Getting On with It, or, I Postpone Setting Up My New Computer

Consider as made the usual apology for not posting for a long while.  I am not living in my car or under a bridge--yet-- but in my house at home.  As the Beatles sang a few (!) years ago, "I get by with a little help from my friends."  And my family.  And a little freelancing here and there.  And with the help of a part time job working at what I discreetly call The Big Blue Box Store, so as not to violate any company policies should I ever want to do a gripe-and-moan about my experiences there.  Started as a seasonal employee late last March, but was promoted to permanent part time a couple weeks ago.  No raise in pay, but if I take advantage of the medical benefits it offers, it should keep me clear of any awkwardness when the Obamacare ax falls in October.

And as of the 27th of this month, all this might be augmented by the pay I'd get teaching a couple sections of English at our county community college.  My friend Frieda* tipped me off they were hiring adjunct professors, I went on the website and applied, and the head of the Liberal Arts department liked what he saw.  English Literature, and Writing, it would be, and since due to the same Obamacare the college took forever determining their hiring needs, I'll have less than a week to check out the curriculum and draw up lesson plans and evaluation procedures.

Scary.

But the really scary thing was the behavior of my computer, the very one I'm composing this post on, the HP Pavilion Slimline s7600y I purchased in January 2007.  As a teacher on the college level (my past integration into Oxford ways makes me very reluctant to call myself a "professor" of any kind), I'll have to have a computer that works.  There will be student work to pull up, grades to be submitted, emails to be answered and written, and, heaven help us, possible instances of plagiarism to investigate.  I can't be spending a literal hour and a half doing fifteen minutes worth of work, because the stupid system is taking so jolly long to load.

And that's what it was doing every lousy day, up to two weeks ago.  I've gone to sleep on the floor of my study wrapped up in an old blanket with the dog more than once, waiting for a download to complete. Frustrating isn't half the word for it.  And with everything I have to complete and do, especially with the public schools restarting in a week or so and substitute teacher calls resuming soon thereafter, I don't have time for the nonsense.

So two weeks ago I went online to see if HP or any other brand had any slimline towers I could afford.  (Call me a stick-in-the-mud for going for a PC again.  I have my reasons, which I won't detail here.  And it has to be a slimline, for space reasons.)  And lo!  Best Buy had one, an HP 400 Slimline, very highly rated, on sale for $369.99.  Excellent price, especially as Amazon.com was offering the same machine for $599.99.

Now, I have no money.  Everybody knows that.  But as I said before, as a community college teacher I can't be limping along with a computer I constantly have to hard-reboot to make it function.  So after church two Sundays ago I travelled over to the nearest Best Buy that had the HP 400 in stock and bought the silly thing.

Of course, it wasn't a matter of plunking down the $369.99-plus-tax and walking out with it.  Oh, no.  This puppy runs Windows 8, and as the song says, "Suddenly, nothing, nothing, nothing is the same."  Windows 8 doesn't play nice with older software.  Me, I have a lot of what I believe are called "legacy" programs running on my current machine's XP-Pro operating system. Like, um, WordPerfect 6.1, which I like just fine.  And Quicken 2009.  And Lotus Organizer 5.0.  I have no desire to upgrade or change to different software, and even if I did, I don't have the hundreds of dollars that would run me.  This being the case, I had to throw down another goodish chunk of change for the "Win Pro Pack 8" that's supposed to let me run my old software on Windows 8, once I create a virtual partition for them.  And in the wisdom of the geniuses in Redmond, Washington, Win8 won't run any Windows Office versions before Office 2013.  Thanks, guys.  So there's another charge for the "Home and Student 2013" version of that, because, WordPerfect lover that I am, most church secretaries prefer to converse in Word.  Throw in a 32GB flashdrive to create the operating system backup, and we're talking a real investment.

But as I said, the way the old s7600y was dragging along, it was necessary.

So why am I still working on the old computer?

Well, part of it is the fact that I wanted/needed to clear the decks before I set up the new computer.  I literally had not entered anything into my financial software since before tax time last April, and my study was awash in receipts, statements, file folders, and other accounting flotsam and jetsam.  There was no room to put the new system together.

And what if I can't get the virtual partition to work?  I wanted to get my Quicken accounts all entered and balanced before I cut myself off myself off from the use of the software, because it's mentally wearing to not really know where I am financially.  Now, I know good and well I'll still have the use of the old computer, once I get a second monitor.  It's not like it's totally given up the ghost.  Really, what I wanted to do was to clear out my mind as I cleared the paperwork out of my study.  I didn't feel I could enjoy the new computer until I had.

I haven't had many hours in the day to spare for this task these past two weeks.  Bt at last it's done, everything is balanced (well, mostly everything), and as of two nights ago the paperwork is filed and put away.  And as of this afternoon, I've finished entering my checking account transactions into my physical checkbook register, which I hadn't done since last February, for goodness sakes.

So why does the new machine still sit unopened in its box over here on the floor?  Why haven't I run to break it open and explore its wonders?

Maybe because I know it's going to take hours and hours to set up, and I don't feel like investing that right now.

Maybe because I'm afraid, as I said above, that I won't be able to get the virtual partition to work.  Or that if I can, it's going to take forever and I'll be cut off from virtual civilization (i.e., the software programs I depend on) until I can get it all to behave.

It's not that I'm afraid of Windows 8, not in itself, apart from what it'll mean for my accustomed programs. Clerk at the Best Buy let me fool with it a little, and I'm sure I can deal with it, even though it seems a little silly.  I mean, don't we all have enough problems with "Ooooo, shiny!" tendencies these days without graphic tiles sitting on our desktops tempting us to open Facebook and Hulu and Netflix when we should be working?

Maybe I'm so addicted to having a computer (that is, the Internet) running that I don't want to shut the old one down long enough to set the new one up.  (When I was doing up the s7600y I had a laptop open next to it.)

Which leads me to maybe the biggest reason I haven't set the 400 up yet.  Because, gosh darn it, for the last week or more my old PC has gone back to functioning.  It has hardly frozen up at all.  No problem opening anything.  Videos and audio files have been playing just fine.  You'd think it'd gotten wind I was planning on replacing it and wanted me to change my mind.  Maybe it will keep it up.  So why should I stop using it?

Besides, I got a call the other day from the Liberal Arts department secretary at the community college and she said that due to low pre-enrollment, there's a good chance the classes I was supposed to teach will be cancelled or rolled into the schedules of full-time faculty.  They won't know for sure until final enrollment the end of this coming week.  So maybe the need that job posed will disappear.

Maybe.

And maybe this old machine will go contrary on me again.  And maybe I'd like to use the drafting software I downloaded awhile back, that I can never seem to get open, let alone draw with.  Maybe there will be enough students for those English sections, and I'll be stuck after the 27th with an old computer that won't work and a new one sitting in the box with no time to install it.

So I guess I'd better woman up and at least begin.  Besides, I'll be moving the old one down to the dining room.  It'll still be there when I need it, I just won't be asking it to do quite so much.

And maybe with a newer, faster computer, I might post here more often.

Or maybe not.

Blahg, Blahg, Blahg

A few years ago, when I first heard about blogging, I was reliably informed that it was basically mental regurgitation.  Random, stream-of-conscientiousness effluvia.  Inchoate plops of verbiage emitted whenever the writer had the impulse.

I discovered, of course, that this is far from the truth, at least for weblogs worth reading.  In fact, writing a blog post is more like producing an essay than anything else.

And with one thing and the other, I don't feel like producing essays lately.

But I wouldn't mind occasionally emitting a few plops of verbiage, inchoate or not.

In no particular order and in no particular relationship:

• Which is stronger-- my dislike of wrongheadedness or my dislike of conflict?  I ask myself this as I wonder to what degree to engage my niece and a friend of hers on Facebook over their screamingly erroneous and absurd political opinions.  Disagreeing on aims and goals and ways and means is one thing.   Having someone take her stand on outright lies is quite another.  But at this stage of the game, where do you start?  Is it worth trying?
•  
• Hoping Mitt Rommey wins the election tomorrow; we can't take four more years of Mr. Obama's policies.  But I have no illusion that a Republican victory will automatically open up the jobs market to someone of my age and experience.  Can't hurt, however. 
•  
• It's going to be hard keeping my weight down now that the cold weather has set in.  Find myself wanting to eat more.  I have a new dark gray size 6 dress I've been wearing on Sundays to preach in, but who knows if I'll be able to get into it the Sunday after Thanksgiving-- that's my next engagement.
•  
• Preached yesterday at a church where I've been before.  They put on the back of the bulletin, "Welcome Rev. Blogwen X* who will deliver a great SERMON."  (All-caps theirs.)  Yes, indeed, God willing I hope it was a great sermon, but I'm sorry, I'm afraid it wasn't a little bitty short one.  Normal twenty minutes-- but oh, dear, it was Communion Sunday.  And as one of the elders told me afterwards, "the old people are used to getting out in a hour," Communion or not.  He acknowledged that it was too bad they thought that way about the Word of God, but well, "they're old."  Thinking about it afterwards, I beg to differ.  The problem is not that they're old, but that they're old children-- children as to the Word, who have never matured in the faith enough to savor a proper meal of spiritual meat and drink.  But what can you do to help them grow up before they die, especially when you're not the permanent pastor?
•  
• Spent the afternoon processing my Halloween jack o' lanterns into pumpkin purée.  Ended up with maybe three quarts or more of it.   Now I've got to figure out what to do with it all, especially since freezer space is at a premium-- I'm storing up raw milk against the winter when the dairy dries out their cows.
•  
• Oh, did I mention I've been drinking raw whole milk since last April?  Great stuff, which is why I want to lay in a good supply until the cows come into milk again in the spring.
•  
• Thinking about the poor people in New York and New Jersey who've been devastated by Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy.  If my power was out but my house was intact and I'd put by enough water, I would be okay for food for two or three weeks, just on what I have in the pantry.  Though if the gas were shut off as well, I might be reduced to eating cold soaked pasta-- gack.  But the people in the New York boroughs, they don't have room in their dinky apartments to store a lot of food.  Their pantry is the shop down the street.  Praying the power and transportation lines will be up again sooner than soon.
•  
• When I look forward to enjoying the new milk in the spring, I may be living in a fantasy world.  My financial situation really stinks, and for all I know, by spring I may be living under a bridge. 

But that's another essay I don't feel like writing at the moment.

The Gifts of God Alone Remain

I say it to my shame:  I still have no medical insurance. Thus I had to reapply recently for financial assistance from the hospital system that did my cancer surgery and chemotherapy.  Today I received a letter from their financial assistance department.  The second paragraph read:

This letter is to inform you that your recent request for financial assistance has been approved for a 100% discount.  This approval applies to your accounts with outstanding balances before 06/02/2011.  The total amount adjusted is $x,xxx.xx.  Please note that this financial assistance approval applies to all N--- Hospitals, N--- Cancer Centers, and/or N--- Physician Services for services which qualify under our policy guidelines.

I read this and I was deeply humbled.  I nearly cried.  100% of my outstanding balances forgiven?  Oh, what a difference that will make, especially with the school year ending and my teaching income coming to an end for three months or more!  It was almost too good to be believed.

Well, maybe it was too good to be believed.  I know good and well my total outstanding balance is more than the amount given.  I went upstairs to my computer and checked for sure.  Yep.  The amount I'm still making payments on is actually 40% higher than the amount given.  Oh.

The last character I want to emulate is the welfare queen who thinks she's entitled to other people's money.  So if there was some reason why "100% of the outstanding balances before 06/02/2011" doesn't mean "100% of the outstanding balances before 06/02/2011," I wanted to know how that would affect any payments I still needed to make.

So I called the "any questions" number.  I was transferred to a nameless someone in the Financial Assistance Department and asked my question, reading out the relevant paragraph in the letter.

At first she said the letter had given only a partial amount "because the rest of it hasn't been billed yet."  But I told her out that pretty much all my outstanding balance is from the surgeries and hospitalizations I'd had in March and April of 2010 (my chemo, barring last week's followup, is paid up and current), so it certainly has all been billed.  She insisted, however, that my balances on "those two accounts" is 0.  Funny, I have three accounts with balances yet to pay  . . .

Nevertheless, I said how grateful I was, considering my circumstances, and what should I do with the statements I've already received for payments on account to be made in June?  I wasn't about to be presumptuous and say, "Oh, good, I guess that means I don't have to make any more payments, right?"  There was still that discrepancy between my figures and theirs.

It was about now that she said, "I need to check something."  I visualized her digging around in some pile of papers, but of course it wouldn't be that, it'd be on her computer.  She gets back to me and says, "I think there's been some confusion.  You already had a 80% discount on the bills you incurred last year.  We can't give you any more discount on that.  This $x,xxx.xx applies only to services since January of 2011."

Oh.  But wait a minute, ma'am.  I've had nowhere near $x,xxx.xx of services since the beginning of the year, and most of that is already paid for.   (Not to mention that my previous 80% discount had extended to mid-March).  But she went on about the forgiveness applying solely to my "Physician Services" bill, including, she said, to an amount "in May" that could only be my last week's post-chemo check up.  That's what was being taken care of.  Yes, nice, but that's not Physician Services, that's Oncology-Hematology.  She wouldn't or couldn't clarify, so I, taking to heart the maxim about not checking the gift horse's mouth, didn't press the matter.  True, I felt rather as if I'd been promised a fine Morgan plow horse and ended up instead with a miniature Shetland pony.  But it's not like I had earned either, right?

So, as I summed up to her, I'll go ahead and pay the statements I have in hand as arranged, and wait for the July bills to see if or where any adjustments have been made.  It really was too good to be true, so it's not like I'm suffering from any big letdown . . . though I have to wonder what the point of the letter was . . . it really looks like I'm in exactly the same situation I was in before . . . and what's going to happen with my future chemo followup bills, which will certainly be incurred after last Thursday?

Guess I'll have to wait and see in the weeks to come.  What's apparent now is what I implied in the title to this post-- Gifts given by man fade, wear out, are consumed, or even are taken away.  Only the eternal gifts of God in Jesus Christ remain.

Irony Rich

About an hour ago, my telephone rang.  By the caller ID, I knew it was the board secretary from the school I sub at the most.  And I let it ring three, four, five times, before I put out my hand to pick it up and answer it.  And when I did, I saw that my hand was shaking.

I do not want to substitute teach at that school.  Sometimes, I wonder if I want to substitute or teach anywhere at all.  But let's stick to that school.  It's gotten so there's only four of us who'll come and sub there.  Everyone else has told them not to call any more.  But do we get any respect from the administration?  No.  The principal thinks it's perfectly all right for the board secretary to call us in for one class, then switch us to another.  We're the ones who get yelled at when the regular teachers leave inaccurate or conflicting schedules or lesson plans.  The principal persists in spelling my name wrong on the office assignment board, even though the school secretary has tried to correct her on it.  Their  attempts at discipline are useless.  You can't send a disruptive child out of the class unless she or he is physically violent.  The detentions we give seem to have no effect.  The kids are trained to the utmost pitch to recognize when they're being 'bullied,' but never seem to notice when they're bullying somebody else. 

The kids, especially the younger ones, can be well-meaning and sweet.  They're at a disadvantage, really, when it comes to focussing and working quietly.  The school's a partial open-plan, and even if your class is fairly silent, you still get noise from all sides.  And other teachers' students walking through the back of your classroom, to get to theirs.  Stressful and distracting for everyone involved.  And the stress is mounting up for me.

Between my regular expenses and the credit card bills and the medical copays, I am appallingly broke.  Even if I were to work seven days a week, subbing and front-desking and preaching, I still couldn't cover all my expenses.  But still I felt a wonderful peace this morning when 6:45, 7:00, 7:15 went by with no call to come in and teach, especially from that one school.  Am I lazy-- or do I show signs of truly being sane?

But the irony.  Yes.  That comes with what was told me nearly three years ago by my executive presbyter, when he said my Committee on Ministry unilaterally decided to bar me from looking for a new solo pastorate, because I was "too traumatized" by what went on in my last full time call.  And that they'd be more likely to recommend me for the kind of ministry posts they will allow me if I'd get some secular work, even if it was just clerking in a department store.  Hey! I'd like to say to him now, I'm doing that.  I've been sub teaching for almost two years now, and don't get any help out of you or COM at all.  And now, if my trembling hands are anything to go by, I am traumatized.  So what has been the point of keeping me from fulfilling my call?

But never mind that.  Yeah, I told the board secretary I'd come in tomorrow.  It's not like I can afford not to.  And I have to go in two more times this week as well.  But this can't go on.  I have to think of something else, because it can't go on.

"Drill, Ye Tarriers, Drill!"

Haven't fallen off the edge of the world.  But things have changed in my work life, and it's not just that I have less time to blog, but also that I'm feeling less impetus to blog.

I'm getting more substitute teaching engagements since the start of the new year.  That's largely because I've been taken off the naughty list of one school I'd formerly subbed for a great deal.  I was put on their naughty list last October when the principal thought I'd said too much about why the teacher I was subbing for was out having surgery.  (No, dear readers, I didn't sign any HIPAA pledges when I took that job, and the way the other teachers were talking about her op, I didn't think it was a secret).  Principal was sure I'd offended the regular teacher, so I was out until further notice.  Further notice came the day after the January teachers' meeting, when the teacher in question asked why she hadn't seen me around for so long.  She hadn't been offended at all!  So I'm back on that school's list, and they're calling me two, three, four times a week.  That on top of the other schools that call me, too.

Then, three or so weeks ago, my friend Frieda* called and said, "I've just gotten a job working the front desk at Dick & Harry's Tax Service*.  They still need people.  Didn't you work for them before?  You should call and see if you can get on, too."

I did call, I was rehired, and currently I'm working every evening, five weeknights a week.  This week I'm on from 4:00 to 9:00.  Really fun (not) coordinating that with the subbing work, where I often don't get off till 3:30, but we manage.

So "it's work all day for the sugar in your tay," and that's about what my earnings will buy me, the pay in both of these jobs being so low.  But I have to take what I can get.

Today I did not get called in to teach.  I caught up on my sleep, and now I have to a) do housecleaning, to get rid of the sanding dust so I can refinish my stairs, and/or b) do architectural continuing ed (blast! my calendar is backed up with that!), and/or c) do my on-line study for my English teacher's certificate, and/or d) finish what I need to do with my email addresses so I can finish dumping my old DSL Internet provider, now that I've been nearly a month with the local cable people.

And am I excited about doing any of these things?  No.  My mind is obsessed with when payday will be and will it bring me enough to cover my looming bills, and damn! I'm supposed to be so educated but here I am working twelve, thirteen hours a day for peanuts, which probably won't cover my looming bills, and sometimes I just want to cry.

There is light and blessing in all this.  Like the teaching gig I had last Friday where the regular teacher wasn't leaving until lunch time and I had all morning to sit-- yes, get off my feet and sit!-- in the teachers' lounge boning up on advanced Algebra so I wouldn't look like an idiot when it came time that afternoon to teach it.  And the local Red Wing Shoe store a couple weeks ago had some nice, comfortable, lace-up black shoes on sale for $10.00 a pair, and aren't those a godsend, especially in this weather!  And yesterday the student teacher did most of the work, so the fact that I had to report to Dick & Harry's without any dinner didn't make as big a difference in my front desk performance.  Imagine if my full energies had gone to teaching and disciplining and organizing first graders all day!

Well, three hours now till I have to change my clothes and get to the tax office.  God grant I use them wisely.  But you don't blame me, do you, when I come home at 9:30 and just want to watch reruns of I Spy or Magnum, P.I. on Hulu.com?

I'm Not Sure

I had my first stint substitute teaching today since before my surgery last April, and I'm not sure I have the stamina for it.

If I were a better cat-herder-- I mean, a more proficient emergency teacher of 2nd graders-- I might think differently.  But by the end of the school day I was nearly weeping from exhaustion.  And now it's almost 7:00 PM and I'm sitting here still in my work clothes starving to death because I'm too shattered to get out of my desk chair.

Except for one child, who was so obstreperous early on that he started kicking the aide and had to have Security called on him, the kids weren't malicious or bad . . .  they just didn't know how to stay in their seats quietly doing their work.  They didn't understand that finishing a test early didn't give them the license to walk around the room bothering those who were still working.  They didn't realize that the end-of-the-day leaving chaos was not a good time for them to blindside me with fundraising forms, saying they had to take them to the office. And as my limited energy ran out, so did my creativity.  By 3:00 PM I was reduced to saying, "I know nothing about that.  Ask your teacher on Monday."

I'd just say No to substituting until the chemo treatments are over, except that a) I need the money; and b) I'm on a tiny bit of Unemployment Compensation, based on the subbing I did last fall and winter, and if I turn down work it's deducted from my benefit amount.  I don't know: the full possible benefit is equivalent only to two days of work and may not be worth demolishing my health over.  But again, anything coming in helps and it seems wrong to forfeit it.

My throat is sore, my sinuses are blocked, and I need to go eat. But I'm on to preach on Sunday with a sermon still to write so I won't exactly be resting this weekend.  We'll see what my blood counts look like when I go in for my chemo Monday morning.  The way my body feels now, I'm frankly glad I can't accept any teaching work that day, whether they can infuse me then or not.

Fork in the Road?

I got my renewal papers for my out-of-state architectural license today, and they weren't exactly welcome.

It's not that I mind renewing my license. No, indeed. Just the opposite. The problem wasn't the renewal form, per se, it was the notice that came with it. As I'd read previously in the registration board newsletter, my home state will henceforth be strictly enforcing continuing education requirements, and if you haven't fulfilled yours in the past year, you should go on inactive status and can no longer call yourself or practice as an architect.

I don't want to go on inactive status. I want to keep my license active and current to maintain myself some semblance of marketability. But I haven't been able to gain any continuing ed credits this past year-- it's just too expensive. I mean, here I am, barely scraping by on part time work, and I'm supposed to blow $500 on a one-day conference for a couple of credit hours? That's the typical price for these continuing ed offers I get in the mail.

So I'm stuck. I have till the end of the year to do something about it. Between now and then I could find out how I'd get reactivated, once I put myself on the inactive list. Barring a miracle (like getting a full time job with a lot of Lunch-and-Learn continuing ed sessions where I can fulfill the requirements painlessly and for free), I don't see how it can be avoided.

I see myself heading down a road I don't want to travel. And from here, it looks like a dead end.

Done!

The federal return is filed via the Internet; the local return is walked in to the borough tax office; and the state forms have been put in at the post office.

Done!

So in observation, I'm reprising a lolcat I made and originally posted on my pets' blog.

Yes, Wennie, anything you say!

Ode on a Taxing Time

Oh come, ye tardy filers,
Wherever you may be,
And sing the song of Taxing Day
Full well and lustily!

Ye've put it off forever,
But now the day has come
When Caesar gets (or mayhap gives?)
And filing must be done.

The jolly taxman orders
All must be done aright,
Or on your head be audit dread--
Lord, shield us from such fright!

But who can ken the reason,
Who can the secret read
Of all the levies, laws and rules
Our rulers have decreed?

Oh, in and out and up and down
The sums and schedules wend
With line on line and form on form--
Will never come the end?

Alas, ye must get to it,
Take courage, citizen!
Now put your hand to keyboard,
Take up that chiselled pen.

And now, farewell, dear neighbor,
For I am one with you:
I am but barely halfway done,
By e'en I may be through.

Good weal, ye tardy filers,
Whoever you may be,
And sing the lay of Taxing Day,
Full well and lustily.

Wonders Untold

Look what I tripped over the other day when I was following a link from a friend's blog:

This is in my hometown of Kansas City, Missouri. I read it's the wall around the parking lot of the Main Branch of the KC Public Library.

I had no idea. I was back there last July, and didn't see this. I have a friend who goes to see classic films at the Public Library's new location in a renovated historic bank building, and while she's told me they show the movies in the former vault, she's never told me about this.

Amazing.

The irony is that Kansas City's in a real financial tsimmes right now and will be cutting all sorts of services and jobs to balance the budget. So while my homefolks suffer from their leadership's recent bad decisions, the Wisdom of the Ages will look down on them in their struggles and offer a Word of Hope.

Or else snigger, "We told you so!!"

My Great Britannic Adventure, Day One

Friday, 17 March, 1989
From Oxford to Little Chesterford, Essex
Day One

Well, my great Britannic adventure did not get off to such a brilliant start. But maybe today saw the obligatory bit of things going awry and henceforth things will settle down. I survived today, at least-- I hope.

Actually, I started out rather well. I was surprisingly on-schedule, especially for me, and by 2 PM I had presented myself at the Europcar rental agency by the Texas store (I think they sell housewares and do-it-yourself supplies; odd name for an English chain, isn’t it?) on the Botley road to pick up my car.

First hitch-- Whoever took my reservation Tuesday had neglected to enter it, and no car was waiting. Easily solved: another was available.

Second problem, but much bigger-- the credit authorization people refused to take my Commerce Visa and my Centerre card has expired. This is not nice at all, for the immediate purposes and for general implications. . . .

[I spend some time and ink cogitating on what might have gone wrong, especially given that a relative in the States was keeping my accounts and paying my Visa bills]

. . . But all this was abstract at the moment, with me standing there at the car hire office, a room booked in Cambridgeshire (or is this Essex?) for the night and me legally liable for that, and my officially having given notice I was vacating the room at Coverdale* Hall today. Not nice.

The way it was finally solved was for me to take the bus back into town and get the amount in cash, £200 or so of which I’ll get back presuming I don’t do anything untoward to the car.

So by 4:15, two hours behind schedule, I had the vehicle. Headed back to Coverdale*, loaded up the waiting bags, called the people I’d reserved with to say I’d be late, and headed up the Banbury Road and over to Marston Ferry and on east.

Here is something interesting: driving on the lefthand side was no problem at all for me, and I hope things continue that way. True, I tend to be a little afraid of getting too close to oncoming traffic (or do I fear that if I drive too far to the right I’ll forget and revert to American habits?), meaning I overcorrect and was plowing the verge a time or two. Thank God I did discover that by trespassing on a curb here and some grass there, and not by sideswiping either a parked car or a passing cyclist.

The real problem is the road signage and the car itself. What they gave me was an Austin-Rover Maestro, but it ain’t no master-- of anything. Or maybe with its name it has Italian ideas of how things mechanical should run (I take that back-- Fiats and Ferraris are reputed to be excellent automobiles). Maybe a better way to describe it is that the whole car seems constipated. The trunk lock sticks, the gear shift is horribly stiff, the bright lights switch won’t stay on, and the cassette deck has swallowed one of my tapes and refuses to give it up.

The shift is the worst. It’s obnoxiously difficult to shift into first or second, with the result that I am continually and unintentionally starting from a dead stop in third or turning corners in fourth. This is rotten on the gears but so far I can’t do anything about it. That car is driving me crazy and I’m checking with the Cambridge Europcar branch to see if I can get a replacement (I want an Escort, dammit!!). At least I’ll need them to make the player surrender my Berlioz tape.

As for signage, well. A little of it is me not being used to it and also trying to navigate at night. But when you go 130± miles on what’s supposed to be a 75 mile trip . . .

I got sidetracked on the A40 when the sign for the A418 and Aylesbury came up too suddenly for me to make the turn; I got off the A40 and was on the road that goes by Little Milton before I could turn around and make my way by an alternate route to Aylesbury.

Then I missed the connection with the A4012 at Leighton Buzzard and ended up down some road, finally turning around in a farmyard past a church.

Then I made it to Woburn (pity I wasn’t there in daylight to see the Abbey) but it took me five or six passes and all sorts of edifying nocturnal side-trips to Woburn Sands, Aspley, Guise, and once a jaunt parallel to the M1 nearly all the way to Milton Keynes before I finally found the turnoff where the A4012 continues. (It was at a very nondescript, ill-lighted corner and the signs from both directions weren’t turned so car headlights could hit them). I think I took that turn mostly because I’d tried everything else. Heaven knows the sign message wasn’t visible.

Then I got a little screwed up at Clophill, but turned round at a pub before I’d progressed too far towards Bedford.

But I pulled another brilliant navigational feat at Baldock, where I forgot which town I was aiming for when I got onto the A505 at the roundabout and ended up all the way to Luton, to the southwest, instead of passing north of Royston, to the northeast.

Once I’d got that corrected, I was all right the rest of the way. And East Anglian roads are fairly straight, more like I-70 or something, and for the first time I could comfortably do the legal 60 mph. 50 down to 45 mph, up to then.

I can see that one must memorize the towns you’re likely to encounter, because that’s the only way you’ll know you’re on the right road. Besides signs that give you no warning to turn in time and ones that are badly placed, the biggest problem is lack of road numbers along the route. If you miss the number sign at the roundabout or junction, you’re out of luck till the next roundabout or junction. Similarly, you don’t see signs saying "Milton Keynes 5 mi." outside town limits, nor are the highways called out as "A507 East" or whatever’s appropriate. It’s a shame, because the landscape’s so pretty it’s rotten to not be able to enjoy it because you’re afraid of missing an all-important, unique, and perhaps badly-located sign.

At any rate, I didn’t arrive in Little Chesterford till 10 PM. The proprietors of the B&B, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Payne, had gone out but their 16 year old daughter Vickie was home to let me in and show me the room.

It is cute-- under the eaves of a thatched house, with the timber wallplate visible about a foot and a half above the floor. The house is thatched, but I couldn’t see that well in the dark.

There was tea making apparatus in the room; I had two cups, more for the warmth and comfort than because I need any such drink that late at night.

The weather at the moment is clear and starry, most unlike the foul rain we had yesterday. The sunset sky in Oxfordshire was beautiful-- too bad no place I had to turn around could give me a good camera shot at it!

Spoke Too Soon

Yesterday I got most of my bills paid for the month. What statements I hadn't received yet, I figured I had covered.

So besides gas for the car and niggling things like food and water softener salt, I figured the piano tuner's bill next week was the only expense I'd have to concern myself with the rest of the month.

Ha. Guess again.

I had business at my bank this afternoon. I come out, get into my car, and I find in my windshield I have one of those gifts that keep on giving: a crack in the glass low on the passenger side.

Ah, yes, that would be from the rock I picked up yesterday or the day before. Thank you so much. Of course I didn't think to check for a chip in time to use the free car insurance coverage for chipped windscreens. No, I have to develop an actual crack. Which will mean a new windshield. On my dime, since my deductible's pretty high.

And then this evening, I got some work done on my house. And I wanted to take a picture of it. Turned on the digital camera, composed the shot, pressed the shutter, heard the shutter make a noise-- but nothing happened. Tried it again. Still nothing. Tried a different setting. Nothing again.

Bork, bork, bork!!

Uh, rewind memory to late this morning: Hands full. Picking things up off the shelf in the front hall. Dropping the digital camera onto the floor. Not thinking much of it-- floor's only wood and vinyl.

Could that be what broke my shutter?

If not that, then what?

Of course the camera's about three months out of warranty. And FujiFilm probably wouldn't warrant damage like that, anyway.

So now I get to decide what to do. Try to repair this camera, buy a new one on credit, or-- aaaaggghhh!!--fast from taking pictures until I can afford a new one?

But it never fails. I think I've got everything under control, and boooiiiinnnggg!!! Guess I ain't so smart after all.

Physician, Heal Thyself

To all you preachers who happen to read this blog:

Don't you hate it when you successfully deliver a sermon on Sunday morning, and by Sunday evening, you have to preach and apply it again to yourself?

This morning I preached on the faith of Abraham, and the trustworthiness of God even when we can't see the path ahead, even when the path ahead looks pretty dark and dangerous.

Well, I'd thought I could see the path ahead. Friday evening, the clerk of Session at the Daniel's Run* Presbyterian Church called and asked me to come and preach again next Sunday, and maybe do a baptism, too. She told me she'd call me back when she knew for sure about the baptism, because Session hadn't met yet to officially approve the sacrament (as is the practice in the Presbyterian Church). But I was booked for the 24th. Hooray!

So yesterday morning, I got a call from the worship committee chair of the church where I'm getting the piano. She also wanted me to fill in for them on the 24th, because their pastor is taking some time off before the run-up to Easter. Sorry, I said, I'm already committed. Some other time, perhaps?

So this evening, I was thinking about planning worship for the Daniel's Run Church this coming Sunday. And I was thinking how great it was, that the honorium I would get from them, along with what I received from Redeemer* Presbyterian today, would enable me to pay all my ordinary bills the rest of the month without dipping into my home equity line or credit cards again. Things in the immediate future would be good.

But a little over an hour ago, the clerk from Daniel's Run called. Not to confirm the baptism, but to let me know that the child's parents had decided to put it off till next summer, when the grandparents could be there.

Oh, all right, I said, I won't need to factor in a baptism.

No, actually, the clerk said cheerfully, they wouldn't be needing me at all. Their long-time unordained graduate minister, IrmaLou*, is back in the pulpit, and if there's no sacraments to administer, I, as an ordained minister, am not necessary.

I did not tell her I'd turned down another opportunity to preach next Sunday because I'd committed to Daniel's Run. I did not tell her I wished she'd made it clear that my coming was dependent on there being a baptism or not.

She, meanwhile, was talking on, cheerfully asking me how it had gone for me at Redeemer Presby this morning. And I'm thinking, please don't do this, I have to call the other church's worship chairwoman to see if they still need somebody!

I told her I needed to hang up, since I had my dinner in the toaster oven, and the timer had already gone off. Which it had. There was no point in tying up a nice big guilt bundle and handing it off to her. Nothing she could do about the situation at this point, now was there?

Soon as I could, I (disregarding the timer) got hold of the other church. Yes, they'd filled their pulpit for next Sunday. They got a very nice elder from a neighboring church. Oh. Right. Some other time.

But there I was, thinking I had it all sewn up for the rest of the month. And now there's a big hole in my preaching schedule and my finances for what I see as no good reason. Lord God, what are You leading me into? Don't You want me to be safe and secure and have everything pulled together???

And then I remember. Abraham. Leaving Haran, just like that. No clue at all as to where the Lord was leading him or where or how he'd end up. Just taking God at His word and walking out in faith.

Preacher, preach to yourself!