This and that (including a bus story)

I just cannot seem to come up with a coherent blog post. It is just easier to post pictures, tell a story, or do a bulleted list. Here goes my bulleted list (and why is it that blogger thinks that "bulleted" is not a word?)

Last week when I got on the bus, I sat down next to a guy. Said guy had a can of something between his legs. My first guess was beer, particularly since he reeked of alcohol, but then I decided it could have been one of those canned energy drinks. When he turned towards the window (and away from me) to take a sip, that was a pretty good indication he was drinking a brew. Upon further review, I confirmed it. Miller Ice, I believe. As my bus driver friend said, "As long as the bus driver is not drinking, you are golden."
After my third trip to my mechanic in five months, I told him that, no offense, I hoped that I would not see him until January 2015, when my next inspection is due. I don't even want to add up what I spent on the car in 2013, which also includes my inspection repairs in January 2013. Pretty sure it all adds up to a year's worth of (low) car payments. You read it here first: I will never buy another GM (I have a 2007 Saturn Vue).
I sang in my church choir's cabaret night a week and a half ago. For about a minute, I was back in high school, when all the world was my stage. It felt pretty good, and reminded me of how much I missed it. For most of the song, I really feel as if I knocked it out of the park. I was pitchy in a few places, but I am trying not to let that diminish what I did. Next year I plan to tap dance. I am serious. And, if you stop by again, I am actually going to put the video up.
I found out one of my (young) coworkers has the same birthday as me. I asked her what year she was born. She replied, "1989." Which means when she was born, I was a freshman at college. Sigh.
My kid does not like school. And that is putting it nicely. I have no idea what to do about this; she loved it the first five years (K at a different school and 1-4 in this school). I think a big part of it is homework. Most nights, the kid has 1-1.5 hours of HW. Some nights, it is 2 hours. This past weekend was the first one in over 2.5 months of school that she had no HW. That is right; she gets HW every single weekend. Sigh.
But I went with my kid's class on their field trip to RiverQuest. I had a great time. The kids got to launch things in the water, retrieve them, and then study organisms from the water under microscopes and macroscopes. Well worth the day I took off. And best of all, when one of the educators on the boat asked the students what their teacher's name was (meaning their science teacher), they replied, "Ms. (my last name)." They still think of me as their/a teacher!
Still quite sure the Steelers will not make the playoffs and will probably have a losing season. But maybe, just maybe, they can end up at .500. Stranger things have happened. Just glad I made it to a game this year (and a winning one at that). Unfortunately, I don't think the Pens are Cup bound this year, but I feel just as sure that they will be in the playoffs.

And how are you doing?

Let's build something together!

That is one of my favorite slogan's (Or is that a tagline? Over a year removed from a design firm, and I can no longer remember). It belongs to Lowe's, although I am more of a Home Depot gal. But suffice it to say if someone handed me a $5,000 gift card to Home Depot (or Lowe's), I would be ecstatic. If I had $10,000 to spend, you could hear my shouts of joy from miles away. The things I could do with that money. Well, the things I could have Brian do with that money anyway. I love walking around Home Depot and admiring the fancy bathroom sinks and tubs. I look at the lighting and think about where I would put each fixture. I touch textured and colorful tiles and wistfully look at the fancy kitchen cabinets. I admire the various carpet styles and blinds. I look at the fancy front-loading washer and wonder what it must be like to have a steam dryer. I even look longingly at the vacuum cleaners because I can no longer buy a replacement filter for my eight year old mo...

Summer in review

This summer I made it a point to try to take at least one pic of Jordan whenever we went somewhere, which most often was a park. I wanted to capture all the great, fun things we did this summer, knowing that it was probably going to be my last summer not working for quite some time. So here goes. I have expressed my love of Frick Park, particularly Blue Slide Park, in other posts ; it really is one of our favorites. And this summer marked the first one I did not feel the need to follow J around like a little puppy dog. I actually let her run around and explore, though, admittedly, I would panic if more than three minutes went by and I had not seen her. In the pics above, J is at the end of the blue slide, and then hanging several feet above concrete (which scared the crap out of me). We also visited another section of Frick Park, the area on the corner of Braddock and Forbes, a few times. There is not as much to do as Blue Slide, but we go there to mix things up a bit. In the p...

If only I had taken pictures of my detoured drive

When I moved to the Burgh just over 14 years ago, I had a lot of anxiety about getting from "here" to "there." I found the city, which is triangular, and even some of the suburbs quite confusing. On top of that, a lot of the signs were of little help. Clearly they were put up by either natives who had no need for directions or people with a sick sense of humor who thought it would be funny to put signs in random places, leaving off important roads. At some point, I got over that fear of driving to a new building downtown. I don't recall when it happened, but eventually I just figured most of the city out; and when I had to head to a new place, I just drove around, no longer with a feeling of dread, knowing I would eventually get there. But on Sunday morning, that awful, long-ago feeling returned, thanks to the closure of the outbound Fort Pitt Tunnels. I had to pick my mother up from the airport, so there was no avoiding it. (For some reason, my family think...

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