1. This evening my family and I went to a visitation for a lady we know who died earlier this week. It is odd to think that she is gone and not around on earth any more. This is the first visitation/funeral I've gone to since I was a little kid, I think the last funeral I went to was my aunt's.
I saw a bunch of people from my very illustrious past at the visitation. I so wish that I had a better memory! I recognized so many faces but I couldn't remember hardly any of the names. After all, I was, like, eleven when I saw them all last--some of them I saw more recently, of course, but a lot I couldn't remember. The fact I don't remember makes me sad, I love people and don't like to know I've forgetten them.
I saw my old Sunday school teacher (from when I was, like, five) and her husband and one of her daughters.
I saw another girl that I can barely remember. The memory is so faint I'm not even sure it's there.
I also saw a family that I remembered very well. Well, not extremely well but pretty well. I recognized the dad immeadiately, it took a bit more to recognize the mom (she looked like she'd had a really rough week :( ), I recognized the boys right away, and the daughter pretty well, the youngest boy, however--I forgot he even existed! When I saw him I knew he was part of the family, though, because he looked exactly like David did when I last saw him. It was weird to see Peter though, he looked a lot like his Dad! He was all dressed up, he was tall, a teenager, and he even--dun, dun--had facial hair! He was, like, nine the last time I saw him--it was strange! :P
Lastly, I saw a girl I remembered right away. She was standing there with some little kids and I saw her dad walk up and take one of the kids in his arms and I did a double take. She had kids?! Oh yes, she had kids. I was worried for a minute until she said, "This is my husband, Ben." Yes, she was married with kids. Very cute kids, actually. I had no idea she had gotten married or anything! I was definitely surprised.
2. I saw another dude from my past this week. On the way home from work yesterday, Dad said that we had a special guest coming for dinner. When we got home there was a car with an Illinois license plate in our driveway. I was racking my brain trying to come up with people I knew who lived in Illinois and would likely stop in. Of course, it didn't even cross my mind that it would be who it was. :P
It was Jeremy and his friend, David! They had come up to WI to do some tornado chasing. He stopped in for a few minutes (didn't have time for dinner, it turned out) and I was there for the last two minutes of his visit. That was pretty fun. :)
The last time I saw Jeremy was March and the last time we talked (even a little) was January of '09. Jeremy and his family used to live right down the street from us until they moved away about four years ago.
3. My company sent me to La Crosse this last Monday. Why on earth they paid to send a group to La Crosse to hoe is way beyond me. I had to get up at 4:30AM because I was supposed to get picked up at 5 but stuff happened and they didn't come until about 5:30AM.
I started to think, while waiting, that they weren't actually coming to get me which gave me mixed feelings. Good feeling because I wasn't dying to go and bad feelings because the miscommunication was probably my fault.
But they did come so it was okay. It was me with five other Mexicans, all of them twenty or so years older than me except one of them who is, I think, a year or two younger. It was interesting to spend the day being surrounded by a language I couldn't understand. Deanna was nice enough to translate tidbits and keep me informed on the important stuff.
To get to La Crosse you need to drive about three hours due north. After the first hour or so we stopped to use the bathroom and get a drink and a muffin. I got soda, everyone else got coffee but I don't like coffee so I got soda. I picked the lemon poppyseed muffin, it was pretty good.
After another hour, we stopped again to use the bathroom and purchase more caffeine. The caffeine was sorely needed by the folks I was with--some of them got up at 3AM. O.O I didn't get anything, I was really not interested in consuming much of anything that day, I don't know why. One significant thing about this stop was: Natcho* totally used my name! I had no idea he knew my name! Haha He said, "Kristen, do you want a soda?" and when I said no he said, "You don't need the caffeine?" It is always significant when people use my name, especially when they use it for the first time; I really don't like to be called "you" or "her."
It was kind of interesting how we saw no one while we were there. I mean, we saw people but we drove to La Crosse, pulled off the road and into a field, pulled hoes out of the van, worked, left. I am glad I work with such friendly people, I mean, they all must have been valedictorians in their kindergartens because they have the whole Sharing thing down like you wouldn't believe. :P At break they share their sandwhiches, their watermelon, their soda. I, of course, dropped my sandwhich. It was mortifying. :P Hosea just got me another one. They were homemade ham and cheese sandwhiches, I picked off the hot peppers. :P
It took us about three hours to hoe the whole field. That fact brought me much very great joy! We were heading back by lunch time--woohoo!! We stopped at a Chinese restrauant for lunch. I got the stupidest fortune in my fortune cookie. "You are very generous about giving advice." I'm almost insulted.
I returned to my happy place of rest at about 4PM. I got almost eleven hours in. I am so thrilled to get payed for eleven hours of (mostly) sitting in a van and reading a book. :D
I got home in time for softball, I really feared I wouldn't be able to make it. I am very happy that I was able to attend. :)
4. Today I determined that, whenever anyone starts trying to understand me or my family I will tell them to stop it. The last person who tried it died of brain cancer.
5. I am feeling gratitude to my coworker/boss Jason at the moment. He has saved me from very certain death these last two days. On both Thursday and (today) Friday it has rained too much to do our normal outside work therefore, we do inside work. Most of the inside work involves a very dusty, very deadly storage warehouse room.
I don't know if it is by design or by accident that during these two days Jason has found other things for me to do. On Thursday, after about five minutes of work in the backroom he summoned me to the Heart where I did data entry. Today I went straight to the Heart and did data entry but I finished all of it in just over two hours so I went back into the backroom. After about ten minutes Jason fetched me to do something a "little crafty and less dusty." That there makes me thing it might be no accident. So, instead of dying of an alergic reaction I taped labels onto test tube trays. I taped about a hundred labels and I'm quite proud of that number.
6. So, our dryer is broken, it's too wet out to use the clothesline, and I don't have any spare change. Oi. I want to go out tomorrow and try to buy poppyseeds because I really want to have lemon poppyseed rolls for breakfast on Monday.
7. I started reading Pride & Prejudice and Zombies this week. It's actually pretty good! I swore I would touch no more Austen spoofs after I read Austenland but I lied. :P
This one is pretty well written, kind of funny, and, although thoroughly gross, leaning toward the enjoyable side. It has the usual P&P compliants: the Bennets are annoying (especially Lizzy! Blech!), Mr. Collins is disgusting, and Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley are only fictional characters.
I think that I would like P&P better if I reread it. I didn't really like it that much the first time I read it two summers ago. I think I would be less bored but I'm not sure. When I read it all I got was Lizzy nonsense for the first chunk of the book--I didn't like it until the last two chapters or so when Darcy finally got his head on straight.
(BTW, you purists will be glad to know the original Darcy is, I think, better than this one.)
*No, his mother didn't name him Nacho. His name is Ignacio but I've never actually heard any one call him that. Hilarious little tidbit: he uses cruise control! ;D
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