What I Really Think

So here we are Tuesday, and I wait with baited or is that bated, breath, for John’s (aka Yanni’s) phone call telling me the PC is ready for pickup.

And I wait.

And I wait some more.

And do you know what?

He never calls.

So Chris calls the store this time. And Chris tries to speak to John, who as it turns out, left for the day and then Chris gets disconnected. All of this after being on hold off and on for over 20 minutes.

It’s 6:30 now. Not happy. I am so not happy.

It’s Wednesday, the computer will be ready today. So I go about my business, do some work, do a lot of laundry, run some errands, pick up Sammi and Erica from school and take them to Hebrew School and then head to Circuit City.

I arrive at 4:00.

I walk straight to the back, to the Fire Dog people. I see the laptop sitting on the back counter. It’s not on.

Dennis walks by, “Hey, how you doin?” Dennis is sweet but totally clueless. He doesn’t know he’s about to get his head chewed off but then again, at that moment, I don’t know I’m about to chew his head off.

Just to recap:

Blue Screen of Death - Part I
Blue Screen of Death - Part II
Blue Screen of Death - Part III
Blue Screen of Death - Part IV
Blue Screen of Death - Part V

And now for our continuing saga...

I get home from Circuit City and check messages. I still need to pack for a trip to Savannah. Becky still needs to pack for her weekend convention. Piles of clean clothes cover my bed that must be put away. There’s a message from Chris, his boss isn’t coming for dinner (there was a slight chance he’d be joining us – dodged a bullet). Then I get an e-mail from Chris. His boss is coming to dinner. Great, in the midst of the “delivery” tonight, Chris’s boss would be here with us. Well, at least that will force me to stay calm. I feel like I’ve entered a 50s sitcom.

I’ve been meaning to blog about Savannah every day since we’ve been here but just haven’t had the time. Staying in the house with Shannon, Marcia, David (and Chris who joined us very late Friday night), there’s always someone to talk to, hang with (not to mention having the planners right around the corner), so writing gets pushed to the back burner. Plus, writing that Blue Screen of Death saga, took a lot out of me and I needed to recharge. Being here definitely gave me an opportunity to do that. Plus, this morning, after another late night (to bed after 1:00am), I’m the early riser, with everyone still sleeping, so the perfect time to start organizing my thoughts.

I have to admit, to be perfectly honest (as opposed to semi-honest?), that I wasn’t 100% looking forward to this trip. We’ve been taking so many of these short hops over the last two months, that I’m a bit frayed around the edges, and wanted to just plant at home for a while. But man, I’m glad I came.

First off, one never turns down the opportunity to hang with Shannon. Besides the fact, that she’s the ONLY person, I’ve ever vacationed with who gets the coffee going before me, she also does dishes (yes, that was me guiltily slinking off last night to bed while she washed our champagne glasses and other assorted items – I just couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. Guess I’m more of a morning cleaning person). Plus, she’s so laid back and mellow, you’d be hard-pressed to hang with her and not relax and have a good time.

Let’s talk about David for a moment too. He’s the hero of the trip. First he figured out how to get the a/c going downstairs (although cloudy much of the time we’ve been here, it has been warm and a bit muggy), then he figured out the a/c upstairs, and finally, got the hot water heater going enough so that we all had hot (as opposed to lukewarm) showers! Go David!

Marcia’s another mellow yellow. Just sit back, chat and drink some wine. Although, I think we wore her out a bit. Yes, Marcia, I saw you doing a bit of rubber-necking on the ghost tour last night. :D!

Now there’s everyone else – and I mean everyone. It’s a strange sensation, to arrive in a city which you’ve never been, start to unload your car, and run into not two, or three or even four people you know but a dozen! With the planning committee staying around the corner, and Jane, Ken and the famous Casey, across the square, we had met all our “neighbors” within the first 10 minutes of our arrival. Because of that, I immediately felt at home in this foreign city. (I remember living in St. Louis, it’s one of the things I hated, going out, and never running into anyone I knew – because I knew so few. I like this feeling, it makes me feel connected. My Mom and Dad seem to be able to run into people they know no matter where they are in the world; I think that’s cool).

Now, here I sit on the last morning of this whirlwind trip, as I hear the others stirring, and I want to organize all my thoughts and get them down, so I’ll always remember them. Luckily, I face the possibility of about 4.5 hours in the JAX airport (unless I get stand-by on the earlier flight), to do some serious writing. Hopefully I can find a place to plug-in.

Much updates to the blog must occur (for example, getting rid of the March Madness bloggers - bye friends and replacing them with our new group, Sunday Slow Bakers (we're really not slow, we're just all affiliated with SlowTrav in some way and like to bake). I throw the links up shortly but basically, there's a group of us, who each week will bake the same recipe from a specific source, and post our results on Sunday. For the first round, our source will be Dolce Italiano, Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen - each person selecting a recipe from there. Next go around, a different source - can't wait to see how long we can keep this going for.

Krista initiated the Sunday Slow Bakers and had the honor of choosing the first recipe, Italian Crumbly Cake. I baked it yesterday and here are some results and observations.

Okay, well not really. But we've been "adopted" by a robin who made her nest in our weeping Cherry tree, right outside our front door. Becky has confirmed sighting of at least two eggs in the nest (we can see into it clearly from our guest bathroom window). So we've banned use of the front door, so as not to scare her and Chris is going to remove the screen from the bathroom window in hopes that we can use it as a vantage point for photos once they hatch.

Robin in Nest, Photo by Becky

Robin bouncing around on lawn after we scared her by mistake, Photo by Becky

This week for our Sunday Slow Bakers, Deborah chose Sicilian Pistachio Bars. Like the other recipes, this one came from Gina DePalma's Dolce Italiano.

Normally, with pistachios, the hardest part of the recipe for me, is finding unsalted, shelled pistachios but I lucked out and found them at Whole Foods last week. The second hardest part is not eating them before I actually use them in the recipe. While I made it to the recipe with pistachios in tact, I can't say as much for the leftovers.

Today's the day; Chris is running the Boston marathon. He left our hotel, the Courtyard Marriott, about 6:00 am to catch the bus from the Commons to take him to the starting line. The race doesn't start until 10:00 though, so he'll definitely have some time to kill.

Somehow, he sent me the above photo from his Blackberry (when last I checked, he couldn't figure out how to do that).

I'll update more, if I have a chance, later this morning, and again after the race, before we catch the train.

Oops - he just sent one more shot of Athletes Village:

Cool eh! Photos courtesy of Becky.

Here, I lightened it a bit and made it a little bigger.