Road Blog!

I’m writing this from my trusty laptop (ie portable) computer in Concord, NC! More specifically, the front sidewalk of my mother-in-law’s house, which is the only place I can pirate- ah, borrow- a signal. And you thought you’d be spared the torment of my blog over the Christmas weekend...
So, just to catch you up on yesterday, I went in to work for what I was sure would be a hellacious day. I was pleasantly surprised, although the seven people lined up at the door at 8:30am didn’t bode especially well.
The morning got off to an unhappy start when LaToya asked me to help clean the fish tank in her office. For any of you who know my history with aquatic life, you probably can guess where this is going. Anyway, after successfully teaching her how to ciphen water, I proceeded to vaccuum up the dead plants and assorted detritus in her tank and change out the water, taking special care to make sure the new water was the same temperature as the old (they’ll get ick, doncha know?). Regrettably, despite my efforts, both of her fish perished shortly thereafter, cause unknown. Some things never change. My penchant for unwittingly killing fish is apparently one of them.
The rest of the day passed more or less uneventfully. Carola and Denise both bought presents for me (photo coasters and travel coffee mug, respectively). We all rocketed out the door at maybe 5:35pm. Arriving home, my next task was to burden the car with a load of presents worthy of ol’ St. Nick himself for the trip to Charlotte. Consistent with all holiday travel this year, we left Chapel Hill in a downpour, gaining Concord (a suburb of Charlotte) at about 10pm.
This morning Shelly and I woke up late, about 9am. Showing off Shelly’s Christmas violin (yes, she knows about it; you try hiding a musical instrument bigger than a harmonic in a two bedroom apartment), a family member of her’s who shall remain nameless broke a string. Shelly was fortunately oblivious of this fact, so once her and her mother departed on a grocery trip to Walmart, her father Louis and I made an emergency trip to a local music store to get it repaired. This turned out good for several reasons. One, the string breaking was probably my own fault, as I’d tightened and loosened them several times, which is apparently a big no-no. Two, the reason we couldn’t get the bow to work was because you need to put something called Roslin on it so it will grab the strings. So I learned those two crucial bits of info, got new strings, and got the violin tuned, all for less than twenty dollars. Why can’t this store be in Chapel Hill?
Well, that catches us up! Shelly is making us lunch and I want to go spend some quality Christmas time with her before those mischievous Collier girls get here tomorrow!