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running hard and losing ground
March 02, 2015

The car had another major issue this past week--I was just settling into my luxurious day of solitude last Monday--the last day of vacation, and a chance for me to recharge my batteries a little, when in waltzes Spouse at 8:45 in the morning. Seriously. What. The. F**k. Is it him that cannot stand for me to have a little time to myself, or is it the cosmos? The tale he told was that there was no heat at his work, so they called it off. And to top it off, he had taken my car to work (another one of his little controlling behaviors), and decided that the coolant leak was becoming an issue, so he dropped it off at the mechanic and caught a ride home from the guy's kid. (You notice that he didn't decide this during the week I was out of town and didn't NEED the car...)

Anyway--turns out to be a job that requires major work and the car to be in the shop for several days. So what was I supposed to do, I asked? Well, get dressed and we will go over to Enterprise and rent one. I tried to get him to give me a minute to go online and reserve one, but since he was in full-blown control mode, he over-rode me and we went straight there.

And, because we did that, we ended up paying Cadillac prices for a little shitbox Nissan Note.

Seriously--even an hour's difference between reserving and picking up could have saved us about $13.00 a day, but Mr. Knowitall had to do things his way. And I, as usual, have to pay. Specifically, $280 for a Monday to Thursday rental.

After that, we went over to the tax lady to sign our forms. Well, for the second year in a row, she messed them up and had to re-do. Not the good kind of re-do, either--the kind where you pay more. Good thing Spouse double checked about the consulting job he did last year! I'm beginning to wonder if it wouldn't be a blessing in disguise to have the tax lady retire so we had to find a new one.

After we got the taxes sorted and signed, we grabbed lunch and went home. I finished up my laundry, took a nap, read, and made spaghetti for dinner.

So Tuesday thru Thursday: I had to drive the rental to work, work was the usual hell of catch-up after vacation.

And Thursday morning, we had a small blizzard for drive time. Seriously. By far the worst driving conditions of the winter. The roads were so horrible you couldn't see the white lines, and because it was TATTKMD, it was genuinely scary as f**k.

But, as is often the case with late-winter lake-effect snowstorms, the time I left work it was sunny and there was not a sign of it on the road. In addition to that little treat, I had to deal with a project audit. Ugh. It is hard to keep from saying something when the people charged with finding faults in your work--people who were hired because they are supposedly experts in this specific area--are complete imbeciles. Not only do they seem lost on the subject matter, but they cannot even spell or form intelligible sentences. They don't let any of that stop them from making a lot of demands and a lot of extra work for me, though.

Once I did get off work, I had to schlep to the gas station and fill the rental, drop it off, pay the bill, and have them give me a ride to the mechanic, pay the mechanic, and drive the car home. Whee. At least the weather was on board by that time.

$669.23 to repair the leak: he had to replace the gasket for the timing chain cover, which meant tearing the car half apart, of course.


Friday, I went after work to get my tooth filled, and a verdict on my partial. Filling went fine, but as for the denture: it's shot, need a new one. My dental benefits were cut in half last year, and I simply cannot afford it, so they mended the old one as best they could and I will have to start saving up, I guess.

Spouse came in the door at 5:30, feeling chuffed. He found a 20-dollar bill stuck in the ice in front of the house. Must be nice.

Since the new filling meant soft foods, I had mac & cheese and a pudding snack for lunch, and we dined on chicken-noodle soup and tuna salad sandwiches.
Saturday morning we got up and I started some wash before getting cleaned up and dressed. We went to breakfast, filled the car up, drove over to the GSA camp & bought 8 boxes of cookies, stopped at the travel agent to get some LV quotes for our 30th wedding anniversary trip, and did the grocery shopping, then came home and I finished the laundry up for the day.

And after realizing that I had celery, carrots, potatoes, onion, tomato juice, and a hunk of leftover roast beef to use up, I made a huge pot of soup for freezing. Ended up with about 5 quarts of vegetable-beef soup with orzo--filled three large freezer containers and had just enough left to take for lunch on Monday. And now, when we are tired and out of meal ideas on a weeknight, I can throw together a pan of cornbread and heat up a tub of homemade soup.

We didn't have that for dinner, though. Spouse made gourmet pub burgers in his cast iron grill pan, with homemade baked beans and deli potato salad for sides. Mine had smoked gouda cheese and bacon, 1,000 Island dressing, sweet pickles, lettuce and tomato, on a toasted bakery bun. It was fabulous. So were his beans--he makes them better than I do, I swear.
And for breakfast on Sunday, he kept up the quality. His diner french toast with my blackberry topping, sausage and coffee. We hadn't planned to go anywhere, but he was planning his dinner menu and decided to make a chicken dish that required lemons, so we took a quick run to the store, and let the B go along just for a treat. That was the big move of the day, because when we came home I stretched out on my bed and read/napped all afternoon.

And got up to the tantalizing aromas of his herb & citrus-infused roast chicken on a bed of fresh carrots and green beans, with rosemary potatoes on the side. WHAT a dinner. I'm telling you, if I'd ordered that at Bouchon, it couldn't have tasted any better. It was magnificent.

And this week? All the out-of-town bosses are in the office for quarterly meetings, so there's that to deal with. More audit crap, and one of my projects is in the lawyers and financials phase, which is always a treat. Oh--and snow/freezing rain forecast for tomorrow morning, so I can expect another morning commute from hell.
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Reading:
"Seven Little Australians" (1894) by Ethel Sybil Turner. One of those books of that era, where parents leave the kids to raise themselves, then the adults find fault with them when they get into difficulties. (Some similarities to The Treasure Seekers/Wouldbegoods in spots, but Nesbit's characters had it a little better--their dad loved them, even if he was depressed and broke. And they had Albert's Uncle.) The dad in this story is more of a Captain von Trap--i.e., an irascible dick. And even though he remarried and gave them a young stepmother, she's no Maria. Only 20, has already already given the guy a seventh child, and is a hopelessly inadequate parent herself, leaving it to the older kids to do the bulk of the work for her. Listening:
More Green Day. I'm just in that kind of mood.

recede - proceed

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