Well, that was interesting--a productive afternoon spent over a skimpy crawfish poboy (Best Sandwiches in Town, according to Birmingham magazine--my hind foot says I) with My Friend Jeff™ pondering the wisdom of his brother-in-law's recent purchase of a complete but inoperable '58 Buick Super four door hardtop, and discussing the finer points of the Honda Odyssey (Now With More Homer!), Minnesota, air travel, class reunions, shot glass collecting (send me all you have!), the car show, children, Vanna White (believe it or not, I have only two degrees of separation from both Vanna and her two breasts--and I have actually touched one of her makeup puff applicators), stupid people, architecture, valet parking, the big stack of discarded chairs by the dumpster of the Wendy's next door, and on whether to say anything to the somewhat bearded waiter who brought Jeff his two dollars in change, then picked it back up when he changed a ten for me. We decided that I would leave a dollar on the table, give Jeff 50 cents, which would make it a total of $3 for the waiter, split equally between Jeff and me, except since the waiter already had two of his dollars, if he didn't realize what he had done, and only saw a dollar on the table, he would think he had gotten stiffed by these two morons. So we got ready, I dropped it under the rim of the plate and we ran.

We swapped car magazines, and on the way out I swung over to the aforementioned Wendy's to see what the deal was with the chairs, because I am a pack rat, born of parents who grew up during the Depression and who never threw anything out, and doggone it, no one should just throw away chairs like that. Hmmm, all in good shape, just dumped by the dumpster, begging me to pile a selection into the back of the van. Hmmm. HMMM. Free Chairs! I even pulled into a parking space and very nearly got out and went in to ask the manager if it would be okay. Freeeeee. Chaaaaaaiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrs.

Because I am such a friggin' idiot.

I sat there for a moment and pondered the huge pile of junk in the garage--"HEY! I don't NEED any chairs, even if they ARE free!" No more clutter for ME, nosiree!

(I wonder if they'll still be there this evening)

Anyway, got back, went to the library, found some cool old photos, including a post card from the early '20s and some nice close ups done in the late '30s before the first round of modernization after it was sold and a new Kress built up the street, decided to get them copied onto a CD, and found out that such a simple interagency request requires much brow furrowing, hemming, hawing, consternation, call rerouting, promises of an indeterminate nature, darkly suspicious glance casting, small white gloves, and other things I dare not divulge. Finally get an invoice, which I must take downstairs and get a purchase order number assigned to and a check cut, but only after first getting the deputy department director to approve it. Alternately, I could have just paid it myself, and gotten reimbursed. Which would have been even more difficult, and taken four weeks. Bah.

In among all of the calling around to various supervisors, our secretary told me Reba had called and said that she was having to leave work and go pick up Jonathan and Catherine who were sick at school. ::sigh:: Got off the phone with her just now--each one has brain hurtage, eyeball ouchies, severe bouts of glassy-eyed quietude, and blazing temperatures of 98.8. And Catherine peed in her pants. Luckily, Daddy had just this week put in a fresh change of clothes in the old backpack for just such an emergency--of course, having clothes is good, but having a fresh pair of Underoos would have been a good thing to remember to pack, too. She didn't care, though, and probably liked the breeziness.

So, this is it for me--I'm going to roll out a bit early and go help tend to the litter. Hope you all have a great weekend (and as always, mine has about 3,000 words worth building up--soccer games, Fall Festival at church, Tigers v. Tigers, church, sick kids--and I just heard that there is an overturned chicken truck that has traffic backed up all over the interstate.)

See you Monday. Maybe.
posted by Terry at 3:00:00 PM