BOLO for Missing Tablet

The world must be coming to an end because Fiorella can't find her list, the list she lives by, the list that tells her what to do each day, the list that remind her of commitments, the list that contains her brilliant ideas.  She first missed it on Sunday morning, but she was pretty much couch-bound on Saturday so it isn't as if she left it in an HEB shopping cart or on the Walgreen's counter.  It has to be in the house, but she's checked everywhere imaginable--upstairs, downstairs, on and under every surface, even the trash bags (yuck).  So please, if you spot a small yellow legal tablet full of interestimg stuff, please contact Fio ASAP.

Steppin' Out

Fiorella got out for the first time since she went into isolation to complete the book, and it was glorious.  She stopped by the bank to deposit a check for one of her books, then kept her appointment with her INR nurse, who has read WHAT THE HEART WANTS three times already.  After that, she drove over to Georgetown High School and asked to see the principals' office because she's using one in WHERE THE HEART LEADS and want her depiction to be real  The principal and his people at the school were very gracious and will get a nice than-you note from Fio.

Next, Fiorella dropped by Starbucks to buy gift cards for the RWA raffle baskets and to look the shop over for another scene in her book.  Then it was on to HEB for a list of groceries and Target for electrical tape and Walgreen's for hair spray.

Four hours of go, go, go.  The rest of her week will be spent writing, writing, writing.

Credit Card Culture

Fio had a problem with her credit card at Walgreen's the other day.  She swiped it again and again, but it didn't register.  Then she checked to make sure she wasn't using the old, pre-Target hacking edition--and discovered that the card she was so diligently swiping was her driver's license.

Bet she wasn't the first and won't be the last. It's a wonder she wasn't swiping her health insurance card.

Elderly Driving

Fiorella read in the news about a ninety-three-year-old driver who lost control of his car and careened around a grocery story parking lot, killing an eighty-five-year-old packing away his groceries in his car trunk.  And she remembers how the lovely daughter of one of her church's pastors was killed by an elderly woman ignoring a stop sign and T-boning her car.  And she thinks about Sue Halter, ninety years old, who backed into her in the Walgreen's parking lot, despite Fio honking the hell out of her horn--and who then denied responsibility.

It's hard to give up your car keys.  Fiorella and Husband, Brother and his wife, the grandchildren--we all joined forces to get Father off the road.  Dad had macular degeneration and could barely make out traffic signals, but he insisted he was a safe driver because he drove v-e-r-y slowly and never made a left turn--executing a series of right turns instead. He'd had one wreck already, pulling out of a restaurant onto the street, but he insisted "that Baylor boy" was driving too fast.  More likely, Dad,had mis-estimated the speed of the oncoming traffic when he crept out onto the road.

Fiorella has been driving since she was sixteen and it won't be easy for her to turn over the keys.  But it will be necessary.  If she doesn't realize she is posing a danger to others, she hopes her children will be kind enough to take over and save her from killing someone.

THERAPY BY ANGER

Have you noticed Fio's on an upswing?  It's all because of that ninety-year-old woman front-ending her in the Walgreen's parking lot.  Fio wasn't injured, and it turned out that Baby Car wasn't hurt either, but Fio was very angry about the woman's refusal to acknowledge she'd hit Fio or that Fiorella had honked the life out of Baby's horn beforehand.

In fact, Fiorella's mind flamed with anger all the rest of the day and the next day too, and the immediate anger overcame the recurring depression caused by rerunning the mental tape of last summer.   Now Fiorella has to  find other things to blow up at.

Sue Halter, Fio's Siccing the Law on You

Fiorella drove to Austin yesterday and fulfilled a tight schedule, then dropped by Walgreen's on University Avenue in Georgetown.  In the parking lot, despite her honking madly, she was front-ended by the solid rear end of a Toyota driven by a ninety-year old woman backing out of a parking space.  Instead of taking responsibility and apologizing, the woman was confrontational, wanting Fio to move her car so she could leave.  When told she had rammed into Fio's car, which was hard to do because her hearing was so bad that Fio had to shout, the woman glanced at Fio's baby car and said, "No harm done."  Her traveling companion, a short, stout woman of about the same age, got out, looked at Baby, and said, "Where's the dent?" When Fio tried to explain that her friend had rammed into her, she said, "I'm deaf. I can't hear you."

Fiorella doesn't know what internal damage may have been done to her car--or herself--but she'll find out. And she'll also do everything within her power to get Sue Halter's driving license revoked--if she has one.

Come to think of it, she probably doesn't. That's probably why Sue and her cohort were so anxious to flee the scene.

The More, the Merrier

Ah, the serenity of the day before Christmas when, for the first time ever, Fio and Husband had almost everything prepared and worked out.  All the remained for Fiorella to do was cook the chocolate pudding in the microwave, wrap some selected pieces of family jewelry for daughter, and neaten up her desk in the den. The next day, of course, she and Husband would set the timetable for cooking Christmas dinner for themselves, Son and wife, and brother and wife, then proceed at their leisure.  Easy--no sweat.

Until Fio learned last night that Nephew, his Chinese girlfriend, and her family would be dropping in on Christmas morning.  Actually, Fio and Husband felt honored, but also a bit frantic.  On the way home from the Christmas Eve service, Husband stopped at Walgreen's for Fio to rush in and buy whatever Christmas stuff was left on the shelves to put in little gift bags for the family--can't have people drop by and not have gifts for them.  And Fio and Husband are gonna have to get up extra early tomorrow to get as much done on the dinner as possible in order to spend some time with our their-morning visitors.

In other words, it's Christmas as usual around Fio's holiday house--crrrrrazy!