November 15th Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

Good Morning! Sorry I haven’t written in a while, because honestly, there really hasn’t been much to talk about. Well I started today off with a bang, so that remedied the situation.

I got up, filled and flipped the coffee maker on so it would heat up, then took Colby outside to be emptied. So far so good, no different than any other morning. Since it was a little later than usual, I actual saw our newspaper delivery man, which again, although it doesn’t happen all the time, it was not that unusual.

Colby and I come back into the house, and I hear Mikey, Lys’ cat, making that funny, growly, clicking, noise he reserves for when he’s watching birds outside the window. I found that a little strange because he was sitting in the middle of my kitchen, not near a window. Now, please keep in mind, I have not had my fist cup of coffee yet, so I was still a little foggy. Mikey’s actions did not compute until, all of a sudden, I get drive-bombed by this little grey bird.

MOTHER OF GOD! Y’all know how terrified I am of birds. This little creature swoops from the kitchen into the family room, desperately trying to get out. He flutters around our little greenhouse window (which currently holds a TV, not any plants), then makes a bee-line toward the sliding glass doors, which he crashes into with a resounding thunk. He shakes it off, and goes back to the greenhouse window to perch on the TV.

At this point Mikey, a.k.a. Fat Cat, come flying from the kitchen and frog-hops over several surfaces, not stopping and barely touching anything as he goes, to get his not-so-svelte body up on to the TV. I am trying not to scream, Colby doesn’t know what to do with himself, and the bird is in a panic and flies off, Mikey in hot pursuit.

I tackle the cat and shove him down the basement, and throw open the sliding door so the bird will have an escape route. Colby runs out the door, still yapping and spazzing out, but I know he’s okay and not going anywhere. Me, I’m having heart palpitations, because I have no clue where the dang bird went. I try to listen for movement, but all I can hear is my own heartbeat, Colby whining, and the cat howling from behind the basement door.

I finally spot the bird. He’s fluttering around my closed kitchen window trying to get out. I take a deep breath and head into the kitchen in hopes I can shoo the bird toward the open door. Praise the Lord, it worked! He flew out, I dragged the dog back in and slammed the door. Not exactly the way I wanted to start my morning.

On Monday, I went back to the Verizon store, and picked up Lys’ phone. I was going to wait until she came home to switch her over, but her phone started wigging out, and I said forget it, we’ll just do it now, and I’ll mail it to her. I get a large box – much bigger than I had intended because Lys wanted me to mail her her little Christmas tree – and fill it up with various things Lys wanted since she wasn’t coming home for Thanksgiving. (Hat, gloves, ornaments for her tree, a Thanksgiving cupcake kit – I also threw in some stuffing, a can of cranberry sauce, and a few other tchotchkes which I won’t mention in case she reads this.)

I get the phone (which means they had to shut off her old phone, so she would be incommunicado until the new phone arrived). I also go and pick up her glasses and contacts which were ready at the eye doctor. I also picked up a few other things to throw into the box, sealed everything up, and went to the post office.

The post office tells me the package should arrive on Wednesday. Wonderful! I couldn’t have asked for better considering Tuesday was Veteran’s Day so there was no mail service.  Wednesday morning I go online to check the status of the package. It arrived in Forest Park, IL at 11:57 pm on Tuesday. Illinois? What the heck is it doing in Illinois? Whatever, the post office must have a distribution center out there or something, right? The screen still shows Wednesday as the delivery date.

All day Wednesday I keep checking the status, it doesn’t change. Finally at 7:38 Thursday morning the status updates to say it has left Forest Park facility. All day Thursday and all day Friday, I keep checking the status. There’s no change. At four o’clock I call the customer service number. After ten minutes in automated hell, I get a living, breathing person, Claire. She is quite baffled as to why the package went to Illinois and starts the internal tracking process for me.

This morning, after the bird incident, I went online to see if anything had changed. At 1:36 this morning, the package arrived in Warrendale, PA which is right outside of Pittsburg, and then left that facility again at 2:05 this morning. Provided the package goes directly to High Point, NC from Warrendale, PA, it would mean it would have traveled almost 1,700 miles to get there. And the USPS wonders why it is losing money?? Good grief!

In the meantime, Lys has been without a phone, so our only form of communication has been via Facebook chat. Thank goodness we still had that, or I would have not known that she had found a ride home for Thanksgiving. YEAH!! Friends of hers are headed home to Mass, and said they had room in their car for her to hitch a ride. I’m so excited! I’ll admit, I’ve been a bit down lately because it was going to be the first time all of my kids wouldn’t be home for the holiday. I realize the day is coming, but I wasn’t quite ready for it to come this soon. All is right, in my little world, once again.

Remember I told you about a young lady I met at a book signing a while back named Jessica; and she and her sister Angel were attending a craft show to sell their jewelry? Anyway, the craft show is today. It will run from 9 – 3 at Bensalem High School, 4319 Hulmeville Rd, Bensalem, Pennsylvania 19020. So if you are in the area, and like craft fairs, stop by and visit Jessica and her sister Angel’s table and say “Hi”.

Also, today is the Authors’ Day at the Hillsborough Public Library. The fair runs from 1 – 4 (please note, the times changed), and I will be speaking right at 1:00 pm.

Here is the schedule of Authors who will be reading or speaking at the event:

Christina Paul  1-1:15pm

Chris Redding  1:15-1:30pm

Mary SanGiovanni  1:30-1:45pm

K. Edwin Fritz  1:45-2:00pm

H.E. Goodhue 2:00pm-2:15pm

Jeff Markowitz  2:15-2:30pm

Charles H and Laine Sutton Johnson  2:30-3:00pm

Anabelle Bryant  3:00-3:15pm

Nicole Zoltack  3:15-3:30pm

J.C. Vogard  3:30-3:45pm

Sreyashi Ghosh  3:45-4:00pm

There will be at least a dozen other authors there as well who will not be speaking. If you are in the area, please stop by and say “Hi”, check out all of our books, have them signed. A books, signed by the author, makes a lovely, and slightly unusual, gift for the holidays. (Btw – the books I ordered, which weren’t supposed to arrive until Monday, showed up on Wednesday, so I will have copies of Taking Chances at today’s Author’s Day.)

Okay, I have rambled on long enough today. I may or may not have a post again for you tomorrow. I thought I was done with my book signings after today, but Wayne at Canterbury Tales Forever in Peddler’s Village asked me to come back Sunday and then again next weekend. I told him it all depended on the weather, and it looks like tomorrow’s weather is going to be good, so I have no excuse not to go.

I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

Your Next Challenge:

You are looking through old family photos and this one person appears in almost all of them, but you have no idea who he or she is…

You have ten minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count, and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.