Overheard while Working for the State

The researcher works for a division that is, for all intents and purposes, split. One administrative assistant handles the research side, another handles the clinical side. This conversation occurs between the researcher and the RESEARCH administrative assistant.

Researcher: The punch button lock on my lab is broken, I can't get in, can you help me?

Admin. Assistant: Well, there are two clinical doctors' offices in that lab, so Dr. X's assistant is going to have to help you.

Researcher: She's not in today. What should I do?

Admin Assistant: I don't know. That lab isn't my job.

And what, you may ask, was the solution to this problem? 1) Call facilities management and tell them the lock is broken. 2) Go to the person you know has the master key for the floor and ask her to use the key to unlock the door.

Actual time taken by someone willing to help to solve the problem: 3 minutes.

Back to reality.

Well, peeps, we're back!

We got home yesterday afternoon from our two-week adventure in South Africa. Thankfully our return home was not at all stressful, since my dad picked us up from the airport and Delta was kind enough to hang on to our luggage in Atlanta for a few extra hours and deliver it to our house yesterday evening. I mean, seriously, it's not all that bad when your luggage doesn't quite make it on your plane if you're just going home, because then someone ELSE lugs that shit to your house for you, AND you get a few hours to decompress at home before you have to feel guilty that you haven't unpacked your suitcases yet. Am I right, or am I right?

People keep asking me how the trip was, and my response has been either "it was great!" or "it was amazing!" Because, really, how the heck do you summarize fourteen days where you did something different EVERY DAY? So I figure I will give a pretty detailed recap of our trip on this blog as soon as I can sift through the pictures and get my thoughts together, that way if you want to know exactly what happened, it'll be here. If not, well, just don't read it. I promise my feelings won't be hurt. :)

Seriously, though, it was a super trip. South Africa is a beautiful country and each different town we went to was significantly different from the one before it. I think we both loved the variety of beautiful scenery, but the animals were the highlight, with our safari game drives and visits to various animal parks/preserves/farms.

I can't wait to tell you all about it, and I promise to do so soon! :)

Congrats, Grad!

Last night, my baby sister graduated from high school! I can't believe she's old enough to do that, but there she was, cap and gown and all. :)

I picked my mom up at her house and we rode up together. Unfortunately Bath County has an infamous speed trap to which I fell victim... it was kind of amusing, because the rest of the night when I told people from BC that I had gotten a speeding ticket, they said, "Oh, at XXX place?" Yes. Everyone in that damn county knows where the speed trap is--including me--but I had been so wrapped up in conversation with my mom that, God forbid, I neglected to slam on the brakes as I came down a mountain and missed the fact that it turned from 55 to 45 for--and I quote my lovely State Trooper--"just about a mile there." ARG!

ANYWAY! My speeding ticket was not the most important thing of the night. It was Victoria's special night, and I was so proud to see her up there getting her diploma. She is an amazing young woman, and I am so excited to see what she will do with her life. In August she'll begin college at Christopher Newport University. It will be an extreme change to live in Newport News after living her whole life in the country, but I think she's gonna do alright. :)

I love you, Vic!

South Africa, here we come!

Image courtesy of Virtual Tourist member Jenniflower.

I can not believe that tomorrow we leave for our trip to South Africa. ACK! I am so excited.

We'll be there for 14 days, and then there's the ~2 days it's going to take us to get there and back. We leave tomorrow afternoon from Richmond, fly to Atlanta, and then hop on some giant-ass jet that will take us from Atlanta to Johannesburg, South Africa. I think it's like a 15 hour flight. No idea what that's going to be like, but luckily it's overnight, and I intend to pack some Tylenol PM for us.

While we're there, we'll be bopping around the country, not staying in any one place for more than 2-3 nights. The tour we're doing is called "A World in One Country," so while it'll be totally whirlwind (I suspect), we are going to see SO MANY different things. I have always been fascinated by Africa, and it seems that South Africa is going to give us a taste of all of the things I've always wanted to see.

Map photo courtesy of Thompsons Tours, the company who'll be our guides!

Here is a link to our itinerary. We've borrowed my Uncle Bruce's fancy pants camera, and we have the video camera my dad & Neener gave us for Christmas, and we have our trusty little digital camera, so I can assure you we will have tons of pictures to share when we get back.

I. Can. Not. Wait!!!

Grammer Family Fish Fry

Last weekend, my dad's side of the family got together for a family reunion. We used to do this every year at White Bank Park in Colonial Heights, but I think it's been probably 15 or 20 years since we got together. My Uncle George, who is my late grandfather's brother, mentioned to my Uncle Bruce (my dad's brother) last year that he missed those gatherings, and once the idea was planted, the Fish Fry plans got underway.

The culmination was a gathering of about 70 people in my grandma's back yard last Sunday. I knew approximately 1/3 of those people, recognized another 1/3, and if I had ever seen the other 1/3, I was only about 10 years old and don't remember any of them. At one point I was talking to my dad about this and looking at the people who are roughly my age, and realizing that I very well could have been playing with them on the swings and merry-go-round the last time I saw them, but lord knows we all look very different than we did then!

Uncle George was a cook in the Navy back in the day, so he was on fish fry duty. Uncle Bruce battered the fish and handled the to/from the grill duties, Bryan somehow ended up cooking the cornbread (deep fried on the grill--YES!), and my dad ended up cooking the hot dogs and burgers for all the non-fish eaters. My dad was the only one not in the shade in front of his grill, and when I asked how the hell that happened, I found out my dear husband had told him to go cook the dogs/burgers. Nice, dear... bossing your father-in-law around?! ;-)

The fish was A-MA-ZING. It was catfish, but not like any catfish you've ever had. The cornbread was awesome too--even I had never had deep fried cornbread from the grill!

We also had a cole slaw cook-off. I had never made cole slaw in my life, and it turned out alright, but I knew I would not be winning any awards. My stepmom Brenda, my cousin Heather, Uncle George's wife, Aunt Irma, were the top 3. Bravo, ladies!

Bryan's parents also came down. They've become part of the family, and all the Grammers were thrilled they could make it. (Well, all the Grammers that know them, anyway!) They're always getting schooled on the art of being Southern, so this was their first time for catfish and pecan pie. They loved both. :)

It was a great day, and I really hope we do it again! You can check out more of my photos here.

Ridiculous.

This is what it looks like in my garage right now. I won't even show you a picture of the 5 cars in the driveway in addition to this. Yes, as soon as we get home from vacation, selling some of this shit is at the top of our IF WE DON'T DO THIS I'M GOING TO HAVE A BLEEPING CONNIPTION* list.


*Is "conniption" even a word? As in, "conniption fit?" First I spelled it with just one N and blogger gave me a squiggly red line telling me I was WRONG, but when I added that second N blogger accepted it, so... I guess it is real. Even if it's generally only used by genteel Southern ladies. Like myself. ;-)

Friday Quick Hits

I'm in a chipper mood this morning... maybe it's all the awesome stuff coming up?  I don't know.  But I was just browsing the news and since no one else is at work yet I needed to make a couple comments about some stories I came across and, GUESS WHAT!  You get to be my coffee chat partner. :)

• How awesome must it be to be LeBron James?  Or really, how ridiculous?  I don't watch NBA basketball, but I saw him on some Dateline show or something so I sort of pay attention to whether or not the Cleveland Cavaliers are doing well or not.  Heard on the radio this morning that they won last night, putting them down one game in their semi-finals series with the Orlando Magic.  And then CNN gives me this story, which says that for 11 minutes and 32 seconds, *every* Cavaliers point was either scored by him or through an assist by him.  What.  In.  The.  Hell.  32 points.  And I love this paragraph... where it says he looks tired.  Ya think?  "When my guys make shots, it makes it a lot easier because it allows me to go one-on-one with a defender,'' said James, looking tired after his triple-double of 37 points (on 24 shots), 14 rebounds and 12 assists in 46 minutes. "That's what I need from my guys. I don't add no more pressure on my teammates, but they know we're a very strong team when they knock down shots.''

• I totally need to use laodicean in a sentence today.  I love the Scripps National Spelling Bee, but I was too entranced by So You Think You Can Dance last night to watch it.  Still, in tribute, I *will* find a way to work that word into a sentence today.  It means lukewarm or indifferent, particularly in matters of politics and religion.  I know some people like that, so shouldn't be too hard to sneak it in. :)  Congrats to Kavya Shivashankar, the 13-year-old winner!  
  

• Finally, this headline made me very, very happy.  Rihanna to testify in Chris Brown hearing, lawyer says.
  

Memorial Day View

So that's what my view was like for most of Memorial Day. :)

A few weeks ago, we bought a new toy. It's a 2006 Honda Goldwing motorcycle... or Bryan's "other wife" as one of his co-workers called it. While it mostly is something Bryan wanted, I actually really enjoy it too. Especially because the back seat is heated and unexpectedly comfortable. I wasn't able to post about it because Bryan's parents sometimes read my blog and he wanted to surprise them with it by us taking it up to visit them over Memorial Day, which we did. Bryan's dad had kind of figured that he'd bought a bike, because he knew Bryan was looking, but of course he didn't know for sure and didn't know what he'd get. When we arrived Friday night, his parents were asleep, and, knowing they'd be up before us, Bryan stuck a sign he'd made on the windshield that said "Happy Birthday, Bryan." His dad one-upped him by crossing out Bryan and writing DAD instead. :)

So anyway, most of the weekend was spent on the bike. Saturday we took a Klinger family ride, with Jan and Gary on one bike, Bryan and I on ours, and Bryan's brother Kevin and his daughter Katrina on another. We drove up to Lake Whompumupsidedahead (aka Lake Wallenpaupack, or something? I never could get it right, and Whompumupsidedahead really sounds about the same) to meet Kevin's new lady friend, who was there with her kids. The ride and visit were nice, as was Donna, but her damn dog BIT ME! She has two little yorkies, and even though I had been petting one of them in the house, I went to the bike to get something, and when I came back to the porch, he decided I was a stranger, and proceeded to jump and yip and generally freak out. In the process, the little punk chomped my knee straight through my jeans! I now have a half-dollar size bruise to show for it. Normally I love dogs, but this one really pissed me off. :)

Sunday we went to the extended Klinger family picnic, where I basically sat and ate all day while Bryan ate and worked it off playing volleyball. :) I get along well with my in-laws, so it was nice to see everyone again. Especially my adorable niece, Allie:


And then, Monday, more motorcycle riding. We had a nice ride home, in spite of running into a couple little rainshowers. I decided that rain on a motorcycle is a lot like turbulence on an airplane: a lot of it can be extremely uncomfortable, but a little bit just makes the ride more interesting. :)

A Stitchin' Time, Part 1: The Buy-In

I mentioned a while back that I've been taking a quilting class with my Grandma. Well, I have been meaning to tell you all about it, but I'll be damned if I've had any time to WRITE about it--I don't even have enough time to do all my quilting homework! Ironically, the lady who teaches the class suggested we keep a quilt diary, where we journal our quilting experience and what goes on while we're making our quilt. Uh, yeah, lady, I'm too busy cutting/sewing/measuring/quilting to do that.

But, let's begin. And what better place to start than the beginning, right?

So for Christmas, my gift to my Grandma was for us to go to a beading class together at Bangles and Beads in Carytown (which we did, and enjoyed, but, again, too busy quilting--no time for beads!). After she opened it, she asked me if I'd ever be interested in doing a quilting class. I said, sure, why not? It meant more time with my Grandma, and it meant I would finally learn how to sew something, a skill I did not have in my domestic arsenal.

My family is from Chester, and right in the heart of Downtown Chester there's a store called the Busy Bea. It's a quilt shop, and they teach all sorts of quilting classes (if you aren't a quilter, you would not BELIEVE how many different types of quilts there are). So I called them up, and Grandma and I got registered for the class. Class was starting the week after Bryan and I returned from our Valentine's Day cruise, and Ms. Bea, the owner, told me that Grandma and I would need to come in and pick out our fabrics before the first class. It was kind of hard to find a time to go, since Grandma doesn't drive and I have to work and the place keeps banker's hours, but we made it down there the Thursday before our first class.

I think Grandma and I both were thinking we'd be there for, what, an hour, maybe two? I think we were there for three and a half hours. Holy crap, it is STRESSFUL trying to pick EIGHT DIFFERENT PRINTS that go together in this thing you're supposed to have for the rest of your life and pass on to your children, who will pass it on to their children, and so on and so forth. What made it even MORE stressful was that Ms. Bea was very opinionated on the matter.

A brief word on Ms. Bea. Ms. Bea opened the Busy Bea something like 30 years ago, and just Monday she turned 85 years old. She is still sassy and knows her quilts, but she likes to talk. And not necessarily about the topic at hand. This tendency often extends the amount of time any given task takes at the Busy Bea. Not that you don't want to hear what she has to say, just that sometimes she has a lot of it to say, and you still haven't gotten done what you wanted to do...

So anyway, Ms. Bea sent her daughter Cathy off to the bank while Grandma and I floundered around the shop trying to figure out what kind of quilt we intended to make. We started gathering bolts of fabric, and Ms. Bea would give us the ol' "That doesn't match!" every so often. Finally, thank God, Cathy came back and whipped us right into shape, and in what felt like no time, we had 11 bolts of fabric each: 4 light patterns, 4 dark patterns, the stripping (the main color of the quilt), the accent solid, and the muslin.

Excellent! Now we were ready for class on Monday!

Except, not so fast. We were to take home all, like, 50 yards of fabric and put each piece through the washing machine with NO SOAP (big letters), then pull each piece out wet and iron it dry. Then we were to gently fold and HANG IT on pants hangers so there would be no creases. If parts of the fabric dried before we could get to them with the iron, we had to have a spray bottle full of water--NO WATER IN THE IRON--and re-wet it and then iron it.

I should have known when I spent about six hours ironing on the Sunday before our first class and didn't even finish all of my fabric that this class was going to be very time consuming...

Hello, Baltimore.

I'm in Baltimore for a conference. The company is good and there's lots of crab involved. I am a happy girl. :)