on my way home. No, that's not a dream I had one night. It actually happened.
You see, I was on an aisle where I was looking for a marinade and it was near the jelly. An employee was stocking jelly and he had boxes of it on a rolling cart. The cart was right in front of the sauces, marinades, etc. and I was leaning around behind the cart to get the bottle I needed when the employee picked up a box of jelly, the entire bottom of the box fell out and a whole box full of jelly jars crashed to the floor and broke. There was jelly every freaking where and I was crunching all over broken glass. Miraculously I had no jelly on me at all even though this all happened approximately 6 inches from my feet. He looked at me with such a horrid look as though he couldn't believe what had just happened. I looked back at him with a sad face and said, "Oh no," because I know how to react and make people feel better. His co-worker simply mumbled under his breath, "I guess I'll go get a mop." Yes, dude. I guess you will. Then I was driving through downtown on my way back home and I saw 3 cowboys riding horses through the middle of Atlanta. So all in all, that was kind of a weird day.
2. I used the marinade I got when I almost bathed in sticky jelly to grill out the next evening. A couple of days after I was outside in a tshirt in spring like weather grilling chicken and vegetables, this happened:
And I know for those of you who live up north that looks like a light dusting of snow. That is not snow. It's solid ice. I stepped out on my deck with all of my body weight (which is a lot) and it didn't crack, it didn't leave a footprint, etc. Solid ice.
Overnight that night is when the snow came and then we had this:
I stocked up on paint for the two huge commission pieces I needed to work on. Especially because the guy had just emailed me two days previously wanting to know when they were going to be done and I really had barely started on them. (It had only been a week or two since we finalized all of the details so it's not like I had been putting him off for months or anything.)
He wanted abstracts with lots and lots of texture. Do y'all know what I've never painted before in my life? Abstracts with lots and lots of texture. He showed me photos of a painting he wanted me to base the pieces on - not to copy them identically, but he wanted me to use the same colors, same texture, etc.
And I said, "Oh sure! No problem! I can do those. Easy peasy." I said this because I'm a fool. I'm used to painting not abstract and not textured paintings on canvases that are 16x20". He wanted 24x48" and he wanted two of them. That's 8 feet long and 4 feet wide total, y'all.
So I took the photos he gave me to the art supply store and looked around and found a product I thought would work for the texture (a product I've never used in my life) and consulted with an employee in there and she agreed it would give me the closest look to what he wanted from me.
This is the canvas with the texture stuff. It looks like the ceiling of the house I grew up in:
And then I started with the 1st of 5 colors:
Y'all try not to be jealous of my gorgeous neon fish tablecloth, okay? It was on clearance for $3 somewhere and I knew I would be getting paint all over it so I didn't really care what it looked like.
TWENTY HOURS later, this is what they look like. I don't enjoy spending more than about 2 or 3 hours on a painting. I was ready to stab someone by the time I got done with these.
A close up of the texture if you care:
The next time someone asks me to do humongous abstract paintings with lots of texture I will say this to them:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Unless they want to pay me about twice what I quoted this guy.
So yes, while my neighbors all walked up to Little 5 Points and hung out together in a 'hood bar to enjoy the ice/snow day, I did my taxes and painted these *^&%$ commission pieces.
3. The snow ended on Thursday around noon at my house. On Friday night it rained.
And oh yeah, we also had an earthquake.
I had just gotten in the bed and about 2 minutes later, my entire house shook. My bed shook, my windows rattled, the chain on my ceiling fan was bouncing against the lights, and I couldn't figure out what it was. It lasted for probably 5+ seconds. I immediately looked at the clock so I would know exactly what time it happened in case I needed to know for some reason. It was 10:24 p.m. and I was watching the local early news like I'm 85-years-old. I thought something had fallen on my house. Or a group of people were running across my wooden deck. (Because I don't know about y'all, but that shit happens a lot. I often have groups of people come to my house, open up my front gate, come down the driveway and walk behind my house, and run back and forth across the deck while it's raining outside and the deck is covered in thick ice.) Then I realized I didn't hear anything fall or anyone running. All that happened was everything shook. I thought, "could that have been an earthquake? Naw. People will think I'm crazy if I say I felt an earthquake."
About 10 minutes later the anchor on the news said, "We are getting reports of an earthquake hitting a few minutes ago." And I felt an inkling less crazy than I normally do.
4. So on Tuesday it had rained almost 24 hours straight. Between Wednesday and Thursday, we had approximately 34 straight hours of sleet, freezing rain and snow. On Friday night we had rain and a freaking earthquake. And on Saturday this was happening in my back yard:
I think I've been busy doing a lot of things that I could blog about, but now I can't remember a lot of it. But here are a few things.
1. I almost got covered in a lot of jelly at the grocery store and then I saw some cowboys riding horses through downtown Atlanta on my way home. No, that's not a dream I had one night. It actually happened.
You see, I was on an aisle where I was looking for a marinade and it was near the jelly. An employee was stocking jelly and he had boxes of it on a rolling cart. The cart was right in front of the sauces, marinades, etc. and I was leaning around behind the cart to get the bottle I needed when the employee picked up a box of jelly, the entire bottom of the box fell out and a whole box full of jelly jars crashed to the floor and broke. There was jelly every freaking where and I was crunching all over broken glass. Miraculously I had no jelly on me at all even though this all happened approximately 6 inches from my feet. He looked at me with such a horrid look as though he couldn't believe what had just happened. I looked back at him with a sad face and said, "Oh no," because I know how to react and make people feel better. His co-worker simply mumbled under his breath, "I guess I'll go get a mop." Yes, dude. I guess you will. Then I was driving through downtown on my way back home and I saw 3 cowboys riding horses through the middle of Atlanta. So all in all, that was kind of a weird day.
2. I used the marinade I got when I almost bathed in sticky jelly to grill out the next evening. A couple of days after I was outside in a tshirt in spring like weather grilling chicken and vegetables, this happened:
Overnight that night is when the snow came and then we had this:
Which I know still looks like nothing for those of you up north, but for Atlanta that is a giant mess. Two days later, it was in the 50s and over the weekend it was in the 60s but I still had ice on my deck until yesterday because it was so solid and thick.
Since I was stuck inside for two days, I decided to get some fun stuff done. So I did my taxes.
Also, I know those of you not from around here know that when they call for snow down south we all decide we need to make French toast suddenly so we all stampede to the grocery store and fight each other over bread, milk and eggs. They were telling us this storm was going to be catastrophic and Biblical (yes, they used those words) so I had friends who said they couldn't even find any frozen vegetables by the time they got to the store.
I live alone and buy groceries each Friday evening for the following week because I'm a partier who hangs out at the grocery store on Friday night so I had stocked up way ahead of time before I even knew we were supposed to get snow.
This is where I was the night before the storm:
He wanted abstracts with lots and lots of texture. Do y'all know what I've never painted before in my life? Abstracts with lots and lots of texture. He showed me photos of a painting he wanted me to base the pieces on - not to copy them identically, but he wanted me to use the same colors, same texture, etc.
And I said, "Oh sure! No problem! I can do those. Easy peasy." I said this because I'm a fool. I'm used to painting not abstract and not textured paintings on canvases that are 16x20". He wanted 24x48" and he wanted two of them. That's 8 feet long and 4 feet wide total, y'all.
So I took the photos he gave me to the art supply store and looked around and found a product I thought would work for the texture (a product I've never used in my life) and consulted with an employee in there and she agreed it would give me the closest look to what he wanted from me.
This is the canvas with the texture stuff. It looks like the ceiling of the house I grew up in:
And then I started with the 1st of 5 colors:
Y'all try not to be jealous of my gorgeous neon fish tablecloth, okay? It was on clearance for $3 somewhere and I knew I would be getting paint all over it so I didn't really care what it looked like.
TWENTY HOURS later, this is what they look like. I don't enjoy spending more than about 2 or 3 hours on a painting. I was ready to stab someone by the time I got done with these.
A close up of the texture if you care:
The next time someone asks me to do humongous abstract paintings with lots of texture I will say this to them:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Unless they want to pay me about twice what I quoted this guy.
So yes, while my neighbors all walked up to Little 5 Points and hung out together in a 'hood bar to enjoy the ice/snow day, I did my taxes and painted these *^&%$ commission pieces.
3. The snow ended on Thursday around noon at my house. On Friday night it rained.
And oh yeah, we also had an earthquake.
I had just gotten in the bed and about 2 minutes later, my entire house shook. My bed shook, my windows rattled, the chain on my ceiling fan was bouncing against the lights, and I couldn't figure out what it was. It lasted for probably 5+ seconds. I immediately looked at the clock so I would know exactly what time it happened in case I needed to know for some reason. It was 10:24 p.m. and I was watching the local early news like I'm 85-years-old. I thought something had fallen on my house. Or a group of people were running across my wooden deck. (Because I don't know about y'all, but that shit happens a lot. I often have groups of people come to my house, open up my front gate, come down the driveway and walk behind my house, and run back and forth across the deck while it's raining outside and the deck is covered in thick ice.) Then I realized I didn't hear anything fall or anyone running. All that happened was everything shook. I thought, "could that have been an earthquake? Naw. People will think I'm crazy if I say I felt an earthquake."
About 10 minutes later the anchor on the news said, "We are getting reports of an earthquake hitting a few minutes ago." And I felt an inkling less crazy than I normally do.
4. So on Tuesday it had rained almost 24 hours straight. Between Wednesday and Thursday, we had approximately 34 straight hours of sleet, freezing rain and snow. On Friday night we had rain and a freaking earthquake. And on Saturday this was happening in my back yard:
The flowers are blooming.
I have to run now, but I still have to share with y'all about an internet sensation who is coming to my house in April to sell sex toys (oh yes, that is true). And I injured myself again on Sunday. Twice. And some weird stuff happened on my drive yesterday. And my mom had surgery today. See? I have a lot to say!
Talk at y'all later!
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
I had a ridiculous evening and it's no one's fault
Do you know how sometimes you can have a ridiculous day or evening but it's really just a combination of circumstances out of everyone's control so you can't blame anyone for it? That's the kind of evening I had last night.
My younger brother who lives in Kentucky called me yesterday afternoon as I was sitting in the break room with a couple of friends enjoying lunch.
"Hey, Bev. I have a huge favor to ask you and you can say no if you want to."
"Okay. No. Absolutely not," I replied because I think I'm funny even though I'm really not.
He went on to tell me that his girlfriend/wife's (I've told y'all that story, right?) sister and her husband were flying back from their vacation in Mexico last night and had a connecting flight in Atlanta to get back home to Kentucky. But a winter storm with possible sleet, freezing rain and snow was forecast in KY. And they were right on the line of whether it was just going to be rain or whether it was going to be nasty and icy. And then he asked if they could stay at my house if their flight ended up getting cancelled out of Atlanta. But he wasn't sure because they might decide to just sleep at the airport or get a hotel but he asked if I could be their stand-by sleeping location. And then could I help get them to the airport this morning or let them hang out at my house while I came to work if their flight was delayed for a lot longer.
I've never met these people in my life, but because I know my brother's girlfriend/wife really well and I've met her parents and they are all super cool people and don't seem at all to be a family of serial killers, I was totally okay with her sister and the sister's husband staying with me.
"Sure," I told my brother. "But they need to give me time to clean their bathroom when I get home from work." My mom and her husband were here for a week last month and I had not gotten around to cleaning it yet. Don't judge me. I have 4 bathrooms in my house so I had others to choose from. Luckily, something had told me to wash the sheets and clean up the guest bedroom this past weekend so that room was good to go. The bathroom? Not so much.
I've also been in the process of de-Bailey-ing my house: I spent a good part of this past weekend steam mopping floors, throwing out her food dishes, water bowls, litter boxes (yes plural even though she only used them occasionally), in between sitting down and sobbing because I was having to throw away all of that stuff. I also had to prepare a couple of food items to take to a Super Bowl party, go to the Super Bowl party, and I was working on the two commission paintings I need to do so I didn't get all of the cleaning done.
I keep my house fairly clean most of the time. But you know how it is when you have company coming. You do extra cleaning. Especially when everything is covered in a layer of cat hair and my cat had been sick with the never ending poops for over a year. And I had never met these people in my life.
I got home from work at 7:00 and decided to steam mop the bathroom floor. I cleaned the toilet (which is my most hated thing to do in all the world), cleaned the sink, and then before I cleaned the bathtub/shower I got sidetracked. I decided I needed to try and get all of the cat fur off of the chair and ottoman in my reading nook which is right outside of the guest bedroom. So I started cleaning that. It took a while. It still needs work. Seriously? How does the fur get so stuck in stuff? I usually swipe a stack of the envelopes that adhere to Fed Ex packages from the office and use them instead of lint rollers. They are way bigger and stickier. (And do you know how many times I've sat in that reading nook and read a book in the over 2 years I've lived in my house? ZERO. That's how many times.) Then I decided to steam mop my dining room, reading nook, and kitchen again. Even though I just did it 3 days ago and all I've done is walk through the dining room and reading nook. I haven't done one thing to make a mess. Then I scrubbed the kitchen sink. Again.
Then I started stressing out because I live alone and am more than happy to live off a bowl of cereal or piece of toast for dinner. What on earth was I going to feed these people?
Around 8:15 I got a text from my brother's girlfriend/wife that her sister and husband had just boarded their plane and the flight had not been cancelled.
So I sat down from exhaustion and ate a gourmet piece of toast for dinner and was glad I didn't have to do any additional cleaning last night.
Then at 9:00 I got another text that said the plane was still sitting on the runway and they had not taken off yet so they might still need a place to stay because their flight was possibly going to be cancelled after all.
So I jumped back up and started cleaning up the pile of mail that was cluttering my kitchen counter and then I decided I should probably at least clean the toilet and sink in the other bathroom downstairs in case they used that one at some point as well. No one has used that shower since I last cleaned it so it's good.
At 9:20 I received a text that their flight had been cancelled, they were disembarking the plane but had to get their thoughts together, figure out where their luggage was, etc. and would let me know what was going on.
I went and ran the Swiffer duster over everything in the living room, ran the dust mop over the floors in there because I was frankly tired of steam mopping at that point, and made sure everything was straightened up.
Then I remembered I had never gotten back to clean the shower in the guest bathroom so I was heading that way and thinking, "How have I just spent almost 2 hours cleaning the downstairs of my house when it really was pretty clean to begin with?" when another text came in around 9:30.
"Hey Bev! Thanks anyway, but they are really good friends with a coach at (local university here in Atlanta) and they just found out she is in town so they're heading to her house to spend the night."
So I started drinking. (Not really.)
I did immediately go to bed though.
Thankfully, I won't have much cleaning to do this weekend now. And I could almost eat off of my floors at this point.
But I still have to clean that *&^% shower.
My younger brother who lives in Kentucky called me yesterday afternoon as I was sitting in the break room with a couple of friends enjoying lunch.
"Hey, Bev. I have a huge favor to ask you and you can say no if you want to."
"Okay. No. Absolutely not," I replied because I think I'm funny even though I'm really not.
He went on to tell me that his girlfriend/wife's (I've told y'all that story, right?) sister and her husband were flying back from their vacation in Mexico last night and had a connecting flight in Atlanta to get back home to Kentucky. But a winter storm with possible sleet, freezing rain and snow was forecast in KY. And they were right on the line of whether it was just going to be rain or whether it was going to be nasty and icy. And then he asked if they could stay at my house if their flight ended up getting cancelled out of Atlanta. But he wasn't sure because they might decide to just sleep at the airport or get a hotel but he asked if I could be their stand-by sleeping location. And then could I help get them to the airport this morning or let them hang out at my house while I came to work if their flight was delayed for a lot longer.
I've never met these people in my life, but because I know my brother's girlfriend/wife really well and I've met her parents and they are all super cool people and don't seem at all to be a family of serial killers, I was totally okay with her sister and the sister's husband staying with me.
"Sure," I told my brother. "But they need to give me time to clean their bathroom when I get home from work." My mom and her husband were here for a week last month and I had not gotten around to cleaning it yet. Don't judge me. I have 4 bathrooms in my house so I had others to choose from. Luckily, something had told me to wash the sheets and clean up the guest bedroom this past weekend so that room was good to go. The bathroom? Not so much.
I've also been in the process of de-Bailey-ing my house: I spent a good part of this past weekend steam mopping floors, throwing out her food dishes, water bowls, litter boxes (yes plural even though she only used them occasionally), in between sitting down and sobbing because I was having to throw away all of that stuff. I also had to prepare a couple of food items to take to a Super Bowl party, go to the Super Bowl party, and I was working on the two commission paintings I need to do so I didn't get all of the cleaning done.
I keep my house fairly clean most of the time. But you know how it is when you have company coming. You do extra cleaning. Especially when everything is covered in a layer of cat hair and my cat had been sick with the never ending poops for over a year. And I had never met these people in my life.
I got home from work at 7:00 and decided to steam mop the bathroom floor. I cleaned the toilet (which is my most hated thing to do in all the world), cleaned the sink, and then before I cleaned the bathtub/shower I got sidetracked. I decided I needed to try and get all of the cat fur off of the chair and ottoman in my reading nook which is right outside of the guest bedroom. So I started cleaning that. It took a while. It still needs work. Seriously? How does the fur get so stuck in stuff? I usually swipe a stack of the envelopes that adhere to Fed Ex packages from the office and use them instead of lint rollers. They are way bigger and stickier. (And do you know how many times I've sat in that reading nook and read a book in the over 2 years I've lived in my house? ZERO. That's how many times.) Then I decided to steam mop my dining room, reading nook, and kitchen again. Even though I just did it 3 days ago and all I've done is walk through the dining room and reading nook. I haven't done one thing to make a mess. Then I scrubbed the kitchen sink. Again.
The dining room. It has super clean floors.
The reading nook. It still has a lot of fur in it.
Then I started stressing out because I live alone and am more than happy to live off a bowl of cereal or piece of toast for dinner. What on earth was I going to feed these people?
Around 8:15 I got a text from my brother's girlfriend/wife that her sister and husband had just boarded their plane and the flight had not been cancelled.
So I sat down from exhaustion and ate a gourmet piece of toast for dinner and was glad I didn't have to do any additional cleaning last night.
Then at 9:00 I got another text that said the plane was still sitting on the runway and they had not taken off yet so they might still need a place to stay because their flight was possibly going to be cancelled after all.
So I jumped back up and started cleaning up the pile of mail that was cluttering my kitchen counter and then I decided I should probably at least clean the toilet and sink in the other bathroom downstairs in case they used that one at some point as well. No one has used that shower since I last cleaned it so it's good.
At 9:20 I received a text that their flight had been cancelled, they were disembarking the plane but had to get their thoughts together, figure out where their luggage was, etc. and would let me know what was going on.
I went and ran the Swiffer duster over everything in the living room, ran the dust mop over the floors in there because I was frankly tired of steam mopping at that point, and made sure everything was straightened up.
Then I remembered I had never gotten back to clean the shower in the guest bathroom so I was heading that way and thinking, "How have I just spent almost 2 hours cleaning the downstairs of my house when it really was pretty clean to begin with?" when another text came in around 9:30.
"Hey Bev! Thanks anyway, but they are really good friends with a coach at (local university here in Atlanta) and they just found out she is in town so they're heading to her house to spend the night."
So I started drinking. (Not really.)
I did immediately go to bed though.
Thankfully, I won't have much cleaning to do this weekend now. And I could almost eat off of my floors at this point.
But I still have to clean that *&^% shower.
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
An unforgettable day
This post is going to be more facts/information than fun or entertainment.
Those of us down here in Atlanta know something. We know we were the butt of America's jokes last Tuesday when Snowcopalypse 2014 hit us. Y'all, there was nothing funny about what Atlanta went through last week. People were in very dire and dangerous situations.
I get it. How can less than 3 inches of snow close down a city and cause the chaos that happened here?
It was a combination of things. I don't think you can blame it on any one person or any one thing. Schools, businesses and government offices all left at the same time and the streets were clogged. I was surprised the schools were open in the first place. They normally stay closed if one snow flurry falls or if there is the threat of one snowflake coming. The few salt/sand trucks we have could not treat the roads because of the massive gridlock. Some people have asked why they didn't treat the roads ahead of the storm. I've heard some people say if they had, the cars driving on all of those roads during the morning commute would have blown most of the salt/sand away. I'm not an expert on that kind of thing so I have no idea. All of the cars that hit the roads at the same time melted and compacted the snow. And the temps were falling so it all turned to a solid sheet of ice. Atlanta is full of hills. I don't care if you grew up in Alaska - it's impossible to drive on an icy hill without snow tires which we don't have down here. Well, you can drive down an icy hill fine. Stopping tends to be a bit of a problem though. Atlanta has TONS of 18-wheeler traffic. There are laws that they cannot come inside the perimeter (an interstate that goes around the city) unless they have documentation proving they have deliveries or pickups inside. But a lot of truckers break that law. Truckers are required to have chains for their tires when they come here. But from what I understand, the officials don't enforce them actually putting them on. So a lot of trucks jack-knifed or got sideways in the roads and no one could get around them. In other words, there are a number of things you can blame for what happened last week.
However, I will say that (in my opinion) the mayor of the City of Atlanta was getting a ton of the blame that he did not deserve. I work in the city limits and live in the city limits. It took me 2 hours to get home for my 8 mile commute. On an average day it takes me an hour because traffic here sucks on a sunny day with no weather situations occurring. I spent over 30 minutes just trying to get out of my parking deck because everyone left my building at the same time. So in reality, it only took me 30 minutes longer than my normal commute time (and that has happened before when there was no bad weather going on). The people who were in their cars for 12 - 24 hours driving, who sat on the roads stranded, who slept in stranger's homes, in the floors of grocery stores, drug stores or Home Depots, etc. were people trying to get out to the burbs. I have not personally heard of anyone who works and lives in the actual City of Atlanta who experienced the chaos that we all know was going on outside the city limits. I'm not saying it didn't happen to anyone, but I have not heard about it if it did. The only problem I know of personally within the city limits is a friend of mine who has a child that had to spend the night at school. But her child was safe, she wasn't sitting on a bus, she was fed, she had access to restrooms, they watched movies, etc. Was it ideal for her child to be away from her overnight sleeping at school? Of course not. But she was not in danger like a lot of people were that night.
There were people stranded without medications. Babies in cold cars without enough formula, diapers, etc. Children stuck on school buses with no food, water or restrooms. People abandoning their cars and walking miles in ice and snow with temperatures in the teens. A baby was born in a car on the side of the expressway because the parents had been stuck in traffic for hours and emergency vehicles could not get to them. There was a teenage girl who was trying to push her grandmother's car which was stuck in the ice. Another car came sliding on the ice and the girl couldn't get out of the way. Her leg was amputated. Another woman was killed when her car slid into a ditch. And we heard on TV and read on the internet about how people around the country were laughing at us.
I realize how blessed I was and you have no idea how grateful I am. But the mayor of the City of Atlanta should not be taking the entire blame for people who were stranded miles outside the city limits. He is not responsible for those roads. And he had his hands full with the City of Atlanta.
What many people around the country don't realize is just how big metropolitan Atlanta is. Some people say it consists of 10 counties. Some say it's 28 counties. There are approximately 160+ cities within those counties in the metropolitan area. But most people will agree the metro Atlanta area is ginormous and we have a whole bunch of people here. I've seen articles that say that metro Atlanta is the size of the state of Massachusetts. In fact, I just Googled "population of Atlanta" and a box popped up that says the population of our metro area is larger than 24 individual states.
Metropolitan Atlanta and the City of Atlanta are not the same. The actual City of Atlanta has a population of less than 500,000 people. But during the workday, there are over a million people in the city. And the mayor of the City of Atlanta has nothing to do with the interstates y'all saw pictures of last week. Yet you would not know that by a lot of the coverage I saw. Each county has officials. Each city within those counties has officials. And no one is in charge of overseeing the entire region. That is where a lot of the problem came from, I think. Everyone is doing their own thing and not coordinating anything. And what that resulted in was the citizens all being left to fend for themselves.
I don't work for the government so I have no inside information, but I read that the last time we had an ice storm back in 2011, the city had 4 snow plows. Two of them ran into each other as they were pulling out of a parking lot and reduced our snow plows in half. I've also heard we had 10 plows. I don't know what the actual number was. They did purchase more, but it's still not many. We have tons of streets and roads and interstates here. Because we don't get this kind of weather on a regular basis, it makes no sense financially to buy tons of equipment that might sit around for years between use and they would not have the personnel on hand to operate them anyway. So as Atlantans, we have to accept that we might get shut down every few years for a day or more due to ice. The protocol is that they treat streets in front of fire stations, police stations, and hospitals. They treat one or two lanes of the interstates (we have interstates that are as many as 8 lanes in each direction in some areas and they are packed on a normal day with no ice or snow). And next they treat major roads. Side streets where the majority of people live? Those are not treated. In fact, the street I live on is a pretty heavily traveled side street. It is used a lot by emergency vehicles as a cut through so I thought there was a possibility my street would be treated (this is the first winter weather event we've had since I bought my house 2 years ago so I wasn't sure). We saw sand/salt trucks going up and down our street last week to treat the major roads on each end of our street. But they didn't drop a teaspoon of salt/sand on my street. That's just part of life down here.
As for personal stories of people I know? I've heard some doozies.
One of my co-workers had to stay in the office for a client meeting/closing. By the time it was over, the streets were impassable out towards where she lived because of the ice and gridlock. Ten people slept in our office. The clients were from out of town and had previously booked a hotel room across the street and they were lucky. There was a poultry convention here in town and my co-workers were unable to find a room anywhere. So they slept in the office. Ideal? No. But they were warm, safe, we have a beer machine, vending machines, the attorney in charge of the closing had ordered a case of wine from a private club located in our building, etc.
Two of my co-workers slept overnight in a restaurant. One of them decided she was just not going to be able to get home so she pulled into a shopping center and decided to go in the restaurant to warm up a little bit. She saw another co-worker already in there and they ended up staying all night. The restaurant fed them for free. There was a couple in there with a 3-month-old baby named Luke. Everyone there knew Luke and entertained Luke before the ordeal was over. My co-workers left our office at noon on Tuesday. They finally got home around 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday.
Another friend of mine left our office at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday. She arrived home at 12:43 a.m. on Wednesday completely stressed and exhausted.
Another friend of mine left our office at noon. It took her 13 hours to get home. She came very close to running out of gas but miraculously made it up an exit ramp around many abandoned cars, cars that couldn't get up the ramp because of the ice, cars that had simply run out of gas. Before she made it to the gas station, she had used a big cup and an old t-shirt in her car in lieu of a restroom. I heard many similar stories.
One of our partners had been down in Orlando. The airline emailed him on Tuesday to let him know his flight to Atlanta had been canceled. They emailed him again and said they were re-routing him to LaGuardia and then to Atlanta. Then they canceled that. They emailed him again and said they were sending him from Orlando to Minneapolis to La Guardia to Atlanta. He decided to rent a car and try to drive. He got as far as Macon which is south of Atlanta and the state patrol had the roads closed. They were not allowing anyone to drive into the Atlanta area because things were so awful here. So he spent the night in Macon and got to Atlanta the next afternoon.
But in the midst of chaos, the beautiful human spirit shined. People gave total strangers a ride when they needed one. People let complete strangers spend the night in their homes. People stood out on the streets handing out sandwiches, hot chocolate, granola bars, bottled water, etc. that they prepared in their homes to people who had been stranded in the cars overnight. Home Depots opened their doors along with Publix, Kroger, CVS, Walgreens, etc. Was sleeping on the floor of a grocery store fun? I would suspect it was fairly miserable but at least they had access to restrooms, food, water, and warmth. Pharmacists got life saving medications to people who were stuck away from home without them. Ambulances carried high school students off a school bus to a Kroger grocery store. The manager allowed them to help themselves to anything they wanted to eat and drink for free. Some bus drivers spent 16 hours or more trying to get kids safely home. And then they had long drives to get to their own homes after that. Neighbors helped neighbors. Strangers helped strangers. New friendships were formed.
So yes, we know a lot of the country was laughing at us, shaking their heads, calling us imbeciles and dumbasses. But I assure you there was nothing funny happening. People struggled. People cried. People suffered. I was blessed and I know it. I made it home safely and in a relatively short time.
It is a day Atlantans will never forget.
Those of us down here in Atlanta know something. We know we were the butt of America's jokes last Tuesday when Snowcopalypse 2014 hit us. Y'all, there was nothing funny about what Atlanta went through last week. People were in very dire and dangerous situations.
I get it. How can less than 3 inches of snow close down a city and cause the chaos that happened here?
It was a combination of things. I don't think you can blame it on any one person or any one thing. Schools, businesses and government offices all left at the same time and the streets were clogged. I was surprised the schools were open in the first place. They normally stay closed if one snow flurry falls or if there is the threat of one snowflake coming. The few salt/sand trucks we have could not treat the roads because of the massive gridlock. Some people have asked why they didn't treat the roads ahead of the storm. I've heard some people say if they had, the cars driving on all of those roads during the morning commute would have blown most of the salt/sand away. I'm not an expert on that kind of thing so I have no idea. All of the cars that hit the roads at the same time melted and compacted the snow. And the temps were falling so it all turned to a solid sheet of ice. Atlanta is full of hills. I don't care if you grew up in Alaska - it's impossible to drive on an icy hill without snow tires which we don't have down here. Well, you can drive down an icy hill fine. Stopping tends to be a bit of a problem though. Atlanta has TONS of 18-wheeler traffic. There are laws that they cannot come inside the perimeter (an interstate that goes around the city) unless they have documentation proving they have deliveries or pickups inside. But a lot of truckers break that law. Truckers are required to have chains for their tires when they come here. But from what I understand, the officials don't enforce them actually putting them on. So a lot of trucks jack-knifed or got sideways in the roads and no one could get around them. In other words, there are a number of things you can blame for what happened last week.
However, I will say that (in my opinion) the mayor of the City of Atlanta was getting a ton of the blame that he did not deserve. I work in the city limits and live in the city limits. It took me 2 hours to get home for my 8 mile commute. On an average day it takes me an hour because traffic here sucks on a sunny day with no weather situations occurring. I spent over 30 minutes just trying to get out of my parking deck because everyone left my building at the same time. So in reality, it only took me 30 minutes longer than my normal commute time (and that has happened before when there was no bad weather going on). The people who were in their cars for 12 - 24 hours driving, who sat on the roads stranded, who slept in stranger's homes, in the floors of grocery stores, drug stores or Home Depots, etc. were people trying to get out to the burbs. I have not personally heard of anyone who works and lives in the actual City of Atlanta who experienced the chaos that we all know was going on outside the city limits. I'm not saying it didn't happen to anyone, but I have not heard about it if it did. The only problem I know of personally within the city limits is a friend of mine who has a child that had to spend the night at school. But her child was safe, she wasn't sitting on a bus, she was fed, she had access to restrooms, they watched movies, etc. Was it ideal for her child to be away from her overnight sleeping at school? Of course not. But she was not in danger like a lot of people were that night.
There were people stranded without medications. Babies in cold cars without enough formula, diapers, etc. Children stuck on school buses with no food, water or restrooms. People abandoning their cars and walking miles in ice and snow with temperatures in the teens. A baby was born in a car on the side of the expressway because the parents had been stuck in traffic for hours and emergency vehicles could not get to them. There was a teenage girl who was trying to push her grandmother's car which was stuck in the ice. Another car came sliding on the ice and the girl couldn't get out of the way. Her leg was amputated. Another woman was killed when her car slid into a ditch. And we heard on TV and read on the internet about how people around the country were laughing at us.
I realize how blessed I was and you have no idea how grateful I am. But the mayor of the City of Atlanta should not be taking the entire blame for people who were stranded miles outside the city limits. He is not responsible for those roads. And he had his hands full with the City of Atlanta.
What many people around the country don't realize is just how big metropolitan Atlanta is. Some people say it consists of 10 counties. Some say it's 28 counties. There are approximately 160+ cities within those counties in the metropolitan area. But most people will agree the metro Atlanta area is ginormous and we have a whole bunch of people here. I've seen articles that say that metro Atlanta is the size of the state of Massachusetts. In fact, I just Googled "population of Atlanta" and a box popped up that says the population of our metro area is larger than 24 individual states.
Metropolitan Atlanta and the City of Atlanta are not the same. The actual City of Atlanta has a population of less than 500,000 people. But during the workday, there are over a million people in the city. And the mayor of the City of Atlanta has nothing to do with the interstates y'all saw pictures of last week. Yet you would not know that by a lot of the coverage I saw. Each county has officials. Each city within those counties has officials. And no one is in charge of overseeing the entire region. That is where a lot of the problem came from, I think. Everyone is doing their own thing and not coordinating anything. And what that resulted in was the citizens all being left to fend for themselves.
I don't work for the government so I have no inside information, but I read that the last time we had an ice storm back in 2011, the city had 4 snow plows. Two of them ran into each other as they were pulling out of a parking lot and reduced our snow plows in half. I've also heard we had 10 plows. I don't know what the actual number was. They did purchase more, but it's still not many. We have tons of streets and roads and interstates here. Because we don't get this kind of weather on a regular basis, it makes no sense financially to buy tons of equipment that might sit around for years between use and they would not have the personnel on hand to operate them anyway. So as Atlantans, we have to accept that we might get shut down every few years for a day or more due to ice. The protocol is that they treat streets in front of fire stations, police stations, and hospitals. They treat one or two lanes of the interstates (we have interstates that are as many as 8 lanes in each direction in some areas and they are packed on a normal day with no ice or snow). And next they treat major roads. Side streets where the majority of people live? Those are not treated. In fact, the street I live on is a pretty heavily traveled side street. It is used a lot by emergency vehicles as a cut through so I thought there was a possibility my street would be treated (this is the first winter weather event we've had since I bought my house 2 years ago so I wasn't sure). We saw sand/salt trucks going up and down our street last week to treat the major roads on each end of our street. But they didn't drop a teaspoon of salt/sand on my street. That's just part of life down here.
As for personal stories of people I know? I've heard some doozies.
One of my co-workers had to stay in the office for a client meeting/closing. By the time it was over, the streets were impassable out towards where she lived because of the ice and gridlock. Ten people slept in our office. The clients were from out of town and had previously booked a hotel room across the street and they were lucky. There was a poultry convention here in town and my co-workers were unable to find a room anywhere. So they slept in the office. Ideal? No. But they were warm, safe, we have a beer machine, vending machines, the attorney in charge of the closing had ordered a case of wine from a private club located in our building, etc.
Two of my co-workers slept overnight in a restaurant. One of them decided she was just not going to be able to get home so she pulled into a shopping center and decided to go in the restaurant to warm up a little bit. She saw another co-worker already in there and they ended up staying all night. The restaurant fed them for free. There was a couple in there with a 3-month-old baby named Luke. Everyone there knew Luke and entertained Luke before the ordeal was over. My co-workers left our office at noon on Tuesday. They finally got home around 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday.
Another friend of mine left our office at 12:30 p.m. on Tuesday. She arrived home at 12:43 a.m. on Wednesday completely stressed and exhausted.
Another friend of mine left our office at noon. It took her 13 hours to get home. She came very close to running out of gas but miraculously made it up an exit ramp around many abandoned cars, cars that couldn't get up the ramp because of the ice, cars that had simply run out of gas. Before she made it to the gas station, she had used a big cup and an old t-shirt in her car in lieu of a restroom. I heard many similar stories.
One of our partners had been down in Orlando. The airline emailed him on Tuesday to let him know his flight to Atlanta had been canceled. They emailed him again and said they were re-routing him to LaGuardia and then to Atlanta. Then they canceled that. They emailed him again and said they were sending him from Orlando to Minneapolis to La Guardia to Atlanta. He decided to rent a car and try to drive. He got as far as Macon which is south of Atlanta and the state patrol had the roads closed. They were not allowing anyone to drive into the Atlanta area because things were so awful here. So he spent the night in Macon and got to Atlanta the next afternoon.
But in the midst of chaos, the beautiful human spirit shined. People gave total strangers a ride when they needed one. People let complete strangers spend the night in their homes. People stood out on the streets handing out sandwiches, hot chocolate, granola bars, bottled water, etc. that they prepared in their homes to people who had been stranded in the cars overnight. Home Depots opened their doors along with Publix, Kroger, CVS, Walgreens, etc. Was sleeping on the floor of a grocery store fun? I would suspect it was fairly miserable but at least they had access to restrooms, food, water, and warmth. Pharmacists got life saving medications to people who were stuck away from home without them. Ambulances carried high school students off a school bus to a Kroger grocery store. The manager allowed them to help themselves to anything they wanted to eat and drink for free. Some bus drivers spent 16 hours or more trying to get kids safely home. And then they had long drives to get to their own homes after that. Neighbors helped neighbors. Strangers helped strangers. New friendships were formed.
So yes, we know a lot of the country was laughing at us, shaking their heads, calling us imbeciles and dumbasses. But I assure you there was nothing funny happening. People struggled. People cried. People suffered. I was blessed and I know it. I made it home safely and in a relatively short time.
It is a day Atlantans will never forget.
Friday, January 31, 2014
My heart is destroyed
What.
A.
Week.
And not a good one.
Do y'all remember just last week I told you Bailey seemed to be doing much better and had started using her litter box and all that good stuff? She was climbing up in the dishwasher, acted interested in stuff, etc. In fact 3 nights in a row last week she was waiting at the door when I got home from work and bolted outside to sniff stuff. She was acting all perky and sassy and for the first time in forever she actually didn't stink so I could stand to have her near me.
When I left for work last Friday morning, she was peppy, eating, running around and seeming like she was fine. Friday night when I got home, she wasn't waiting at the door. I went in, turned the alarm off, I was about to pee my pants so I ran to the bathroom and she never came to greet me as she had done for almost 14.5 years.
I looked around and found her on the heat vent in my dining room. She looked at me pitifully. And a few minutes later she got up to come in the kitchen for some food and water and she seemed to have a slight limp and it appeared to be her right rear leg. I checked it out and didn't feel anything out of the ordinary. She was walking on it and she liked to drink out of the toilets (even though I gave her nice fresh water in a bowl) and she was able to jump up on the toilet seat so I didn't feel like it was broken or anything. She wasn't crying in pain when walking, jumping or when I touched it. So I assumed she had just bruised it or pulled a muscle or something. And I decided to just watch her over the weekend.
At some point on Sunday night she tried to jump up on an ottoman and she fell. But she walked off, still with only the slightest limp and wasn't moaning or crying in pain. She later was able to jump up on the toilet seat with no problem.
On Monday, I talked to a friend/co-worker of mine who has a farm and has approximately 20 cats. I told her the symptoms and she agreed - she said I would definitely know if it was broken because she would have been crying in pain and would not put any weight on it and probably wouldn't have let me touch her. She suggested I just keep watching her, try to make her rest as much as possible and if it went on for a while I should probably take her to the vet and have it checked.
I came home from work Monday night and Bailey did not greet me at the door.
And she never will again.
I found her dead in the middle of my kitchen floor.
Oh, y'all. It was just awful. It looked like she had been standing there and just fell over on her side. All four legs were straight out in front of her, her beautiful eyes were still open and my heart broke right in half. I've never had an indoor pet before and so I've never been through the death of a pet that I was this attached to and spent so much time with. I can't stand it.
When I told my co-worker/friend, she said that at least it sounds like it was instantaneous and that she would suspect it was a heart attack and I should believe that Bailey did not suffer. I didn't even know cats could have a heart attack. Maybe that sounds dumb, but I really didn't. But based on the position of her body, the fact that her eyes were still open, and that she didn't crawl off somewhere and hide, she said it sounds like it was instantaneous and even Bailey didn't know it was coming.
Y'all, I am so sad. I'm so heartbroken. I miss her so much.
It was pitch dark when I got home Monday night so I couldn't see in my backyard to dig her a grave. And as y'all know by now, we had that ridiculous snow/ice storm coming on Tuesday. I placed her in a box and I went out early Tuesday morning to bury her before I went to work.
Of course this didn't go smoothly.
I was going to bury her behind my detached garage because I knew I would never do any landscaping back there and she would be undisturbed. I started digging a hole with the shovel my dad had given me only a month or two before he died of a heart attack a year and a half ago. And let me tell you that is the first time I've used his shovel (it was an extra so he had used it for years probably) and the tears were flowing. I was using my dead dad's shovel to bury my dead cat. Oh it was awful.
I dug a decently deep hole and then I ran into plumbing stuff.
I filled that hole back in and moved down a few feet and started digging again. And I ran into plumbing stuff again. Yes. Seriously.
So I filled the second hole back in and moved out from behind my garage and found a special spot in my back yard and started digging a third hole. Finally I found the right spot. I guess Bailey didn't want to be stuck behind the garage for eternity. I can't blame her.
Since it was the third hole I had dug and it was 7:30 a.m. and about 18 degrees outside, my back was hurting, the shoulder and elbow of the arm I broke in 4 places was killing me, and I was crying like crazy. Honestly, I was just exhausted and I couldn't dig a very deep hole by that point. I dug enough to get her covered and then I went in the garage and got a giant bag of soil conditioner that was left from last spring, and I poured the entire thing over her grave and I then went to work hoping like hell that nothing would come along and dig her up.
By the time I got home from work with the ice and snow and fiasco that was Atlanta that afternoon and evening (which I will blog about another time), my driveway was a solid sheet of ice so I had to park my car up at the front of my house. I haven't even been back there to check on her since I buried her because I haven't been able to get down my driveway yet. Hopefully it should all be melted today.
At this point, I don't feel like I can ever have another cat. Because I never want to feel like this again.
A.
Week.
And not a good one.
Do y'all remember just last week I told you Bailey seemed to be doing much better and had started using her litter box and all that good stuff? She was climbing up in the dishwasher, acted interested in stuff, etc. In fact 3 nights in a row last week she was waiting at the door when I got home from work and bolted outside to sniff stuff. She was acting all perky and sassy and for the first time in forever she actually didn't stink so I could stand to have her near me.
When I left for work last Friday morning, she was peppy, eating, running around and seeming like she was fine. Friday night when I got home, she wasn't waiting at the door. I went in, turned the alarm off, I was about to pee my pants so I ran to the bathroom and she never came to greet me as she had done for almost 14.5 years.
I looked around and found her on the heat vent in my dining room. She looked at me pitifully. And a few minutes later she got up to come in the kitchen for some food and water and she seemed to have a slight limp and it appeared to be her right rear leg. I checked it out and didn't feel anything out of the ordinary. She was walking on it and she liked to drink out of the toilets (even though I gave her nice fresh water in a bowl) and she was able to jump up on the toilet seat so I didn't feel like it was broken or anything. She wasn't crying in pain when walking, jumping or when I touched it. So I assumed she had just bruised it or pulled a muscle or something. And I decided to just watch her over the weekend.
At some point on Sunday night she tried to jump up on an ottoman and she fell. But she walked off, still with only the slightest limp and wasn't moaning or crying in pain. She later was able to jump up on the toilet seat with no problem.
On Monday, I talked to a friend/co-worker of mine who has a farm and has approximately 20 cats. I told her the symptoms and she agreed - she said I would definitely know if it was broken because she would have been crying in pain and would not put any weight on it and probably wouldn't have let me touch her. She suggested I just keep watching her, try to make her rest as much as possible and if it went on for a while I should probably take her to the vet and have it checked.
I came home from work Monday night and Bailey did not greet me at the door.
And she never will again.
I found her dead in the middle of my kitchen floor.
Oh, y'all. It was just awful. It looked like she had been standing there and just fell over on her side. All four legs were straight out in front of her, her beautiful eyes were still open and my heart broke right in half. I've never had an indoor pet before and so I've never been through the death of a pet that I was this attached to and spent so much time with. I can't stand it.
When I told my co-worker/friend, she said that at least it sounds like it was instantaneous and that she would suspect it was a heart attack and I should believe that Bailey did not suffer. I didn't even know cats could have a heart attack. Maybe that sounds dumb, but I really didn't. But based on the position of her body, the fact that her eyes were still open, and that she didn't crawl off somewhere and hide, she said it sounds like it was instantaneous and even Bailey didn't know it was coming.
Y'all, I am so sad. I'm so heartbroken. I miss her so much.
It was pitch dark when I got home Monday night so I couldn't see in my backyard to dig her a grave. And as y'all know by now, we had that ridiculous snow/ice storm coming on Tuesday. I placed her in a box and I went out early Tuesday morning to bury her before I went to work.
Of course this didn't go smoothly.
I was going to bury her behind my detached garage because I knew I would never do any landscaping back there and she would be undisturbed. I started digging a hole with the shovel my dad had given me only a month or two before he died of a heart attack a year and a half ago. And let me tell you that is the first time I've used his shovel (it was an extra so he had used it for years probably) and the tears were flowing. I was using my dead dad's shovel to bury my dead cat. Oh it was awful.
I dug a decently deep hole and then I ran into plumbing stuff.
I filled that hole back in and moved down a few feet and started digging again. And I ran into plumbing stuff again. Yes. Seriously.
So I filled the second hole back in and moved out from behind my garage and found a special spot in my back yard and started digging a third hole. Finally I found the right spot. I guess Bailey didn't want to be stuck behind the garage for eternity. I can't blame her.
Since it was the third hole I had dug and it was 7:30 a.m. and about 18 degrees outside, my back was hurting, the shoulder and elbow of the arm I broke in 4 places was killing me, and I was crying like crazy. Honestly, I was just exhausted and I couldn't dig a very deep hole by that point. I dug enough to get her covered and then I went in the garage and got a giant bag of soil conditioner that was left from last spring, and I poured the entire thing over her grave and I then went to work hoping like hell that nothing would come along and dig her up.
By the time I got home from work with the ice and snow and fiasco that was Atlanta that afternoon and evening (which I will blog about another time), my driveway was a solid sheet of ice so I had to park my car up at the front of my house. I haven't even been back there to check on her since I buried her because I haven't been able to get down my driveway yet. Hopefully it should all be melted today.
At this point, I don't feel like I can ever have another cat. Because I never want to feel like this again.
Bailey
July, 1999 - January, 2014
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