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Barbara Fritchman Thompson Diary

Week of 8 April 2000 (Week 15)

Tuesday, 14 May 2002 18:03

Sporadic reflections that recount the events of my life

wpoison

Saturday, 8 April 2000

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no update

Sunday, 9 April 2000

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I left Georgetown after the morning sessions and close of the conference around 11:45. I arrived home around 6:45. I made a quick lunch stop at Taco Bell. My dinner stop was even quicker, naps and fig newtons from the gas station when I made a pit stop for gas and bathroom at 4:30. 

The conference was  a wonderful experience. Very intense and learning oriented. I arrived Wednesday night and ate in the hotel after I checked in. 

The only meals I had to actually buy were Wednesday evening and Friday evening. All our breakfasts, lunch and dinners were provided for.  Sessions ran from breakfast until dinner and evening events non-stop. I did have some free time Thursday afternoon to walk down to Georgetown and the canal. We also walked down to town for dinner on Friday night.

Friday night several of us ate at Fattoosh, a Lebanese restaurant. The only thing I like about traveling to large cities is trying something different I cannot get at home. I was pleasantly surprised to find the food very good, simple, and not spicy. I cannot name the dish I ate since I did not write it down and it was in Lebanese but it was yellow and zucchini squash stuffed with a rice and lamb mixture. Not only was it good and something I would never get to eat in Winston-Salem, it was reasonably priced as well. The place is located on M street in the 3200 block. I highly recommend it if you go to Georgetown for a visit.

I met a lot of very nice people. AIIP is very small resulting in the conference attendance to be right around 100 people. This affords new members to get to know a lot of the old timers and not feel overwhelmed. Sessions were small and the speakers were all very informative. I enjoyed the vendor presentations too.

It was a very busy, information packed three and half days and very much worth being there.

What I saw of Georgetown. It is very pretty. The campus is small and very quaint. Most of the town sites on a hill above the river so the walk to downtown Georgetown is all down hill and the walk back is all uphill. The conference center itself was very nice and the staff were very accommodating to all our needs. 

Monday, 10 April 2000

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It was nice sleeping in my own bed. The dogs and Bob were glad to have me home. I will spend the day getting things back to normal and on schedule again. Bob held off doing the laundry so we could wash my cloths from the trip. Bob, his mom, and the dogs all seemed to be fine. I know the dogs missed my sense of order I maintain in the house and I am sure Bob is glad to have some help with the daily running of things so he can get back to work.

I need to mow the lawn, unpack cloths and conference materials, and read around 200 mail messages. I will scan through them for those that need to be read more in depth and delete the others to get them down to a manageable size. 

It will be a busy day spent recovering from being gone but if all goes well I can get back on track by the days end. The dogs will need some extra special attention to make up for my absence.  

I did manage to find a little reading time late at night when I returned back to the room. I will expand on my latest fiction title tomorrow.

Sorry, I misspelled the name of the restaurant, Fattoosh,  in my Sunday post. It has now been corrected.

Monday afternoon update

One thing I forgot to say in my post this morning. When I got home Bob had the kitchen clean, no dirty dishes, etc. The house was pretty neat and as I left it.

However, he had left me one cleaning project. My assignment; to dismantle and clean the old PC supporting the scanner and help Bob to rebuild it as a Linux box. Now aren't all of you just so jealous.

Tuesday, 11 April 2000

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I think we have the house pretty much back on schedule now. I will go to the gym this morning and then work at home all day and finish getting caught up.

I managed to get the house cleaned yesterday and mowed the lawn after lunch.

I have a stack of reading from last weeks mail and stuff from the conference to catch up on. And, I was the note taker for one of the conference sessions, so I need to get started writing that up. 

This afternoon I will start working on cleaning up the PC and dismantling it to build the Linux box with Bob. We are doing our library, dinner out evening tonight. 

Malcolm has been somewhat of a holy terror since Sunday. I am not sure if he is still getting his big boy teeth or he is just so excited to have me home. They both kept pretty close to me yesterday demanding a great deal of attention and playtime. 

Sunday night he woke me at 2 in the morning going on the floor twice. Yesterday he went three times in the house including peeing on the bed late yesterday afternoon requiring sheet change, blanket wash, and bed spread change.  I am not sure why he is breaking house training at this point.

I am reading a wonderfully written book by Tracy Chevalier, Girl With a Pearl Earring. I post a short review on my favorites page last night if you are interested.

For all the Daynotes gang, regular followers of Bob's page, and Netwidows, Bob has had two extra pats on the head, an ear scratch, and a big sloppy kiss to make up for my absence. And, I cooked his favorite dinner last night; tuna cassarole.

Wednesday, 12 April 2000

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I have alluded in the past about feeling like Malcolm and chasing my tail. I have now moved on to the Smoky the Bear complex. I keep stomping out fires and they keep popping up somewhere else.

I headed off to the gym yesterday morning and was to return right back home after a quick stop at the drugstore so I could work on various projects I have lined up on the runway for takeoff.

HA, HA. When I come out of the gym, turn on the AC in the car, no cool air. I head for the drugstore, come out, crank up the car. No cool air, no feel of the compressor on the engine, etc. I headed straight for the repair shop where we get our work done. Fortunately not very far from our house. I was trying to delude myself into thinking it would just be a Freon leak causing the compressor to be lacking sufficient power to pump the cool air. 

It was as I feared, the compressor. I called Bob to come get me and we left said car to get a new compressor and change over from R-12, which is horribly expensive and becoming obsolete, to the new 134a.

So, I lost the morning. Malcolm continued his wild streak, so any serious work was out of the question. I worked on things that did not require more than 30% of my concentration to avoid hideous errors to be corrected later on. 

I did get a lot of little things out of the way yesterday afternoon and waded through some of the reading material last night. 

Our friend Robin and I had scheduled this morning for a golf outing several weeks ago. Now that I have things under control I will go ahead and play this morning. My dad is joining us too. Things are now progressing on a steady pace and I can work all afternoon and this evening, I hope. 

Thursday, 13 April 2000

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Okay, fires are out, tail is caught. Stress attack is over. When I get totally strung out from stress, information overload, too much on my plate, the only cure is I have to organize and straighten. In this case it is my office and desk area. For some reason clutter acerbates my stress level when I feel out of control with things to do, things I want to do, and things I don't need to do right now. 

Desk is now straight. Papers are filed and reading material organized for easy access. Conference materials are sorted and organized for present and future reference as needed. My neat and orderly sense of well being is now restored.

If you are looking to brighten your day or anyone you know check out this cute web site posted by one of the AIIP list serve members.

http://studsys.mscs.mu.edu/~merz/signup/where_do_i_sign_up.html

I will head off to the gym, pet store, and grocery shopping this morning. 

We now have a 1992 Trooper sans AC. It was going to cost too much to fix the air conditioning for a second vehicle that sits parked most of the time. Unless I am out of town or Bob and I need to be gone from home at the same time, we really don't need two vehicles. 

So, now I have my blue truck back, which was mine to begin with. We will get the new tires put back on my truck and put the old/new tires back on the white truck. I admit I am spoiled. I have not had a car without AC for the 30 years I have driven or owned a car except when Bob and I had the Jeep CJ. And even down here, AC is only needed about 4 to six months out of the year anyway. I bet there are very few people who own a 1992 or 1993 vehicle and the highest mileage either one is 44, 000 miles. We just don't drive very much.

Friday, 14 April 2000

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I did manage amongst all of the chaos to finish my book yesterday afternoon. I only had a few pages left, so I watched the golf match and finished "Girl With A Pearl Earring" by Chevalier. I think I mentioned earlier in the week I was reading it. A wonderful fictional account of the young woman who was the inspiration behind one of the Dutch painter Vermeer's paintings. If you enjoy well written, literary works based on history, I highly recommend reading this work.

Duncan goes for his x-rays of his hips and knees today. Let's hope they don't find anything serious. I drop him off this morning and pick him up this afternoon. 

There is a sheep trial this weekend at the same farm where one was held last month. CBCR is to be there today and tomorrow. I arranged to have another volunteer stop by and get the tent and supplies for today since I am not going down. I will go work tomorrow and haul all the stuff back.

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