~Wednesday~ Casey mentioned the possibility of replacing my thermostat with one with a timer in it so that my house can be the temperature I want it to be when I get home. Before leaving for the bus stop, a made a note of the make and model of my heat pump to that end: Trane XE 1000.
As I approached the bus stop, the bus was waiting to turn left to come up to my stop. Another minute, and I would have missed it. As I was boarding, a car passed the bus on the other side of me and I heard this sound, which is never good.
The driver actually had the air-conditioning on, which kept the windows from fogging up, and for which I was grateful.
Due to traffic backed up at the Gorman and Western Boulevard intersection, the bus was inching its way up to the McKimmon Center stop. A young lady ran up to the door, and waved at the bus driver.
Since they are not supposed to pick up passengers between stops, he pointed to the stop that was maybe another 100 to 150 feet up the road. If looks could kill, he’d’ve been very, very dead—perhaps even cremated. She turned away from the door and started walking toward the stop.
He rolled just a few feet forward and opened the doors, and she boarded. She was not happy. Her chest was heaving. She sat down without even paying, dramatically emphasizing with her gestures and manner how stressful this whole incident was for her. He said something to her to try and get her to smile or laugh, but she was having no part of it. She was pissed.
He kept working it, up to the point that it obviously was flirting, and she finally broke. Then she went on with him, while laughing, about how she’d seen the bus from where she was, and knew she wasn’t going to make it, but then she was glad there was traffic, so she started running, but she didn’t think she was going to make it, but then she did, but then he wouldn’t let her on.
I had a 10:00 meeting with a guy in another unit of organization whom I’m helping with a website for his project. He started off by saying he was sorry he didn’t get back to me last week, when I’d written him an e-mail telling him I needed more information to make any progress.
As it turned out, we have a lot in common in our personal lives. He’d been “home” this weekend to celebrate his parents’ 50th wedding anniversary, which he and his sisters have been working on for a while. I planned my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary with my sister 7 years ago. His dad is a retired marine, as was mine. His parents live next to the Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station, where I once lived when my dad was stationed there, and my parents live next to Camp Lejuene Marine Corps Base. He went to Lejeune High School from 1976-1979, and I went from 1972-1975. Small world.
When we were done with our meeting, he said, “You guys (meaning our department) provide a real good service up here. I’m very impressed with the help you guys provide helping us all to communicate better. Communication is one of the most important facets of projects and you guys really add value.”
“Tell Stan,” I said after thanking him. (Stan is my boss’ boss.)
Rhonda and I took Jude (our boss for one more day) out for a so long lunch. We ate at Mitch’s Tavern and I thoroughly enjoyed the time. Jude, just back from San Francisco, brought us each back a small box from the Ghirardelli Masterpieces Collection. Yum! Yum!
I was back in time to take notes at our weekly Student E-mail Implementation Team meeting, which was merficully short today—45 minutes instead of the usual one hour and fifteen minutes. That means 30 minutes worth of note-taking avoided.
I made dinner tonight, fixing the Easy Ranch Chicken recipe from one of the few recipe books I own. Note that it’s not the Quick, Easy Ranch Chicken recipe. And that’s because it’s supposed to cook for an hour. Here’s why it’s easy: Mix 4 tablespoons of butter with 3 tablespoons of vinegar, and brush that onto 4 chicken breasts. Then sprinkle a package of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix over the surface of the chicken. Cook for one hour on 350°.
I used (thin) chicken breast strips instead of (thick) chicken breasts, so I cooked it for only 50 minutes instead of 60. And while it was cooking, I ran over to K-Mart by my house to pick up some wrapping paper for retirement gifts. Casey had heated up the corn while I was gone, and everything was pretty much ready to go as soon as I got home.
Casey and I left for dancing early enough to stop by the grocery store, where I picked up a few last-minute things for my boss’ retirement party, among them ice cream toppings and potato chips.
Casey helped me carry that, and other things I’d brought from home, such as a gift box and some Corning Ware bowls up to my office, so I wouldn’t have all that to fuss with in the morning on the bus. Aside: a Google search of “corning ware” returns it spelled three different ways in various results: Corning Ware, Corningware, and CorningWare.
Dancing was fun tonight. I did a lot of two-stepping, since Casey was there. He doesn’t know most of our line-dances, so he really takes advantage of the two-stepping songs, which is fine with me. He danced with several other people, too, of course.
Bob was there tonight with my “huge load” of Tupperware. He told me that he’d shared my blog entry with a couple of people who were at the party and casually mentioned that it was his sister, not his aunt, who divulged his age. That reminds me; I need to fix that right now. Okay, done. Sorry about that, Bob.
Yes, a fun night, with a lot of exercise. Yay!