It's been a crazy-hectic week. It seems like each day this week I've been running from 5:15 a.m. to 10 p.m. with little rest in between. I'm hoping for a nice quiet weekend!
Mondays and Wednesday are my mom's physical therapy days, so after school I rush home, throw the teenager on the curb and rush to pick up mom then rush across town to the PT place. While there, it's sit and wait. So I pull out my cell phone and check e-mails. Then drive mom back home and get her settled back in. She hates the effort of getting to PT but likes the results so it's a pretty decent trade-off.
I took Wednesday off so I could take my mom to the DMV - we both needed to get license renewals and she had to have some blood work done that had been requested by her doctor (in July!) You know it is a bad sign when you get to the doctor's office and the lab-tech looks at your work order and gasps. "God, I'm going to have to do a LOT of blood work!" Then she calls the ordering doctor. Not very reassuring. So, 45 minutes and seven vials of blood later, I take my poor mother back home for 3 cigarettes and a coke so she can recover enough to go to the DMV. The DMV promptly refuses her renewal because she can't walk without a walker. We don't really care that much because she can't drive anyway. Then we still had Wednesday's PT appt. to make.
Last night, Friday, we had a home football game at school; the teenager works in the pressbox with one of the coaches who does the play by play announcing. He helps the coach spot plays and players; he is another pair of eyeballs, basically. But he likes it, so I go. Of course, last night was the debate, so instead of sitting in the game, I sat in the parking lot listening to the debate on the radio and sending out Tweets to my Twitter friends. We finally got home around 9:45.
For dinner last night Steve and I went to our favorite Mexican place, Nicky's. I needed it. We are both excited about our Oktoberfest date next Friday night and he has purchased our tickets! Hooray! In our excitement
we went on base and loaded up on Oktoberfest beer. He got a buggy and we selected an Abita Fall Fest, a Spaten Oktoberfest, and a Spaten Optimator. Naturally while loaded down with nearly $50 worth of beer, I run into one of my students in line behind me (who was NOT buying beer) which was sort of embarrasing. Steve was all "We look like alcoholics!" I said, "No. We look like connoiseurs." I don't know. We probably looked like alcoholics.So today I'm hoping for a little down time and to get in some house cleaning. Maybe cook something interesting - a gumbo maybe. The cool air is nice and I will open the windows. Crank up some football. Read some; I've started a Harlan Coben book whom I've never read before. So far it's pretty good. It's light. Weekends are good!
3 comments:
aAfter years of my aunt carrying on about him, I finally read a Harlan Coben book this summer - pretty good stuff!
Yesterday we picked up mom, got some sandwiches and went to the welcome center/rest area north of town. After eating, I went to the welcome center to picked up a 2008 iowa travel guide. I noticed a pamphlet about iowa beer and wine and, because you and steven are connoisseurs, i picked it up for you!
I am not the connoisseur I was when I was stationed in Germany. I never really drank to get drunk, I drank because I like the taste, and I will take a German or German-style beer lager over a domestic beer any day.
As far as wines go, I really like a good riesling from Germany.
One of my favorite places to spend a weekend, when I was in Germany, was a little wine village called Rudesheim am Rhein.
There was a very narrow street, that was too narrow for car traffic, and you could stand in one door way and reach across the street and touch the doorway across from you.
I really enjoyed the outdoor eating and drinking establishments that were all over Germany and Europe. I particularly liked Rudesheim, because you could order a meal and drink and sit within a few yards of the Rhein River and watch the boat traffic.
Another neat thing was you within walking distances from other little towns. It was fun to walk up the hill, past the Neiderwalddenkmal (big satute honoring German war dead) and ride the seilbahn (ski lift) to a village on the other side of the hill, where you could catch a ferry boat and cross the river to Koblenz.
Just about every town had its own brewery, and in the Rhein River Valley about every town had it own style of wine.
There were some I didn't like, but it was rare.
Looking back and thinking about the beauty of Germany, and places like the Rhein River Valley, it's hard to believe a horrible war took place there.
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