Stories from Reunion Weekend: Leaving Town

There are so many stories from this past weekend. One of the best happened before I was even completely out of the Austin area.

I was behind a big vehicle (truck or SUV) in my little 350Z. I decided I wanted to pass him, because hello? Sports car! So I pulled into the left lane...

Or at least I started to. That's when I saw the boulder sitting on the stripe.

Maybe it wasn't a boulder by your definition. But when it exceeds the clearance of my car, it's a boulder to me! It was probably ten or twelve inches in diameter. The clearance of my car is eight inches, max. And it was too late to swerve. I straddled it to avoid blowing out a tire. The rock was big enough that my car lifted off the ground as I went over it. I watched it crumble and roll from beneath my car in the rear view mirror. I may have said an unprintable word; I honestly don't remember.

I pulled over at the next service station -- a Shell at the corner of 183 and 29. I pulled into a parking space well away from the building and tried to look under my car. Now understand, I'm dressed to go straight to my high school reunion. In no way am I lying on the ground peering under my car. I'm more bent at the waist looking to see if anything is leaking.

A woman walked out of the Shell and asked me what I'm doing. I related the tale of the boulder. She gestured at a large tent off to the side, where chocolate Labrador puppies were being sold. "See that man in the work shirt? That's my husband. He used to own an auto shop. Pull your car over there, and he can take a look for you." Breathing a quick prayer of thanks to God for taking such good care of me, I moved my car. Meanwhile, she walked over and told her mechanically inclined husband what was going on.

I pulled up and barely had time to register the name embroidered on his denim work shirt before Elvis was on the ground halfway under my car. "I've always wanted to meet Elvis!" I chirped. Yeah, I'm sure he's never heard that one. He offered me a quick handshake from his prone position and went back to looking around under my car.

He hopped up a few minutes later, telling me he didn't see any leaks or anything seriously wrong from his quick exam. I thanked them both profusely, complimented them on their very cute puppies, and went on my merry way.

It's not every day that Elvis works on your car.

One of Those Days

I try not to be a complainer -- I prefer to look at the sunny side of life -- but today was just "one of those days"...

I drove to Houston for a business lunch and a demo of one of our products. I arrived safely and early -- a good start! I took my sports car to lunch so our customer could have a ride; we'd previously talked about our shared love for cars and manual transmissions. I let him drive to the place the three of us (including my Houston co-worker) usually go: a place that serves crawfish by the pound. The three of us polished off our 10 lb of crawfish, and Mr. Customer broke a landspeed record or two in my car on the way back to the campus for the demo. Again: so far, so good.

The demo did not go as planned. My co-worker had prepared extensively, but something went wrong, and nothing went as we'd planned. Mr. Customer wasn't upset; the two of them have a good friendship since they used to work together. Still, not ideal. Mr. Co-worker promised to get to the bottom of the issue, and we all parted ways. I started the drive back to Austin.

I stopped several times to take photos of wildflowers (I'll post pics or a link later, but there are over 100, and I'm too cross-eyed to sort them out now). It had been raining, so I soaked my shoes and the bottom of my jeans, as well as attracting a cloud of insects every time I left the car. No biggie; I'm the one who wanted the photos -- I can pay the price.

Around the halfway point, I noticed (via my car's computer system) that one of my tires was really low -- 9psi, to be exact (35psi is recommended for my tires). I pulled over and looked, but the offending tire didn't look flat. I reached into the car to grab my tire gauge. As I pulled it out, I heard a small "tink tink tink" noise. It was the business end of the gauge bouncing across the parking lot. It broke as I pulled it out of the car, I guess. Niiiiice.

I called my husband, who quickly determined that there was a Discount Tire in Brenham, the town I was just entering. That's where my tires were purchased, and they offer free tire repair. He called them, and although it was 10 minutes past their closing time, they agreed to stay and fix my tire. Hot dog! By the time my honey called me back, I could see the store front from the road. They were friendly, professional and fast and they stayed late to fix my tire for free. Is there any more I need to say to recommend them?

As I drove through a town a few miles down the road, it was sunset, and it was simply impossible to see anything -- not stop lights, not road signs, nothin'. I was mentally rehearsing my conversation with the imaginary police officer ("but officer, really, I couldn't see the sign!") and peering carefully at everything. As I was on my way out of town, a police car turned around behind me. I wasn't speeding, and I made sure not to speed, but he turned his lights on anyway. These guys hate sports cars, I was thinking.

"Ma'am, are you aware you don't have a front license plate?" he asks me.

For the love of Pete, can't you come up with anything better than that? "Yes sir, but I wasn't aware I had to have a front plate," I said, feeling my roots grow blonder by the second. I all but batted my eyelashes.

"Yes ma'am, Texas is a two-plate state." Heh, that rhymes, Officer. "I see your car is a 2005 model; have you owned it since it was new?"

"Yes sir." And it's never had a plate. It doesn't have a place for one, dude. Whaddya want me to do, superglue it onto my bumper?

"All right, let me prepare your paperwork and I'll get you right back on the road."

5 minutes later:

"Here you are, ma'am. This is a warning, as it says here. You can keep this and show it if you're pulled over again." Really? How long will that fly? Another five years, y'think? "Have a good evening, and drive safely back to Austin."

So while I could dwell on the negatives from today:

• The demo, for which I drove 5+ hours, didn't go well.
• I got a flat.
• I got pulled over in Podunksville, Texas.
• My brand-new shoes are soaked and covered with mud.

I prefer to look at the bright side:

• Mr. Co-worker has already figured out the problem and is ready to demo again.
• My tire was fixed and I didn't have to drive home on the spare.
• I didn't get a ticket.
• I got some great shots of flowers, fences, cows, trees, and the sunset.

When was the last time you had "one of those days"? Do you turn it around at the end of the day or grumble about it?

Going Old School

I'm gonna go ahead and steal a blogging idea from my friend Becky. Lent isn't a super popular idea in our culture, or in most of the circles I run in, but I think it's helpful to focus on spiritual things in the season just before Easter.

Incidentally, I have a good reason for stealing. It's because Vista sucks.

I suppose you want an explanation? I'll try, even though I'm a little grumpy.

I went snuffling around in my photo files today, looking for my pictures from my latest trip to Taiwan. I went the last week in January, so I'm way overdue to blog it, but I figured I could do one giant post and maybe y'all (all 2 of you still reading -- pretty sure that's my dad and my sister) would forgive me.

So I head off to my monster D: drive, and I look in the "Taiwan" folder, inside the "Photos" folder, which is clearly where the Taiwan photos go, since I'm an organized sorta gal, and I find... all the photos from the other trips to Taiwan, but not this one.

You might not think that's odd, but I do. I only started using my monster D: drive recently. Previously, everything went on the much-smaller C: drive. Then it filled up, and I started putting stuff on the D: drive.

Then C: REALLY filled up, and I had to move some stuff from C: to D:... and apparently, that's what made me take the name of a large Washington software company in vain. Loudly. When I moved my "Personal" folder, which included a folder called "Taiwan," chock full of photos from previous trips, it moved to D: just fine.

And then it also overwrote my other Taiwan folder with the same, older photos.

Now, I don't need two copies of the same photos. I want the copies of the newer photos, including the company Chinese New Year party and the pictures we took of us with my boss, who left the company (that was his last day).

Therefore, today's post won't feature a bunch of fun Taiwan pictures. Instead, I'll piggyback Becky's latest post and talk about what I'd like to do for Lent.

Becky is going to do a two-week -- or maybe even a 40-day -- water fast, meaning that she will drink nothing other than tap water. In at least one of the challenges she cites, you can donate the savings from the coffee, sodas, etc. that you don't drink to provide clean water to those who don't have it. It's a great idea, and I'd encourage anyone interested to do so.

However, I'm currently halfway through the second cycle of a 12-day diet plan that's fairly restrictive in terms of what I can eat and drink. (I've lost 7 lb in the first half of the second cycle; thanks for asking!) For that reason, I think I'll take one of Becky's other Lenten suggestions and do some Scripture memorization.

Memorizing one verse a week seems sort of lame, so I am going to try for her larger challenge and attempt to memorize an entire chapter, something I've always wanted to do anyway.

Becky's favorite chapter is Isaiah 6, which admittedly is pretty awesome. Since I just read her blog post a few minutes ago, I haven't decided what to read. Any suggestions? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter!

Flubbed Texts

I got permission to use this, although I won't identify the participants.

A friend was out to dinner recently. He was at an Italian place. His wife thought he was at Chuy's, since that was his original plan. She has a new cell phone and was having a little trouble with the texting feature. She couldn't call him since he was in the middle of a business dinner. He got these texts in quick succession:

"Your mom"

"Called and I talked to her"

"Hate"

"Should just give up texting, but maybe you could bring creamy?"

Of course, "hate" has become our new in-joke. She intended to say that she hates texting on the new phone, but "hate" was all she got out before accidentally hitting send. It came out sounding like a slam on her mother-in-law -- definitely not intended.

The last text, for those familiar with Chuy's, is a reference to the magical creamy jalapeño dipping sauce for chips. She was requesting that he bring some home because YUM. Out of context it sounds a little, um, strange.

So there's your Monday giggle. What else has made you smile today?

A Tale of Two Shoes

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...

With (major) apologies to Dickens, this is the story of my love affair with a pair of shoes that apparently was not meant to be.

When my hubby and I went to Hawaii, we spent our last night on Oahu, on Waikiki. We weren't so wild about the crowds on Waikiki, but we loved our hotel. If the tourist scene is your thing, I highly recommend the Hotel Renew. We weren't the only ones who thought it was fantastic.

While we were there, we wandered around in a few shops, including the Crocs store. I know what you're thinking: they're ugly, they're clunky, they're so three years ago. And then I saw these (cue the angel choir, please):

And I put them on my feet, and lo, they were cute and comfortable and sassy!

Unfortunately, our luggage was full to the bursting point, so hubby and I had a confab. He was confident enough in his packing abilities that he gave me the go-ahead to buy the cute shoes. (Have I mentioned how I love my man?) But I made the fatal call: no, I'd wait until we got back to Texas. There are Crocs stores in Texas, I said. I can get them there.

Bad move, Lisa. Not smart. A pair of shoes in the hand is worth a dozen pairs in a state an ocean away, as I would soon learn.

On my way back from a business trip, I went to the Crocs store in the outlet mall outside Houston. I described my cute shoes with the chunky heel and the cross strap to the manager. She knew exactly the shoe I meant. "No," she sighed mournfully. "We don't get the cute stuff here." Oh dear. Was I going to have a hard time finding my sweet Crocs in Texas?

While I was in Dallas last weekend, I thought, here's a town with style. I looked up Crocs on my handy-dandy phone and found a store in the Dallas Galleria. When I called to check availability, the clerk sounded surprised I would ask such a thing. Of course the shoe was in stock.

The only problem with this plan? The Galleria wasn't exactly on my way out of town, and fighting mall traffic isn't my idea of a good time. "There's this great new thing called the internet," sniffs my sister. Huh, you know, she might just have something there. Not shockingly, crocs has a web site. A few clicks later, I was happily not stopping by the mall on my way out of town.

Ah, but as they say, the best-laid plans of mice and shoe-shopping women drop many mangled cliches into a single post. A few days later, I checked my order status, only to find that my dream shoes hadn't yet shipped. Whaaa? I forgot to call them on Thursday, and of course they took Friday off.

When I called them today, I spent 25 minutes on hold. Naturally, I used the time effectively, finding my shoes on amazon, where I am a member of their Prime program. Free two-day shipping, y'all! So let me get this straight... I could order from amazon over a week later than I ordered from crocs.com -- both with free shipping -- and get my order from amazon several days earlier. Nice.

Once a human finally answered my call on the Crocs not-so-hotline, I have to give them credit: Erin was friendly and professional, even giving me her direct line in case I had further questions about my order. She said it appeared my order was being processed by the factory and would still reach me within the ten business days they decree they have to get you your order.

Ten days? No offense Erin, but that ain't customer service. I'm looking at an order I placed last month, for cryin' out loud, and it hasn't shipped yet.

I hope these shoes are as amazing as they were the first time I put them on my feet. Even then, they may not be worth the wait and the hassle. I'll be ordering from amazon from now on.