Hi Folks,
At the end of the last post (see Part I), I was getting ready to remove my tools from Sierra and Jess' balcony before they would be returning home from their trip to Africa. Oceana had said that they would be arriving by 3:00, and would I have my tools out of there by 1:00? It's a good thing she planned ahead so deliberately (as is her wont), because we got a phone call from Tom and Joy, who were picking Sierra and Jess up at the airport, saying they were arriving two hours ahead of schedule. Oceana had been finishing sprucing up the room, Virginia had been hastily hanging curtains, and Lynne had been bringing up the food to be put in their welcome baskets. The three of them scurried to wrap things up, and I barely had enough time to remove my last batch of building materials, when the doorbell rang.
As I came downstairs, the door opened and in walked Sierra and Jess, followed by Tom and Joy. It was great to see all of them. As anticipated, Amenshi went a little nuts with happiness to see his mom and dad after such a long absence. There were a few minutes of communal hellos back and forth, and then Sierra looked over at Lynne and me and said, “Oh, my new housemates!” and came toward us with her arms spread wide, and hugged us both simultaneously. This was sweet and unexpected. I took some of their bags upstairs and left them alone to continue being greeted by the other well-wishers.
I had promised Linda that I would change her tire that afternoon, as she had punctured it pulling up to the curb when coming home the day before. I put on a pair of latex gloves and went out to her car to inspect the situation. She was already outside waiting for me, and insisted I put on sunglasses. I had considered doing that prior to walking out of the house, but thought that dark glasses might be an impediment while trying to see to change a tire. I still have to get used to the quality of the sunshine in California being different from that in New York. Sunglasses here are a higher priority. Linda lent me a pair of hers that she had in the car.
The whole time I was working on her tire, Linda was emptying what seemed like an entire household's worth of belongings from her trunk, because we were going to have to put the damaged tire in there after I installed the spare. It was kind of comical: Every time I looked up from my work, there was Linda pulling yet another item out of her trunk: An oversized bag of crayons, followed by a raincoat...a large quantity of high school text books...an English saddle... It was as if there were a large hole in the bottom of her trunk and she had a posse of clown henchmen passing stuff up to her from under her car.
I had trouble lifting the car using her jack, which I was unused to, so I took the one from the trunk of my car, which was conveniently parked right next to hers. After that, the entire process went miraculously smoothly. I'm used to at least one or two obstacles arising when I change a tire, but this was a surprisingly easy job to complete. Linda was very appreciative, which made it that much more fun.
Friends, I'm only at about 3:30 in the afternoon of the day I'm describing. What say we call it a night and wait until the next post to see what transpired in the late afternoon and evening of this “typical” day?
Thanks so much.
Best Regards,
Gerry
There are no steps to rightness. You either are or you aren't.
-- Vic Baranco
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