~Saturday~ I had my alarm set to not sleep over eight hours, but woke up after seven and couldn’t easily fall back asleep, so I got up.
I had an English muffin, a hard-boiled egg with the yoke discarded, and a cup of coffee that ended up being a lot of drama. I hate it when the filter collapses when the coffee is brewing and the grinds make their way into the coffee pot. I did a little straining exercise, as it were.
I put in a load of whites—including my sheets—and enjoyed several comments about yesterday’s blog entry, both on LiveJournal and on Facebook. All the while Reba was on the iTouch—all songs by the artist on shuffle.
I made a mental list of all the things I could do today:
Sort, order, and file all the paperwork that has made its way into piles on my kitchen table.Get my tires rotated.Go to the gym.- Go buy my faucets at Lowe’s.
Write up Rob Rose’s recommendation for the Transition to Teaching program.Vacuum my upstairs rooms.- Do the minutes from Monday’s Manbites Dog (MBD) board meeting.
Create a doodle.com poll to change next month’s MBD board meeting, as there is a conflict.- Deliver a 12-pack of soda to my office.
Do the minutes from the Student E-Mail Initiative Communications Team meeting from yesterday.- A gazillion other work things that could use attention.
- Create and submit a presentation proposal for next year’s Society for Technical Communication Annual Conference, which is in Dallas in May of 2010.
Watch another episode of The Wire.Stop by the grocery store.
After listing them all, I attacked, and completed, item #1. I also took care of #6.
Note: Since devising this entry, I’ve gone back and used it to check off items I’ve done.
I got a new credit card through Ameriprise, the company for which my financial advisor works, and I’m going to close out my other two cards as they come up for their annual renewal fee. The only reason I pay an annual fee on them is because they earn frequent flyer points for every purchase I make. I can cancel them at any time, but since I never carry any balances on any of my cards, I’m just going to keep them active until it’s time for them to be renewed again, not charge any more on them, but use up as many of the airline and hotel points currently on them over the next year.
Because of the size of my portfolio with Ameriprise, I got this new card from them, which also earns points, with no annual fee at all. In addition, I get free access to the airlines’ lounges at the airport without having to join them, and I get free upgrades to business or first class on certain flights, just for charging the flight on the card.
To that end, I called my two existing cards to remove the option to automatically renew my card when the time comes, so that I can just cancel them when they notify me that it’s time for the renewal. On one of the cards, the man said, “Okay, before I take care of that, did you make a charge on your card on August 21st to a Cutter Auto Parts? I think it was Cutter that he was saying, but it didn’t really matter, as I hadn’t purchased any auto parts from anywhere. Turns out a charge for $1100 and something had been charged to my card, but hadn’t yet been processed, so he immediately canceled that card and opened a new one for me. Talk about good timing to be calling with a totally unrelated question!
Copyright 2009 Capitol Broadcasting Company
People take part in PrideFest at Duke University on
Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009. (Photo by Jake Gellar-Goad)
Today was the 25th anniversary of NC PrideFest celebrations. I did not attend the festivities. I was proud at home, though. 🙂
Robert arrived at just a little before 5:00, with a bottle of wine in hand to give to Bill. I’ll take responsibility for sending a thank-you card afterwards. We made the trek, which always takes longer than I allow for, out to Bill’s for his annual deck party, and once again I passed Optimist Farm Road, because it came up so suddenly, and had to turn around.
Although it was rainy, it never poured, and a fair number of us were able to stay on the deck under table umbrellas, enjoying company, peanuts, and cocktails while waiting for the main event. A lot of people were inside as well, since it’s always such a big party.
For the most part, we chatted with Joe, Ben, Dale, Scott Coe, Joe Trostel, Phil Mundt, Rick Enlow and Robert Fox. I did meet “Eric” at “the bar,” who has known Bill forever. He moved down here in 1966 after being a singer in “the Village,” and he was a dressmaker here for over 30 years. He also retired as the choral director for a church in this area after serving for many years. “I’ve retired from everything now,” he said.
As usual, and as delicious as ever, dinner consisted of boneless chicken breasts, slabs of pork barbecue, baked beans, potato salad, slaw, and hushpuppies. For dessert, there was coconut pudding. It was all good.
Back home, Robert and I completed one crossword puzzle, and did about three-fourths of another. Both challenging, yet not overly frustrating toward the end.
We heard a ruckus going on outside, and a peek through the blinds found two guys, one of them extremely drunk, arguing in the parking lot. One of them had a baseball bat, and he struck the other one, the drunk one, a couple of times with it. The drunk boy kept screaming at the top of his lungs, “LET’S TALK ABOUT IT. YOU’RE MY BEST FUCKING FRIEND. MY FAMILY THINKS THE WORLD OF YOU. YOU’RE MY BEST FRIEND. TALK TO ME!”
The one with the bat obviously didn’t want to talk about it, screaming once, “WE’LL TALK ABOUT IT WHEN YOU’RE NOT DRUNK,” and kept trying to get away from him. After belting him one more time on the legs with the bat, he took off running down the hill, and thankfully, the drunk guy didn’t follow.
A girl came out of the townhouse where I assume all this started, and she got him to walk back up that way beside her, but he was still screaming, “HE’S MY BEST FUCKING FRIEND. I LOVE HIM.”
The girl said more quietly, “Just come on back now. You can talk to him tomorrow.”
Today was the one-year anniversary of my uncle’s passing. May he rest in peace.