since the screaming banshee children are out

I’m off today and had hopes of sitting out on the deck and sipping my coffee in the sun, but of course as soon as I got out there all I could hear was the perpetually screeching kids. Not very relaxing. Actually I can hear them in here too if I open the windows, and I have to open the windows since it’s over 80 out there. But I’ve got the stereo turned up reeeeeeal loud, so Interpol is drowning out the shriekers. I could sit outside with my iPod on, but I kind of wanted to listen to, oh, birds chirping and stuff. Oh, well. I wasn’t planning on hanging out here all day anyhow.

I’m only off today, instead of today and tomorrow, because the VA suddenly switched my father’s surgery consultation appointment to last Friday instead of August 22 (turned out someone canceled) and now he’s having the colon surgery on Thursday. This Thursday. So I’ve got to be off Thursday and Friday which meant I really probably should have gone in today AND tomorrow. But I’ll be spending three days and nights with my mother, and having done that a few weeks ago and knowing how it nearly killed me, I decided I need today. This is also probably the last slow week we’ll have at work, so it’s a good time to be off.

Naturally I looked at my work email this morning and there was one from the Dean’s assistant letting us know that Draaaaaaaama Queen is out today because her day care burnt down.

Is there nothing disastrous that doesn’t happen to Draaaama Queen?? No, apparently there’s not. I drove by her daycare yesterday (it happened on Sunday, very fortunately, when no one was there) and there were like FIVE firetrucks in the middle of the highway and policecars all over the place and a couple of ambulances and the first thing I thought was, "Oh, great, there goes L’s daycare!!!" I don’t think it actually burnt completely down but there was a lot of damage. So it will be closed for quite awhile, I’m sure.

It makes me think of a favorite quote from Black Books, where Fran asks Bernard where Manny is and how she can find him, and Bernard says, "Well, you could become a terrible event and happen to him."

I’m really in a cheery mood, though, despite my whiney entry. Yesterday I went to the Charity Horse Show in Blowing Rock, which I always enjoy. And I took ten zillion pictures with the cool zoom lens, and quite a few even turned out well. A lot didn’t, because I’m still struggling to hold the long heavy lens steady, but even that was good as it was a lesson in deleting. Which I also struggle with. I think I deleted half the pictures I took, yet was still very happy with the ones that remained.

SO I’ll post some pics and then I’ll go out and enjoy my afternoon.

OH, update on the TV situation (and thanks for all the helpful notes!): An antenna wouldn’t work for us, as we are in the boonies and surrounded by mountains. We get the Charlotte networks which are far away, and back in the pre-cable days you could only get maybe two stations and they were usually snowy. But I went by the cable company’s office Friday, and sure enough, they have a package that just includes local channels. And, oddly, a few shopping networks. They have a deal to lure in satellite customers where for the first year you only pay either $5 or $10. Apparently the deal depends on who you talk to. So I’ll go back and talk to her and get it for $5. No installation, no box rental. After a year it goes up to $17, but turns out our phone company, which is a little co-op company, is going to be offering TV service before long. So after a year we can probably get something through them and bundle it with what we’ve already got – DSL and phone – and come out cheap too.

No ESPN, but Baker B is okay with that if it means saving, oh, FIFTY DOLLARS A MONTH.

The lowest DISH package seems to be $20, and it may not include networks (which are $5 more) and it may not include ESPN. I got two different stories over the phone. Three if you count what’s on the website. And no one has emailed me back about it. So, forget DISH.

And now, on to the photos! But first, a picture of what is right beside my head:

Eddie! He and Cayce were both right by my ear earlier, but I didn’t get a picture. Too bad, as they were facing each other and crammed onto the windowsill.

And now, on to the horse show:

I don’t know how they stay on the horses, especially after seeing them caught in mid-flight like this.

The kids were SO cute. This one was watching a forklift disaster – it had stopped on the hill up to the stables and tried to back up and the ten gazillion bags of pine straw it was carrying fell off and rolled all over the place.

Cart O’Dogs. Golf carts are a big thing at horse shows, apparently. And so are dogs riding in golf carts.