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Mar. 6th, 2005 11:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI took Ash his pie. Trips to La's house expand interestingly to fill available time, and this one was no different. Good thing I had most of my Sunday chores (laundry, extensive cooking, trashy novel reading, etc.) done before I headed over.
After the pie and coffee, there was factoring polynomial fractions. See, it all has to do with Amsterdam. Ash wants to go to Amsterdam. Badly. Apparently it's his version of Shangri-La or whatever. Never underestimate the appeal of a den of iniquity. Anyway, La promised him that if he improved his (horrible) grades to all A's in his junior (current) and senior year of high school, she would send him to Amsterdam, with a chaperone to keep him out of serious trouble. The chaperone? That'd be me. I'm not sure how this happened, but what the hell. I've never been to Amsterdam and Ash is a good kid. Perhaps it will be fun. (Who in her right mind would send an eighteen year old boy to Amsterdam with a woman twice his age? My friend La, apparently.) Anyway. Amsterdam is why I was teaching Ash how to factor polynomial fractions. After his initial insistance that things like x^2 - 6x + 9 could not be factored, he picked it up quite rapidly and was moving right along with the factoring and simplification and multiplying and dividing and all like that when the phone rang and the evening unravelled.
Now, I should probably mention that while we were proceeding with the pie and the coffee and the factoring of polynomial fractions, we were doing so in utter defiance of the fact that there was a homeless woman pacing, like a big cat in a cage, around the living room of the doublewide, mumbling to herself. She was kind of in her own little world and we just... pretended not to see her. Now, a doublewide trailer isn't that damn big. It takes some doing to not-see a person pacing in the living room of a doublewide trailer, but we were doing it. Didn't feed her any pie, either. I don't have a real good explanation for why there was a homeless woman pacing in the doublewide. Best I can do is point out that Liss picks up strays. The homeless woman has been there two or three months, according to Ash.
Anyway, the phone call was Mellott, who'd just gotten a cell phone call from his daughter Brittany who was frantic about a terrible accident on the road. He couldn't get much out of her, but he called Liss to see if she could find out what the hell the problem was. Liss took off to check the roads. See, Eliza, who lives up the road from La's house, was out riding (horses) in the dark with Brittany. Odds were good that they were not horribly far away. Odds were good that if Brittany made the call, Eliza was the one who was hit. Both of those gambles turned out to be on the money. The wreck was about half a mile away, below Jimmy's house, on the blind turn. Eliza, who had been drinking, apparently had her horse broadside in the middle of the road when Randy Mearkle came round the curve. He hit her and her horse, a chestnut Hall Special named Jack who probably didn't deserve to die on the road like that. Eliza was apparently pretty beat up. An ambulance took her to the hospital.
Bill, a Connecticut man of Eliza's acquaintance, showed up shortly thereafter at La's to ask her to take the baby (Eliza has a son, less than two) while he went to see what was up with Eliza. La took the baby, who promptly went to sleep. Liss found the wreck and called back to ask La to round up her brother Theron and a tractor and lights for the tractor to haul Eliza's dead horse off the road. La called Theron while Ash and I stopped with the polynomials and went outside to start the tractor and fix the tractor lights. Theron showed up and he and Ash left to see to the dead horse.
About an hour later, Theron and Ash called to say they'd gotten the tractor stuck after they'd drug Liza's dead horse off the road. They were calling for pickup, so I went and got them. Liss came home after the cops went away and I got her to fix me a cup of coffee before she headed off to the hospital, which apparently was free from doctors. (I don't understand that. How can a hospital not have doctors in it? That's like a bank not having any money in it, isn't it?) I'm not sure what she expected to do at the hospital, but that's where she was headed.
Following that excitement, Ash and I sat back down to polynomial fractions. He did the remaining ten problems while I watched, drank my coffee, and offered moral support. Then I went home and Ash went out to milk the cow. The homeless woman continued to pace the living room. Ash says she goes outside to dance in the driveway in the middle of the night. The amount of mud that's out there, I'm amazed she doesn't lose a shoe doing it.
After the pie and coffee, there was factoring polynomial fractions. See, it all has to do with Amsterdam. Ash wants to go to Amsterdam. Badly. Apparently it's his version of Shangri-La or whatever. Never underestimate the appeal of a den of iniquity. Anyway, La promised him that if he improved his (horrible) grades to all A's in his junior (current) and senior year of high school, she would send him to Amsterdam, with a chaperone to keep him out of serious trouble. The chaperone? That'd be me. I'm not sure how this happened, but what the hell. I've never been to Amsterdam and Ash is a good kid. Perhaps it will be fun. (Who in her right mind would send an eighteen year old boy to Amsterdam with a woman twice his age? My friend La, apparently.) Anyway. Amsterdam is why I was teaching Ash how to factor polynomial fractions. After his initial insistance that things like x^2 - 6x + 9 could not be factored, he picked it up quite rapidly and was moving right along with the factoring and simplification and multiplying and dividing and all like that when the phone rang and the evening unravelled.
Now, I should probably mention that while we were proceeding with the pie and the coffee and the factoring of polynomial fractions, we were doing so in utter defiance of the fact that there was a homeless woman pacing, like a big cat in a cage, around the living room of the doublewide, mumbling to herself. She was kind of in her own little world and we just... pretended not to see her. Now, a doublewide trailer isn't that damn big. It takes some doing to not-see a person pacing in the living room of a doublewide trailer, but we were doing it. Didn't feed her any pie, either. I don't have a real good explanation for why there was a homeless woman pacing in the doublewide. Best I can do is point out that Liss picks up strays. The homeless woman has been there two or three months, according to Ash.
Anyway, the phone call was Mellott, who'd just gotten a cell phone call from his daughter Brittany who was frantic about a terrible accident on the road. He couldn't get much out of her, but he called Liss to see if she could find out what the hell the problem was. Liss took off to check the roads. See, Eliza, who lives up the road from La's house, was out riding (horses) in the dark with Brittany. Odds were good that they were not horribly far away. Odds were good that if Brittany made the call, Eliza was the one who was hit. Both of those gambles turned out to be on the money. The wreck was about half a mile away, below Jimmy's house, on the blind turn. Eliza, who had been drinking, apparently had her horse broadside in the middle of the road when Randy Mearkle came round the curve. He hit her and her horse, a chestnut Hall Special named Jack who probably didn't deserve to die on the road like that. Eliza was apparently pretty beat up. An ambulance took her to the hospital.
Bill, a Connecticut man of Eliza's acquaintance, showed up shortly thereafter at La's to ask her to take the baby (Eliza has a son, less than two) while he went to see what was up with Eliza. La took the baby, who promptly went to sleep. Liss found the wreck and called back to ask La to round up her brother Theron and a tractor and lights for the tractor to haul Eliza's dead horse off the road. La called Theron while Ash and I stopped with the polynomials and went outside to start the tractor and fix the tractor lights. Theron showed up and he and Ash left to see to the dead horse.
About an hour later, Theron and Ash called to say they'd gotten the tractor stuck after they'd drug Liza's dead horse off the road. They were calling for pickup, so I went and got them. Liss came home after the cops went away and I got her to fix me a cup of coffee before she headed off to the hospital, which apparently was free from doctors. (I don't understand that. How can a hospital not have doctors in it? That's like a bank not having any money in it, isn't it?) I'm not sure what she expected to do at the hospital, but that's where she was headed.
Following that excitement, Ash and I sat back down to polynomial fractions. He did the remaining ten problems while I watched, drank my coffee, and offered moral support. Then I went home and Ash went out to milk the cow. The homeless woman continued to pace the living room. Ash says she goes outside to dance in the driveway in the middle of the night. The amount of mud that's out there, I'm amazed she doesn't lose a shoe doing it.
