Petrol Sucks

—–Original Message—–
From: Diana Schnuth
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 1:08 PM
To: Kris Heath (work)
Cc: Aaron Schnuth
Subject: Gas at Meijer

> Don’t pay too much for gas…I see it’s up over $1.90 now.

Let me share with both of you my Meijer escapade. So, gas there is only $1.83 or something. Only. Hah. I pull in to pump #14 and bring my purse out with me, and start to pump my gas. There was a small puddle in front of the pump that I took care not to step in, assuming it was gas. Anyway, I planned to put in $10 worth. The gauge rolls up to $9.60… 70… 80… I let go of the trigger —

— and it keeps pumping. The damn automatic latch is stuck, and I can’t get it to stop! The numbers scroll on… $11… $12… finally ending at $19.26, at which point I’ve filled the tank with mildly overpriced petrol. And, of course, I only have $14 in my wallet.

So, off I trek to the main store, to use the ATM and get out money for gas (and garage saleing, while I’m at it). No problems there, trek back, pay the nice girl, tell her about the gas spill, etc, etc. But, dang, that took twice as long as it needed to. *sigh*

It feels like Friday, too, but it’s not. How cruel.
– Diana

Genealogy

So, I was just burning a CD of genealogy info from my Mac to use on my PC, and opened some genealogy photos to test the burn. In the midst of my browsing and testing, I came across this image of my great-great-grandmother—my maternal grandfather’s maternal grandmother. (Did that make sense to you?)

Nora Marie Lemons, circa 1908OMG. Does anyone else think that, given a circa 1908 Katherine Janeway-style hairdo, I look like her? Can you see the resemblance? I can. It’s kind of weird. I looked at the whole picture, with her husband Harvey and child Lucille, and thought that Harvey looks a little like Grandpa Cook (or the other way around). Then it occured to me that Nora looks like Mom… and me! I mean, I know we’re related and all… duh… but it’s still kind of strange to look like someone who died almost a lifetime before I was born.

Beth, your family’s into genealogy—any input on genealogical photographic weirdness?

Good Intentions

I was so proud of myself. While I was at work, I scripted out the remainder of my day in half-hour increments. Half an hour for dinner, then cleaning the living and dining rooms, practicing mellophone, computer time, shower and personal grooming, all carefully plotted out.

When I got home, I saw Aaron off to work, ate dinner, and took a two-hour nap.

Gah!

Ah, well… I guess I needed the sleep. Strike the mello practice, and strike cleaning. *sigh*

This Weekend

Yesterday: Aaron and I went to BG to meet up with Timmay for lunch at Campus Pollyeyes. Their salads are friggin’ gigantic, so we weren’t too sad about watching Tim eat his yummy breadsticks. It occurred to us that they always kinda sit funny in your stomach, anyway—not in any sort of “sour grapes” sort of way, but in thinking of how Aaron and I would react to so much bread right now.

We spent two hours there at Pollyeyes, talking and catching up. Tim told the best drunk story ever, including him passing out on the train and being awakened at the end of the line and having to walk five miles home while calling his passed-out roommate who’s locked Tim out without his keys and then Tim eating breakfast at a local diner and finally breaking into his own apartment to find his roommate passed out in the bathroom. Classic story, and better than anything that ever happened at BGSU. I miss Tim. Heh.

After hanging out with Tim, we hit Goodwill and the Woodville Small, then went back up to Best Buy to purchase a scanner. Scanners these days are so cool. We got one that scans transparencies (most do now) and comes with this spiffy-assed scanning software that automatically detects where the pictures are on a strip of film and brings them up as thumbnails. Holy crap! Soooo cool. (Or maybe I’ve been away from cutting-edge technology for a while, having graduated college and all, and am just out of the loop.)

So, that was Saturday in a nutshell. Today involved me getting up and leaving the house around 9:20, getting ass-raped by the National City ATM (since the Sky ATM isn’t exactly close to home), getting half a tank of gas, and driving up to Clawson. There I met Barb and Russ, and they drove the rest of the way to the first official LakeShoremen full-corps rehearsal in Montrose, Michigan. Basically, a three-and-a-half hour trip one way for me. Rehearsal was from 1:00 to about 4:00, and was quite productive and very cool. We got to rehearse in an Ensemble setting with the percussion, then put the colorguard with the group as we figured out a parade formation. It’ll be interesting to see how the parade goes in two weeks—we didn’t get to actually move the parade block outside of the gym, as outdoor practicing was noise-prohibitive. (The drumline tried it and got called by the superintendent within five minutes.) In other related news, I started getting that old familiar twinge in my middle back, below my shoulder blades—the one I get when I stand at attention with my horn up for extended periods of time. It’s not an “ouch I hurt something” feeling; more of a “hmm I don’t use that muscle much and it’s really starting to feel hot and cold at the same time and it’ll be sore later” kind of feeling. And, yes, it’s sore right now.

Anyway, I finally got home around 7:15pm. Long day. Aaron had dinner just about done when I got home: barbecued chicken and grilled yellow squash. Mmm. He’s off doing food shopping now. He did my job of laundry earlier in the day. He’s so cool. I’m so lucky. *contented sigh*

My Butt

There were some of my friends in drumcorps who thought it would be great if a corps named themselves “Your Butt.” Not a name like the Cadets or the Vanguard or the Scouts or anything like that, but Your Butt. The one-liners would be great:

Ladies and Gentlemen, from Flint, Michigan: Your Butt!
Drum Major Dan Clouse, is Your Butt ready?
Your Butt may take the field in competition!

And so on. I’m only reminded of such things because I was thinking about my butt.

If you were too squeamish to read the LJ-cut from my last entry, you may not know that my butt is not exactly in shape yet. (Have you been looking?) Anyway, I located the post I was thinking of:

15 December 2003: Ladies—have you ever been walking behind someone, maybe someone at work, and finally taken a good look at their ass? And then you say to yourself, ‘My God… I hope my ass doesn’t look like that!’

While searching for this quotable, though, I did discover that I’ve been feeling uncomfortable about my ass for some time now. Almost exactly one year ago, in May of 2003, I said, “BTW, I never realized how dimply my big ass was until I cranked around and looked at it in the mirror at home, framed by the wondrous thong. I know, you didn’t want to think about that. Well, neither did I. Deal.”

Heh. Yeah. Except I wasn’t on Atkins then, and I was 41 pounds heavier than I am now. (!!!) Now I know I can do something about my butt if I give it a good try.

One other thing: You know when you’re sitting in the back seat of a car, and all you can see of yourself in the rearview mirror is your nose, chin, and neck? I used to hate that; I’d crane my neck to get my double-chin to finally almost disappear, and then just get depressed. Well, today I went to lunch with some folks from Lockbox, and sat in the back seat—and saw no double-chin! Holy crap, it’s gone! It’s really, totally gone.

And I don’t miss it.