Caught In A Buzz Saw

Mom and I headed over to Corpus Christi this morning, ran a couple errands, had another great lunch at PF Chang’s and found the salon where I was to get my hair cut.  OH, MY—the retractable bars they pull over the windows at night were visible when we drove up not giving me the greatest first impression!

The salon I use in Billings is a Paul Mitchell salon and my hairdresser has always suggested I find those type salons when traveling—she says they are always staffed with professionals.  Well, wait until she hears this story!

Loud music, lots of people, lots of people with earrings in strange places, lots of black and chandeliers—OK are we in there right place??  A gentlemen asks my name and goes off to find someone.  This very young woman arrives and says, “I’m going to shampoo your hair.”  OK—I’ve been in salons so fancy the stylist doesn’t do her own shampoos. 

She washes and washes and washes (I did shower this morning and wash my hair, really I did!).  Once she is finished drowning me, we proceed to a chair where she starts to dry my hair.  OK—I am really confused, she dries and dries then starts to use a flat iron on my hair?????  I don’t know about the rest of you but I’ve never in my adult life had my hair cut dry.  She is really working with this flat iron and I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror—YIKES—I look like something out of the 60’s—bouffant hair and all!!!

I am about to lose it and I say, “are they going to cut my hair dry?”  She replies, “oh, yes, everyone here cuts hair dry.”  She finally finishes trying to straighten my all ready straight hair and goes off to find the gentleman again.  I wait and wait, I have unfastened the collar of the cape, I am getting ready to run when up strolls the stylist.  We have this discussion which goes something like this:

Me:  Do you always cut hair dry.  Her: Yes.  Me: Don’t you think it would have been good to see my hair and what it looked like before whoever that was turned me into Doris Day???  OK—I’ve stressed her out now and she leaves.

I spot this person who has an earring in both her facial cheek dimples—WHY???  What is the purpose???  I’m sweating by now, I want out of here!!! 

Next thing I know the owner of the salon is going to cut my hair, she begins to tell me all the whys and wherefores of cutting hair dry, how important her salon is, how important she is and all the while I’m thinking, “let me out of here!”  She starts cutting and seriously, I felt as if I was under a buzz saw or in the middle of a saber fight.  Blades were whipping around my head at the speed of light!  And she never stops talking. 

One hour later my hair is cut and you know, seriously, I think it is a fantastic cut!!  In spite of all the drama, it really is a good cut!  Will I go back?  The jury is still out!

Back home I needed to try out this little gadget I bought during our quilt shop visits the other day--

It’s like a miniature hair clipper but oh, my did it ever make ripping out some quilted designs easy!!!  What would have taken me hours to remove took just over 15 minutes!!!  Amazing—why didn’t my husband come up with this idea???  

This blog has gone on long enough, I will tell you the swimsuit story tomorrow!

Proud Grandparents

That we are, very proud of Laci who graduated from Airmen Leadership School last night in Great Falls, MT and was also given the Commandant Award during the ceremonies!!  Pretty good for a little blond girl from Montana!!

It rained cats and dogs today, it poured as it can only in Texas!  It was raining so loud Mom and I couldn’t hear ourselves talk in the quilt studio.  During the worst of it Mom had a hair appointment in Aransas Pass—we both were a little damp by the time we arrived.  The inside lane of the streets was full of water, water everywhere!

I made great progress on Jane’s lonestar today, beautiful progress I might add!!

Mom is using her bicycle, as Emmi and I were doing our laps around the RV park we happened upon Grandma riding her bicycle this morning:

Made chicken tetrazzini for dinner tonight—Mom came to get some for their dinner and Rollie joined us.  Delicious!

Chore Day

Even though I’m retired those chores such as laundry have to be done.  The washer/dryer in the motorhome makes that job much easier but there are some things which just won’t fit—sheets for one and Michael’s work clothes are too grubby.  So off to the laundromat for Emmi and me this morning.  While the clothes are washing Emmi and I walk around the park.  When the clothes go in the dryer we head back to the motorhome and I jump in the shower.  Back to retrieve the clothes.

Mom and I made a run to Wal Mart.  Michael now has whatever bug/allergy I have and so does Chuck.  I decided to make chicken noodle soup to make us all feel better—had to go buy some celery.  Also helped Mom change the filter in her air conditioner.

Mom did a little ironing for me and I loaded a quilt back onto the machine—I am waiting for Jane to email me before I start—I think she told me this lonestar was to be a wall hanging and if so that dictates what type batting I use. 

This rig arrived at the job site last week for repairs—it is a jack up drilling rig.  The rig is carried on this transport ship, the three towers are jacked down through the hull into the floor of the sea.  This is a shallow water drilling rig. 

Chicken noodle soup for dinner, to bed early and hope we can sleep off what ever this is we have. 

And I Thought I Had Long Drives In Montana

For medical care that is but this one today took the prize—159 miles one way to get a consult and ultrasound.  I called both offices in Corpus Christi which do this outpatient procedure to close varicose veins and just did not have a good feeling about either one of the places I called.  It’s my firm belief as a nurse—if you don’t have a good feeling you won’t get a good result.  So I widened my search area and came up with this interventional radiologist who practices out of Sugarland, TX but has a physician’s assistant who does consults in Lake Jackson, TX.  Unfortunately we will have to drive to Sugarland for the actual procedures.

Yes, plural procedures—thank you very much dear departed Dad and Grandmother for passing these wonderful varicose veins on to me!! And standing on my feet in an operating room throughout my career didn’t help matters any either! My right leg has a visible varicose vein, my left has internal varicose veins.  OK, enough of this talk—it’s making me feel old! 

The drive was out through some quite flat unpopulated country.  I saw what I think was a large nuclear power plant, a field full of sandhill cranes, many, many raptors, lots of farming country and many small towns. 

I had my first experience in Chick-Fil-A and it was a most positive experience--if that’s fast food, I want more!  More of the service that is—the food was good the best part was watching a service person help a young mother with two small children find a high chair, he went and got coloring placemats for the older child, then went and retrieved the Mom’s order.  There were three or four waiter type people scurrying around helping all the customers—take note McDonald’s and Wendy’s—it was impressive!

I watched an older couple pray before they ate their food, I watched a young gorgeous couple laugh and tease each other, it was a cheerful, busy place!

After lunch I visited the local quilt shop and while I didn’t find anything I needed the experience was also pleasant.  The store was 25 years old this week and the owner was 57 today—she had received a gorgeous bouquet of flowers from her husband.  All fabric was 25% off but I still didn’t find anything I needed.

 

Another long drive home and I’ve got some kind of bug—either a full blown allergy attack or a cold—YUK!  Emmi spent the day with Mom.

And Rick, I have to agree with you on Beyonce’s performance last night!

Football Fan I Am Not

Sorry Jim Meachum!  But I’ve never been crazy about football and certainly never liked it enough to sit and watch football on TV.  But there is something about the Super Bowl—it would be un-American not to watch the Super Bowl, right??  We might have done a little more eating and talking than we did watching football but that’s part of the fun.

But I sure need to remember I am retired and there is absolutely NO reason for me to go to Wal Mart on a Sunday and especially Super Bowl Sunday—a zoo, an absolute zoo!

For our Super Bowl party we had burgers and hotdogs, chicken wings, cheese dip with sausage, etc.  Delicious!  Dessert was a homemade strawberry pie—been a long time since I had strawberry pie—remember the Shoney’s restaurants and their strawberry pie?? 

So far at halftime, I’ve liked the Jeep commercial best.  I think that’s why I like to watch the Super Bowl—its one of the only times I like commercials—but then we don’t watch a lot of TV, do we!

Life is good, I’ve got a big day ahead of me tomorrow—may not make it to games’ end.

And Emjay—you are never a “schmuck!”  Our reader was referring to the spam type of anonymous comments which have been clogging every bloggers comment section lately.  The ones which start out, “so loved reading this piece of writing…..you might be interested in…..”  

Amazing Women And A Pictorial

It’s amazing what women can do when they set their minds!!  Mom and I removed the couch and chair from their RV this morning, dropped it at Goodwill, drove to Corpus Christi, purchased a loveseat, and had it unloaded from the truck by the time Michael rolled in just in time to help us get it into the RV.  I struggled with some of the bolts holding the old couch down but in the end was successful, sweaty but successful!

Now for the pictorial—remember the photos from a couple weekends ago of the big oil rig hull coming into the ship channel and ending up out at the shipyard where Michael works?  Yesterday the hull was floated off the ship on which it arrived and Michael took some great photos with his phone:

Hull is still on ship, those red towers are the back of the ship, the control portion of the ship is out of sight in front of the hull.  The ship is called a semi-submerging heavy lift ship.  The name of the ship is the Blue Marlin and it carried the USS Cole back to the US after the Al-Qaeda attack in 2000 . 

They spun the entire ship and hull around, now the ship control module is in front and you can barely see one of the red towers at the rear. 

The red arrow is pointing to those two red towers, the green blob in the middle is where the middle of the ship used to be—it is now underwater and the hull has floated off, see the tug boat at the corner.

Hull is off, water is being pumped out and the ship is beginning to float. 

Now a large portion of the ship is above water again.  I find this whole process fascinating—I love it when Michael comes home with photos!

There is an elderly man here in the park who slowly rides a three wheeled bicycle around the park and his dog walks beside him.  I talk to him everyday and one day I asked him about the bicycle—I thought maybe my Mom might enjoy one.  He said you could order one from Wal Mart and have it delivered to the local store or order a more expensive Schwinn online.  He also said the bikes were hard to find used. 

Today he stopped me and asked if I had found Mom a bike—no—well, “the guy just across the street from you wants to sell his.”  I hurried right over and struck a deal—I rode the bike (that was probably entertaining to anyone watching, three wheeled bikes ride differently! ) over to let Mom try it out.  Mom now has a bike to ride—she has non-diabetic neuropathy in her feet and it is difficult if not impossible some days for her to walk.  Maybe this will help her get some exercise.

A very busy but good day.

Changed My Mind

That’s my prerogative as a women isn’t it??  And it’s all Rick’s fault anyway!!!  He left this comment on the blog I wrote last night about spammers, “I'd still rather take care of this myself than restrict others from having full access to my blog.”  I read that and thought, “get with the program Janna, it won’t hurt you to delete a few anonymous comments.” 

It was an early morning for me, a really early morning!  I was out the door at 5am to take Gina to the airport, back home by 6am.  I read a few blogs then Emmi and I headed off for the ferry and the beach.  It was an awesome day for walking on the beach—simply beautiful!

The couch and chair in Mom and Chuck’s RV is extremely uncomfortable as is most RV furniture.  Mom and I went over to Corpus Christi today and did a little furniture shopping.  Does anyone else out there think furniture salesman are as bad as used car salesmen???  We did find a couple options that might work.  We managed to stop at the final two quilt shops on the shop hop list dropping our “passports” at the last shop—I am sure to be slated to win that Janome sewing machine!

Rollie joined us for dinner tonight but Gina cooked it before she left—we had taco soup and I contributed the cornbread! 

Emmi was extremely glad to see me this afternoon when Mom and I got back.