This and that

Sunday, January 28, 2018

Variations on a theme

At least I can get a blog post out of it. Sounds familiar.

If parents of the high school mountain bike team members want to go through the training and screening they can become Class I coaches, which allows them to ride with the team but not actually give any coaching advice. A lot of parents do this because they enjoy riding with their kids. D. was one of those parents.

It is sometimes a challenge for a cautious adult to ride with fearless teens, especially going downhill. Zipping down a gravelly path and trying not to hit pedestrians led to a fall close to the end of a training ride. One of the other parents took a picture of the injury (available upon request) because D. couldn't see the extent of it and was going to head home. Instead he accepted the medical advice to go to the emergency room to have the the wound cleaned and stitched up.

The wait in the emergency room was long enough to make me glad I had time to grab a book, water, and a snack. I felt a bit bad about not showering, but a friend pointed out that it was better to be stinky than to be contagious.

We spent a lot of time near the Laceration Cart in #3 PIT (physician in triage?) Area.
The people were all friendly, just trying to deal with multiple situations at the same time.

Yippee, no broken bones.

Eleven stitches.

All cleaned and having vitals checked one more time.

The day was not what we had planned, but it turned out fine in the end. D. was able to sleep some last night and go to work today. Onto the next thing.

Thursday, January 25, 2018

Open Space

I ride by the Bernard Field Station on the way home from swimming.

I had never stopped to read this sign.

For weeks I saw them working on this gate, just west of the other gate.
Once the construction was done I stopped to take a look and then read a bit about it here.

Nice view

You can tell this is an old picture because the houses at the top
still have vegetation separating them from the building in the field station.

Since the satellite image was taken a more formal road has been built.
A new gate and street sign are also in place.

I wonder what the updated building will be used for.

And I wonder what the other colleges will do with their land.

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Entertainment

Before the excitement of driving to LAX we had the excitement of the first rain storm of the season. Of course I was happy to have rain for my garden and rain barrels, but I would have also appreciated warm and sunny weather while entertaining people from the chilly heartland.

Twice I took my dad to the pool. In the upper-righthand corner of the picture are four circles, which are hot tubs. Even though the pool water was on the warm side it was still wonderful to get into the hot water after a swim.

Mom and I started four puzzles and finished three. It was a great rainy-day activity.

Conflicted Shakespeare topic of local talk
The Shakespeare Club of Pomona Valley meets at 2 p.m. on Monday at the Joslyn Center, 660 N. Mountain Ave., Claremont. Speaking at the free and open meeting is Amanda Zarr, who is returning to Claremont after playing Beatrice in Ophelia’s Jump’s summer production of Much Ado About Nothing at Pomona College’s Sontag Greek Theater. The topic of her talk is “Conflict in Shakespeare.” Ms. Zarr will review the wide range of semantic resources used by The Bard to show characters in opposition. Ms. Zarr is a professional actor and adjunct theatre professor at Chapman University. She has been a company member with Shakespeare Orange County for more than a decade, and has been seen on television and in films. Light refreshments will be served.

Always good to be open to new activities. This one got a thumbs up.

And what would the trip be without a visit to the thrift store?
Seniors (55+) received 25% off and they carded my mom!

This William Dean Perry card was only 10¢ but I resisted temptation.

Add reading two newspapers, eating meals, and hanging out and zip, zip, zip, the time was gone. I am looking forward to the next visit!

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Blog post

Sigh. When not-so-great things happen I tend to think, "At least I can get a blog post out of this." Not much of a silver lining!

A few years ago we missed a flight because we were at the wrong gate and nicest thing I heard that evening was, "It happens all day long." I had that same feeling after today's disaster. Searching for solutions I found 293,000 results.

I had bought steel-cut oats and had a recipe. The first step was to spray the liner with a non-stick spray. I didn't want it to get on the pot itself so I removed the liner to do it. I measured and added the first ingredient. I measured the second ingredient and poured into the pot. But why was it all pouring out?? Aaagh, because I had removed the liner. So sad.

I did my best to clean it and knew not to plug it in and turn it on to see if it worked (learning from a different wet electronic device experience). I did read about what other people did. We don't have a hair-dryer and I was a bit concerned about removing the bottom.

I so lucky to be married to someone who happily futzes with electronic devices! He removed the bottom, cleaned it up a bit, and we are letting it dry out. Other people have said their pots worked fine afterward and I am hoping for the same. Just like we learned the hard way to put the garage remote in the glove box when there is a bike on the room, now I will put the lid on the pot if I remove the liner. Life is a good teacher.

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Love

Remember that picture of our Finnish student waiting for the train? At the time he asked for a ride I said I would take only my parents to LAX. Prove it, the universe said.

This morning we were getting ready to go to Ontario airport, about ten miles away, and I am not sure what we were talking about but I thought to check the flight status. Delayed by one hour and 59 minutes ("They couldn't say two hours?" asked A.). I double checked and it was still delayed.

Getting through to a human at the airline was easy and she initially said there was a flight out of Orange County that would have a connection in Houston. Sounded good, but it turned out that the flight out of Houston was unavailable. She checked some more and found a non-stop flight out of LAX and was able to find two aisle seats close to each other. Fantastic!

I wrote to a friend who has been working with a recent arrival to the US who has been driving to earn money, but he was booked. I sent a note to another person who had been recommended. Not available. One shuttle service did not have a working number. Supershuttle had nothing available.

Lucky for me it was not raining, not rush hour, and I have a plug-in hybrid car with stickers giving me permission to use the carpool lane even if I am driving alone. The drive there was uneventful and I was home in a bit over two hours.

My parents had a short walk to their gate and the only empty seat on the whole plane was next to my mom! A friend picked them up and they were home earlier than expected. Good thing because they had this waiting for them.