Chicas Of Faith 2008 - Riddle: How Do You Get 5 Booties And 450 Pounds Of Luggage Into A 4 Passenger Vehicle?

Answer: You don't. Aint no way on God's green earth that is going to happen.

So, I have a little confession to make. I have been ~just a little bit~ waiting for someone else to tell the rental car story because I actually do not really know all of the details. Perhaps no one has figured out how to tell the story in an edifying Christian fashion.....I will tell you what I know and then hope that someone else will pick up the details.

We finally got the Cali Chicas' luggage and hopped a shuttle to the rental car company who shall remain nameless because I don't remember it due to the pending lawsuit. We entered the line to await our turn to receive assistance from a representative of the rental car company, and as we are waiting, we begin the discussion of how best to handle the rental car gas tank. Pay ahead and risk over paying? Don't pay ahead and risk not having time to gas up, hence - over paying? Don't pay ahead and be sure to fill up the gas tank on the way into the airport? I, being the most reasonable of the group, gave my opinion; "I am not a driver on this trip AND I am in the group that leaves 2 hours before the other group. Therefore, I do not have to have an opinion on this subject." Thank you. As we are running through this discussion, I happen to spy the businessman in line behind us just looking at us all in awe. I smiled and laughed, he smiled and laughed and then asked, "Is it always like this??"

Me: "Worse."

We all shared a good laugh, and then I had an epiphany. I am not a driver on this trip (you, being very observant, would have noticed this already) I don't have to stand in this silly line. I am going to enjoy one of the leather chairs in the corner and get out of peoples' ways. So, I excused myself from the ladies (still trying to decide what to do about the gasoline) and made a beeline for the chair.

This was a wonderful place to sit and watch weary travelers as they came and went, hoping for things to go smoothly so they could just peacefully continue on their ways. It did NOT, however, give me a good view, or auditory awareness of what was happening with my Chicas and OUR rental car.

As I sat and sat, pondered taking a nap, watched people, and sat some more, this couple came in.... I would say, older - maybe late 50's - early 60's - and the lady of the couple has bright red straw hair with the black/gray roots about 2 inches grown out. She is wearing black jeans, and some kind of black rock and roll tank top - and sportin' some tattoos on herself. She tells the man of the couple that she will wait here with the luggage whilst he secures their next mode of transportation. She then proceeds to show me the tear in her luggage and explain to me that the airline, rather than unzip the suitcase to inspect its contents, cut a 3 inch gash in it, in order to get at the 'powder' substance that showed up on the x-ray. When all the while, said 'powder' substance is just chili powder and she cannot fathom WHY they would destroy her luggage over packets of chili ingredients. She is just outraged. Outraged I tell you.

I, after expressing my condolences to her regarding her defamed luggage, and while watching her do her yoga poses in the rental car office, suggested to her that it looked like a tear that might have happened during transit. She could not accept this possibility, as it was clearly ridiculous and unfathomable.

"Why," you ask, "Do you have time for all of this? Shouldn't you have driven off like, hours ago??"

Refer to my confession above. Beg someone else to tell the story to you. I got nothin'.

I also saw a man come back in with the keys he had been given and complain that the car he had been assigned to was filthy and disgusting and that he was not accepting that.

There was also a man who came back in with the keys to the car he had been assigned to saying something about how it was a smaller car than what he had reserved and paid for and he would not accept that.

Me? I just sat and sat. I thought sure that I heard the voices of some of the Chicas here and there, but passed it off as them excitedly speaking to each other...

FINALLY they made for the door, and I made to follow them. We found our assigned car and worked to load the luggage, hook up the BEST TOOL EVER fondly named, "Madge", and pile us ladies in so that we could meet our date for dinner in King of Prussia. I don't really understand what was happening, but the girls were sort of randomly looking around and saying things like, "Oh! We don't have one of those??? Well what is THAT and THAT and THAT? Hmph and haw and fuss and hmph."

Me: "Uh... YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT! LOOK RIGHT THERE! HMPH."

We worked to tell Madge where we were wanting to go and waiting for her to direct us and had a wee bit of a glitch with that so, we called our date to clarify where, exactly it was that we were meeting her - and then we were on our way!! Yahooo!!

I'll put up a teensy post in a little while just to show you what I have been up to lately...

Chicas of Faith 2008 - Gotta Get To GGG

Well.......good, bad or ugly~ here we go.

GGG and I had had the BRILLIANT idea that we would road trip all the way to Philadelphia seeing as how we could not find reasonably priced plane tickets and we needed some catching up time. What's 25 hours in the car?? Somehow that morphed into ME driving 6 hours to HER house 2 days before Chicas and us jumping a plane together the day before Chicas. All well and good. I attended PWOC on Tuesday the 7th and then headed off to her house. I had a lovely trip. Stopped twice. Once to visit Walmart's facilities, and once to purchase petrol.
Once I got there, I met the new children she adopted. In between the time that she moved away from me a couple of years ago, and the day that I arrived back at her house - she had sold HER children and replaced them with ones that were grown up! They used words and drew pictures and ATE WITH FORKS. What on EARTH? I'm still reeling from the betrayal of it all. These new children hugged me as though they knew me. Must've been pre-conditioning from GGG. No other explanation.
THEN - they all treated me to the OG. That's right! Olive Garden. Never-ending-pasta-bowl baby! Thank you God's Guitar Girl and impostor babies. During dinner we fell right into a groove of chatting and laughing and just being together. Plus the boy of the adopted pair kept asking me funny 3 year old questions. And Lil' G was just a charming young lady. We stayed up way too late talking and musing and dreaming.
The morning of the 8th was so nice and leisurely! Our plane did not leave out of Austin until after 1pm so we (we being me) slept in until we (we being I) felt like it. And made our way to the Austin area where we ran an errand and headed for the airport.
We were SO stinking excited to get to meet Jenster InRealLife, as she was picking us up and putting us up. Or, maybe putting up with us is a better description. Because we were so distracty we did not pay attention to what we were reading on our boarding passes. So, here I am, using the airport facilities and I hear GGG yelling, "S4J(name changed to protect the lame)! GET OFF THE TOILET! THEY ARE CALLING US TO BOARD THE PLANE!!" People, we nearly missed our plane to certain adventure because we had to potty! We were flying Southwest airlines, and if you don't know what that means, it means that you don't have assigned seats. You get what you get. And because we were the last people on the plane, what we got was a whole lot of middle seats that were taken by purses. We went all the way to the back of the plane and all the way to the front of the plane before braving up and asking one of the purses to move over. I got to sit between the two polar ice caps, and you'll have to read GGG's description to hear about who she sat next to. You can be sure it wasn't me. I tell you, the lady who the purse belonged to was T-I-C-K-E-D that her purse had to give up its seat to someone who breathed and paid.
I started praying! Lord, let me be Your light. All I want to do is be mean right back. Take over HS...get to it Man! I pasted a huge smile on my face, and started passing notes back to GGG. At some point I wrote something about how I was not going to hide my light under a bushel, NO - I was going to let it shine!! So, I asked random questions to the lady, "Are you visiting Philadelphia?"
She replied, "NO. We are going to PROVIDENCE." And looked quickly out the window.
Me, "Oh! How nice!*smile smile* I've never been to Rhode Island!"
She, *yelling across me* "Tommy! Do you want a SNACK?"
He, *shakes head no, looking embarrassed*
She, *yelling across me* "Tommy! Do you want me to tell you when it is time to shoot up??"
He, *shakes head no, looking more embarrassed*
I'm passing notes with GGG ~ something like, "I think this is going well. I think the polar ice caps are starting to melt."
Anyway, the lady ~ Vera I think her name was ~ saw the little notebook I had taken my notepaper out of and asked, "Are you a member of PWOC?"
Me, "Why, yes!"
She, "I also am a member of PWOC."
Me, "No way!! Oh my goodness!!" *thinks to God, "Lord you are KA-RAYZEE"
Anyway ~ Me, Vera and Tommy chatted it up the rest of the flight. Chatted about serving on the board of PWOC, retirees and their place in PWOC, life in the military.... That's right! Turns out Tommy over there (who shoots up insulin and by the end of the flight had TWO women harassing him about snacking and testing his blood sugars and properly taking his injection) retired after 26 years in the Air Force. What do you know? Then he retired from another company, and then if I remember correctly - another one.
We talked about different places we have lived, their collection of over 300 Christmas village buildings of which Vera and Tommy disagree about the placement of such so Vera has solved the problem by inviting her local friends over for tea and decorating. Tommy will have to be satisfied to cut the tomatoes and cucumbers from his garden. Vera's favorite assignment was Spain.
We landed in Philadelphia and started discussing how we would recognize Jenster seeing as how we had never actually met her InRealLife, yet we were accepting her invitation to sleep over. Judge away. I can't care. We realized that we had no idea who we were looking for. (The only picture I remembered seeing of her, she had no hair)......