Argh.

It got me. That cold/flu/whatever that everybody's had. It set in suddenly last night with a flaming throat, body ache and mild fever. Grrr. I had plans. Now I will sip ginger tea and pretend the world doesn't exist for a while. Wish me luck.

guess

guess
Originally uploaded by Somebody's Mom.

Okay, what do you think it is? Come on, take a guess!

My hubby found this in a "free" pile on the sidewalk. He picked it up very gingerly and brought it home to try to figure out what the heck it is. I googled the 800 number to find out. Hopefully your eyes aren't good enough to do the same.

Oh, and it's not rated X, except for Xtremely funny.

Good news and...

The mechanic said he had both kinds of news. The good news is that he thinks he got the problem figured out.

The bad news is that it caught on fire when he was driving it. Apparently somebody along the way left the heat shields off the exhaust. It did not burn up, thank goodness. But it burned up the engine compartment insulation and he got to see flames shooting out.

It's all about love.

It's all about love.
Originally uploaded by Somebody's Mom.

must...vent...now...before...head...explodes

Grrrrrrrrrrrr.
And double-Grrrrrrrrrrr.
My freakin' VW camper. We need to get rid of it because it doesn't work with the goob's booster seat and we want a different van anyway. So last May I sent it away with this guy who takes them, gets them all gussied up and sells them. He was supposed to do this for me and take a cut. He's done it many times and has a good reputation. He didn't really do crap. He let it sit all during the prime selling season and did not work on it. Finally, in September, I gave up and got it back from him.

One thing he was supposed to do when he had it was investigate why it occasionally missed when driven under load at freeway speed. He said he checked it out and it ran fine. But when he dropped it off, he said, "Oh, I think you need to get it checked out. It was missing when I drove it at freeway speeds." Uh, duh.

So, a few weeks later, in the beginning of October, I took it to the best shop in town with the VW/Porsche guru. I thought it would take a week or so. It sat. And sat. And sat. I'd call and he'd tell me how busy he is and promise to get to it. Finally, last week, he spent a little time on it. He found some debris in a fuel line and blew it out. Yesterday afternoon, more than four months after dropping it off, we picked it up. WooHoo! Finally! Now I can detail it and get it sold. Sigh of relief. We came home, even though I thought we should test drive it, because we picked it up at 5pm on a Friday, which is not a good time to break down on the freeway.

This morning I took it out for a drive, deciding it would be good to bond with it and feel the love again before spending the next few days detailing it for sale. And it's doing the same damn thing. It made it just as far as it ever does before starting to sputter on the freeway. So I pulled off, came home, and slammed a bunch of doors. I'm trying to contain the cussing, but it's very difficult. Very very difficult.

Life in general

My poor friend Angela. She has IC, which is not to be confused with this. Her IC is interstitial cystitis, which is not nearly as cool or delicious. It is exacerbated by just about anything one might like to eat or drink.

I will go without coffee and most of my favorite foods today, to see what it's like. To suffer alongside her. To feel the pain of a friend. Okay, maybe it's 'cuz we're out of milk and most food items and I don't want to fight the Super Bowl crowd at the grocery store, but I'll still be suffering. So when I'm stomping around the house saying, "Fug the SuperFreakingBowl!" it'll be said with not just boredom, but true anguish.

Life here is good. I've spent two days researching our next above ground pool purchase. Bigger! Better! More fun to be had! We've decided that this will be the Summer of Home. Instead of galavanting around, we'll stay home, play in the pool, garden more, and the goob will take some fun classes. Art, sports, music, whatever he chooses that falls within the budget.

Which reminds me, I keep thinking about getting a job. I have time. I don't want to clean our house or do our laundry and I do enough volunteering. So I find these part-time jobs in the paper and then I go, "Good Lord, what am I thinking? SUMMERS! I can't get a job! I need summers free to play with my family and do whatever the heck we want!" So, ummm, no job for me. No real job, anyway. I still do a few little contract jobs for clients. They send some cash my way and are kinda fun, except when I'm actually doing them. But as I'm intending to do them, and when I have finished doing them, they seem fun. Good enough!

And now, it is time to face the day. The sun is up. It's time.