Today was a tough day of weird things causing problems in me getting to where we were supposed to go. Please be aware that this may take on a whinier tone. But I am not really whining about it. Just discussing my displeasure with the events as they were happening in real-time. So to continue...

My mom dropped of my car a little earlier than I had asked her to which was a good thing although she didn't get to see her doctor before then because they didn't call her back (sidenote: she did receive a call while she was out and dropping the car off and she went to get something for pain which is what she wanted out of the doctor's visit because the hospital gave her a dose before she was released from the hospital but no prescription for anything else). I got back from dropping her off and Jenn had already left to take Mowgli to Petsmart to have his picture taken with Santa. Lauren took them since Chad and I had to go to band practice.

Chad and I load up the car and then head to the bank. We're already a little behind but I thought we'd be okay because Traffic.com seemed to be saying that it traffic was looking good on the three roads we needed to get to practice (which makes it sound a whole lot closer than it really is. We had to go to the bank to deposit his weekly payment to us and to get cash for the rest of his check so he'd have money for the week and to pay for practice and I needed to hit the ATM there to get money for my portion of payment for practice.

They had two tellers there but one spent the entire time on the phone. Between customers the other teller walked over to the terminal where the second worker was perpertually tied to the phone and trying to help her. And to top it off, the first teller (the one actually helping customers that are in the building) also had to run the drive-through window. So that stop ended up taking atleast 25 minutes when it should have taken 5...tops!

So then I take what should have been the shortest way to take the exit for 476 (which is the NE extension of our state turnpike. Our turnpike runs very low through our state so they added the Northeast extension to get people from our area to further up north) but without informing anyone that they were going to be doing construction, they closed off two of the three lanes which includes the one that takes you to the ramp for 476. At first it took us five cycles to get through a light when we were only 8 cars from the light when it started backing up. We make it through the light and slowly make our way forward. We see that they are letting cars going our way to turn onto the ramp where traffic from the other direction usually goes instead of taking the yield ramp that we'd have coming from our direction. But they stop that. We are literally right next to the normal entrance to the ramp to go down to the tollbooth where we'd get our ticket and 150 feet from the entrance that they had just used to let people down.

Well they decisively blocked off that part two. We sat in the very same spot for about 50 minutes. But the car in front of us and the one behind us couldn't move so we were effectively stuck there. Well my car begins to overheat due to simply sitting there and not moving at all. So I have to turn on the heat which makes it warmer even though I put it on defrost mode so it doesn't actually blow the hot air directly on us. So we have the windows open in a last ditch attempt to keep from cooking. This allows the super-wonderful aromas pouring off of the new blacktop that they're laying down and steamrolling next to us. Well after nearly an hour and having less than 20 minutes to be at the studio before practice starts a car a few up ahead of us pulls a U-turn. The two cars in front of us move up. I do not move up..but I pull a U-turn as well. We head the other way to take the route to the studio which involves a ton of traffic lights and if you hit one red, you'll hit them all and take much longer getting there. But atleast we'd be moving.

Yes, we hit every red light. We get to the studio over an hour after practice had started due to poor driving on everyone's part. I couldn't escape it. But we do get there and have a pretty decent practice..yes, without a drummer...and pay full price for practice. But still it's a pretty low price so it isn't too bad.

We get back to Lansdale without too much trouble. We had our first trip to Taco Bell since they reopened minus the onions and cilantro which they currently aren't allowed to serve. Which makes complete sense to me!

After eating Jenn and I were going to go to my grandparents and go see a movie at the theater (most likely Borat). Well we hear fire sirens and at first we thought that the firetruck was still taking Santa around because they do that here every year and they had been out earlier in the day according to Jenn. But we kept hearing more and more sirens and seeing just as many lights. We get ready and go out. We drive around to the front of the complex and there are literally dozens of emergency vehicles swarming or positioned stationary around one of the buildings to the front of the complex. Smoke billowing from it...into the sky and way down. My mom lives about a half mile away and when i called her to tell her that it wasn't our apartment building in case she heard that the fire WAS in my complex so that she wouldn't worry she went out and saw the smoke in their backyard. Amazing. We couldn't get out of the development. I am not sure what strategical genius decided to have only ONE entrance and exit point for our development. Actually right across from our apartment would be a great place for them to easily put one in. I may suggest it because all of the emergency vehicles filled the area around the entrance/exit. People coming home just parked on the sideroad for now even though I don't think that they ordinarilly allow parking there. But too bad. But unfortunately we couldn't get out that way. We were thinking of driving down one of the embankments but I was worried about the curb before getting down into the street. Well after we came back inside a van apparently got stuck trying to get over the small embankment...we would have been really screwed because my car is small to begin with and then was extra weighed down with all of our band equpiment still in it (about an extra 200-300 pounds..easily).

We just decided to stay in and watch Elf and drink some of our new hot chocolate which was great. Perhaps we'll catch the movie tomorrow evening. I am dropping her off at work at 8am and then shopping at the mall and a few other places. I will hopefully get home by noon so I can start wrapping presents and not miss any of the eagles game! i am praying for that. It will be a tough game. I am hoping for an EXCITING game as well. But as long as they pull it off it'll be exciting no matter how exciting the actual game action is.

So that's about what's on tap.
I'll catch you asap.
Goodnight.

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Well I left work just in time yesterday to go see my mom in the hospital. I'd had not luck getting through to Rob after Monday early evening when they still didn't know anything. I called and left messages for two days but luckily I got out in time to go to the hospital for a little bit before their visiting hours ended.

She looked better and was actually making sense which was an improvement. She told me what was going on and that they'd spent two days telling her that she could go home that day and then she told me that they said that they wanted to to keep her that night as well atleast because they wanted to check into an infection that popped up. Since it isn't about me really I hestitate to go too into what's going on (although I may ask her if I can get her permission to get more explicit) but there were atleast two different things going on. She is going to need atleast a minor surgical procedure although it could turn out to be less minor which she will find out from a doctor sometime before Christmas. They want her to get it A.S.A.P. but she is going to check with the specialist and weight the pros and cons of having it done before Christmas as opposed to getting it done very shortly after Christmas. Either way it looks like she'll be here and at Uncle John's on Christmas and that's important enough!

Not a whole lot else has gone on. We've been contacted about playing another show! Perhaps more than one in January. The production company that does the booking for a particular venue was tipped off by the band that played last at our previous show. They said that we were amazing...and now..with no apparent concern for any type of return they put our name in with the company to get us booked. I told them that we may have to make it later than that because we still have no drummer but that we definitely want to keep in very close contact to be able to play as soon as we have a new drummer and they're prepared. I posted to Craigslist again but was less "demanding" in the post about availability and all that. Here's praying!

Looks like I'll be resting tomorrow evening, band practice early Saturday morning and hopefully we'll be going to see my paternal grandparents since we somehow haven't gotten to see them and we've tried since my birthday in May! I will be driving Jenn ( invisibleinkling ) to the maill pretty early Sunday morning and I am going to drive around before the Eagles game trying to buy half of the smaller items that I need to buy yet. I still want to buy two slightly higher priced items for my mom but after that it's all small stuff. Then I need to wrap it all. Next week i will probably shop on Saturday evening (as much fun as that will be) to that week's check to finish up my shopping!

I am soooo excited for Christmas! Still no confirmation as to our days off yet but I think that we'll have off on Christmas Monday and Christmas New Years Day. So we'll have 2 consecutive 3-day weekends which should be pretty nice. I wish that they'd throw us atleast one more "holiday" as it would be a paid day off! But I'll find out whenever they make the announcement. i was expecting it to be much, much sooner as we knew when we'd have off for Thanksgiving atleast a month in advance. Oh well.

That's about it for now. Have Christmas memory stuff to post about but that can wait til some point this weekend. I'd like that thank all of you who wished my mom well. It means a lot to me! Have a great night, an excellent day and an awesome beginning to a incredible weekend!

Goodnight.

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