I think I will need a while to recover from yesterday

I do not feel good. I do not feel really sick, but I am glad that I am not expected to go anywhere or do anything important today.

There is yet more drama with the car. But I cannot deal with it this week. I had stuff to do at school, so my husband drove me. He didn't like doing that very much, and he spent about an hour sitting out in the van while I tried to get things done in the lab. I borrowed about twenty bricks and I had to put those back, and there were other things to deal with from when I poured plaster on Tuesday. So the plan of just going to the lab to get the plaster mold took a bit more time than I imagined. And I didn't have time to do anything with it other than get it in the van and later into the house.

So after my husband helped me with that, we went to lunch. We went to a sandwich shop with Saigon in the name. We ordered a couple of sandwiches before we noticed the sign that said no credit cards for purchases under $10, and we didn't have any cash on us. So the two sandwiches became four sandwiches and soup, which we took home. My sandwich was the house special, which wasn't bad at all, but there is no telling what I ate. The only things on it I recognized were carrots, jalapenos, cilantro, and a pickle. But it was good. My husband had the grilled pork sandwich. It is hard to mess up a grilled pork sandwich. It might be too many calories or something, but they taste good.

We had a little time to rest before we both had to go to the doctor's office. We were both supposed to have physicals this week, but that was before we found out that he had to go to Oklahoma for a few days. So we asked if maybe he could have my appointment and maybe I could come in later, or maybe they could squeeze us both in. So the doctor saw us both, but told us that we couldn't get the blood work over with because we didn't do a twenty-four hour fast. Well, no one told us that we were supposed to do that, and that sort of thing is usually done first thing in the morning, not 2:00 in the afternoon. Whatever.

So then they tell me that my blood pressure is way too high. Okay. Someone told me that back in March, but it was such a freak thing that they didn't do anything about it except to tell me to get it checked again. So two months later it is still high, so that is not a freak one time thing, so they gave me some pills for it. Okay.

My husband is having pain in his arm, so they hooked him up to some machine for forty-five minutes. I don't know if that really helps anything or not. Half the time he doesn't really think he's even hurt, and half the time he's just watched someone with similar symptoms on House and is convinced he's dying. I never know if I should be worried about him or not.

So after that we went home for a bit. My husband worked on the computer for a while. He's always doing something to make the computer "better," usually with something I'll never use, and then the computer doesn't work for a while after that. So the new DVD burner, which I might actually want to use to copy something for a few friends, didn't work like we expected. So he was trying to "fix" it. Great.

Then we had more of the Vietnamese sandwiches for dinner. And then it was back to school to load some more of my stuff and do a raku firing. My husband really did not want to go back to the school twice in the same day, so I was trying to time it so that we got there right before the stuff was pulled out of the kiln and wouldn't have to stay long. So I walk into the lab about an hour into the class, just like the professor said, only to watch the professor grab his head and say that he totally forgot that he had to do a raku that night. So I helped him set up the raku for a minute, and my husband and the professor talked about cameras for a bit. Okay, I really should start loading some of my other stuff in the van and not keep my husband there all night.

It was starting to rain, but I'm not afraid of a little water. I grabbed some of my stuff and headed to the van. It was a bit annoying, since we had to park in the next lot over from the lab, but I'm not afraid of a little exercise either. For a moment I couldn't find my husband, and then I thought, I can do this myself. I asked my husband for a ride, not to do all of the work for me. So off I went.

I got a bit away from the building when my husband opens the door and yells at me. I turn around, he says never mind, and I head back towards the van. I'm carrying a bunch of stuff, so I can't walk as fast as I'd like. So I was getting a little wet. So what?

After I cross the first parking lot I start to think maybe this wasn't such a good idea. But by that time I am closer to the van than the lab, so I keep going.

I nearly get to the van when the wind really picks up. I'm not afraid of a little water. I don't care if I get a little wet or if my hair gets messed up or whatever. But right when I got to the van it got really messy, and the rain actually started to hurt. When I got right to the van I got something in my eyes and I couldn't see. It took several minutes to even get the door unlocked, and then getting inside the van and putting my stuff away took a while. So I decided to just stay in the van for a bit and maybe the rain would pass.

So the rain did not pass. In fact, the wind got worse and the van started to shake for a bit. That didn't last very long, but the rain was still bad for a bit.

I was really wet. I had taken off my soaked sweater and found that my shirt was soaked too. My husband had several T-shirts and such in the car. But there was no point in changing into one of them if I was just going to end up walking through the rain again.

I thought maybe I should drive to the ceramics lab, but there still wouldn't be a place to park the car. Not even like an illegal parking space, like a faculty space or a handicapped space. And even if I wanted to just give up on the ceramic stuff I still didn't want to drive home in this weather. I decided to go ahead and walk back. I would still be wet, but the kiln room would be warmer than the van.

It was still raining a lot, but the wind stopped for a moment. We usually have dumb stuff in the car like those thin plastic rain panchos, but I guess we left all of those in the other van cause I couldn't find one. I walked back to the lab. My husband was waiting for me at the door. Someone had a TV on and the news had come on about the bad weather just when I had left the building. So that's why he was yelling at me earlier, but like me he thought it would be more annoying to turn around at that point that to just keep going to the van. I went to the ladies room to clean up a bit. I took off my socks.

After I could see again, I noticed there was a lot of water in the kiln room. The doors and windows had all been shut at the time, but a lot of rain came in under the doors anyway. We have like six of those roll up garage type doors, so there was water everywhere. The professor had turned off the raku, just in case a tornado was coming. After the rain passed the weather people said that the high winds were headed somewhere else, I helped him turn the raku back on. About half an hour later he pulled out our tiles.

One of mine will be done later this week. Two of mine were done last night, and they look really good. One of the sea turtles is shinny copper, and the matt one turned a lot of different shades. Some of the others turned out nice, but unfortunately a couple of students ended up with broken tiles.

I wonder if the white glaze has sulfur or something like that in it. The fire from the last few tiles smelled really bad and made yellow smoke. The raku did not seem quite as scary as it did a few years ago. Or maybe I was just less likely to have my clothing catch fire after I was already soaked like that.

After the raku the rain was mostly finished, and we took my sea shell and about half of my supplies and tools home. The electricity at my mom's house went out, but mine was mostly okay. The lights when off a few times, but they came right back on.

And the slight power disruption did not even interfere with recording LOST.