Katrina reports on her St. Louis trip:
Gateway to the West, USA!!!
On Memorial Day weekend, 2004, I went to the town of St. Louis, and I had the time of my life.
On Thursday we arrived in St. Louis. Grampy took us to Café Manhattan to surprise Grammy. She was so surprised at the fact that we came.
On Friday we went to the Six Flags amusement park. I went on Batman, the ride. It is like a chair. You sit down and your feet hang. You ride a ton of loops and corkscrews. It is awesome. My other favorite ride was Thunder River. You sit in a raft and water spouts come out of the river. It is like white water rafting. My least favorite was Mr. Freeze. You ride a bunch of loops and corkscrews. Then the track goes directly up and you go down, backwards, and do all the loops and corkscrews again but backwards. I hated it.
Also on Friday we went to the Country Club for a 50th Anniversary party that was belated. There was steak and hash browns and cinnamon ice cream. Also Friday was the day that Kathy learnt that she got a job at World Vision.
On Saturday we went back to the Country Club for a swimming session and some lunch on the patio. That was the day I got a major tan. Abby, Lianna, and I all dove off the high dive and had a lot of fun. Lianna and Maddie are our two cousins. They are a lot of fun.
On Sunday we basically just lounged about. We watched a movie called “What About Bob?” and Dad got us shakes and malts from Steak and Shake. Uncle John, Grampy’s brother, came by and the photographer took pictures of us. All week Erin had us dress up (Erin is another one of our cousins) and gave us etiquette classes. We got a shot of us in all of our dresses.
When Erin gave us etiquette classes, we learnt how to faint, eat, sit, drink, and walk down the staircase. Abby had trouble fainting on the wicker couch with cushions on it, because she could feel the wicker through the cushions. So she adopted a solution. She would clutch her butt and shout, “SUPPORT!!!” then fall, and point her toe, like we were supposed to.
All in all, I would do it all over again if I could.
The countdown to summer vacation is definitely on now.
The girls are in St. Louis, visiting their stepmom's family, and were very excited to be traveling and MISSING SCHOOL. Even though all they missed at school was field day, it was still exciting. Their trip out there was a surprise to their step-grandma & grandpa, who are celebrating their 50th anniversary.
Surprising people, especially older people whose health conditions I am not personally aware of, always makes me slightly nervous, because a shock-induced heart-attack seems like a bit more of a bang than you'd want your surprise visit to be, but apparently all went well and no medics were required at the scene.
The girls are meeting some cousins around their age whom they haven't met before, so it should be a fun weekend for them.
I am going to have a much anticipated quiet weekend at home, which I will probably spend making a list of all the chores I need to do before the trip, planning carefully when and in which order they will need to be done in, and then ignoring the list for more entertaining pursuits for the rest of the weekend. Sounds like a good plan, doesn't it?
Okay, so it wasn't really very extreme, just awfully early in the morning.
Saturday morning, I dragged myself out of bed at an hour no decent person should be forced to face, and got ready for my trip to the business school's 'evaluation day'. Once there, everyone stood around slightly uncomfortably and snacked off of the buffet that was spread out. They clutched their purple folders and fidgeted with applying their name tags to their too-dressed-up-for-a-Saturday clothes.
We were eventually herded into the auditorium, and I attempted to count how many people were there. At the end, we were told that 88 out of 120 were invited, and 55 will be selected, so the odds are definitely over 50%. I don't think all 88 showed up, either, and you have to show up to get in.
After the introduction, we went off to our little groups, where we spent most of the rest of the day. First on the list was a personal introduction, of no more than five minutes. I'd anticipated this, and had some things to say prepared -- okay, so I prepared them by talking to myself in the car on the way there, but still, better than nothing, right? People seemed interested in what I had to say, and I got many questions from the other applicants afterwards, so I figure that's a good sign.
Next up was a case discussion, where we all sat around and discussed a case and what should be done. With ten people, all wanting to make a good impression, it was a little hard to get a word in edgewise, but I think that went fine as well.
After that, we split up into two groups of five, and had to do a group consensus project. It was about surviving a plane crash in a desert, and we all had to agree on what order of importance the items we were able to salvage should be. There were no fistfights, but a couple of funny discussions about if the flashlight or the knife would be more important.
The end of the day was back in the auditorium, where it was Q&A time. Then it was over. I thought that the website had said that decisions would be mailed no later than June 3rd, but he said June 15th on Saturday, so a final answer is still about three weeks away.
I thought that in this program, the ratio of women to men would be a little higher than the computer science program, but there were still very few women there. I'd guess about 20%, overall. Last year's class profile says that 26% of the class is female.
After I got home, I collapsed into bed, where I pretty much stayed for the rest of the day. Abby went to a party, and Katrina and I picked up a frozen pizza for lunch, which she very kindly cooked while I laid in bed and mostly managed to push the fast-forward button on the remote control.
I felt much better yesterday, almost like a person who is alert and somewhat aware of her surroundings! We went clean-sweep on Katrina's desk, pulling everything out and sorting it into keep, give away, trash piles. There's still some work to do, but it's looking a lot better so far.
Today is exactly T-minus 31 days from when we take off for vacation. I am starting to feel like there is much to do and little time to do it in. And I still have to fill out my financial aid form before I leave! The kids are gone with their dad to St. Louis over Memorial Day weekend, though, so I will be able to get a bunch of stuff done then. Hopefully, more than just pushing the fast-forward button on the remote control.
Today was the big moving day at work. We had everything packed up on Friday at the old place, and today everything was supposed to be set up and ready to go at the new place. It was also the first day I was riding the bus to work.
The bus stops at 9:25 or 9:55, and I was aiming for the 9:55 bus, but worried about finding exactly where the bus stop was, so I left really early. Not quite early enough to catch the 9:25 bus, but early enough that I waited for 20 minutes to get on the 9:55 bus, which was a few minutes late getting there, anyhow. I must have just missed the earlier bus.
So the bus ride was fine. I was a bit disoriented when I got off the bus, but soon found the building that I knew was ours, went in and asked (I know some of you will be surprised by this, but there was no other option) how to get to the other building, and got very good directions and was able to find my new office with no trouble!
After that, I unpacked, which was quick and easy, and spent a fun 30 minutes wrangling network cords which had all been set up incorrectly, and doing other headache-inducing tasks that involved crawling under the desk and plugging and unplugging things.
I'm all set up now, though, and I'm getting ready to go downstairs and get some Starbucks. I probably shouldn't, but I feel like I really deserve it after successfully riding the bus AND setting up my new office.
It's hard to believe that it's already the middle of May. Our trip is getting closer and closer, and I'm not feeling anywhere near ready. I've been working a bit more than usual, and all that extra time doesn't come out of my free time, it mostly comes out of my housecleaning time.
Yesterday the girls had their spring choir concert, and I won't go into all of my aggravations that the only concert was at 2pm in the afternoon, oops, looks like I just did. But when I complained the nice choir teacher seemed quite apologetic, which went a long ways towards making me feel better. It was totally worth missing work for, though, as the song selection was a collection of folk songs and spirituals, and the girls did great, and Abby had a solo which she sang very beautifully.
My brother is in town, working on a house just down the street from my place, so I stopped by and saw it this morning, but scooted out of there quick like a bunny when I finally managed to get down the driveway, which was sharply angled and very steep, and he told me that a crane was arriving at any moment. I don't do so well with sharp, steep and in a face-off with a crane.
He came over for dinner tonight, and appreciated my pizza, and everyone appreciated the chocolate mousse cake thing that I snatched out of the freezer at Trader Joe's. It was delicious! Then we talked while I did the dishes, and conversation definitely makes them go faster, or at least, I don't notice so much that I'm doing them.
He's back at his hotel now, and at this point, all there is to do is go to bed and hope that tomorrow I won't notice the results of my lack of attention while doing the dishes.
Today, we were at Target, shopping for some summer clothes for the girls and buying important things like cat food.
It was the pet food aisle where we ran into a snag. Our usual kind of cat food wasn't there, except for in teeny tiny little bags, which, if you have seen the size of our cats, you know just wouldn't do.
When I got the cats from their very protective owner, he told me that he really really wanted me to keep feeding them Iams, the expensive, supposedly really good for the cat sort of food. So while I'm not really sure how much I buy into the whole concept that the most expensive cat food is the best for the cat, I kept buying the Iams cat food, until today.
I was pretty much of a pushover. It only took about twenty seconds of the girls singing the Meow Mix song in the middle of the store before I gave in. Between the singing and realizing that Meow Mix had a hairball reducing variation, the cheery yellow bag full of tasty bits of chicken and liver found its way into our cart.
We finished our errands, came home, and had lunch. All of the bags from the store landed in the chair in the living room, and as I wandered through, I saw the cats sniffing around the bags from time to time. They are very sniffy cats, so this didn't surprise me at all.
What did surprise me, though, was when I walked by the chair at just the right angle and saw bits of paper scraps on the floor, and I realized that YumYum had chewed her way through the top of the bag and was currently trying to pull out bits of the new cat food with her paw. New bags of Iams cat food have never attracted so much enthusiasm.
After that, we filled one bowl with the rest of the Iams and their other bowl with the same amount of Meow Mix. Currently, the bowl of Iams is still heaping full, while the bowl of Meow Mix has a very significant dent in it. I think we now know which kind they like better!