oh, dear

Back from a very nice weekend with two cousins and their families – one cousin’s teenagers, one cousin’s three-year old, and a husband. And Baker B part of the time. And my parents the whole time. And my brother, sister-in-law, niece, nephew, and great-nephew part of the time. AND Kim. It was quite the busy, whirlwind weekend, but lots of fun. The three-year-old, who was adopted from China, may be the cutest child I’ve ever seen in my LIFE. She’s really bright, very cheerful, quite talkative, and terribly entertaining. At one point I said, "Oh, dear!" when she dropped something in the floor – jokingly, as "oh dear" isn’t really one of my catchphrases – and she took it over. "Oh dear! Oh dear!" It was hilarious.

I hope the teenagers weren’t too bored, although I fear they were. They’re 18 and 15 and really  nice kids, but there wasn’t much for them to do. It was kind of weird, realizing that. My cousins – these two and their sister – used to spend a big chunk of every summer with my grandfather, who lived a couple of houses down from us, and it was SO much fun. But there were lots of kids around – a bunch of other cousins, and quite a few neighborhood kids who were all in our age range. So we always had a fantastic time. And in my memory, I always enjoyed vacations with my family. For example, I don’t recall being the slightest bit bored or cranky or teen-agery when we drove out west the summer I was 16 and my brother was 14, but my parents probably don’t have quite the same glowing happy memory of it as I do.

And I’m SO TIRED. I find being around my poor parents for that long exhausting. I had to pay their bills for them yesterday, and we had to go through the usual search for all the bills that Daddy KINOWS he got and KNOWS are due and just had right here but now they’ve magically vanished and of course both of the calculators that are always all over the place when you don’t need them had ALSO vanished, and the 23,934 year old adding machine in the "sewing room" was plugged in so that you couldn’t get the plug to come out from under the desk it sat on – Daddy had to get a tire iron and raise the desk UP so I could pull the cord out. And I couldn’t just use it where it was because it was like 110 degrees in that room, and that’s actually no exaggeration, for once. And of course I could do it without a calculator, subtracting all the checks that had already been written and all the ones I was writing and adding in the deposits – I DO know how to add and subtract – sort of – but I have very poor math skills. I either have to have a calculator or everyone has to leave the room and stop yakking at me incessantly, and THAT sure wasn’t going to happen. I just can’t do math while my father says "Where is that power bill? I just had that power bill! What do you think this is? Do you think I need to pay that? What do you think that was for? Don’t you think we already paid this one? Where did that draft go? I don’t know what these are for…" And my mother says, "What are you looking for? What is that bill for? Beth shouldn’t have to do this – WE can do this! What are you looking for? Why are you making Beth do this? What are you looking for?? I can do the bills! What are you looking for?"

AAAGGGHHH!!!

Of course now I miss everyone. Well, I miss my cousins and their kids. It will take a week or two to miss my parents.

WELL, I have very little time, as usual, and am behind reading and noting – as usual – and have gotten tagged twice to list all the weird things about myself, but will have to do that later. I just have to note that….

I GOT TOM WAITS TICKETS!!!!!!

Well, let me rephrase that just a bit. I got a Tom Waits ticket. One. I’m going alone, because I could only get one. And now I understand why everyone hates Ticketmaster. It was a complete and total NIGHTMARE. I went to Baker B’s office to get them from the website, as my office is just way too much of a zoo to try anything like that, and I got there 20 minutes before they went on sale, so I could get logged in and be all ready to go. I got all my credit card info into my account so THAT would be set, and I wouldn’t have to enter it all while getting the tickets. At the stroke of 10, I hit that "search for tickets" button, requesting the slightly less outrageous $55 ones instead of the insane $75 ones. And it searched for maybe 5 minutes – and popped up with two $75 tickets. I decided I better take them, damn the cost, since I knew if I started over I’d lose out. So I say I’ll take them – and it tells me I have 2 minutes to finish my transaction, or they’re gone.

TWO MINUTES. And does my credit card info that I’d pre-entered show up? Why, of course not!! I have to enter all that, I have to enter my address info again, I have to re-enter everything I’d just entered because it’s not showing up, and I have to do it really really fast or I’ll lose my ticket and I’m sure I’ll get no second chance. And then it starts asking me where I want them mailed, and I’m REALLY confused because they are supposed to be box-office-pick-up only. But there’s no option for that. I soldier on anyway, and end up with an address screen that wants an address but has no choice for US. Apparently I’m on the international ticket screen. No choice but to back up a screen…. and of course I lose the tickets.

So I dive in again— and they are all gone. LESS THAN FIFTEEN MINUTES AFTER THEY GO ON  SALE THEY ARE ALL GONE!!!! I try searching for just one, I try all combos, but they’re all gone. I’ve been trying the phone line at the same time as I’m doing it online, and getting busy signals, so I refrain from bursting into tears like I want to, and just keep redialing. Just in case.

And I GET THROUGH. I try two tickets, any price – no luck. I figure I’m pretty much screwed and I may as well just give up, but it asks if I want to try one, so why not. And it comes up with one – for $75, naturally. But boy do I grab it. And I have to go through the whole address/credit card/etc etc etc thing on the automated line.

And it refuses my credit card. Why?? Who knows!!!! There’s not a thing wrong with my credit card, but apparently they just have to keep tormenting me! So I try my debit card. Which, shockingly, goes through.

And I have a ticket!!! Well, I WILL have one, I still don’t understand if they’re mailing it or if I’m picking it up and I guess I better try finding out, but it’s a minor miracle apparently. And Kim was only going because I wanted her to, so she really wasn’t heartbroken. That will be kind of weird going alone, but I don’t care!!! I got a ticket!!!!