It's Always Something!

IAS: Act One

“It’s always something!” Bill said the morning of our departure. While he was inside the convenience store paying for gas someone sideswiped his car and left the driver side mirror dangling. As some of you may know, earlier this year the right side of Bill’s Ford Focus was ripped open like a sardine can when an 18-wheeler decided that “bigger” meant the right to be a road bully. “Get out the duct tape again, honey!”

IAS: Act Two

The entry into the well is not for the faint at heart. Since marina help managed to scrap the side of Pure Grace last fall when pulling her into dry dock for the season, Bill decided to drive her into the well himself. We left the fenders hanging to provide cushion against the concrete, however, against my protestations, the marina help pulled them off, citing the possibility of getting them tangled in the lift straps. Cr-u-nch! Here we go again! That little mishap was good for $350 off the $800 lift fee but we’ll have to replace a couple feet of stainless steel trim.

Bill takes Pure Grace over to the well for the lift out.

The point of impact going into the well.

On the travel lift.

Being lowered onto the flatbed. The young man in front is the travel lift operator,

which is maneuvered remotely.

It took six men to lift the fly bridge wall down to the main deck.

IAS: Act Three

Barely a few miles from the marina it happened. As I followed Bill and the 8-foot U-Haul south on Route 28 toward downtown I saw a woman in a Honda CRV merge from the left into Bill’s lane. As he jerked to the right the U-Haul started to swing and hit the jersey barrier. Unbelievably, the woman kept going so I hit the gas and followed her, honking and screaming “Pull over!” Even as I drove along side her, she was oblivious and kept going. Some guy in a pickup truck in front of me saw what was going on and moved in front of her, slowing down until we boxed her in. By the time I got to her my adrenaline was up and, ashamed to say, I gave her a tongue-lashing (although, curse-word free) until she was in tears. Bill finally caught up to us about the time I had my arm around her shoulder and was apologizing over her apologies. Luckily Bill’s car escaped further damage but there was a little bit on the already road-worn U-Haul.

We finally left Pittsburgh during rush hour and only made it as far as Beckley, WV by 9:30 p.m. (about 250 miles). Wednesday evening we stopped in Savannah and will be in Jacksonville sometime Thursday morning, with Pure Grace arriving on Friday morning.

So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Goodbye!

So, after blogging about this move since March, departure day is almost upon us. The farewell parties are over, the boat is being dismantled little by little and my dreams about my cat Ocie are increasing. Yes, there’s where the five stages of grief are occurring…missing my furry friend tremendously!

It’s said that you never really know who your friends are until you die, but I think a major move like ours is also revealing. The goodbyes started in late May with a neighborhood farewell party; we’d lived in the Village of Bradfordwoods for 16 years but there’s been a lot of movement in that community in recent years. When we moved in it was a community of mostly retirees but in the past five or so years there have been more than a few young couples with small children moving in, changing the dynamics of the neighborhood.

Next up was a couple of farewell lunches from the two churches where we have been most active the past 18 years: Ascension Lutheran Church on Peebles Road and Trinity Church of the Deaf in Wilkinsburg. Both of those congregations were family to us and the goodbyes were hard. We both appreciated the opportunity to serve our Lord in those congregations and now we look forward to where He will place us next. Bill, of course, is eager to find a church that has quality organ music and a good choir!

Our places of employment also acknowledged our imminent departure. Bill’s co-workers at Goodwill of Southwestern Pennsylvania held a small lunch for us at Del’s, an Italian family restaurant in Bloomfield, acknowledging his 7+ years there. Communefx, where I’ve worked for 23 years (coincidentally having started there this very same week in 1988), hosted a happy hour at Uno’s in Cranberry Township this past week. While any excuse for a company-sponsored party is welcomed, I was touched that more than a few of my co-workers were sad that I would not physically be in the office for the majority of the time.

I do plan to return to Pittsburgh monthly and already have my tickets reserved for December. Although I am as prepared as possible technologically, including video-conferencing, I am already missing the 40-minute morning commute listening to K-LOVE and being in the office on a daily basis. But the associates for whom I am directly responsible are also the most senior in longevity with the company; they are well positioned to be supervised virtually!

I was also touched that one of my clients came to the office farewell and one of my local vendors stopped by on Friday with a gift. I’ve known both for nearly 25 years...such good people! Love you all!

Readin', 'Ritin', 'Rithmatic and, Oh Yeah, Droid!

The skills that were taught and learned in schools just two generations ago were oh, so much more basic. You learned your ABCs, how to write in cursive and how to put two and two together. Then sometime in the 1970s the curriculum started to change. Hooked on Phonics replaced Dick and Jane. Now that lessons in cursive have been dumped in favor of keyboarding instructions, perhaps we’ll see more Xs in place of the handwritten signature! As for basic math, if you’ve ever waited for a cashier to figure out your change when the register doesn’t do it for her, you have to wonder how many checkbooks go unbalanced or worse yet, overdrawn.

Now I’m the first to admit that I’m a perfectionist bordering on obsessive compulsiveness about good old fashioned grammar, including punctuation and spelling. Text messaging makes me twitch. Instant messages that lack capital letters are bad enough and getting an email typed in all capitals makes me want to scream out loud. I try to be forgiving when I see Facebook posts and tweets that don’t meet my standards, but it’s a little harder to extend full grace to business emails that are peppered with misspellings.

Enter the Droid. Earlier this week I posted on Facebook that I was nervous about upgrading from a simple clamshell-style cell phone to a smartphone when I bought the just-released Motorola Bionic. Now that I’ve tried texting for the first time I realize just how hard it is to be letter-perfect. I spend more time backspacing than keystroking! So to all of my social media contacts, I hereby offer a public apology for the less than generous thoughts I’ve had about your written language skills!

The smartphone is a necessary evil in order to successfully work virtually from Jacksonville. I need the mobile hotspot to connect my laptop to the Internet and thus to my company. I need to be more accessible (yeah, more than my normal 10 hours a day) to prove to company management that working remotely will indeed work. And so it goes.

Since Bill and I both acquired these new toys, er, tools, this past week, we’ve made five trips back to the Verizon Wireless store and have called customer support at least that many times. We may not be techno-savvy nor are we helpless idiots, but in this burgeoning love-hate relationship with Droid, we are definitely not feelin’ the love!

The young (very young) woman in the Verizon Wireless store was patient and kind as she helped us transition email accounts and learn more than the so-called online user’s guide offered. If we lived closer to our 2-year-old grandson, I’m sure he would have this figured out in five minutes! Our son-in-law Steven recently posted that as Susan left for work one morning our 5-year-old grandson Brogan said, “Goodbye, Mommy!” while Griffin yelled, “Bye, iPad!” Huh!

I’ll get the hang of it soon, so bear with me when your phone calls go to voice mail while I figure out how to unlock the phone! Droid!