Day 1206: Fire of Unknown Origin...
May. 11th, 2015 10:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nagi_schwarzDay 1206: Fire of Unknown Origin...
And other highway adventures in the intermountain west.
Last week at work was...long. Very, very long. Endless meetings and court. Angry parents. Crazy parents. Struggling kids. I was literally ready to cry after work on Wednesday night. Instead, I bucked it up and went to dance, and after two and a half hours of dancing, I felt way, way better. I do need to dance more often to relieve stress.
Tuesday we had the scouts over and helped them spray paint the toolboxes they'd made the week before. I think they had a fun time. I learned that one of my kids goes by the nickname "Cat" and he thinks my husband's name is "Abe". Good times.
I was pretty good last week about getting up, meditating, reading, exercising, writing, and all of that. But by Friday I just said screw it and slept in and then had to scramble to make it to my meetings. I drove around a lot, visited a lot of schools. In one high school I accidentally parked in the back and had to walk past the gym and locker rooms to get to the front office to check in, and when I walked past a group of high school football players, they all looked at me with such disdain, and it was like being a sophomore all over again. I really, really don't miss high school.
We spent the weekend up in Idaho, which was nice. I did spend a good chunk of Saturday morning sitting out in the sun and writing vacation memos for 130+ cases so if any of my cases has an emergency, my colleagues know what is going on. We went to see the new Avengers movie (fun, entertaining, I liked Winter Soldier much better), and we ran around and did some shopping. We ate burgers at Rupe's and got pizza at Leo's and it was generally good times.
Sunday we went to church with Cody's mom, and for some reason Cody got it into his head that he wanted to learn how to do shuttle tatting (I had brought my shuttle and some string with me to keep me awake). Poor Cody tried to watch and watch and figure it out, but since he doesn't really have experience in any other fiber arts, he doesn't really know how to maintain and manage tension, so he had a lot of trouble with transferring the knot from the shuttle to the ring/ball. Still, it was an interesting experience, and he says he genuinely wants to learn "the basics" (all of tatting is really "the basics", save perhaps using two shuttles, which I cannot do either), so I will get some balls of thread for us to take on the plane with us.
After church we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa, ostensibly for mother's day. Cody and his mom ended up tromping all over the farm looking to bag a rabbit for grandpa. Grandpa told me about his time growing up in Almy, WY, all the times he moved around, the time he played in a harmonica band in junior high, raising rabbits, and the two times he saw the Statue of Liberty (once when he was shipping out to Europe during WWII, and once when he returned home safely).
Everything was fine and dandy till we were about an hour south of Blackfoot and the cruise control suddenly died. I'd had that happen on a car before so I kind of panicked, and then I realized...we were out of fuel. I managed to get us off to the side of the road, and we called Cody's dad, but then a State Policeman pulled over and offered to literally push our van with his car till we got to the next gas station (luckily only 4 miles away). I was super embarrassed for failing to check the gas gage before we left, but we got gas just fine
I figured our road adventures were done for the day until we hit about 7200 south in Salt Lake and saw that a car ahead of us had its engine ON FIRE. Cody yelled for me to pull over so we could help them - another car pulled over too - and Cody ran to the burning car (which had, luckily pulled over). For some stupid reason my door was locked and I couldn't get out, and by the time I got out the car was burning so much and there was so much smoke that I couldn't really see Cody. I thought I could see him, the guy from the other car, and a woman, but it was hard to tell. I was sorely tempted to get video of the burning car (damn this smartphone age) but then the car made two popping sounds and the flames got bigger and Cody called and told me to get in the van and get the hell away because there was shrapnel. Police cars and firemen responded fast, and I ended up sitting at a gas station just off the exit, wondering if the car was going to explode and take my husband with it. Once the firemen got the car put out, the other guy gave Cody a ride to the exit. Turns out Cody had taken two dives into the burning car to rescue purses. He rescued one, and then the one woman asked him to go back in for the other one, but the car was burning too much.
By the time we got home, it was about 1 AM. Long, long day.
I miss Ivy and Dingo.
I am so ready for this vacation.
And other highway adventures in the intermountain west.
Last week at work was...long. Very, very long. Endless meetings and court. Angry parents. Crazy parents. Struggling kids. I was literally ready to cry after work on Wednesday night. Instead, I bucked it up and went to dance, and after two and a half hours of dancing, I felt way, way better. I do need to dance more often to relieve stress.
Tuesday we had the scouts over and helped them spray paint the toolboxes they'd made the week before. I think they had a fun time. I learned that one of my kids goes by the nickname "Cat" and he thinks my husband's name is "Abe". Good times.
I was pretty good last week about getting up, meditating, reading, exercising, writing, and all of that. But by Friday I just said screw it and slept in and then had to scramble to make it to my meetings. I drove around a lot, visited a lot of schools. In one high school I accidentally parked in the back and had to walk past the gym and locker rooms to get to the front office to check in, and when I walked past a group of high school football players, they all looked at me with such disdain, and it was like being a sophomore all over again. I really, really don't miss high school.
We spent the weekend up in Idaho, which was nice. I did spend a good chunk of Saturday morning sitting out in the sun and writing vacation memos for 130+ cases so if any of my cases has an emergency, my colleagues know what is going on. We went to see the new Avengers movie (fun, entertaining, I liked Winter Soldier much better), and we ran around and did some shopping. We ate burgers at Rupe's and got pizza at Leo's and it was generally good times.
Sunday we went to church with Cody's mom, and for some reason Cody got it into his head that he wanted to learn how to do shuttle tatting (I had brought my shuttle and some string with me to keep me awake). Poor Cody tried to watch and watch and figure it out, but since he doesn't really have experience in any other fiber arts, he doesn't really know how to maintain and manage tension, so he had a lot of trouble with transferring the knot from the shuttle to the ring/ball. Still, it was an interesting experience, and he says he genuinely wants to learn "the basics" (all of tatting is really "the basics", save perhaps using two shuttles, which I cannot do either), so I will get some balls of thread for us to take on the plane with us.
After church we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa, ostensibly for mother's day. Cody and his mom ended up tromping all over the farm looking to bag a rabbit for grandpa. Grandpa told me about his time growing up in Almy, WY, all the times he moved around, the time he played in a harmonica band in junior high, raising rabbits, and the two times he saw the Statue of Liberty (once when he was shipping out to Europe during WWII, and once when he returned home safely).
Everything was fine and dandy till we were about an hour south of Blackfoot and the cruise control suddenly died. I'd had that happen on a car before so I kind of panicked, and then I realized...we were out of fuel. I managed to get us off to the side of the road, and we called Cody's dad, but then a State Policeman pulled over and offered to literally push our van with his car till we got to the next gas station (luckily only 4 miles away). I was super embarrassed for failing to check the gas gage before we left, but we got gas just fine
I figured our road adventures were done for the day until we hit about 7200 south in Salt Lake and saw that a car ahead of us had its engine ON FIRE. Cody yelled for me to pull over so we could help them - another car pulled over too - and Cody ran to the burning car (which had, luckily pulled over). For some stupid reason my door was locked and I couldn't get out, and by the time I got out the car was burning so much and there was so much smoke that I couldn't really see Cody. I thought I could see him, the guy from the other car, and a woman, but it was hard to tell. I was sorely tempted to get video of the burning car (damn this smartphone age) but then the car made two popping sounds and the flames got bigger and Cody called and told me to get in the van and get the hell away because there was shrapnel. Police cars and firemen responded fast, and I ended up sitting at a gas station just off the exit, wondering if the car was going to explode and take my husband with it. Once the firemen got the car put out, the other guy gave Cody a ride to the exit. Turns out Cody had taken two dives into the burning car to rescue purses. He rescued one, and then the one woman asked him to go back in for the other one, but the car was burning too much.
By the time we got home, it was about 1 AM. Long, long day.
I miss Ivy and Dingo.
I am so ready for this vacation.
