Not A Very Fun Week

So it's been awhile since I've written anything. It's not out of anything more than finding myself in a mundane path and feeling like there is nothing left to write about. This is, of course, rather silly since life always provides enough drama in anyone's life to make something interesting to write about. Such is the last week in the life of the Geek and the Queen. There is some measure of comfort in the anonymity of this blog since the Queen is taking one of these issues very personally where it isn't her fault at all, but just one of those things. It doesn't make enduring it any easier, though.

The first thing that happened was last Thursday when it was raining cats and dogs. We were getting the leftovers of Hurricane Ike here in Oklahoma which lasted a couple of days into Saturday. On Thursday, the Queen was getting the shopping done, so on Friday, when I had taken a personal day off to spend time with Queen and the Princesses while they were out of school, we could go and play all day without worrying about the shopping. But it so happened that in the parking lot of Wal~Mart, the Queen dropped her cell phone.

This was not an act of clumsiness, by any means. It was raining, she was juggling the umbrella and Sassy Pants, so when she turned a certain way, apparently the phone twisted right out of her pocket, and when it hit the ground, that sound was indistinguishable from the already pounding rain. Would it have been so bad if she'd noticed it right away and picked it back up? Probably not, but she didn't notice the phone missing until they had gone into Wal~Mart, done the shopping, and got back to the car. By then, the phone had been kicked under the car by someone who likely never saw it.

Well, she retrieved the poor drowned piece of personal electronics, and took it home to dry it out, praying it would work. I had tried texting her a couple of times during the day until later on when she called me, and I found out what happened. She was hoping it would just work, and she wouldn't have to tell me. Now, I'm not that mean, but she wasn't happy about dropping it. The phone doesn't work, so $50 was going towards the insurance to replace it (which she should be getting in the mail today). I was able to hack the phone to get the phone book and ringtones and such, but the games and such are not retrievable. That's how they make some of their money; you have to repurchase them. It wouldn't matter if I could have gotten at them anyway; they're usually sold to the specific ESN, and won't work on another phone -- kind of like buying something on iTunes, and then trying to play it on another computer...um, no I've never tried that...

The real tragedy that turned our world upside down happened on Friday. I was off already, and we had planned to hit the air and space museum in town because Rock Girl is all about space, and more recently, meteorology, so she loves going. The Socialite is more about art than science, but she has fun; and Sassy Pants just goes along. Anyway, while we were getting everything together, the Queen made a rather horrifying discovery: lice. The horror of elementary school was alive and well on The Socialite's head and our plans were toast.

The Queen called Moneypenny, who has dealt with this before, to find out how to deal with it. Wash everything, quarantine stuffed animals, vacuum everything, and pick through every hair on everyone's head. Our vacuum cleaner went belly up week before last, and we haven't had a chance to replace it yet, so Moneypenny gratiously leant us hers. Wash everything entailed the bedding off of every bed in the house (I had no idea just how many blankets those girls sleep with) along with the clothes that they seem to forget to take into the laundry room. Four or five large garbage bags of stuffed animals are currently camped out in our garage awaiting their 2-4 weeks. Vacuum everything means get everything cleaned now so it doesn't get sucked into the shop vac, and yours truly got the privilege of running the machine. And pick through everyone's hair takes hours.

This is what we did, though. Rock Girl didn't have any. Sassy Pants was minimal. I had none. I picked through the Queen's hair and I can't confirm she for sure had anything. The Socialite was the one who apparently found the nest because the poor thing was inundated. Insert the speech over not sharing hats, brushes, masks, wigs, etc. Every night, though, everyone gets checked again; every strand of hair is examined. It takes forever and wears everyone out. Their bath every few days (because little ones don't need to bathe daily) has turned into a daily routine since Friday. Their bedding is washed every day (we've stopped giving them their piles of blankets until this is over. Last night, I went over Sassy Pants' hair until she was so worn out that she was begging to go to bed.

So the Queen and I have been emotionally drained. But then, life threw one more curve ball at us. With all that's gone on, we forgot something. Last month, we had to pay something rather substantial which got the utilities behind a month. Well, we had gotten a nasty-gram over the water bill, and I'd planned to pay it on Friday. You remember Friday, right? The day the sky fell? Yeah, it didn't get paid.

So today, the Queen calls me (on my phone, of course, as she won't have hers until later today) and asks if I paid the water bill because it's shut off. Well, I know there's a fee to turn it on, and I thought it used to be $35 or something, so I call them to make the payment. Well, they want $50 to turn it on and another $50 to "bring our deposit up to date." That's $100 over and above the amount I needed to pay. You've got to be kidding! So on top of trying to catch up on two months of utilities, I've been hit with $50 for a phone, another $50+ for this lice thing, and now another $100 for forgetting the stupid water bill. Yeah, I feel sick.

And to top it all off, I forgot my lunch today...but I feel better for venting.

The Church Dilemma

There are some decisions in life that are very difficult to make, and one such decision has to do with where you choose to worship. In Oklahoma, there are hundreds upon hundreds of churches. I counted the different denominational variations in the Tulsa yellow pages once, and came up with nearly 80, so choice isn't an issue; it's finding a good fit for you and your family.

Several years ago, we settled into a church in Broken Arrow that we felt fit us fairly well. The people were very nice and welcoming. They had a lively bunch of children of different ages, and the congregation appeared to be doing fine. They were small, but had a lot of heart. We found them through the Angel Food program we were doing at the time, and that church was an outlet for it. I had to dig to find the service times, but when I did, we went, and we stayed.

Lately, things have changed. Throughout the summer, the Princesses were the only children in children's church. The congregation numbers had been dwindling here and there, and apparently this dwindling had taken the children with them. This was a problem, since as kids get older, the need for a peer group that is sharing their problems becomes greater meaning that we found ourselves forced to find somewhere with a solid child populace so our children could have a peer group that shares their faith, as opposed to the rather atheistic school system that wants to share everything else.

Over the summer, Moneypenny had invited the Princesses to atten Vacation Bible School at their church. It was something the Princesses could get involved with in regards to a church, and we knew someone there, so we thought it would be a good. All three of them could go, giving the Queen and I some quiet time together. I believe I talked about this before.

Anyway, now several weeks later, our minds return to that time, and feel that such a child populace would be better for our kids than where we were where they didn't even want to go to children's church since they were the only ones back there. It was especially hard for me, since I enjoyed playing in the praise band having had the opportunity to learn and play bass, drums, guitar, and even use my existing piano skills. Sure there were complications sometimes, but overall, it was a good experience, so leaving was very hard for me. We go from being someone to being just another face in a bigger church than we're leaving. It was also hard to know that when they're dwindling already, we served to contribute to that dwindlation.

I offered some thoughts to our pastor on why I thought we weren't seeing some of the logical flux a church usually sees where people come and go. Well, we had more going than coming, and I felt that one contributor might be that the service times aren't listed anywhere either on the inside or outside of the building. Hence, someone zipping by on the moderately travelled road that runs past it won't think twice about going since they don't know when service begins. It made me feel good when the last time the Queen went by there she saw they've put something out front to display the times.

We don't dislike anyone there, and if they still had peers for the Princesses, we wouldn't have left. The Queen said she spent a tearful moment with our Pastor there, and we continue to maintain the website (at no charge). We actually liked the small, intimate setting it's turning into. But life is about the people around you that matter the most, and for their sake, we turned to Moneypenny's church, which we are currently trying to adjust to. They are in no need of anyone in their praise band and over the last couple weeks, it appears they trade out people, so maybe there's hope. Time will tell.

For now, we are faces in the crowd. Not used to that, but I've got something else cooking, so the lack of commitment there may be good for the moment.

iPod Played Once

I'm a regular hound on this iPod thing. I got me an 80Gb iPod back in February, and as fast as possible, loaded about every tune I had on it and them some rapidly cranking the sing count up to nearly 6000 (that would take some 18 days to play if you let it go for that long). This also meant that there were songs on there that I might not have listened to yet. To attack this probability, I created a playlist containing every song with a play count of zero, and every day I would edit out the songs I've listened to.

After weeks of listening and listening, I would like to announce that I have listened to all almost 6000 songs on my iPod at least once. I may go ahead and load another playlist containing the only play once songs to go through them again, but it's a pain to go through and maintain it every day, and besides, I do like listening to some of the other songs too (which is why some songs don't get played as much as others).

Anyway, I figure a lot of people might have songs they haven't heard on their iPods, so I thought I'd boats just a little and state that I've heard all of mine at least once at this point...although after looking, some of them haven't been listened to since February. Yikes. Must remedy that.