Time flies when the wind knocks down trees

Last Friday I came home from work rather exhausted and immediately Puck says "Lori grab the camera and come outside"
"Why?"
"Just grab the camera"
"but I'm tired, I just sat down"
"Grab the camera"

so I grab the camera and go outside with him. We get to the very back of the yard and finally see what the big rush is about. A giant branch has fallen off the tree that is part of our three lawns and is basically covering the entire corner of the lot including our boat, part of the garage and Puck's hammock, not to mention the three lilac bushes which were Mother's day gifts from my family. I am not thrilled. I start taking pictures








So all last week was spent dealing with insurance people and getting quotes. Finally this Friday they came and finally got it cleaned up. We did find that one of the branches though had skewered the neighbors roof as well as ours so we still need to let them know about that.

This weekend is our town book festival and the big deal was acclaimed author of Polar Express, Jumanji and more Chris Van Allsburg was headlining. They got him to to blow off a bigger festival because we promised him a ride on a steam engine :)

I have been a fan of his work long before it was popular and long before hollywood had bastardized his stuff. I have been pretty excited. The last time I stood in line for an author autograph was for Dr. Seuss.

Anyhow he was arriving on the steam engine at 10:00 am. I got up early and it was raining. Oh well. Puck was supposed to come, but was slow getting out of bed. I heard the train whistle and got a little ticked so threw on my rain coat and stormed out the door without him. I walked downtown with my copy of "The Widow's Broom" wrapped up in plastic bags and tucked under my trench-coat. Puck followed me with an umbrella.

Walked the 5 blocks to the depot and got a spot next to the tracks, standing in the rain. The train apparently had done a test run and had left to get Mr. Van Allsburg so I didn't miss it after all, but the train did arrive about 10 minutes later and it ended up stopping almost in front of us. It was just shy of the depot where most of the people were. I recognized him right away and saw he was in the cab of the engine. I quick took a pic, a little blurry, but it is him.

They got him down out of the engine and he looked a little bewildered. The festival had handed out little sleighbells to the children and they rang them and rang them to welcome him. I don't think he heard them due to the rain and steam engine.

He gave a little speech and said this was the second most fun thing he had ever done next to going to the antarctic. I was impressed and then we got in line for the book signing. That was supposed to start at 11:00 and it was only 10:17. I saw the line was pretty long though so got in. It ended up taking 3 hours to get to the author and have him sign my book. I waited in line, we all commiserated and made lots of waiting in line jokes culminating in exchanging Christmas cards since we had gotten to know each other so well. We finally reached the last 5 steps when they came out and told us that Mr. Van Allsburg would be taking a 15 minute break for lunch and then resume signing. A collective sigh from our small group and comments about how none of us would mind a little ketchup stain on our books. When I finally got in he signed the book for the guy in front of me and then performed an amazing feat. He paused and asked for a minute... then actually swatted and killed a fly on his yellow sweater. It was quite amazing.

There was no way that Puck would have stayed in line. He brought me a hot chocolate and I sent him home to get the car and park it at the library. He did that, but he parked the car on the far side of the library and it was all I could do to walk that far LOL.

I am so happy to be home and sitting down. He was very nice though and I am glad to have his autograph. I think the only other author I would wait that long for is Neil Gaiman.

Oh across the street the coffee shop was offering Polarexpressos.

It has been an interesting week

Still putting things away from rendezvous. It is a much slower process when only one person can do the lifting. I washed most of the things and folded them up, but the big boxes were all Puck's and he is no spring chicken either. LOL

I totally lost last weekend to a crappy cold and was basically on the couch for two days. Wednesday I woke up sniffling again and thought I was OK to work. Got to my first station which is now spending the morning at the Alternative school. It is located in the old High School downtown and serves as an alternative learning source for some of the kids. Anyhow I spent all morning blowing my nose and even after I took Tylenol cold I could not stop. I made it through that part of my day, but drove back to the high school and told them I had to go home. I took some NyQuil at noon and slept till the next morning. Needless to say I called in sick and stayed in bed that Thursday as well.

Friday I felt much better and went in to work. Around 10:00 just as out last class had left and the current class arrived we got word that we were under a code Yellow. We were in lock down. I thought it was a drill, but the teacher I work with looked pretty serious. Phill is not really a terribly serious guy and he showed me a message on his phone that read "Bank robbed, all schools locked down" I had to look twice then realized exactly what was going on. We later learned that the robber had left a briefcase in the building and the Madison bomb squad had been called. All of main street had been roped off and evacuated.

We are the only people in this big old building. Phill grabbed his keys to go lock the front door while I locked the upstairs doors where we were. The kids were calm and we were unsure what information we could give them. We encouraged them to take advantage of the time to get some work done and a couple started back reading, but we only gained about a half hour of extra work. I went back to reading my book as well, but was quite distracted.

A little later while Phill was on the phone with the school I heard a noise downstairs. After he hung up I told him about the noise. He got very serious and we decided to call the police. I know I heard something down there. Below us is the old gymnasium and things echo like crazy down there. The building is used for many things during the week and holds exercise classes for seniors and people use it for walking so it could have been anyone. We couldn't go check because we were locked down and had the responsibility of keeping the kids safe. Of course the kids really didn't understand the seriousness of the situations and we had to keep encouraging them to not go by the windows and such.

Eventually the police came down but they did not have keys. We could not go down and let them in. They eventually got keys from somewhere and all of a sudden we heard dogs barking. That was a little freaky. Then more rustling around down below and about a half hour later the police came to door. Phil was on the phone with the dispatcher asking if the guy at the door was really the officer. Finally we let him in and he was looking for more keys. We gave him all the keys we had and sent him on his way. More barking dogs and another half hour he came back with the all clear. We asked if that meant we could leave and he said it was a superintendent decision.

Phill called the school to remind them that we had 6 kids who had not had any lunch and no means to get lunch (not to mention the two of us). Sometimes people have a tendency to forget about the Alternative when they are busy with the regular school. The kids were starting to get grumbly. Heck we couldn't even use the bathrooms which were down in the gym. I was about ready to volunteer to escort the girls down when the principle came to the door with lunch. That brought the mood up a little since we now could complain about the weird uncrustable peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and swap colors of Curious George fruit snacks.

Just as we were finishing lunch we got the all clear and it was over. The day was basically a waste though. By then there were only two hours left of school and the kids were still pretty distracted. I am glad I was where I was during the crisis even though the bank is only two blocks away.

They have not yet found the guy, but they have a good picture of a tubby white guy in fake beard and dark glasses. I think he is pretty safe!