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it's only a little car trouble
September 19, 2016
Friday, I stopped on the way home from work to wash the Buick and fill it up,
then went home and had some Maggiano's leftovers for lunch. Filled up my
new pen, and took a nap with the B. When Spouse got home, he picked me up
out front and we ran over to Tommy's for a quick dinner and just came home.
We were both feeling kind of droopy so we made it an early night. (He had
spent most of his week at a training seminar, and I had my boss in the office
for most of mine. It wore us out.)
We ran into a spot of difficulty on Saturday; Spouse ran out early and picked
up some McDonanld's for breakfast--took the Chevy, and when he got home
he just parked in front of the house because we were going shopping later.
Fast forward--we are ready to go shopping, get in the Chevy, and--bitch won't
start. She's cranking, but she's not catching. Damnit.
But here's the part I savored--without skipping a beat, we went back in the
house, and while he called the mechanic and the tow truck, I went online and
reserved a rental car through Costco. The tow truck was there within 15
minutes, we hopped into the Buick and went out to Enterprise, picked up a
Hyundai Elantra, and were back where we had started in just over an hour. No
screaming, no yelling, no hand-wringing, blame placing, or other dysfunctional
bullshit. Just two capable people coping admirably with a small setback.
I know, to most people that is nothing. Dead normal, not even worthy of
comment. But for a couple of ACONs, it is a sweet and wonderful thing, for a
couple of reasons. First, it proves to us that we aren't like them, and
second...well, it proves that we aren't the worthless incompetents they always
told us we were. To Spouse and me, those are very special things.
I will just slip this in right here, as an aside: At Spouse's work seminar last week,
he had to make a "Bags" set--cornhole boards. The trainers provided beanbags
and materials, the participants had to make the boards. Funny thing--Spouse
HATES that game. He considers it a hick pastime with no place outside of
rural Iowa. And they made him take the set home. And he felt really guilty
about wanting to just throw it away.
So when he was on the way to pick up breakfast on Saturday, he stopped at
the closest park, and dropped the whole shebang off in the picnic shelter, for
anyone who decided they wanted it. I'm sure somebody had taken it by noon,
if I know Kenosha. Personally, I would have stuck it on the curb with a sign
marked FREE, and it would have been gone in 10 minutes, but he thought the
park would be more likely to get it into the hands of somebody who actually
wanted to play it.)
Anyway. Once we had the rental, and his car was dropped at the shop, we set
back out on our shopping trip. Menard's, Costco, and Meijer, which is a lot of
ground to cover. We needed quite a bit of stuff, so once we got home, there
was the big hauling in and putting away portion of the proceedings. A quick
sandwich for lunch, and then Spouse replaced the back doorknob and went
out to do a quick mow of the front, while I did some laundry. We both had a
lie-down about two, because we had dinner plans and wanted to be refreshed.
Niece had her Saturday night off, and she came to dinner at the Village
Supper Club with us, which was loads of fun. We hadn't seen her in ages. She
brought us our Mexico souvenirs; Spouse got cigars and I got a bottle of
Mexican Vanilla, which was very thoughtful of her.
And in return, we had a bottle of BBQ sauce from Russell's for her!
Dinner was great; we had cocktails and a rousing political discussion, Niece and
I split a shrimp cocktail, and she and Spouse had prime rib while I had one of
the specials--a very delicious and different take on Indian Butter Chicken.
After dinner, we took her shopping at Meijer, as she had shopping to do and it
gave us a chance to spend a little more time with her. It was a bit hard on my
feet, but worth it. And of course, when she got done shopping, Godfather
paid her bill. I've never known him not to, so it wasn't exactly a shock to either
Niece or me.
Once she was on her way home, Spouse and I finished the pound cake for our
dessert, and he crashed early, but I stayed awake till almost midnight. No
reason, I just couldn't fall asleep.
Once I finally drifted off, though, I slept like a champ. Slept in, in fact--and
woke to the smell of bacon & coffee, and the sound of the vacuum. Always
makes me smile and be grateful to my helpful hubs.
Once I was up, I pitched in with breakfast and we had a lovely meal of bacon,
scrambled eggs, hash browns and toast. Unfortunately, my tummy started to go
back on me, so I spent quite a while in the bathroom. But I came out to find
that he had done most of the dishes, which was a nice surprise! I gave the
kitchen its Sunday cleaning, worked on the laundry, and vacuumed out my car
while he did the backyard mowing and pool maintenance.
We had a case of the lazy stay-at-homes; neither of us felt like going out, so we
hung around the house, reading and relaxing. Spouse made his fantastic take on
Thomas Keller roast chicken, with roasted root vegetables. (Heirloom carrots,
Yukon Gold potatoes, sweet onion, and lots of gresh garlic cloves.)
Fantabulous, and plentiful enough to have again on Monday! I didn't bake this
week, because he decided he wanted vanilla sandwich cookies instead, which
was fine with me. I didn't really feel like baking. I didn't feel like much this
weekend, really. Just kind of blah. Gorgeous weather, but all it did was make
me lazy.
And the closer we get to the elections, the more I find myself avoiding social
media. Tumblr is okay, for the most part, but FB is full of all those opinionated
friends and relatives (both conservative and liberal) who make my justice bone
ache. I even find myself playing my cross-stitch game through the app, instead
of on the laptop, because I don't want to look at FB even long enough to get
to the game.
The Zoloft-weaning seems to be going well, though--I haven't noticed any
major reaction...I have had some sleep disturbances, which I've experienced
before when weaning off an anti-depressant. Vivid dreams, Bad dreams,
problems falling asleep.
I am cutting from 100 to 75 a day for two weeks, and then I will cut back to 50
a day for two weeks, 25 a day for two weeks, and see where to go from there.
And did I mention that I finally decided I'd had it with the mess of skin tags
on my neck and shoulders? I'm getting them removed a few at a time, and
hope to be free of them by my birthday next month. Maybe I'll ask for a new
necklace, to show off!
Reading: "Blue-grass and Broadway" (1918), by Maria Thompson
Daviess. Pleasant period piffle about a winsome southern girl of the decayed
aristocracy, and a hustling theatrical producer. Basic "lamb amongst wolves"
plot, with losts of familiar, comfortable stereotypes to make one feel at home.
"The Three Roosevelts: Patrician Leaders Who Transformed America" (2001)
by James MacGregor Burns and Susan Dunn. A $1.99 Kindle bargain, and
shaping up to be a fascinating read.
Listening: Talking Heads, Death Cab for Cutie, X Ambassadors, The
Pretenders, Jesus Jones.
Inked Up: Same as last week, with an addition: Goldspot had a
special on the Nemosine Singularity, so I ordered a fine-nibbed demonstrator
in Aqua. Very pretty, and though I'm thinking that it will be the pen I do my
eyedropper conversion on, I couldn't wait to try it out so I filled it with R&K
Blu Mare and took it for a spin. I like it! It's light, and the nib is pretty decent.
Certainly a good pen for the price--it was $14.95 with $3.50 shipping and a
very prompt delivery. I ordered the pen on Sunday and had it Thursday!
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