Family Update
To celebrate Colin’s college graduation, we took a trip to
the UK; traveling to Wales, England and Scotland. For the first 3 days, we did a driving tour starting at the White Cliffs of Dover, to the southern
beach town of Bristol, Bath, and then Carthage. While driving a manual shift using my
left hand and driving on the left hand side of the road, I had car accident
with a row of hedges. The hedges won and
damaged the rental car’s passenger side mirror.
This all seemed fine until I had to return the car; I couldn’t find the
proper car return and drove around Heathrow for almost an hour. By the time the car was processed and we got
the tram to get the train, a really sappy James Taylor song started playing; I
sat and cried to the point the guy sitting near us moved away. Driving in the UK is a lunatic’s suicidal
activity, which will drive any sane person to tears.
Colin and I finally boarded
the train to Edinburg. Note
to self: English train tickets don’t necessary mean you are purchasing a seat
on the train. We sat in steerage (being
the accordion part of the car where it meets the next car) for 2 hours with 7
other people and their luggage until the bulk of the people got off the train
in Newcastle. At this point, all the
steerage people rushed for empty seats. Nothing like a serious game of musical
chairs while carrying 8 days worth of luggage.
Edinburgh: I loved
Edinburgh; we had a great time and stayed in a wonderful hotel. First night, we ate at the smallest Japanese
restaurant. I had the most delicious marinated eggplant. It was so wonderful; Colin told me I had a
make-out face on when I was eating my dinner.
Not the best face for public especially when traveling with your 23 year
old son. After touring Edinburgh castle, we
walked down the main road to the Palace of Holyrood house. By this point, Colin was done with castles.
There are three types of castles:
1. Castle in
ruins with lovely ferns growing in the nooks
2. Semi-ruined
castle with or without really bad tourist displays
3. Castles
where people still live, and we are allowed to pay gobs of money to see a dozen
rooms with really nice furniture or really bad tourist displays
London: We relaxed in London
staying near Hyde Park and Paddington station.
We got the subway to Notting Hill where we casually walked to find a tiny
bakery for lunch and tea. As we ate and
relaxed watching the people go by, Colin asked.
“This is a great
neighborhood. How did you know about
it?”
Nothing….
“Mom?”
“It was in a Julia Roberts’
movie,” as I put my hand up over my face to hid from him.
“Ahhhh”
There was some more mumbling
from Colin; I guessing it wasn’t good.
Kathy Update:
Easy Peasy
eZpass: How long does it take to get
erroneous charges fixed? Beginning of
Jan 2014, a white truck with my license plate charged tolls in NC to my Delaware
eZpass account over the course of several days. At the end of Jan 2014, NC Quickpass said it wasn’t their fault since
I had a Delaware eZpass account. Two days later, Delaware said it wasn’t their fault since the
tolls happened in NC. Beginning of Feb 2014, I realized
Delaware eZpass didn’t have my correct license plate (off by 1 number), which
was the proper license number for the white truck. So I let Delaware eZpass
know this information. May 2014, I was assigned a case number
and waited for Delaware to review the charges. July 2014, the charges were removed from my account. I know it was only a $12 charge but 6 months,
really?
Colin Update:
Upon graduation, Colin moved home and started the very
stressful process of looking for his dream job.
Currently, he is working at Jerry’s Artoroma in Raleigh helping artists
with their art supply needs. He is still
on the hunt for that 3D artist position.
Fingers crossed.
House Update:
The Hall bathroom looks amazing. Special thanks to Jim and
Sandy for spending their vacation putting up dry wall and tiling. The sunroom decided it wasn’t getting enough
attention, and the roof started leaking.
Now when I say leaking, I don’t mean one little hole. There were five. Yup! I
go big. During major rain storms, it was
literally raining in my sunroom. Ahhh,
the smell of dank in the morning.
Christmas Ornament
Update:
We have
one of those skinny pre-lit trees. All we
have to do is put the star on top and plug it to the rest of the lights. I am not sure what happens at your house for
tree trimming, but my house is a Looney bin on tree trimming night. I don’t care where you put the ornaments;
just put the damn things on the tree.
But I get ahead of myself. The
star we have is too heavy for the top branch.
So here is the conversation we had after trying to secure the star to
the tree for 5 minutes.
Colin: Do we need to breakout the rum and Coke?
Kathy: Yes, ‘cause I am about to
zip tie this MF’ing star to the MF’ing Christmas tree.
After sipping
our Christmas libations, the star was zip tied to the tree. Thus giving us our usual “Only look at the
tree from the foyer”, because if you look at it from any other angle, the
pretty sparkling tree is crazy crooked.
Every freaking year, we have a lopsided tree.
After a
very strong highball break, Carlton and Colin start talking astrophysics and the
theory of Star Wars which is all good until I ask the both of them to help put
red twinkly lights on the little Sugar Plum fairy tree. What is a Sugar Plum fairy tree? Well it is
the little tree that the sugar plum fairies decorate with candy on Christmas
Eve. Carlton asks “What? What do you put
in your Christmas stockings if candy is on the tree?” Colin’s answer is you get your own personal
candy in your stocking, but the tree has sharing candy. This is great until you are old enough to realize
that the candy is secured to the tree with strips of scotch tape, and it looks
like a Dollywood vending machine that just threw up Christmas. At this point, both of them are laughing at
me and refusing to put tacky red lights on a 2 foot Charlie Brown tree. Christmas Mutiny on Tanglewood. They can make their own hot chocolate, and I
am hiding the hazelnut Bailey’s Irish cream.
After the
Sugar Plum Christmas tree is completely decorated, they both admit the tree is
bizarrely pretty and continue with their discussion about the fabric of the
universe and space travel.
Wishing you and yours a Happy New Year, Peace, and a really
large bowl of your favorite ice cream.
