The Rest of the Day

You know your 96 year old relatives aren't going to be there forever, but it still kind of seems like they will be anyway, one more year, another year, maybe one more year... One of my favorite stories, that I think my mom hates, that underscores my grandma's personality, is when I found out she thought I was an ugly baby. She was just really matter-of-fact about it. Laurie was an ugly baby, but hey, she grew up pretty (she said), and ugly babies often do grow up into pretty adults you know. My mom insists I was a cute baby. I look at pictures and I can see both sides of the story, even if I was scrawny and bald, but a grandma telling her grandchild they were an ugly baby? Well, she used the word "homely" I believe, but it means the same thing, and that's just her, and it still cracks me up. You always knew right where you stood with her, and that's something rather lacking in the world today, in my opinion. She made no apologies for what she thought, right or wrong, and was one tiny woman who was the glue to a very large family. Tough lady...

So, the rest of the day.

This morning I got up at 8 in order to get out to Kokomo early in case I had any trouble with tugs or belts or anything else. The result of this caution was that I in fact did not have any trouble at all, so I sat on the ground for over an hour waiting to be able to take off in the T-6. I had a fly-over of an American Legion event down at Indy, with Trey, in two T-6s in formation. Finally it was time, and I headed over to Metro, where Walt G. gave me one of his T-6 t-shirts that says "I flew with the Polack". Another no-nonsense fellow I can't help but enjoy. ;) Trey had a photographer from their local paper in his back seat, who took this picture (see the shadows on the ground?), and my backseater, Kaylee, had decided she didn't want to be in there as long as we were going to be out and about, which, considering I was gone from 8:30 a.m. through to almost 3 p.m., was probably good, so she could have a day off before school starts back up. So, we take off from Metro in a formation takeoff, did some practice while we waited for 12:03 p.m. so that we could pass over the American Legion event right at 12:05 p.m. As far as I know it went fine. The tricky part was that this area is right under Indy's Class C airspace, and we had to bomb around pretty low for awhile. We only had a couple hundred feet between the bottom of the airspace and the top of a few towers, and where we had to go is right next to the surface airspace, so we had to do a really tight turn over the top of them to stay out of it. We did our fly-over, then did some practice on my way back to Kokomo. It was when I got back to Kokomo that I ran into trouble. I couldn't get the Cheyenne tug started for love or money. I tried for about an hour, letting it rest, pulling like a crazy person, until my hands hurt, and finally I was sweaty and tired and hot and bothered and I just wanted to go home. So Steve came out and got it started within about 7 pulls, doing the same thing I'd been doing, which I both hated and appreciated. Because I wanted to go home, did I mention...

One nice thing I've noticed about formation the last few times--my legs aren't sore any more afterwards. All that means is that I'm finally able to quit fighting so hard, and relax. You know how doctors make the worst patients? I think CFIs make the worst students. Or...maybe it's just me. ;) I just wanted to have it, perfectly, from the get go. I expected to do that. Why, I don't know. Why should I magically be perfect when I don't expect other students of new things to be that way? I did okay, nothing dangerous, but I wanted to be as good as I wanted to be, when I wanted to be it, which was Right Now. They told me to relax during childbirth, and it didn't work there, either. I'd like those guy doctors suggesting that to try that kind of pain and relax in the middle of it themselves some day. ;) But I digress...

"Hunger Games" came out at Redbox today, and Kaylee had been counting down the days to see it, after re-reading the books again. I went online to reserve a copy, and they were all gone. The nearest copies were at least an hour away. Kaylee was not happy. So she got on the computer and checked it a couple of times herself, and one time happened to catch it right at a time someone had returned a copy, so I got right on, reserved it, and went and got it. She was pretty thrilled. ;) We watched it this afternoon, and I have to admit, while I usually don't like movies based off of books, they did a good job of this one. They stayed true to the story line and portrayed a pretty grisly topic without being very graphic at all, which I appreciated for the younger audiences. She really liked the movie, and I liked it too, actually.

Every time I see the preview for the show "Go On" with Matthew Perry, two things crack me up. When he says he has to go to therapy to talk about his feelings and he says "Do you know what I need?" and his assistant says "Feelings?", and when they're all in a group therapy circle hugging themselves and giving themselves "love" vibes, and he's sitting there with big bug eyes, totally freaked out, wishing he was somewhere else. Yeah, that would SO be me. ;) I don't know if the show will be any good or not, but those two things, those definitely crack me up.

It wasn't much of a day of rest over here, and the next week is going to be busy, both with students I have scheduled every day and with a funeral I really need to go to in Kansas, one way or another. For tonight I'm watching football again, which feels right, running laundry which just feels necessary, and closing out the day...