I'm excited to have the opportunity to join a canyon tour on Saturday, assuming there are any paying customers. We are to present ourselves for the 'standby' tomorrow morning before 9 a.m at the gift shop. We're thinking if there aren't any paying customers, we'd better become that...there won't be another opportunity for me to do it. Budd will be back for a short stay when some of the equipment he needed to finish his project gets here, but chances are I'll be working and unable to come with him.
I'm really excited to have been invited to accompany a burn crew into the canyon next week. That should be very interesting, and I'll save the little I know about what they are doing for after. I'll pick Tess's brain as we drive out so I'll be able to explain it. Tess is the 'burn boss', and I found out when I mentioned this opportunity to Budd, she used to be a firefighter. More and more interesting!
I made another discovery in the saga of the inconveniences to overcome when you're on the road. Don't remember if I talked earlier about the mail situation...there isn't an inexpensive or convenient solution for people who don't have a fixed address, as we don't at the moment. If you are ever going back to your original address, they don't want you to do a permanent change. If you are going to be gone longer than six months, you can't do a temporary change of address as it will expire. If you are going to be in any given place for less than two months, it isn't prudent to do serial changes of address, because your magazines are going to be scattered from hell to breakfast. There are services for people who live on yachts, for example, but it involves someone handling your mail at a per-piece rate which is exorbitant. I suppose if you live on a yacht, you may be able to afford it.
Our solution was to permanently change our mailing address to our daughter's, and ask her to forward only important mail and magazines. Laurie emails me almost daily to tell me what we've received, and if it's a bill she opens it and tells me the amount and due date so I can pay it online. I began wondering whether she was holding the magazines until there were enough to make a trip to the PO to mail a package, but she said we hadn't received any magazines. Hmm. Then I asked if any of the mail she has received had the yellow forwarding stickers on it. No. Hmmmm. So yesterday I tracked down how to verify that the change of address went through. NO! Hmmmmmmmm!!!!!
I wonder where the postal carrier has been putting the mail for the past two months? A case has been opened, and we shall soon find out. Meanwhile, for a mere dollar per person (which somehow got debited twice) and business, a change of address order is taken by a real person, who actually speaks English, and can be backdated two weeks. That is, the change of address can be backdated, not the person who speaks English--for shame Miss Cheri English tutor! I found out that the order could be backdated when the CSR asked me when I wanted it to start, and I said December 30 of last year. I was being sarcastic, but at least I got the info that it could in fact be backdated--just not that far. I would have said immediately if I hadn't been royally ticked off.
Laurie is envisioning an avalanche of mail, but I am hopeful it won't be that bad. Surely they have already tossed all the bulk mail. Now I know where my December paycheck for tutoring must be, though. They have long since stopped payment on it and presumably have sent a replacement, though that hasn't arrived yet, either. Sigh. One more hurdle more-or-less behind us. By the time I get this all figured out, we will probably have permanent jobs and a year-long lease on a home. Cross fingers!
I don't think I mentioned a few weeks ago waking up with some sort of an insect bite. It itched and burned for a couple of days, scabbed over and the scab fell off, and I never thought more about it, except to wonder what would have been awake in the winter to bite me. This morning I noticed that it has left a bit of a scar, with a pattern of dots that looks like the 5-spot on a domino or a playing card. Now I'm wondering what it was again. I guess since my leg didn't fall off, it doesn't matter. I found a squashed spider in one of my house shoes after that. Just hope I had my socks on when I squashed it. Ewww. Laurie, don't get mad at me, it was an accident.
Just one more subject today, and I probably shouldn't even mention it, as it doesn't show me in a good light. But, since this is supposed to be a journal, I will write it and hope it will make me better in the future. Years and years ago, when I was in college, I discovered I had little or no patience with kids. Later I discovered I really enjoyed teenagers, and babies, but between about 4 and say, 11 or 12, not so much. During college, I was more-or-less planning on teaching when I 'grew up'. I dropped the idea of teaching and never took any education classes because of the impatience. Thank goodness a whole generation of little kids didn't have me as a teacher! I'm of course older and somewhat mellower now, and I've really been enjoying tutoring. Every now and then, however, I get a kid, usually between 5th and 7th grades, who is just using the service to push someone's buttons, or so it seems. They don't have a homework question, just want to argue or play. I've had two in the past two days, and it is making me remember the decision I made back in college not to teach.
Budd was at home during the sessions I'm referring to, and was amused to hear me muttering "You're lucky I can't reach you, you little *&%$#!" I have an icon I can click to give the student a cartoon high-five when he or she has grasped a concept--now I want one with a boxing glove that I can punch the kid with. Just kidding, I wouldn't really hit a kid. Probably.
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