April 10, 2006
-
Sorry for the silence, but it's been a quiet weekend.
Sometimes "quiet" is good.
Most exciting thing, and it wasn't particularly, was on Saturday afternoon when I'd made a trip to the East Berry branch library. On my way to return to the freeway there was a woman sitting in a powered-wheelchair by the side of the access road, and said wheelchair had a flat tire.
Never thought about those critters getting flat tires, but I suppose they do. Well, I know they do, for she had one. Anyway, circled around and came back to her. Then another woman, who had a couple of kids in the car with her, also stopped. Won't bore y'all with the saga of how we managed to get the tire off, find a place to patch the inner tube, and it put back on (those who know me will not be surprised to learn I was mostly involved in the hauling her and the tire to a place to be fixed, while not at all involved with actually removing or replacing it), except to say those wheelchairs are incredibly heavy. It had to be left tumped over on the side of the road, pulled up off the street, while the tire was mended. I'd never grasped the weight difference between an ordinary, hand-powered wheelchair and one battery-powered.
Mary (the name of the woman with the afflicted tire) said a man had stopped earlier and tried to use a can of Fix-it Flat or whatever the stuff's called, but it didn't help. Has anyone ever heard of that stuff doing a particle of good? I haven't. ISTM every time I've heard of it being used the rider is, "But it didn't work." How come it's still on the market if the stuff never works?
Called Charles last night on his new cell phone, and was puzzled to the point of being taken-aback by hearing music instead of ringing. Figured this was his new "message", only it turns out, no, it's what a caller hears in lieu of a ring tone. What the point of that is, I can't imagine. He's doing fine, and he and his friend, Joseph, are busily putting together application packets for a Navy program called "Seaman to Admiral 21". Essentially if someone is accepted into it, that someone gets $10K per school year to attend a college with a Navy ROTC program, plus living expenses. One would be in some shadowland, no longer enlisted but not exactly an officer, either. An officer candidate or something. Charles is hoping he has a decent shot at being accepted, what with his 1300 SAT score, his good ASVAB score, and his meritorious advance in boot camp.
He acknowledges if they heavily weigh his early high school grades and his lone college semester grades, he's in trouble.
Perhaps if he works really hard on his classes...which begin today, AAMOF...he'll pull it off. It'd extend his tour of duty, but he'd become an officer plus get his degree, which is good. Only significant problem I see with it is a candidate is given 36 months to graduate. Three years. I suppose if one takes a full load of classes on a year-round basis it can be done, but mercy Maud....! Talk about a grind.
Last year there were 4500 applicants for the program, of whom 450 were accepted, so we'll see what happens.
It's April, and it's been spring for quite a little while, but I'd noticed the bluebonnets have been AWOL. Well, this morning the Dallas Morning News had an article about that sad fact, saying it's true....this is largely a bluebonnetless spring. The weather last fall and winter wasn't beneficial for them, somehow. I've spied one tiny patch, and that was a week ago. It's gone now.
Bluebonnets are one of my very favorite rites of spring, darn it.
Easter is next Sunday and I've promised to provide a glazed, spiral-cut ham for the lunch at Kirstin's. Anyone know of one that's gluten free?
Comments (5)
Thanks, Anne, for stopping for that poor woman with the flat tire on her wheelchair. I was thinking about that sort of thing not long ago. I've thought about all kinds of things related to wheelchairs, such as the fact that I've never driven anything other than a bicycle and if I end up in one of those things, who drives?
Hugs!
me<><
You can practice at Kathryn's Frank (and the kids) have already taken the paint off the walls, doors and doorframes with Heather's!
If you're like Mary, apparently you do. From what I could tell, that wheelchair is her primary mode of transportation, though fortunately she can walk some. She had a library book with her (which she sensibly took with us to get the tire fixed, refusing to leave it behind with the broken-down chair), and I've been wondering whether she actually goes that far in her powered chair, or catches a ride on MITS (Fort Worth's Mobility Impaired Transport Service).
Yes, Fix-a-Flat DOES work. About six weeks or so ago, I got (actually discovered, it might have been driving on it for a bit before) a flat in the parking lot of Barnes & Noble about four miles from home while shopping with two of the girls. Ray came up to see what he could do, and applied Fix-a-Flat, hoping that would allow us at least to limp the thing home, maybe with frequent stops for extra air (fortunately it was the main shopping drag so gas stations were plentiful.)
Not only did we get it home, but he took it to the mechanic a few days later (as the Fix-a-Flat tube says to do) and the mechanic pronounced the tire good to go indefinitely.
I think it probably only works under specific circumstances, though.
Hazel wouldn't go anywhere without Fix-a-Flat. In the waning days of her old car's usefulness, she refused to put new tires on while she was car shopping and so that stuff got put into all four tires, I think!
(Not quite, but close.)
me<><
Comments are closed.