Thursday, December 13, 2007

Alone Again

Coffee in the Denver skyline mug, "Blue Christmas" covered by Dean Martin on iTunes. It was a random selection, but I am nonetheless a bit sad today. Yesterday was supposed to be a tri-generational crafting, bonding, relaxing day with the women of the family. And it almost was. I started the morning by beginning the Christmas shopping on-line. Jessie and Mom got a leisurely start on the day and then Mom went to print out her boarding pass for today, but she couldn't because *her flight had already left*. And the day went to hell in a handbasket after that.

How did we *both* have the wrong departure day? We were both so sure she was leaving today. My Dad had already left Polson for Missoula to pick her up so I couldn't reach him to let him know she had missed her plane (cell phone? don't make me laugh). The Missoula County Airport at Johnson Bell Field in Missoula Montana does not have a paging system. It has very nice people from the luggage handlers to the counter staff to the airport police--and I talked to many of them in an effort to get a message to my very hard-of-hearing-almost-80-year-old Dad. Northwest found Mom a place on a Delta flight connecting with Alaska Airlines through Seattle and we got her to the airport and checked in for a 4:45 pm flight.

About two hours after Mom's original flight arrived in Missoula I got a collect call from the airport--which didn't come through ("Yes I'll accept the charges. Hello? Hello? Dad?".... silence)--but with three more phone attempts on their part and mine I *finally* got connected to my Dad and passed him the message to get a motel room for the night and to pick Mom up at 11:00 pm when she arrived in Missoula (neither of them can see well enough to drive the mountain roads at night).

It was an exciting, stressful day, and not recommended. Now I am alone listening to Christmas carols and posting. This afternoon sees the last day of gymnastics and ballet until after the new year, and late this morning I'm going to see about heading to Olympic to check out their big kiln. I am more and more dubious that I will be able to make it fit, but I owe them a look see.

next week and I'll begin on the Big Order. And seeing as it's December, I need to start all of my expenses from 2007 in Other than that, I am tying up loose ends and last orders. My glass should be in from BullseyeenteringQuickbooks... Oh I hate that job. If I had been better about doing it all year it would be... easier. Now I don't think I even can get all my PayPal transactions downloaded--I don't think they maintain a long enough transaction history. *sigh* *sigh* *sigh*.

3 comments:

Bill said...

Hmm.

What ARE you doing on these long stints online?

Brenda Griffith said...

I actually don't have long stints on-line--it just looks like I do as I leave everything logged in all day and IM comes up as available whenever the laptop is on. So you may THINK I'm on-line, but I'm really in the other room working on... glass. Hur hur hur.

Anonymous said...

LOLOLOLOL suuuuurrrrrrrre you're in the other room working uh huh, you're really shopping online w/o little munchkins seeing what mommy is up to ;))

i hope your mom got home alright, i did something similar one day and read the arrival time at my destination as my departure time from atlanta - BARELY made my flight.

here's a thought on the kiln problem - can you put a heat resistant type of board against that wall opposite bertha so that you don't have to have so much clearance between wall and back of kiln? my friend in nashville had one of olympic's oval kilns in her attached studio with some type of heat sheilding board on 3 sides of it to keep it from overheating the wall behind the kiln, i can email her and find out what type of material it was if that would help.

is jessie getting more wound up each day nearer to christmas and santa's appearance?
D