The highlight of the week was getting to spend time with
Cindy, my quilter/knitter friend from several of my Jean Moss trips. Cindy was
going to be in Nebraska for a quilting retreat and was coming to Lincoln to see
the International Quilt Study Center so I was meeting her for dinner on
Wednesday. I ducked out of work early when she called at 4:00 and Anne, who has
been on the receiving end of Cindy’s yarn boxes and so wanted to meet her, and
I met Cindy for a lovely dinner at the original location of Misty’s.
Misty’s is an old Lincoln staple – the kind of restaurant
that’s like stepping back in time 50 years, complete with round leather booths
and 50’s décor. I’d only ever eaten sandwiches at lunch at the downtown
location and it was a 900 calorie day so I was going for the filet mignon. OMG!
It tasted absolutely amazing, as did the green beans I got in an attempt to eat
healthier than a potato. The liberal amount of bacon the beans were cooked with
may have killed that but at least I was trying. I could have been eating
saltines and would have enjoyed it just because I was with Cindy. It was all
too short a visit as she had an hour’s drive to get to her conference so wanted
to get on the road.
I was happy to get an email later in the week that Cindy had
decided to get a hotel room near the airport on Saturday night because she had
a very early flight on Sunday. I gladly offered to pick her up and play. We
went to Penzey’s and World Market (my first time since they reopened in Omaha
after being gone for a few years) then lingered over dinner at Noodles. The
game was on so we had the place to ourselves and chatted for a long time. It
was lovely.
On a not so lovely note, we had some drama brewing over
water aerobics. I’ve been going religiously for almost ten years and cannot
imagine life without swimming with my friends in the pool. But a new Aquatics
person had been hired at campus rec and it had been clear for awhile that the
focus was shifting from us to the kids who were paying $60 each for four weeks
of swimming lessons. We’d had them in the pool since it reopened but we were
usually in the deep end while they were being taught in the shallow but this
year we were all crammed in, fighting for real estate in the shallow end and
competing for showers in the locker room. Rather than do a better job of
scheduling, the powers that be decided they should just cut the number of
classes to 2 per week down from 4. And one of the nights they picked was
Monday, when I have a conflict. Unacceptable!
After the announcement via email and our responses being
ignored for more than a week, we requested a meeting to discuss it. The brand
new aquatics person and her boss (the instigator of all this) met us before
class on Thursday in the locker room. It did not go well. The boss was
downright rude and snippy plus told us the water aerobics instructors were
under qualified RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR FAVORITE INSTRUCTOR! I was shocked at the
lack of professionalism and the politician like double speak. We also got zero
consideration. It was clear she’d already made up her mind to cut the classes.
We were all frustrated and vowed to attend the Campus Rec Advisory Committee
meeting the next week to plead our case but there seemed to be little hope.
Otherwise the week was uneventful. I started Monday with Power
Pump again, helped by the time change so getting up at 4:45 wasn’t so brutal. I
finished the offboarding training with my twelfth session on Tuesday morning,
did my monthly reports and got a flu shot. I didn’t sleep through until my
alarm went off until Friday so was more tired with each passing day. A relaxing
weekend helped me regain my energy.
The best part of the weekend was doing some leg work to plan
my next knitting trip, which included calling Paul and Joanne in New Mexico (friends
from our Jean Moss trips) to pick their brains on their recent trip to the
Shetland Islands for Wool week. Emailing were flying all day Sunday and by the
end of the day, I’d committed to this trip along with Gail and Eileen (2 of my
Canadian knitter friends), Cindy and her friend Erica, who was a total hoot on
the France trip, and Lori from the Wahoo knitters, who will be my roomie.
Unfortunately Sue can’t go but it’s hard to feel sorry for her when it’s
because she’ll be just coming back from a trip to Switzerland with her husband.
But alas, we do feel bad and will miss her a ton. But nonetheless I’m very
excited to go. Now to make it to June without my head bursting from excitement.
: )
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