the "fax"of life (part one)

I learned a very interesting fact this past week.

I can receive a fax on both my home machine and my office machine at any time of the day or night on any given day of the year from a penniless prince in Uganda, Nigeria or Etheopia. You choose any third world, politically unstable nation in the whole wide world and someone there will be able to send me a FAX.

BUT the girls at the copy center in Laie, Hawaii in the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA cannot figure out how to send a fax to my office during business hours; EVER!

Poor Sara tried three times (at a cost of $3 per time) to have the girls fax me a document last week. I never received it!

But hats off to innovation and technology.

1. Sara took a photo of the document with her digital camera.

2. Ben loaded the photo on to his laptap.

3. Said photo was then attached to an email which was then...

4. ...forwarded to my inbox.

I printed the email attachment on the FAX MACHINE in my home office!!!!

Go figure?!?

stupid human tricks...

The other day I had to run to the bank at lunch time so I set off on the two block trek in downtown Lethbridge. There are often a few odd things to see at that time of day downtown but what I'm about to describe wins the prize for ULTIMATE "stupid human trick".

I saw two guys chatting on the sidewalk about half a block away. From a distance, it looked like they were just out having a smoke. (did I mention it was -22C ?) I thought the one guy had some kind of amazing i-pod system because I could see these wires going from his ears way down and around his body into a back pack that he was wearing.

As I approached, the whole scene became just a little surreal. I gave my head a shake and tried not to stare as I walked by, eyes wide and mouth gaping in disbelief. The dude with the wires was actually hooked up to an oxygen tank that he was conveniently carrying on his back in the pack. The "wires"that I thought were for his sound system were actually those silicone tubes that wrap around the ears and then deliver oxygen to the nostrils. And yes, he was smoking a cigarette. I'm not kidding-

Can you spell "KA-BOOM!!!"

katie says the cutest things....part two

Katie's the baby in the family. The rest of us sort of understood what that meant but we were never sure if Katie actually "got it".

The other night she and Nathan were over for dinner and it became perfectly, crystal clear that Katie does "get it" and has probably understood for quite some time just what it means to be the youngest in the family.

Sara and Ben are living in Hawaii for a few months while Ben finishes his degree and all the kids are dying to go and "visit". Angela and Dylan have booked their flights and Jordan and Sara are planning to go in April. Even Diana is trying to figure out how to go see Sara while she's in Hawaii. (funny...no one was knocking themselves out to come see Sara when she was living in my basement) Anyhow...

So Nathan and Katie looked at their budget and their school schedule and the probable work schedules and Nathan just couldn't see how they could manage a trip to Hawaii to spend some time with Sara and Ben.

no matter how much fun it might be...........

Nathan just said, NO.

And Katie summed it up quite nicely for me, Wally, and Nathan in my kitchen on Sunday night: "This is so HARD for me! I am the youngest of five." Then she turned her gaze to Nathan and with those big, beautiful eyes penetrating, pleading....."I am used to getting whatever I want, whenever I want it. This just really sucks!"

Nathan looked a little surprised. Wally and I laughed so hard we almost cried.

And Katie....well Katie gets to be married to NATHAN KOEGLER!

katie says the cutest things....part one

After the "wedding palooza" our small, tight knit community

has been struck with an epidemic of

DIVORCE.

We're not quite sure how or when it happened but the fall out has been complete. At last count there were more than a dozen young newlywed couples who had abandoned their "happily ever after."

Besides being simply heartbreaking for those involved, the whole hot mess is enough to send shockwaves throught that group of young single adults that were (up until recently) anxiously engaged in getting engaged! A whole whack load of divorces in a short period of time is enough to make everyone nervous.

Of course you will all recall the "weekend of the weddings". That's when Jordan married Sara on Friday and Katie (my baby girl) married Nathan on Saturday. It was a happy, exciting time for our families; and so far, the marriages appear to be sticking! yay! (Insert audible sigh of relief here.)

The other night the new Mrs. Koegler (that would be my sweet baby Katie) was out with her good friend, Bonnie who is single. They got to visiting as they were watching the basketball game and of course, the subject of the "divorce bonanza" came up. Bonnie is Katie's relaxed, laid back friend; nothing ever really bothers her.

This night, however, Bonnie was really concerned about the epidemic of divorces and she was really trying to wrap her head around the situation without getting completely spooked. Finally she put the question to Katie (who after 4 1/2 months of marriage was the closest thing to an expert Bonnie could find)

"Seriously Katie, how hard is it REALLY to be married?!"

Katie considered the question for a moment and then answered Bonnie the best she could.

She smiled sweetly, nodded over to where Mr. Perfect (oops...I mean Mr. Koegler) was seated and said,

"Well, not everybody is married to Nathan Koegler..."

'NUFF SAID

What goes around, comes around

Last month the kids got together, pooled their meager resourses and gave Wally and I a box of cash for Christmas. What a great surprise!

They had really thought this through and it was so fun to have some money in the bedside table that we could spend on anything! We have a few fun trips coming up and I thought the best thing to do would be to use the $$$$ for fun money. I was excited to not have to save up for the fun I wanted to enjoy later on. I thought it was a great idea.

After Christmas, we got busy getting ready for "the wedding" so I sort of forgot about the cash and got busy with the festivities.

The night of celebration arrived. Everything went smoothly and we were winding down the family dinner with a few speeches when I got ANOTHER huge surprise! Wally gave his little "tribute to the bride" and was just heading back to his seat when he said, "O my gosh, I almost forgot-all my girls got diamonds this year except for my favorite girl." and then he pulled a little white box out of his jacket and offered me a

DIAMOND RING!!!!!

So while I'd been busy making pies and getting ready for the party, Wally had taken the cash and bought me a ring. (Angela had alerted him to the 10 diamond band the day she saw it.) What a guy! And what a great bunch of kids. I'm so lucky!

that explains a lot

I love useless information!

Some of the funniest things I've heard over the last little while have been derived from perfectly useless facts. For instance, this morning in my email I got a forward (which by the way, I generally ignore) that absolutely cracked me up. Its title was something about truths and I was intrigued so I opened it up and started to scroll through the list. This little diddy caught my eye and then smacked me right in the funny bone.

"The first testicular guard, "the cup" was used in hockey in 1874. The helmet was first used in hockey in 1974."

It only took the guys 100 years to figure out that the brain was important too!

And who knows? It was probably somebody's mother who insisted on the helmet. Just sayin'

huh?

In the early morning hours when I can't sleep, I often get out of bed and fire up the little macbook pro and "surf" the web. That's about all the surfing I can handle these days. I look up recipes and books I'd like to read. I research movies and musicals I'd like to see. I also check out seat sales to places that are WARM!

This morning when I opened my email, I was thrilled to see "air canada seat sale" in the subject line. I opened it up immediately and was thrilled to see lower one way fares to a number of destinations. I clicked the box for one way from Calgary (YYC).

Here's what I found:

Calgary to Cranbrook $209

Calgary to Honolulu $209

Duuhhh?!?!? You choose......