Yesterday Bruce takes the girls to preschool, and I am unable to get out of bed until 10-ish. Not because I am all groggy and fucked up from sleeping pills again, but because I know that after having spent the better part of the night before working on a client website, I will be greeted with half-dozen emails from said client with more corrections, additions, and other issues. It’s one of those jobs that just seems never-ending, and had I known how it was going to turn out, there’s definitely some things I would have set up differently. Nevertheless, I force myself to get up and have breakfast. Sure enough when I turn on the computer there’s the half dozen emails. Hello! Wheeee! The good news is this means the new cable modem I installed the other day really works.*

Then it was time to get some gas–I get tired of the husband’s game of “let’s see how far it can go before the light comes on!” sometimes–and popped in over at the kitchen outlet store across the street afterwards. To look at toasters. Their toasters were lame, but I picked up a pasta drainer and a cookie dough scoop, the latter being part of my fantasy of actually baking something for the girl’s Valentine’s thing at preschool. To maybe help make up for the fact I completely forgot their snack day that week we were sick–the local news called and said all the kids in their class starved to death and it was my fault. Where was I now? Oh yes. When I left, I recognized something outside:

Lynx! My grandfather’s car. The the girl just behind me in line buying a dutch oven came out and I asked her, “Is this yours?”

She confirmed it was, and I (almost giddily) told her it used to be mine.

“Brakes are pretty tight aren’t they,” I said. (Oh, charming!).
“Ha, yeah,” said the girl.

Ironically this was a point of argument between Bruce and I a few days before when we had our weekly dispute about Who Rolls Up More Money and Smokes It**; he contended that I/we wasted $500 to get the brakes fixed just before we sold it a few years ago. I think it was the right thing to do since they were in dire need of a complete overhaul and at the time it just didn’t feel right to sell a car off with completely fucked brakes. Because I knew even with us informing a potential buyer of the situation, whoever bought it probably wouldn’t do it and then car would pretty much have a brakeless express ticket to the junkyard. If it didn’t kill their asses first. I will admit the price of that little karmic peace of mind was a bit painful, but now that I was seeing the new owner for myself I am glad we did it. There was a student parking sticker on the front, a textbook on the floor and various cds scattered about–basically she appeared to be the same broke version of myself when I inherited it. And I am glad she has working brakes.

I politely pointed out the the tire on the right side was frighteningly in need of air. She acknowledged this gracefully. And, like a complete nut, I scribbled down my email address “in case she had any questions about it.” Then I let the poor girl get on with her day.

Check out the sweet radio. (Having seen the amount of cds in the car I think she really likes it too).

* * * * *

Other annoyances of the week:

1) So what was with Bill Gates walking off the set early on the Daily Show? You’re SO goddamned important you couldn’t wait just thirty seconds until they cut to the commercials? You have your own plane, it’s not like you were going to miss a flight. Do you have any idea what a rude ass it made you look like? Oh wait, you are an ass.
2) Bush saying “safe, clean nuclear energy” during the State of the Union address when those words don’t even belong in the same sentence together.
3) My new screen cleaner - I got this special stuff that doesn’t have any alcohol or ammonia. And true to it’s word, it doesn’t smell like either of those things. It smells like ass. Honestly it does.
4 ) This nautical crap Old Navy came out with. If these outfits were a contestant on American Idol I would be be laughing and asking them how much money they need for the Greyhound ride home back to Arkansas. I hate the nautical thing. Who the hell wants to dress like Donald Duck?

* What I have learned recently about old cable modems is that they don’t really up and die they just start performing really crappily.
** Therapist says we really need to stop doing this. He’s probably right.