Team Gray!

It was raining this morning when I planned to meet my friend for a walk at 8. (It’s still raining, but that doesn’t have anything to do with this story).

I thought I might call and cancel. But then it got to be too late. So I thought I’d drive to the meeting place and then give my regrets. I had to be home by 9 for the cable guy, after all…

But I thought, “I won’t melt.”

I wore a winter jacket and pulled the hood snugly over my headscarfed head, and sucked it up.

And it was such a refreshing walk! We talked as the rain poured over our heads. My friend is such a good listener. Such wisdom and depth.

And I heard her sorrow. We’ve both lost close loved ones. We understand how healing comes in stages.

Healing may come in the form of cool rain on a December morning.

and…
I got home right before the cable guy came and finally installed our uverse!

This is the third day we’ve expected to have ATT Uverse installed. Our appointment was on Saturday. The technician came, disconnected our phone, and then promptly ran into some problems outside the house.

He sent for another technician to fiddle with the cable whatever aren’t I so technical? thing across the street, and gave me a number to call to finish connecting our service.

I called the number several times on Saturday, before 5 PM, and all prompts led to a message stating that ATT was closed. I went online and chatted to two different agents.

The first agent gave me a different phone number that was supposed to get me in contact with a real person. Same phone message.

The second agent told me that they would call us when they’d resolved the outside issue.

So Sunday was quiet.

I called at 9 this morning, and it occurred to me then: how were they going to call us when our phone was disconnected?

So after I was on the phone for about an hour trying to get someone to come out and finish the job, the woman I was on hold with talking to, finally offered to call me back after she worked out a service appointment for us.

I agreed, expecting to call them back after I was done with school. She called my cell phone 10 minutes later, with a service appointment available immediately.

When the service technician arrived, he had no idea what he was here to do. His notes told him that we’d already had our Uverse installed, and it just needed service.

I repeated that there was no equipment here. And no phone.

He went outside and fiddled with the cable whatever aren’t I so technical? across the street for a long time, then left without saying anything. He was in and out several times throughout the day, and at 3:30ish, the technician told me he was going to get a part, after which he’d get the whole business working.

It was a rare, beautiful, sunny December day. I had planned to go running all day long, but I was waiting for the cable guy.

I wanted to run out and quick do my workout when the cable guy told me he was going to get a part.

But, I didn’t want to miss the important moment of cable connection.

The sun turned pink. I decided to do Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred instead of Couch to 5k.

I was all done and showered, and still no cable guy. I called him, and he told me that he had talked to my husband (on my husband’s way out of town…) and told him that another guy had to come out and work on the outside box before he could hook up the system inside.

The outside cable tech came and left several times without talking to us. Curtis ran outside to talk to him the last time he came.

The tech told Curtis that everything was all wired up and set to go.

Now we just get to call the other cable guy to return and fiddle with all the wires and signals give us our box.

And when our neighbors all switch to ATT Uverse, they have us to thank for the simple installation.

You’re welcome.

(Chanya and Joy are dressed for the recital at day’s end).

You know you’re in for a day when you get a mysterious text from your brother first thing in the morning about are you going to hang with Pop when he goes in for his procedure?

I was to glean what from this cryptic message? A procedure? Hospital? What?

So I hear that my father went into the hospital, but not from him. Next, to find out why he was going in the hospital. Strike that. His mystery procedure was at 11. I found out ca 11:30.

My brother forgot why. Something about what was that cancer he had?

A mild panic set in. I called Mary. No answer. I texted Aunt Florence and Jerri to see if they knew anything. Aunt Florence knew. She texted me as if I knew what was going on. She casually mentioned that Daddy was having a pacemaker installed.

That was the first I’d heard, I told Aunt Florence, who couldn’t believe it.

I dreaded going to the hospital later on to hunt him down, but knew what I had to do.

After we finished with school, I made sure the kids knew what to make for dinner, and I headed to the hospital.

It wasn’t too hard to find my father, and neither he nor his girlfriend seemed surprised to see me. Neither acknowledged or realized that they had not told me anything.

Mary, the girlfriend, was not thrilled with the complete lack of paperwork involved in the procedure, and surprised at how little my brother knew about what was going on. I told her to call me in the future.

Mary had been at the hospital for 5 hours; she excused herself to go home and eat something. I stayed and kept my father company while he ate this enormous hospital meal. That lemon meringue pie looked tasty, too…

Daddy asked for his phone on my way out of his room. He thought he didn’t have any reception in the hospital, but since my phone worked, he thought maybe his would. He went directly to Words With Friends.

Priorities.

Then it was time to head home. After getting stopped by a train and running every red light from the hospital to the house, I found that the children had prepared everything I’d told them to prepare for dinner (spaghetti and meatballs), and I told Imani to quickly make some biscuits while I washed dishes.

The family ate and soon it was time for a recital.

I know, it sounds random, but, as I wrote in my post about the drill, the kids practice piano daily, and we do monthly or bi-monthly recitals when they learn a new piece of music. We were overdue for a recital, and the children did a good job.

Everyone dresses up for the recitals, and it is a pleasant event.

I am glad my father is ok, and everyone else is doing alright. All this mystery was too much for my nerves.