This morning I was going through my morning beauty regime and my mind began to wander the way it does, you know, "where's my blush applicatior? There it is, the brush bristles look like horse hair, I wonder if horse hair brushes are made from the horse's tails, Paige loves horses, her birthday is next month, do I have a gift for her, I need a gift for a wedding reception next week, I need to go shopping, oh I'm out of lemons I better put them on the list, ooo, I love lemon in my diet coke, wow, I'm thirsty". and then I go in the kitchen to get a diet coke and standing in front of the fridge I think, "what was I doing?" But, I have wandered off the path of my subject, so let me turn this jalopy of a brain around and see if I can get back on path.
When I was in my teens, my beauty regime consisted of picking the sleep goobers out of the corners of my eyes in the morning, brushing my teeth, and combing my hair. There, good to go. In my early twenties I may have added a bit of mascara and the slightest tinge of blush. In my thirties, I finally grew up and discovered eye shadow and lip stick and increased my regime from 30 seconds each day to about 15 minutes and I felt like I looked respectable. Then, this morning, I am assembling the massive array of products necessary to achieve that somewhat acceptable look and wondering what happened. At what point did my routine go from a little wisp here and there to the following: 1. scrub face with industrial strength cleanser containing crushed lava rock to shock the skin cells and capillaries back to life. 2: slather gobs of expensive rehydrating cream all over my face and watch the cells suck it in like unprimed drywall. 3: Scan the entire surface of my face with a magnifying mirror to remove hair growth in unwanted places such as the middle of my forehead, upper lip, chin, nose and any other bizarre locations the hair has decided to grow on my face. 4: apply cover up to the various patches of skin that can't remember that I am caucasian and should not have dark brown patches of skin on my face. 5: Now that I have shaded the brown patches to match the rest of my face, I apply an all over cover up to change that color from something resembling a rotting corpse to something more in the range of a living, breathing person. Now that the basic canvas has been created I can apply some color to my eyelids, a touch of pink to my cheeks, and attempt to make eyelashes that look more like the 5th day of beard stubble, appear instead to be long and wispy by applying overpriced mascara.(I don't think I have really perfected this process yet.) That being done, I now color in the eyebrows that are barely exist due to the fact that the eyebrow hairs have forgotten where they are supposed to grow and have appeared in other, less desirable places on my face, thereby necessitating their removal in item #3 above. At last, I have managed to apply, through the gift of modern cosmetology, a face that somewhat resembles a living human being. Now, I carefully shellac the whole thing with a little sealing powder to assure it remains in place for at least half the day. I smooth on a bit of lipstick for color (it will be gone in 2 minutes when I remember that half finished diet coke on the counter and I go in and finish it) and stand in front the mirror to give my stamp of approval. Sadly, as I stand and stare at the thing I have created, all I can think is, "who is that old lady in my mirror......oh ya, I have a bunch of episodes of Hot in Cleveland on the DVR I need to watch, where is my watch?, what time is it......................
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Crappy ending to a great vacation.
Today the vacation was over, and it was a crappy ending to be sure. Not because the fishing was bad. Not because the weather was bad. Not because the company was bad. No, it all had to do with buying a new RV less than 24 hours before we left. But, let me go back to the beginning.
For 56 days Jays has been working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Every night when he went to bed he would dream of spending 12 hours a day, seven days a week on the lake casting his line and reeling in the fish. He would have visions of sitting around a quiet campfire after dark and sipping on his coke. Finally the time has come. He has made the long journey home, all the preparations are made for us to leave when he notices that the fiberglass shell on our RV has started to delaminate. Now, you have to understand that we have had nothing but problems with this RV since we bought it 4 years ago and this was the last straw. We drove straight to the dealer to discuss this issue and before we left, we had traded it in for a much better model. But, it was after 5 and we couldn't get the paperwork done until the next day. So, Jay and the boys left at 5 a.m. and went to Henry's with the boat, whilst Kate and I stayed behind to tie up the paperwork, move all our junk from the old RV to the new RV and then I pulled it up to Henry's. This is where the trouble began. First, let me say, that the dealership had the RV in their shop for 3 hours to make sure it was "customer ready". Riiiight. Upon arriving at the campsite and getting it all set, I attempted to fill the water tank, but instead heard water gushing from the drain valve. The cap was missing. When I contacted the service manager, he apologized and explained that sometimes they vibrate off, but we could get a replacement at the local hardware store....tomorrow morning. Since we really needed water now, that was a problem. It was against the rules, but we had no choice, so we connected our hose to the community water pipe, just until morning. Now, Jay was filthy and hot and just wanted to take a shower. But, now the water heater would not light. Once again I called the service manager. He explained that maybe (sometime during that 3 hours it was being made "customer ready") they had forgotten to close the water heater bypass valve when they dewinterized it. Wow! Shouldn't that have been the first thing on the "customer ready" checklist? But, sure enough, after taking off the access panel, we discovered the bypass valve had not been moved to the summer position, so we moved it. The pump came on and began to fill the water heater, but unfortunately, we heard water gushing outside and ran out to discover water pouring from the water heater compartment door on the outside. I quickly shut off the pump and we opened the compartment door. Good news, we found the cap for the fresh water tank drain. Bad news, the plug for the water heater drain was missing and the water was just pouring out. Upon closer inspection, Jay discovered that the water heater element had not been screwed in to the water heater, also a major part of the dewinterization, "customer ready" process that they supposedly spent 3 hours doing. Jay screwed in the element, we turned on the pump, and the water heater began to fill. But, the element was leaking because it needed plumber's tape on the seal. This required a quick trip (5 miles) in to town to try to find plumbers tape. Luckily, we did find some. Returned to the campground, and as Jay unscrewed the water heater element to install the plumbers tape.....you guessed it......water gushed out of the hole and drenched us both. Plumber's tape installed, water heater element screwed in, water heater filled, and at last! Hot water! Now, from here forward, all went as planned and the vacation was great. Fish aplenty, weather was great, slept like babies. Now it's time to go home. The RV is ready. Everything is locked down. It's hitched up and we are headed for the dump station. Jay dons his industrial grade rubber sewage gloves, squats down by the dump valve, turns the cap to remove it so he can attach the sewer dump hose, when.....WHOOSH!......he is slaughtered by a gushing stream of poop! Yes, the genius's at the RV dealership, who spent 3 hours getting our RV "customer ready" had neglected to close the dump valves on the unit and Jay got sprayed by poop! Thus, the "crappy" ending to an otherwise wonderful vacation. To see him fly out of the way, and see me shouting 'HOLY CRAP!" (literally) was indeed a sight to behold. It's a good thing we had 2 hours to drive before we could get to the RV dealership, or I think they would have found our brand new RV backed right through their big, plate glass, front windows.
Jay, bless his heart, took it all on the chin. We actually laughed about it later. But, it was a typical Shaw Family Adventure to be sure. Like he pointed out, at least we didn't wreck the RV this time out. (Knock on wood.)
For 56 days Jays has been working 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Every night when he went to bed he would dream of spending 12 hours a day, seven days a week on the lake casting his line and reeling in the fish. He would have visions of sitting around a quiet campfire after dark and sipping on his coke. Finally the time has come. He has made the long journey home, all the preparations are made for us to leave when he notices that the fiberglass shell on our RV has started to delaminate. Now, you have to understand that we have had nothing but problems with this RV since we bought it 4 years ago and this was the last straw. We drove straight to the dealer to discuss this issue and before we left, we had traded it in for a much better model. But, it was after 5 and we couldn't get the paperwork done until the next day. So, Jay and the boys left at 5 a.m. and went to Henry's with the boat, whilst Kate and I stayed behind to tie up the paperwork, move all our junk from the old RV to the new RV and then I pulled it up to Henry's. This is where the trouble began. First, let me say, that the dealership had the RV in their shop for 3 hours to make sure it was "customer ready". Riiiight. Upon arriving at the campsite and getting it all set, I attempted to fill the water tank, but instead heard water gushing from the drain valve. The cap was missing. When I contacted the service manager, he apologized and explained that sometimes they vibrate off, but we could get a replacement at the local hardware store....tomorrow morning. Since we really needed water now, that was a problem. It was against the rules, but we had no choice, so we connected our hose to the community water pipe, just until morning. Now, Jay was filthy and hot and just wanted to take a shower. But, now the water heater would not light. Once again I called the service manager. He explained that maybe (sometime during that 3 hours it was being made "customer ready") they had forgotten to close the water heater bypass valve when they dewinterized it. Wow! Shouldn't that have been the first thing on the "customer ready" checklist? But, sure enough, after taking off the access panel, we discovered the bypass valve had not been moved to the summer position, so we moved it. The pump came on and began to fill the water heater, but unfortunately, we heard water gushing outside and ran out to discover water pouring from the water heater compartment door on the outside. I quickly shut off the pump and we opened the compartment door. Good news, we found the cap for the fresh water tank drain. Bad news, the plug for the water heater drain was missing and the water was just pouring out. Upon closer inspection, Jay discovered that the water heater element had not been screwed in to the water heater, also a major part of the dewinterization, "customer ready" process that they supposedly spent 3 hours doing. Jay screwed in the element, we turned on the pump, and the water heater began to fill. But, the element was leaking because it needed plumber's tape on the seal. This required a quick trip (5 miles) in to town to try to find plumbers tape. Luckily, we did find some. Returned to the campground, and as Jay unscrewed the water heater element to install the plumbers tape.....you guessed it......water gushed out of the hole and drenched us both. Plumber's tape installed, water heater element screwed in, water heater filled, and at last! Hot water! Now, from here forward, all went as planned and the vacation was great. Fish aplenty, weather was great, slept like babies. Now it's time to go home. The RV is ready. Everything is locked down. It's hitched up and we are headed for the dump station. Jay dons his industrial grade rubber sewage gloves, squats down by the dump valve, turns the cap to remove it so he can attach the sewer dump hose, when.....WHOOSH!......he is slaughtered by a gushing stream of poop! Yes, the genius's at the RV dealership, who spent 3 hours getting our RV "customer ready" had neglected to close the dump valves on the unit and Jay got sprayed by poop! Thus, the "crappy" ending to an otherwise wonderful vacation. To see him fly out of the way, and see me shouting 'HOLY CRAP!" (literally) was indeed a sight to behold. It's a good thing we had 2 hours to drive before we could get to the RV dealership, or I think they would have found our brand new RV backed right through their big, plate glass, front windows.
Jay, bless his heart, took it all on the chin. We actually laughed about it later. But, it was a typical Shaw Family Adventure to be sure. Like he pointed out, at least we didn't wreck the RV this time out. (Knock on wood.)
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