Cranky old ladies
Last week, Laura came down to San Diego to hang out with me during the day and keep me from going out of my flipping mind with boredom. On Wednesday night, we were heading over to Casa de Moms to pick something up and hang out with them for a little while. laura decided she was hungry so we stopped at a taco shop near our old high school, one that could definitely be called part of our old stomping grounds.
Life in our hometown never changes, it seems. The teenagers eating carne asada fries looked just like the teenagers we were in school with 14 years ago, and the cramped parking lot was full of people fixing their cars thanks to the auto parts shop next door to the taco shop. That parking lot was the bane of my existence when I was in high school, because I drove a gigantic 1970 Chevy Impala and the parking lot was crowded on a good day.
Anyway, we got back out to the car and I had just started backing out when this beat up white minivan came behind us and stopped just enough behind me to keep me from backing out. The driver threw it into park, got out and headed into the auto parts store. And then I went bonkers.
"HEY!!" Laura was leaping out of the car and yelling even as I started honking. The guy's wife got out and got in the driver's seat...and pulled forward so she was right behind me.
"Goddamnit, move your fucking car!" I yelled, honking again.
Laura tried to tell me to calm down, to which I responded "I AM SO SICK OF THE GODDAMN IDIOTS IN THIS WORLD!"
The guy who was fixing his car next to us was, of course, laughing his ass off at this point. I just kept honking and cussing, until the woman finally figured out that she was just going to have to move her damn minivan out of the way. Laura was laughing her ass off at me, and made sure to tell me that I really needed to be calmer about things.
Funnily enough, a few minutes later when we were almost to my mom's house, Laura decided to demonstrate that she too needs to be calmer about things.
We turned onto a street that was half filled by a tow truck, and there, walking down the middle of the street like that was where she was supposed to be, was a tiny blonde girl who couldn't have been more than 2. And there wasn't an adult holding her hand or even anywhere close enough to pull her out of the street.
"Who's watching that child??" Laura screeched. "She's gonna get hit!"
And as we pulled up next to the little girl (who had at least had the sense to move out of the street as I inched towards her), we saw that there was actually a young guy with her. So what does Laura do? Rolls down her window and starts yelling at the guy as we drove by.
"You need to be holding her hand, you idiot!" etc etc
Seriously, I don't know how the two of us have never been shot for yelling at the wrong person. I guess it's just our natural charm that keeps us alive. In the meantime, we're planning on retiring together, and spending our golden years sitting on a porch and yelling at the neighborhood kids while drinking martinis.
I can't wait to be old.
File under "Shit, Holy"
DUDE.
You all know how awesome our wedding photographers are. And now, not only did one of their pictures get chosen for the Real Weddings issue of People Magazine, they just shot the wedding of Al Gore's daughter.
I AM NOT LYING.
Check
this out.
We had the same wedding photographers as Al Gore's daughter! I will totally be dropping that little bon mot all the damn time now. Please forgive my obnoxiousness.
Damn the man
So,
that happened. And really, I talk enough about it over there, so I'm not going to talk about it more here.
In other exciting news, since my car has not moved since I brought it home last weekend (what with the whole "I'm not allowed to drive for a week, fooey") and our street has actual street sweeping going on at random times of the month, we discovered on one of our walks yesterday that I got a parking ticket. It is luckily a measly $40 ticket but still! Meh. Damn the man and his stupid street sweeping rules!
In way more exciting and awesome news, we're going to go see Avenue Q! I am super excited, more than any grown woman should be about a puppet show that she had to pay LOTS OF MONEY to go see. But I am, oh so totally. So we're going to go see a matinee showing (a 5pm matinee, instead of a 2pm matinee because 2pm is too early for cussing puppets) on August 4th, which will be a good way to spend my last weekend before going back to work.
In not cool news, I'm pretty sure Riley has an ear infection, so today we're taking him to the vet, which he hates with every fiber of his tiny little being. We literally have to wrestle him into the carrier, and then he flails around inside it like a little pissed off dervish. Quite dramatic, that cat.
So that's what's going on here. Exciting, exciting life I lead, isn't it?
The car epic
Apparently the universe decided I needed something to distract me from tomorrow's Surgical Adventure, because my car turned against me on Thursday.
See now, my passenger side window was acting wonky for like...a year. It would decide to just not work every now and again, but I was always able to get it rolled back up so whatever, right? Then about 6 months ago, it stopped working at all. No reaction from either my master switch or the switch on the passenger door. But it was no problem to me, because A) it was rolled up and B) I have A/C in the car so it's not like I needed it to open so I could stay cool.
But on Thursday morning, I turned the key in the ignition and as the car started, the passenger side window rolled down all on its own. And it wouldn't roll back up, which presented a pretty obvious problem, what with me not wanting my car to get stolen and all. So I took it to my mechanic, thinking it would be done at the end of the day, as my car repairs always are when I take my car in to them.
First diagnosis: burned out motor regulator in the door. Cool, a quick easy repair. Except...the new motor burned out right after they started testing it.
Second diagnosis: bad master switch. Unfortunately, they didn't have on in stock, it was 4:00 and I had an appointment so I was going to have to bring it back on Friday.
Friday afternoon: Um, it's not the master switch, it's a wire in the harness. The car needs to stay til Saturday, but wait! I have to be somewhere first thing Saturday morning! Whatever shall I do? (Cue Melinda freaking out and scaring her mechanic into promising large discounts)
They rented me a car, with the promise that my own car would definitely be done on Saturday afternoon because the wire thing was the absolute last possible thing that could be wrong with it. Did they rent me a nice, decent car with a nice stereo and good gas mileage? No, I ended up with a Chevy Aveo, which was white and looked amazingly like the the little white car in the Wii commercials.
I took one look at that car and thought "This car is not going to go with my fat ass in it." But it did, thank goodness because I had things to do. Things like pick up my Little Sister and take her miniature golfing! And pick up my bridesmaid's dress (which came in this weekend, a full 2 months before it was expected)!
I finally got my own car back, after three days of DRAMA. I did, however, get it back for under $500 which was totally awesome considering that just the 5 hours of labor that it took to do the rewiring should have cost me $500. My mechanics redeemed themselves in the end, but the whole situation exhausted me.
So now I'm going to go take a nap and continue trying not to freak out over the fact that I am checking into the hospital in 14 hours.
