Jet lag has caught up with me

This trip has finally caught up with me.  It is 6am local time in Seattle and I can’t fall back asleep.  Problem is I’ve only had 21 hours sleep over the last 4 days.  Add to that a stop in all 4 US time zones.  My body doesn’t have a clue what time it is.

But I did get to wake up and see this out my window this morning.  Lake Union.  Beautiful.

So, off to Avis to return the rental car and Top Pot donut for a yummy snack.  Then maybe I can come back and take a nap.

Gathering

My grandmother’s funeral was on Saturday.  As family funerals go it is what you hope them to be.  The family got to spend time together getting reacquainted, for many of us it had been too many years since we had been together. 

I’m exhausted after pulling my second 24 hour day since Thursday. I’ve only got a few minutes – so I’ll just post this one shot of the entire family. This is my grandma’s entire set of descendants, plus spouses (excpet for Steve). Grandma would say ‘aren’t you a good looking bunch?’

Pit bull attack

What

At the end of Grandma’s visitation someone came in and called my cousin out of the room urgently.  A few elderly friends had just left so everyone was worried that there might have been an accident.  Thankfully not, but it was way stranger.

(scene outside the funeral home)

My cousin went outside to see a kid jumping on the roof of his truck.  He yelled something to the effect of “get off my truck.”  The kid replied “but that pit bull is chasing me.”  Ends up a pit bull was indeed running amuck in the neighbourhood and the kid was trying to get away.  The cops were called, and were trying to corral the pit bull, as, unfortunately, animal control only works 9-5.  The end result – the pit bull was returned home (as animal control was closed) and the owner was carted off to jail instead ?!?  Hmmmm, not sure that is going to help a lot.  My cousin’s car was badly dented and scratched.  What a story that will be for the insurance adjuster.

Grandma did not ever care much for dogs.

DTW

I’m on my way to St Louis to attend my Grandma’s funeral on Friday.  I’ve got a layover at Detroit DTW airport.  I got a big ice filled diet Pepsi (with free refills) and soft taco at Taco Bell.  That makes for a happy woman.

DTW is a fabulous airport.  It has an indoor tram.  Very cool.

During my layover I found myself sitting next to a gentleman from a small town near where my mom grew up and he is headed to visit his mom in Cape Girardeau, MO – where my aunt and grandma live.  At SEMO he studied German and did his thesis on all of the German dialects spoken by the older generations in churches in Southern Missouri and Illinois – so a  lot of the heritage of Steve and my grandparents.  Small world.  I love random meetings like this.  

It’s good to be home in the USA.

Anyone lost a hamster?

Schrockinator here… One of my coworkers noticed some movement under another coworker’s desk this morning and then the chase was on. The creature quickly darted under the cubicle walls in its attempt to avoid capture. Others alerted by the shouts joined in the hunt and the certainly terrified rodent was cornered and contained. We had bagged a very healthy-looking hamster.

The hamster quickly become a productive team member, eating nuts and chewing through a makeshift cardboard cage. Its presense was a complete mystery, though; pets are not allowed on our campus, and on rare occaission that someone brings in an animal, they are very careful to keep it nearby and under control.

So a plea was sent out to the organization.

Subject: Anyone lost a hamster?

We just found a hamster in our space on the ground floor of building 4.

Has anyone mislaid their hamster recently? We’d love to reunite you…

Followed by a multimedia-rich description:

See attached, not a great pic, he keeps moving about.

This Hamster is with us in B4.

Please collect before lunch ;-)

The response was quick as this follow up mail explains:

Just to let everyone know that there is a happy ending to this tale.

Dora belongs to the Bright Horizons Nursery who were distressed to find her missing this morning and feared the worst.

We’ve now reunited Dora (the Explorer!) with her friends and everyone should live happily ever after.

Life on my team slowly returned to normal. We were a little wiser, a little more confident in our collective hunting abilities, and a little anxious about the possibility that other “Doras” lurk under our desks.

Taking Grandma out for an ice cream

I think I’ll spend a few days sharing some of my memories of Grandma…

While Steve and I were still in college we went down to visit both of my Grandmas.  We stopped at the nursing home in Coulterville and were talking with Grandma when we decided to go get an ice cream.  Grandma always loved ice cream.  I have lots of memories of going out for ice cream or having ice cream at home with her and Pop.  She also always loved going out for a drive.  Grandma had no idea who we were, but she was happy to go with us anyway.

We asked the nursing staff and Steve signed her out.  We drove down to Dairy Queen and got grandma a dish of ice cream.  We ate and then she said she was ready to go back now.  Total outing time until she was ready to go back, about 15 minutes :-)

After Steve and I left we called my parents to tell them about the visit.  When we told them we took her to Dairy Queen they were shocked, apparently no one had ever taken Grandma on an outing since she had moved into the home 9 months ago because they weren’t sure if she would go back so easy.  Well, ignorance was bliss, as we probably would not have wanted to be the first ones either.  It was a good thing though, as Grandma got to go out on many outings after this.

I’ve started to scan in a few of the pictures I have and posting them to Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarah_schrock00/sets/72157606298343684/

Grandma is gone

My grandma Elsie passed away Sunday evening in Illinois.  She would have been 100 on 26-Aug.

This week, as I’ve been telling people about Grandma they frequently said “I hope she holds on to make it to 100.”  While I understand the kind sentiment, this past week she was suffering, and we didn’t want to see her suffer any longer, so we are thankful that she was able to go. 

Her whole life she was extremely healthy – she was probably the only 99 year-old woman in the nursing home who wasn’t on any medication.

She fell and broke her hip a couple of years ago.  They came with the ambulance and took her to the hospital to have it repaired.  They kept asking her what hurt, but she always said that nothing was hurting.  She also didn’t show any signs of hurting.  They didn’t give her any pain medication until she started her surgery.  She was always one tough cookie.

Grandma was confused though – that is why she was at the home. 

It was over 10 years ago the last time she recognized me as her granddaughter or my dad as her son.  Two years ago on my last visit to see her my mom pulled out a photograph she keeps in her wallet.  It was a 25 year old picture of my dad.  We showed it to Grandma and she instantly recognized it as Del-Rae and started going on about how handsome he was.

Saturday night

After our Saturday trip to Stratfield Saye we enjoyed the backyard, sitting down by the river reading.  Great end to the day.

 

Stratfield Saye

Today we went down to Stratfield Saye, the home of the Dukes of Wellington.  It was a very nice house, one that felt like a wonderful place to live.  It is not nearly as grand as Blenheim Palace, but more of a ‘country house.’ 

The tour was nice, a small group of 10.  We went through most of the rooms on the ground floor of the house, all of which were very nice and also lived in.  One of my key observations is that I have never seen so many boxes of Kleenex in a house.

One of the most interesting items at the estate was the great duke’s funeral coach.  It was so massive, 17 feet tall.  Literally as big as a house.  It weighed 18 tons because it was made of iron!  (pulled by 12 draft horses)  It looks more like a ship than a horse drawn carriage.

American Chocolate Chip Cookies

I baked chocolate chip cookies Wednesday morning to take in for a team meeting.  I wasn’t sure how people would like the American recipe and American chocolate chips.

As I sort of expected there were two camps.

1. Those who thought the cookies were too sweet.  (which I totally understand as Brits are used to baked goods with less sugar)

2.  Those who love sugar and inhaled copious numbers of the cookies.