Tuesday afternoon boredom

This has been the weirdest day, as I’ve suddenly gone from juggling people and stressing over how I’m dividing my time, to everyone packing up this morning, and leaving me to just another solo day in the old home office, while work is pretty sporadic. Even Kitty seems to be MIA sleeping the day away, resting up after the houseful we had.

Mom did make it down, with only a couple of wrong turns, and we did manage to spend some good time together. The best, though, I think ended up being late last night, as we sat in the dark guestroom just talking about everything, which we usually do quite well on the phone, but not so much in person. I guess in the dark, it was more like being on the phone together.

Her health is a big issue just hanging out there, and until I’m with her I always think there are a million things I can do to help her take care of herself. In person, though, I realize what an immovable object she actually is. She’s 76 and wants to live her life the way she lives it — however she wants — thus she’s always going to be stubborn about medication and complex diets and why avoid sugar and desserts when she just loves to bake so much. She’s earned the right to enjoy life in her own little ways everyday, so who am I to tell her she can’t do that stuff just because of some statistic that says she may be around longer if she doesn’t. Sure I want her around, but I want her happy with her life. It’s always a tough conversation, and it usually ends in dessert. =\

The added fun this weekend was from Marc & Jennie, who came down for a couple nights, too. We knew Marc wanted to come in and look at cars, but we didn’t realize it would be two days of stressful driving all over Atlanta to look at 15 of the same color same model car to compare miles, price & condition. Marc was stressed over the decision, and nobody could help. In the end, he put down a deposit on one late last night, and will be back tomorrow to pick it up. Personally, I think it’s an awesome deal on a sweet car — pretty much exactly like I think James ought to trade his car for. It also got me looking at cars for myself, but a quick trip to an auto-loan payment calculator today stopped that bug. Egads.

Anywho, all our guest left this morning. I sent our Tom Tom with mom, setting up “home” as her home, and giving her a couple quick lessons on how to use it. Changed it from the abusive Mr. T voice to a nice helpful lady who talked in miles instead of meters, and mom had a great drive home with it. She called just so happy that she told me at least five times that she had to have one of those navigators of her own. She said she didn’t know how easy or relaxing it could be to drive on her own, and started thinking of all the places she would feel confident enough to visit, if she had one. It was sort of crazy, but I guess we know what to Christmas shop for this year. She had already mentioned wanting to look into a roadside assistance plan so she’d feel safer traveling more, so I think she might truly be just bored out of her mind sitting at home.

Seems like we’ve gotten another fireworks gig now to do a set piece of the mascot and a short pyro show for a high school homecoming in October. It looks to be a really small show, but working on a set piece will be very cool I think, and good experience for us. So, rain or no rain James & Pete will be making a run to stock up on supplies this weekend afterall. Don’t know yet if I’m going — since I think it might be a miserable time to ask them to sidetrip over to the Corvette Museum, but we’ll see what they decide. Might just drop James in Chattanooga and head on down to Alabama to hang with sis and wait on them to get back.

OOhh… and in one of those weird cosmic moments Sunday night, as we were all gathered around eating and gabbing about music and concerts, flipping through the loaf to note that there wasn’t a lot going on that we were interested in this Labor Day weekend other than Dragon Con, I get a text message out of the blue from the frewtnut niece which says she was just 2 feet away from Chris Cornell. We send her the requisite “pic or it didnt happen” reply, and tell Marc & Jennie how last year at this time I was at con, where I held a restroom door open for Doctor Crusher, and had to send Angela a message to tell her. Now a year later, I get a random message from her about a celebrity back. She and hubby and a couple friends spent labor day in Los Angeles on a vacation package which included tickets to a NASCAR race and Mondays Bruins/Vols game. As a relocated native Tennessean, she was all set with her Vols gear to get thoroughly beaten up at the game.

Anywho, she replies back that they had been arguing over whether it actualy WAS Chris Cornell, and by the time they decided it was, he and his “people” had left before she could get to him for an autograph. =\ She also said he looked “kinda old and really skinny anyway” which was probably just her consolation message. I dunno, though… working with Timbaland and releasing a huge piece of crap might age a man… *ahem*.

Oh well… JamesT is home and that’s enough babble! Best go enjoy not being home alone!