Kansas

Started: 2005-07-19 21:23:33

Submitted: 2005-07-19 22:23:49

Visibility: World-readable

I really didn't expect to take a late-night drive into Kansas Friday night.

My sister Bethany (referred to as "The Slayer" in a certain wedding narrative) drove from Oklahoma to Longmont on Friday so she could attend one of her high school friends' weddings on Sunday. It's an eleven-hour drive, which isn't really bite-sized but isn't too bad. At least that was the theory; at 2000 Friday night Bethany called me, panicked; she was in Denver, needed gas, and realized she had lost her wallet somewhere in Kansas; she threw it (and the remains of lunch) into a rest stop garbage can. I hopped into Yoda and headed towards Denver while Kiesa tried to figure out who in Kansas dealt with rest stops. Shortly after I made it to I-25 Kiesa called me to recall me; Bethany called Dad, who gave his credit card number over the phone to the gas station. After a few calls, Bethany ended up talking to the Kansas State Patrol, who promised to send an officer to the garbage can in question.

At 2230, Bethany called again; she called the Kansas State Patrol back and no one had checked for her wallet, but they promised to do so right away. Bethany asked me to drive with her back to Kansas to get her wallet and I quickly agreed. I rendezvoused with her at 2330 at Borders in Northglen in the middle of a midnight Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince party. I joined Bethany in Penelope (Bethany's silver 1997 Honda Civic sedan, "faithful to the point of prudishness", according to Willy) and we headed south through Denver and turned east on I-70. Bethany gave me an earful about her boyfriend, whom our mother doesn't like, although we're not exactly sure if our mother is reacting to Bethany's boyfriend himself, or empty-nesting and moving to Oklahoma. I told of recent developments at work, most of them bad, or at least dubious.

Eastern Colorado is longer than it has any right to be. We finally reached Goodland, Kansas around 0230 Saturday morning and located Sherman County Jail, where the Kansas State Patrol took Bethany's wallet when they successfully located it. (I brought gloves and Maglights in case we needed to dig through the trash ourselves, but I was relieved to not need them.) I took the helm and turned west, back into Colorado, and continued west towards Denver. Around 0400 I noticed a strange glow behind the car and soon realized that it was the early vestiges of dawn.

We picked up Yoda at Borders and made it home a few minutes before 0600. I managed to get eight hours of sleep, waking up at 1400, and somehow avoided horribly screwing my sleep schedule, which was impressive.

Tomorrow is my boss' last day at work, mere days before we're supposed to train a customer on a massive important upgrade to our flagship product... that happens to be horribly behind, mostly due to supplier problems. I'm actually to the point where the overwhelming weight of responsibility pressing on me is decreasing my ability to do anything, which can't be good.

Yesterday afternoon, during a short break before I returned to work for the second shift (I needed to get some quality time in on the system that's supposed to be ready for training next Monday and I couldn't get on until after 1800), I dropped by CD Depot in Louisville and picked up a copy of Moby's latest album, Hotel. Unlike most of my music purchases during the past five years, I didn't attempt to download the album first; I acquired the album without any real idea what I was getting myself into. (It is, after all, recommended listening on bouncing's blog.) I'm pleased with the album; it's easily better than Play and 18. The only downside is that, when I listen to this album years from now, I'll associate it with my current state at work. Which isn't that pretty.

come back to us spiders
come on crush my hands
let peace and beauty reign
and bring us love again
like you can