:( vs. \0/
May. 27th, 2010 11:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dmarleyI have had an...interesting few days.
The set-up:
On Friday, I joined Weight Watchers, finally. I may post in more detail about the actual program later, but here the point is that I went in and signed up and got the materials so I could start going to meetings the next Monday.
Over the weekend I finally sat down to order to the new computer I wanted. My old laptop has been very faithful, but it's starting to glitch in that "my hard drive is dying" way, not to mention that I have to restart Firefox at least once a day to keep it from eating up all the RAM. And the backlight on the screen shorts out about three or four times a day. Little stuff like that.
To make the purchase, we had to transfer funds from the savings at my husband's credit union. Although the credit union did finally upgrade a few years ago from the Commodore 64 computer that used to run the system (that's 64K, by the way), apparently they haven't upgraded to having anyone on hand to make larger transfers on the weekends. So, we had to wait until Monday. No big deal, right?
Yeah, right.
Monday, May 24, 2010
7:00 am: All is well. I am on time, Boo is on time, we are dressed and breakfasted and the car is waiting by the front walk. We walk out to the car and Boo says, "Mama, your tire is flat." :(
7:15 am: I have called AAA. I have called my husband. I have called Boo's school to tell them she'll be late.
7:45 am: AAA tow truck arrives. I discover that the reason I've never found the stupid spare tire on my van (and I've looked) is that it's located between the front and middle row of seats, and that you have to remove the middle row of seats to get it out. The tow truck driver suggests that we see if the tire will hold air so I can drive it to a tire place without having to extract the spare. This sounds like an excellent plan.
8:15 am: Boo and I arrive at the tire place near our house. I did ask the driver if he thought the tire might make it the 16 miles to Boo's school (yes, I was a bit desperate). Not surprisingly, he suggested, tactfully, that the nearest tire place would be a better idea.
9:15 am: Boo and I leave the tire place with two new tires. I actually needed four new tires, but two unexpected tires per morning was enough of a budget decision.
10:00 am: Miss first opportunity for Weight Watchers meeting. :(
10:45 am: I drop Boo off at school, a mere two hours and forty-five minutes late. What the hell, it's her last week of school.
3:00 pm: I am done with errands and shopping and go home.
9:00 pm: We make attempt number two to order my computer. Everything goes smoothly until I realize that, even though we're using a secondary debit card to pay for it, we still need the security number of my primary debit card to complete the transaction. Because I have lost my debit card about fifty-five times in the last year (all right, twice), I don't have the number memorized. I go to get my wallet.
9:15 pm: I realize my wallet is missing, no really, and proceed to freak the fuck out. :(
10:00 pm: My husband calls the grocery store where I went last, and they say they have my wallet. I have, however, been freaking so long by now that my husband has already made arrangements to take Boo to school the next day. I go to bed and hope tomorrow is a better day.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
10:00 am: Miss second opportunity for Weight Watchers meeting.
8:00 am-4:00 pm: I spend the day doing happy soothing things like reading and surfing the internet and watching television. This works until my husband gets home and tells me that when he went to the store to pick up my wallet, they couldn't find it. :(
4:15 pm: Consider drinking, but I don't have enough Weight Watcher points for beer and I've already budgeted my extras for a muffin the next morning. In the struggle of beer vs. muffin, I opt for reading lots of hurt/comfort fanfic instead.
9:30 pm: On the advice of the day manager of the grocery store, we call the night manager again and ask her where she saw my wallet. She finds it again and tells us exactly where it is and reassures my husband that she is holding it in her hands and the stuff in it has my name. Having heard this before, I am skeptical but also desperate enough to be optimistic.
9:40 pm: We decide to go ahead and just order my new computer under my husband's account. It should arrive in the next few days. \0/
10:00 pm: I continue to hope that tomorrow is another day.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
6:10 am: Wake up and realize that I forgot to take a shower the night before as I intended. Take the fastest shower ever and am still on schedule despite getting up slightly past the On Time Without Shower time.
6:45 am: Boo wants cereal for breakfast, so I find a nice deep plastic container to take in the car. I fill it with cereal and then milk. As I fill it with milk, though, the milk starts leaking out the bottom of the container. And, yes, when I pick it up to pour the milk into another container, the bottom flops right off.
6:50 am: With Greebo's help, the milk is cleaned up and the cereal is re-fixed.
7:00 am: Here we are again. Ready for school, on time, on our way. I am not thinking anything along the lines of "Surely things will have to get better" because that kind of thing is just asking for it.
7:10 am: Stop at grocery store. The first person I ask about my wallet walks straight to the Lost and Found and the third wallet she shows me is mine. \0/ The cash is gone, but there was a grand total of about $3 in there, so I'm not too fussed. I've also kept an eye on my accounts and no one was using them, so I think I'm okay.
7:45 am: We are almost to Boo's school when I realize that the strange rushing air sound I've been hearing all morning is not, in fact, the wind. It's a horrible grinding sound that seems to be coming from the side of the car where the flat tire was. It's much worse when I put on the brakes, that classic "the pads are grinding on metal sound" that means brake work is in the future, but the grinding noise sounds much more expensive than that.
8:30 am: Return to the tire place where I got the new tires on Monday and explain the problem. I am very proud of myself for not panicking.
9:30 am: The mechanic takes me to my car and shows me where a piece of the undercarriage of the front bumper has torn loose and is scraping against the front tire. He says that, yep, this can make a really horrible noise. He doesn't charge me for his time or the zip ties he uses to tie it back in place. \0/
10:10 am: Sneak in late to my first Weight Watchers meeting. I have lost 3.5 pounds since Friday. \0/
It's now Thursday. All I've done so far today is forget Boo's lunch. Small potatoes. ;)
The set-up:
On Friday, I joined Weight Watchers, finally. I may post in more detail about the actual program later, but here the point is that I went in and signed up and got the materials so I could start going to meetings the next Monday.
Over the weekend I finally sat down to order to the new computer I wanted. My old laptop has been very faithful, but it's starting to glitch in that "my hard drive is dying" way, not to mention that I have to restart Firefox at least once a day to keep it from eating up all the RAM. And the backlight on the screen shorts out about three or four times a day. Little stuff like that.
To make the purchase, we had to transfer funds from the savings at my husband's credit union. Although the credit union did finally upgrade a few years ago from the Commodore 64 computer that used to run the system (that's 64K, by the way), apparently they haven't upgraded to having anyone on hand to make larger transfers on the weekends. So, we had to wait until Monday. No big deal, right?
Yeah, right.
Monday, May 24, 2010
7:00 am: All is well. I am on time, Boo is on time, we are dressed and breakfasted and the car is waiting by the front walk. We walk out to the car and Boo says, "Mama, your tire is flat." :(
7:15 am: I have called AAA. I have called my husband. I have called Boo's school to tell them she'll be late.
7:45 am: AAA tow truck arrives. I discover that the reason I've never found the stupid spare tire on my van (and I've looked) is that it's located between the front and middle row of seats, and that you have to remove the middle row of seats to get it out. The tow truck driver suggests that we see if the tire will hold air so I can drive it to a tire place without having to extract the spare. This sounds like an excellent plan.
8:15 am: Boo and I arrive at the tire place near our house. I did ask the driver if he thought the tire might make it the 16 miles to Boo's school (yes, I was a bit desperate). Not surprisingly, he suggested, tactfully, that the nearest tire place would be a better idea.
9:15 am: Boo and I leave the tire place with two new tires. I actually needed four new tires, but two unexpected tires per morning was enough of a budget decision.
10:00 am: Miss first opportunity for Weight Watchers meeting. :(
10:45 am: I drop Boo off at school, a mere two hours and forty-five minutes late. What the hell, it's her last week of school.
3:00 pm: I am done with errands and shopping and go home.
9:00 pm: We make attempt number two to order my computer. Everything goes smoothly until I realize that, even though we're using a secondary debit card to pay for it, we still need the security number of my primary debit card to complete the transaction. Because I have lost my debit card about fifty-five times in the last year (all right, twice), I don't have the number memorized. I go to get my wallet.
9:15 pm: I realize my wallet is missing, no really, and proceed to freak the fuck out. :(
10:00 pm: My husband calls the grocery store where I went last, and they say they have my wallet. I have, however, been freaking so long by now that my husband has already made arrangements to take Boo to school the next day. I go to bed and hope tomorrow is a better day.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
10:00 am: Miss second opportunity for Weight Watchers meeting.
8:00 am-4:00 pm: I spend the day doing happy soothing things like reading and surfing the internet and watching television. This works until my husband gets home and tells me that when he went to the store to pick up my wallet, they couldn't find it. :(
4:15 pm: Consider drinking, but I don't have enough Weight Watcher points for beer and I've already budgeted my extras for a muffin the next morning. In the struggle of beer vs. muffin, I opt for reading lots of hurt/comfort fanfic instead.
9:30 pm: On the advice of the day manager of the grocery store, we call the night manager again and ask her where she saw my wallet. She finds it again and tells us exactly where it is and reassures my husband that she is holding it in her hands and the stuff in it has my name. Having heard this before, I am skeptical but also desperate enough to be optimistic.
9:40 pm: We decide to go ahead and just order my new computer under my husband's account. It should arrive in the next few days. \0/
10:00 pm: I continue to hope that tomorrow is another day.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
6:10 am: Wake up and realize that I forgot to take a shower the night before as I intended. Take the fastest shower ever and am still on schedule despite getting up slightly past the On Time Without Shower time.
6:45 am: Boo wants cereal for breakfast, so I find a nice deep plastic container to take in the car. I fill it with cereal and then milk. As I fill it with milk, though, the milk starts leaking out the bottom of the container. And, yes, when I pick it up to pour the milk into another container, the bottom flops right off.
6:50 am: With Greebo's help, the milk is cleaned up and the cereal is re-fixed.
7:00 am: Here we are again. Ready for school, on time, on our way. I am not thinking anything along the lines of "Surely things will have to get better" because that kind of thing is just asking for it.
7:10 am: Stop at grocery store. The first person I ask about my wallet walks straight to the Lost and Found and the third wallet she shows me is mine. \0/ The cash is gone, but there was a grand total of about $3 in there, so I'm not too fussed. I've also kept an eye on my accounts and no one was using them, so I think I'm okay.
7:45 am: We are almost to Boo's school when I realize that the strange rushing air sound I've been hearing all morning is not, in fact, the wind. It's a horrible grinding sound that seems to be coming from the side of the car where the flat tire was. It's much worse when I put on the brakes, that classic "the pads are grinding on metal sound" that means brake work is in the future, but the grinding noise sounds much more expensive than that.
8:30 am: Return to the tire place where I got the new tires on Monday and explain the problem. I am very proud of myself for not panicking.
9:30 am: The mechanic takes me to my car and shows me where a piece of the undercarriage of the front bumper has torn loose and is scraping against the front tire. He says that, yep, this can make a really horrible noise. He doesn't charge me for his time or the zip ties he uses to tie it back in place. \0/
10:10 am: Sneak in late to my first Weight Watchers meeting. I have lost 3.5 pounds since Friday. \0/
It's now Thursday. All I've done so far today is forget Boo's lunch. Small potatoes. ;)