Turn Left Go Fast

My alarm going off at 5:30 this morning didn't make me overly happy, but I thought "Hey, I'm going to the Air Race, where they said they were desperate for volunteers; should be fun." I arrived at the airport by 6:45, and had been told to go "to the FBO". Walked in to the FBO, a woman walked up to me, I said "I'm here to volunteer", she said "Great!" and led me outside and handed me a 10 pound bag of pancake mix and said "We need to mix up these pancakes for the grill". This isn't what I had in mind, but okay, I'm game. She didn't have a measuring device and suggested I wing it. I've never actually made pancakes before, but how hard can it be, right? She put an 8 year old boy with me. As I read the directions, I realized I needed 17.5 cups of pancake mix and 4 quarts of water. But how many cups are in a quart? Nobody knows. The lady said "just add water and stir it up until it looks right". I stare at it for a bit and the kid says "Have you ever MADE pancakes before?" No, no I have not, okay?! The kid calls his mother on the cellphone and in Spanish asks her how to make pancakes. I say "I think we've got it here." Another guy comes over and says "Aren't you supposed to add eggs?" I say "No, the directions just say add water. He walks over to the kid with the phone and says "ask your mom if we're supposed to add eggs." Kid asks, then says "No eggs." *sigh* I can READ, people. ;) I mix up a couple batches of these pancakes, the grill guys make them up, and I sit there for an hour with nothing else to do, so I wander upstairs to find that's where the air race volunteers had gone and they have nothing for me to do. So I go back to breakfast and wait until two other folks with nothing to do leave, and I take over filling up cups with OJ & milk, then take over handing out pancakes and sausage when everybody else leaves and it's just me there. Around 9:30, breakfast is "over", but I get rid of food until 10, at which time the next crew comes in from somewhere else and "we have our own people". So I'm no longer needed, and after wandering around staring at myself for a few minutes, I went home, so I could turn around and drive back down to Sheridan for a long lesson just a couple hours later. Basically what I did was get up super early and drive almost 2 hours round trip to help out Montgomery Av. on their pancake breakfast instead of helping at the Air Race itself, which is ironic on a couple of levels, not the least of which being that they are our direct competition in flight training. ;)

(We actually get along fine with them, it's not an ugly kind of competition like we used to have with a certain no-longer-in-existence-FBO around here...the one that would call the FAA on our instructors, spread as many bad rumors about us as possible, etc. ;))

Now it's 6 pm and I made it home and I do believe I'll order myself some Chinese and SIT for awhile. Even though I don't have the billing in the snail mail yet and even though I don't have Kaylee's school supplies and even though I've got two people trying to take a checkride, one in the next week and I need to do some prep work on that and even though I am completely out of milk in the house and should run to the post office, the store, and to pick up my contact lenses, and even though I have some other things I'm supposed to do asap...I am officially cranky at the moment, so what I am going to do is sit and eat Chinese for an hour or two. The end. ;)