Thursday, May 11, 2006

debacle


i've been feeling even more star-crossed this week than usual. the other night, for example, as i was heating up leftover turkey sloppy joes for dinner (heavy into the american comfort foods right now - last weekend it was glorified baked beans, this week the joes - both straight out of my grandmother's old crock-pot cookbook) i managed to spill absolutely everything before I could get it to the plate. sloppy joes on the counter. salad dressing in the crevice between the stove and the counter (yuck). grape tomatoes skidding across the floor. a real boon for bea. not so much for me.

so should i have been surprised when, upon leaving stained glass class last night, i got a message from my cousin t, with whom i'm supposed to meet up in the bahamas this weekend, saying that, while i was flying to freeport, the other three were flying to nassau? and the two were nowhere near each other? and i might have to fly between them? and that would cost loads and get me there very late at night? guess not.

needless to say, a breakdown ensued. spent almost two hours on the phone with orbitz and american airlines when i got home - during which time BOTH of our home phones went on the fritz in the middle of a transaction with the elusive customer service reps. and the upshot is $154 and i don't get to nassau until 10 pm (vs. mid-afternoon for everyone else - but to do that would have cost $400). so much for a quick, cheap getaway with the cousines.

and what's really weird is that i KNEW we were going to freeport. nassau was NEVER in my mind as our destination. and i was completely, expensively WRONG.

now, about that stained glass class. this was the first of 8, and as i told d, i'm definitely not a glass prodigy. last night we learned the basics of cutting the glass with a little tool that has a steel wheel at its tip and is completely awkward to hold and to use. we practiced cutting out basic-seeming shapes - leaves, fish, moons - with this implement, and the result, at least in my case, only vaguely resembled the original design. i'm told we'll get better. i'm told there are ways to smooth out all those jaggedy edges. most of all, i'm told i'll learn to respect the glass, without being afraid of being cut by it. because "the glass knows when you fear it." and all this time, i thought fear of flying glass shards was a smart instinct.

1 comment:

Lotus Reads said...

So glad I found your blog! I plan on reading some of the pieces you have written as soon as I am able.