From : "Amy H." To : ALU, Family Subject : Amy Life Update 2003-04-21 Date : Mon, 21 Apr 2003 19:00:50 -0400 -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Hi Kids, I haven't written in just about forever, so it's time for an Amy Life Update. In mid-March Scott and I met up in Syracuse, New York. It seems like an alright town. We didn't really get to see much of it, because we got in at 10 p.m. Saturday and left at 2 or 3 p.m. Sunday. The nice thing, though, about meeting up in Syracuse NY is that it's about an hour and a half away from Albany, NY where Jen Gralow Lives. She's a crazy lady, workin' 3 jobs. On Friday, she gets up at 5 a.m. and gets home at 3 a.m. I am impressed, and a little frightened! Yowzah! In other travelling news, the annual trip to Southampton, Ontario, Canada is scheduled for June 28-july 6. Woo! The plan is to build bat houses and generally enjoy ourselves. Unfortunately Scott and I will be cutting our portion short, but for very good reason: Scott's cousin is getting married on the 5th, and he and I are going to that. In essence, I get 2 vacations back-to- back: One in Southampton, the other in Massachusetts. I'm also really happy that my parents agreed to come down and fish-sit for that week. Bert and the babies would get pretty hungry if I was gone for a week, so my parents agreed to come down and feed them for me. Yay! Wednesday of last week (the 16th) I went out to the car in the morning & it wouldn't start. I checked the headlights, as well as the interior lights, but there was no real reason for the battery to be dead. So, I called AAA and they sent someone to give me a jump. The entleman from the towing company thought that maybe my battery was just going bad, and I should have it checked if it happened again. he also recommended that I let it run for at least a half an hour before turning it off. So, I let it run for a half an hour. I crocheted, I called Scott, I called my parents, I called my boss, I ranted. It was a beautiful day, but I didn't really get to enjoy it much. I also called the Napa auto parts store down the street to see if they did this mysterious "checking" of batteries to see if they had "gone bad." What, like eggs? Napa does indeed check batteries, but the battery has to be brought inside the store, they can't do it in the parking lot. After a half hour of charging, the battery light was still on, and I was paranoid that I would get to work and then be stuck there. I turned off the engine, figuring it was a "now or never" situation. It refused to start again. Being my father's daughter, I went inside and dug out my toolbox. I took out the battery, wrapped it in a towel, and packed it in my backpack. Tossed it over my shoulder, and started walking. Now, prior to this I did NOT know exactly ow heavy car batteries are, I really thought they were like 10 pounds. But there's a lot of lead in there, I think mine is about 25 pounds. And I walked that thing all the way to the Napa Auto Parts store a half mile from my house. When I walked in, I asked the guy behind the counter if they checked batteries, and he confirmed the "You have to bring it in, we can't check it in the car" statement of earlier in the morning. So, I twirled around and set the backpack on the counter. His response? "Ahh, I thought you looked a bit strained." Yep, definitely. The result of testing it? It had 11 amps, and was labeled "525 cold cranking amps". Huh. He suggested that perhaps one of the lead plates was broken. Sounds about right to me. So, I bought a new battery, he took away the old one, I put the new one in the backpack with admonishments from the sales guy to keep it upright to avoid sulfuric acid on my back. I wanted to say "I used to be a chemist, I know acid isn't exactly healthy," but I canned it, donned the backpack once again, and trudged home. Let me tell you, I was TIRED that night. I would NOT last in the army (or as a boyscout) having to hike with a pack like that. Oh, and I got lots of respect from my boss and my boyfriend both for replacing the battery myself and for carrying it to and from the store. ANd I got an "I'm proud of you" from my Dad, which made me really happy. In retrospect, I should have driven the car to the Napa store before turning it off, but I was afraid that if it WASN'T the battery, well, they'd be ticked if I left the car there all day while I rode the bus to work. I was also worried they'd yell at me for doing work onthe car in the parting lot, which I'm pretty sure is illegal. The car saga continues, not with my car, but with Scott's: as he pulled into Long Term parking on Friday to fly out here for the Passover Seder with his family, something horrendous happened to his transmission. It was smoking, and there was fluid on the ground, and the car would not budge. So, he called AAA, which eventually sent a tow truck, but not until after he had watched his plane take off while sitting on the bumper. On the up-side, he was able to get a flight re-routed through Minneapolis, so he still got in on Friday night. On the downside, we completely missed the Seder. That was a bad start to Easter weekend, but it got better from there: we met up with Lois & Ken (his mom and Step Dad) for lunch on Sunday at Tony's. They were on the way up to their cottage in Hillman,MI (North of Alpena, if you believe there is such a place ;-) and Scott and I were heading up to my parents' place in Traverse City. Tony's has HUGE food, and it's at the Birch Run exit of I-75. Lois's omelette was huge (5 egg, I believe) and Ken had eggs and potatoes to feed a family of 4. Scott and I shared a Pastrami sandiwch and an order of fries; we ate most of the sandwich, and some of the fries. Insanity! The BLT there comes with a POUND of bacon! Yowzah! Once up in TC, we ate more (mom made Turkey Tetruzzini, very good) then went to Borders and met up with (in orderof appearance): Dave Beery Rebecca (Panek) Crain Jeremiah Crain (3 weeks old) Stacie (Bennet) and Sean Millichamp Michelle (McCloskey) Root Jeannine (Parker) and Justin Halloway Jeremy Root <--- showed up seperately b/c Michelle came straight form work Lorie Mikowski Jennifer Mikowski (Lorie's Niece) Lots of people! Jeremiah looks so much like his older brother Izaiah! There was lots of chit-chat, and it was very good to see everybody, because it has really been close to forever. Oh, and I will be back up May 3rd, so I will get a chance to hang out with the people I didn't see (Joe? Interested?) and prove that I really am a good daughter, though I scheduled my next flight out to Worcester for Mother's day weekend! Sunday, Scott got to meet a big chunk of my Mom's Family, and releive my Gramma fears of "What will he eat?!?" Apparently, if you don't eat Ham or Sausage, it's about as bad as being a vegetarian to her. Vegan, even. Fortunately, Scott likes Ham (and found that he likes it with Horseradish, the best way!) so Gramma had little to fear. Scott's take on my family? "She has really cute little cousins" is what he told Sean & Stacie last night when we were over to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Scott got to hold Garrett, the youngest, who's 4 months old. We also got to see Seth walk, he's almost a year old. Let's see, what else is news? Well, I cut my hair about 5 inches about a month ago, but I still keep it in a pony tail so it's not really noticeable. School is going well, I have one more homework assignment due this week, and then the exam next week Thursday, and I'm FREE!! Yay! I didn't sign up for any classes this summer. In part, because I'm planning to move to Massachusetts this summer. Yes, everyone who hasn't been told yet: I am planning to move to Massachusetts this summer. I haven't told my boss yet, I'm kinda planning to wait until after my review in mid-May. So anybody on this list who knows people from work: SHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! Things are going great with Scott, and being apart has been really hard for both of us. We agree that one of us has to move, and my job is a bit more portable than his. I'm not planning on moving in with him, he has a friend with an apartment available, and I'm going to check it out when I'm in Worcester on May 10th and 11th. I've already started psyching myself up, getting boxes, looking at moving prices, figuring out where my excess stuff is going (probably my little brother Scott). It's both exciting and scary at the same time. I'm really looking forward to being with Scott, and to the novelty of a new place. But I am so NOT looking forward to the job hunt, the resume writing, the interviews, the even greater distance from my family. Ok, last little bit of news: Bert is doing well, Animal is doing well (except for that hiccup with the battery, she's going strong at 94,000 miles). John Wilk, yes, my ex-boyfriend, was in town on Friday and we went out to dinner and chatted. It was nice, I hadn't seen him in a while, and he's doing pretty well. Still not in grad school, but so close that it hurts. Oh, and I've been a mad fiend with the crockpot. I found a great mailing list with 18,000 messages in the archives, and the archives are searchable. Check it out at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/slowcooker Right now I have a chuck roast and some potatoes in there. I'm planning to eat that roast any minute, and make a seperate batch of mashed potatoes and gravy just for me, for right now, for the fact that it sounds super-tasty. -Amy