No Mouth

Posted on January 22, 2015 by jeb

I was going through some old writing. In some ways I feel like I was better at it when I was younger. My grammar and spelling weren’t great, but I think I was better at communicating a message through description/imagery. This was something I wrote when I was 12 or 13. It’s always been an important memory for me, but I’m glad I wrote about it back then because there are some details I’ve forgotten. Thought I would share it – KEC

———–

“No Mouth”

It snowed Friday night. I woke up earliest Saturday morning. I put on a turtle neck, two sweatshirts, a big jacket, 2 pairs of jeans, 3 pairs of socks, a pink plaid hat with a fuzz ball on top, and some hiking boots all by myself. Then I waited patiently for somebody to wake up and put my gloves on so I could go outside. Baby Claire woke up my mom who said I had to wait for Danny or Nicole to take me out. She fixed me a breakfast of oatmeal in the meantime.

I began to wait by Charlie… I wound up falling asleep on her. She was always the best dog for a pillow.

I woke up back in my bed, my pink hat with the fuzz ball on top gone, and my jacket on top of my covers. Quickly, I put my jacket back on and asked my mom to put on my gloves. She had my pink hat too, and put it on my head before I ran out. Almost all the snow in our yard was gone. It had all been contributed to the massive snow man my brother and sister had made. All that was left was a thin layer of ice crystals. Charlie seemed to enjoy running through that one little layer, but it wasn’t enough for me. Heart broken, I went to my backyard. All it had was the rejected snow. The snow with dirt and dead leaves frozen in it. That was no fun. Baby Claire was with my dad sitting on the little wooden platform in our woods.

Dad must have seen I was upset; he had Nicole and Danny take little Claire to play with and told me we could make a little snowman on the railing of the little platform. The benches were covered with clean snow. And so, he made three snowballs in his big hands, and I stacked them. Then, I ran inside and asked my mom for a carrot for our baby snowman.

“I have just the thing,” she said, and pulled a baby carrot out of the fridge.

We put gumballs on for Baby Snowman’s eyes. Then we put the carrot in for the nose, and to twigs for the arms. I began to ask my dad about a mouth, but then I stopped myself. Baby Snowman was perfect, even with no mouth.

Kelly’s Phone Quit Working

Posted on December 27, 2012 by jeb

Last night Kelly’s phone quit working. This is the one we did battle with Verizon over getting it replaced. In the end, Verizon reversed the $99 charge and told us we did not have to send back the refurbished phone.

I called Kelly down to talk to Mom and I in the kitchen and explained that the reason the phone quit working was my fault. I chatted with Verizon and they said I had failed to return the phone after getting the $99 credit, so they had disabled it.

Kelly could not believe her bad luck with this phone. I told her this may take days to resolve, so meanwhile, we repeated what we had done a couple months ago, and I asked her to pick from the 4 phones on the kitchen counter. (I keep old phones in the workshop.)

She started looking at the collection of 3 phones and tried to remember which one worked best for texting. She decided on Claire’s old red one.

I said, “That’s the best of the 4?”

She looked at the 3 and said, “Yes.”

(Kelly is not the best with numbers.)

“You don’t want to consider the 4th one?” I asked.

“What 4th one?” (Finally.)

I slide the magazine that was covering up the 4th one.

“What is this?” She said, looking at the white box. It was a new iPhone 4S.

We told her this had nothing to do with Christmas, but we wanted her to have a smart phone in Athens for many reasons. That there would be some strings attached.

I told her all the test messages we had been sending to her phone were inside the box and that it was already enabled. She was so surprised.

(I had gotten this on sale at Best Buy and they had to activate it in the store, which is why the refurbished phone quit working.)

Anyway, we are hoping this helps Kelly keep in touch with her friends and family more and that she can better coordinate doing things out and around campus.

Claire said she is now the only one without a smart phone. I reminded her Uncle Ted still has a flip phone.

Nicole
1/3/13
Reply to all
to Jeb, Danny, Kathy
Hahaha! This is a great story, got me off to a smiling start today 🙂 Kelly’s at orientation and texted me at 8 that one of my friends from Flagpole – a really nice, funny lady named Erin – checked her in.

Jeb
1/3/13
Reply to all
to Nicole, Danny, Kathy
A friend of Danny’s checked Kelly in to Spring Hill. I’m thinking this week is going to go better, though!

Kathy
1/3/13
Reply to all
to Nicole, Jeb, Danny, Kathy
How nice for her to see what I sure was a welcoming face!

Sent from my iPhone

Jeep Hits Deer

Posted on September 28, 2012 by jeb

Yellow Jeep Fix

Posted on January 2, 2012 by jeb

The Jeep had a rough year. There was the scary bear hidden under it. Kelly smooshed the right front corner when a guy stopped suddenly. It was stolen from the mechanic’s lot suffering scrapes, busted locks, and stolen (broken) radio. And then Claire smashed (worse than smooshed) the same right front when a friend stopped suddenly in front of her.

Lessons:

3 second gap not 2.
Don’t jump start.
Teens should not follow teens.
Look both ways twice. (That was Charlie’s lesson, but worth repeating.)

Some before and after photos:

The bill… Continue reading →

Dooley Spends the Night

Posted on November 15, 2011 by jeb

Late last night Clyde and Stout got very excited and wanted to go out front. This is usually a sign that Honey (neighbor dog) or some other creature is visiting. Sure enough, there was a scrappy little Boston Terrier out front, and he immediately started scrapping with Clyde and Stout. Play time.

I noticed he had a collar, and he let me get close and pet to him to look at it. No tags. Just a well worn leather collar. I thought he might be visiting with some neighbors who were still up and about, but no one called him. I let the dogs play and run around, but soon it was bed time. What to do?

I decided to put him on a leash and walk around the neighborhood thinking someone might be calling or whistling for him. I thought if we walked by his house, he might pull me in that direction. Very quiet evening. No whistles or calls. Eventually he did get very interested in a house as we passed by it. Honey’s house (which backs up to ours.) I let him off the leash, and he made a mad dash down the driveway into the darkness of the garage side of the house. I figured perhaps he was visiting them. After a minute or two, there was no sign of the Boston, so I cut through to our house.

There he was at our front door. He had made a mad dash “home.”

He was a very friendly dog, but liked to hop up on things and scratch at windows and doors, so I did not want him in the house. I thought about just letting him stay outside and maybe he would find his way home, but I didn’t want him getting hit by a car like Charlie. So I set up the wire dog kennel, got him to settle down in it on the screen porch, and I slept downstairs on the couch to listen out for him. Our dogs whined more than he did, and then we were all asleep.

The next morning, I let the three dogs out to play. I made two “DOG FOUND” signs and taped them on the stop signs at the two neighborhood exits. It was a good thing I had the day off. Within a couple of hours, Dooley’s mom called. She lives around the corner. We had walked right by his house! She had looked for him until 11 pm but never thought he would have come to our side of the neighborhood. (I think Honey was the draw.) She suspects that since Dooley had so much fun with us, he might come by and visit again. At least I know how to get him home… and what to call him.

I liked Dooley. We used to have a Boston Terrier on Silvastone that I thought was a neat dog. Susan W. says they “wheeze” too much because of their shortened snouts. He did some wheezing on our walk. I was ok with it.

Nervous Squirrels

Posted on October 28, 2011 by jeb

The squirrels in Athens are getting nervous. Visiting mom today, I set up a styrofoam plate in an Azalea bush and mom and I took target practice about 25 feet away. In the attached photo, shots 1, 2, and 3 are mine. Mom then fired the rest of the shots only missing the plate once! She was holding her arm out straight and also gripping the handle differently.

But here is the amazing thing. There is a cluster of three shots, #4, #6, and #7 that are all together! I was amazed that #4 and #6 were so close and then #7 went right through the middle of those two. I flipped the plate over for shots #8 and #9 (which I mislabeled 7 and 8.) So mom even had the closest shot to the center of the plate.

Now you know why the squirrels are nervous. Oh… and happy birthday Fiona!

Stolen Jeep Evidence

Posted on October 23, 2011 by jeb

This is a photo of the collection of evidence I gathered from the stolen yellow Jeep. We were happy to get the jeep back, and I guess the crime did not warrant a full investigation. Sherlock Holmes could have figured it out. The only thing not pictured is the baby diaper (not used) and the peanut shells and ashes in the back cargo area. Appeared to be a little tailgating going on.

Hispanic newspaper dated 22 de junio de 2011.
A nearly complete word puzzle.
A popsicle wrapper: Paleteria La Mexicana.
Two phone numbers on a piece of note paper.
A half of a scissor.
A removable flat head screwdriver bit.
An empty black pen.
An Air Heads wrapper.
A sprite bottle found in the center console.
An orange Bic lighter.
Our broken driver side windshield wiper apparently used to pry out the radio.

Claire Wins JV County (chart included)

Posted on September 19, 2011 by jeb

Claire has had very good runs this year getting her personal best two weeks ago with 22 min 13 seconds in 95 degree plus weather at Berry. It was so hot and dusty I was worried she would not finish, but not only did she finish, she came in third in the JV race beating about 400 other girls from multiple states. She worked hard this summer in training, and she has learned to manage her asthma medication in a disciplined way.

So with the cool weather Saturday morning for the county races, the conditions for a good run were in place. Claire lined up and came out running fast with 160 other JV girls. She and one of her friends were leading everyone at the 1 mile mark. Then at the 2 mile mark, Claire was ahead of her friend by about 20 seconds. And then as she came up on the 3 mile mark, she was so far ahead of everyone, the crowd did not realize Claire was part of the race. It looked like the pack way behind her made up the lead runners, and people were cutting in front of the raceway right in front of Claire. I had to yell “Clear the track! Clear the track!”

It’s hard to describe this, unless you’ve been to these races, but the lead Claire had was almost confusing. Kathy and I couldn’t believe it. Had Claire pushed too hard? Was she going to be able to make it? But every time we saw her in what is basically a twisty-turning figure 8 course, she looked calm and comfortable with her run.

Claire finished with an absolutely amazing time of 20 min 23 sec. (That’s Kathy stepping onto the course to get the shot. And HC friend Bob Williams doing chute duty.) Claire was all smiles and, while breathing hard, very happy with her run. Her coach came over and couldn’t believe it. “You just decided to skip 21?” meaning she wasn’t going to have a personal best in the 21 minute range, skipping right over to it and well into the 20 min range.

To try to comprehend what she did, I made a chart. (Of course I would.)

There were two races: 160 Junior Varsity girls and 140 Varsity girls. I’ve charted the top 50 of both races.

The bright yellow dot is Claire coming in first for the blue-line JV race. Notice the time gap between her and the next runner. The next four runners were all Brookwood girls and *they* had great times!

You do not see that kind of gap between any other two runners, although there is a similar, but smaller gap in the red-line Varsity run. The distance represented by Claire’s first place gap is enormous.

But as big as that gap is, look at the two yellow lines. That is Claire’s previous personal best and her new time. That is a tremendous improvement between two races.

Also notice that if Claire had run in the red-line Varsity race, she would have come in 23rd out of 140 Varsity runners! It so happens, that time put her in the elite top 7 at Brookwood. She is now one of the 7 who, if they all keep their current times up, go to state.

None of us (including Claire) knew she was heading for state in cross country. One team parent asked, “Who is that finishing so far ahead?” Another shouted, “That’s Claire Cashin our champion hurdler!!!”

Who knows where that girl is going next? However, I can tell you, she got all dolled up and looked just fab for home coming that same day. And then on Sunday she did us proud with her first lector duty at Life Teen mass.

And I should mention, she did a lot of this driving herself around. She passed her driver’s test earlier last week. A very busy week. I hope she gets some rest. But poor thing… this is what is on her screen right now. Not sure she likes these charts as much as I like mine. 🙂

Ceiling Hurdles

Posted on August 4, 2011 by jeb

Claire went to register for junior year and was surprised to see herself on a large banner hanging from the ceiling. She texted Kathy who grabbed a camera and took these shots. The principal told Kathy that she had hired a professional photographer to take these shots at regionals and create the banners.

So Claire and others will be inspiring kids in the lunchroom through the year. You have to admit, Claire’s photo fits the title: Focused!