Get it? Because it's Easter? Oh, never mind...
I spent this Easter weekend with my Dad's parents, helping them move into their new home. Fortunately I've had plenty of practice at the organizing arts since alphabetizing the office library and the family collections of DVDs and CDs.
On Friday we tackled the kitchen/dining area to get all the boxes out. I think we were all amazed how much came out of those boxes! Dozens of plates, cups, glasses, cut crystal, tea pots, little knickknacks... We ran lots of loads in the dish washer, and everything that was too delicate to go in there I washed by hand while Grandma figured out where to put everything.
On Saturday my aunt and uncle came over to help, too. Grandma and I worked on her closet while my aunt straightened out the jumbled jewelry boxes, then I went upstairs with Grandpa and my uncle to shelve books and movies. After lunch, I sat down with Grandma to sort through her medical folders, which she wanted to organize into easily-accessible hanging files. It was a lot to go through, but I like to think that I helped. I labeled the folders and put things away when she told me what they were, and kept handing her a few papers at a time so she could focus on a little bit instead of the whole box.
After that, I reaped the fruits of my earlier alphabetizing frenzies and went upstairs to do it again, this time to Grandpa's DVD and VHS collections. At least the VHS's stood up on their own! Made it much easier to organize them.
I took a break in the middle when we went to dinner at the Tomato Pie Cafe in Lititz proper. Obviously, I had to try the tomato pie...and boy, was it good! It was exactly what it sounded like: a pie full of tomatoes with a cheesy filling and topping. And then...pecan pie for dessert! I couldn't believe they had it!
Unfortunately, I usually forget something when I go away for short trips--only this time it wasn't a thing, it was an action: I packed a new shirt I'd gotten for my birthday, planning to wear it for Easter, but I hadn't tried it on! So I ended up doing emergency surgery on the sleeves Saturday night, ripping the seams open far enough that I could actually get my arms all the way into them and then stitching up the edges. Fortunately, the sewing is under my arms, so no one should really notice.
That night, at about 4:00 AM, the local Moravian trombone band came by. It's a tradition of theirs to go walk around town playing Easter music at about 3:00 AM to celebrate the Good News. Fortunately Grandma and Grandpa had warned me about it, so I didn't try to open the window and yell at renegade high school trombonists. Instead I lay there and appreciated the music for the ten or so minutes that I could hear them.
Easter Sunday had a lazy start before we went out to lunch with my aunt, my uncle, his mother, and my cousin. Another delicious meal with plenty of laughter. We all headed back to Grandma and Grandpa's house so they could show off the work they'd done so far while I got ready to head home.
And then it was time for more adventures with my automobile. Usually I keep my headlights on "auto", but Pennsylvania has a law that headlights have to be on in construction zones, of which there are many on the way to my grandparents' house. When my car wouldn't start, I realized that the headlight switch had gotten stuck halfway between "auto" and "on"--and my battery was, of course, dead.
Unfortunately it wasn't just a simple matter of getting a jump from my aunt and uncle's car. Just as the battery showed signs of life, the alarm unexpectedly went off: Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk! Great, just perfect. It went on for a few minutes before going quiet, so I headed down the road. But then, when I had to stop for gas an hour or so later, as soon as I tried to fix the blinking clock: Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk! Except this time I was at a gas station. With no other option, I started to get gas while the stupid panic alarm was sounding, holding the gas pump with one hand and flipping through the car manual with the other. Again, the honking quit after a few minutes. As soon as I got out of there, I pulled over to focus on the manual.
Why was my car's alarm going off? Because the radio theft alarm is rigged to sound whenever the car battery comes back from the dead.
This makes no sense to me. All you have to do to disable the alarm is disconnect the battery, which you can get to without a key once you get in the car. Basically the only people this alarm is going to scare are seriously incompetent car thieves and the owners themselves. Even better, once the radio is back to life, it requires a code that "your dealer should have given you" before you can use it again. Ten tries before the radio alarm screams bloody murder. So I sat in silence all three hours home. Not that bad--plenty on my mind--but annoying.
Unfortunately my adventures meant I got home around 6:30, and the grocery stores that had been open for Easter closed at 6:00. Fortunately, there was plenty to eat at home anyway. I curled up with a movie and the cats, and had an early night.
And that's it for another thrilling installment of Sarah's life. Tune in next week for Leftovers vs. Microwave Dinners.
No comments:
Post a Comment