Inch by Inch

I do think I am moving forward but at a very slow pace. The shopping trip to Sam’s felt normal yesterday. The traffic on Washington was normal except for the missing traffic light at Langham. I got an email from a friend who said that she encountered the terrible traffic yesterday afternoon. I guess I was just lucky. Sam’s had a normal feel to it. There were so many people in the store during my first two trips after the evacuation. There were a normal number of cars in the parking lot and the normal number of checkout lanes open.

Texas hotels were instructed not to charge state and local taxes to Hurricane Rita evacuees. The Hampton Inns that I stayed at in Frisco and Richardson had the tax exemption forms for me to sign. The FourPoints in Texarkana charged taxes. I found the forms to get the tax refunded on the State of Texas websites and am going to send them to the hotel in Texarkana and request a refund. Every little bit helps.

Today I am going to work on restoring the other front bedroom to better than pre-Rita condition. I am ashamed to say this, but I have left my ironing board standing in that room for almost a year. I bought a new ironing board last year and have not got rid of the old ironing board. If I place the ironing board in the trunk of my car, it sticks out the back. I want to take it to the Goodwill collection point but hate the thought of transporting it. I am going to get it done. Then I can store the new ironing board out of sight. I am thinking about making the house presentable for sale.

The Beaumont Enterprise had an article that said Wal-Mart is not able to stay open 24 hours a day because they are sixty employees short. The Outback Steak House is serving a limited menu because they are short of employees. The area’s McDonald are sharing employees to fill gaps. People have not returned from their evacuations. Some of them have homes that were destroyed. Others have found employment elsewhere and are not coming back. I have no idea when Beaumont will return to something that resembles normal.

It is a good thing that I am the world’s champion mail order shopper. Buy.com sent my X-10 controller via UPS. This will be the first package to be delivered by UPS since my return. It is supposed to be delivered by tomorrow. I placed another order with L.L. Bean. I checked the FedEx tracking information and see that this package successfully made it through the Connecticut sorting facility that returned my first package to Bean. So long as the mail order firms can take care of my needs I can ignore the crippled businesses in Beaumont except for groceries.