Random life stuff.

1. I signed onto Blogger just now to write this post and they have "updated" the dashboard interface and they're sure I'll "LIKE IT". Well listen up you jackasses. I DO NOT LIKE IT. I DO NOT LIKE IT WITH GREEN EGGS AND HAM. Stop screwing around with stuff.

And now back to our originally scheduled blog post:

1. If you want to really entice me, do what Jarib Kent did: Send me spam with the subject line "Carol is a Moron." I swear to God. And I'm keeping it just 'cause.

2. The Sister called today. She may have been infested with alien gay germs but at least she observed The Weekend Rule and didn't call until 12:01pm. But then the continuing saga of weird continued. Let's listen in...

Phone: BRIIIIIIIINGGG. BRIIIIIIIINGGG. BRIIIINNNNNNNGGG.
Me: dhiopwlkhjdfs.
Phone: BRRRIIIIIIINNGGGGGGGGGOIIIIIINGNNGGG.
Me: shjoasdkjgejh.
Me: (yank phone from table, flip open) Hwkoish?
Her: Hey, are you OK?
Me: Ahioe Aknodiu.
Her: Are you awake?
Me: AKHJGDOIEN!! LKSFN!!!!
Her: Sorry I woke you up.
Me:
Me:
Her: I just want to know if you want to go to Boliver with Us (she and The Girlfriend.)
Me: Boildifver??
Her: Yeah we cleaned out all the fresh and frozen meat from the fridge and we're going down there to have a big BBQ.* Ya'll should come! Pack up the Black Dog and come down.
Me: Boildifver?
Her: Are you OK?
Me:
Me:
Me: Boliver?
Me: Boliver?
Me: You're going to Boliver? In August? To set a fire?
Her: Yeah! It's not all nasty and humid today.
Me: You two are out of your fucking minds. Call me in November and invite me to go to Boliver and set a fire.
Her: Oh you mean to The Gulf of Colorado.
Me:
Me:

#2. I'm sitting in the Panera Bread on 105 in Conroe yesterday. We'll get into WHY I'm there sometime soon because this is NOT normal behavior for me. Anyway, I had brought my laptop to entertain myself while I waited for the person who was coming to meet me. I ran my email, read a couple of newspapers. Then I clicked on my link to AC here so I could go cruise some of the links I keep on the left over there.

But the Panera spam filter gave me this instead:

Pron. I'm PRON!! I feel so proud.

#3. I tried wearing real shoes last week. School is starting in about a week or so and I've been wearing slides for three months - since THE ANKLE SURGERY. (You wanna see the picture again? Yeah, I didn't think so.)

So I tried wearing some regular shoes last week because I'll need to you know - not look like it's still summer anymore - and all that. My left foot was OK (of course it had the stretchy brace on it). But my right foot? Hurt like hell. Would have gotten a blister if I hadn't gone back to my slides. Oh the irony. I've basically been barefoot since May 1 (my natural and preferred state). Now I will pay. PAY I tell you. I must return to the land of the Shod People and I'm not going to be happy about it.

#4. OK. Let's talk about BBQ. Mmmmmmm. BBQ. I've talked with ya'll before about Coopers up near Llano. Mmmmmmmmm. BBQ. So now I am going to share with you a musical review of BBQ. Mmmmmmm. BBQ. Pay attention and you'll learn something.

BBQ is MEAT.

________________________________________
*See attached video about BBQ.

Labels: Blogger, miata, personal urban drama, texas

To trade or not to trade?

I'm thinking about upgrading my 2004 Miata to a 2008. I am on the cusp of my factory warranty and I think I'm at the point where I will start loosing significant value if I don't move up to a newer model. I have a NB and the 2005 was the last of that line so that will start making a big difference soon.

I found a blue 2008 that is used with about 2K on it with the convenience package that I want. They have $19,899 (like I'm too stupid to know that's basically $20 thousand dollars). This isn't a horrible price but I want them to come down at least a thousand just because I want them to. I'm a pretty good negoatiator when it comes to buying cars so we'll see how that goes. The blue is my second choice of color - the copper red is my first because it's gawjus but it's not worth and extra $3k to get a new one.

My trade in with all the extras on it would have been at $23K when I bought it in 2004. I got it used with 1,200 miles on it for $17,800. So I don't thinkk getting this blue on for another thousand down is unreasonable. It would go for about $25K if it were new.

I've researched the worth of my 2004 - which truly is in excellent condition - and for private sale it should go in the neighborhood of $14K - it only has 30K miles on it - but if I trade it in I don't know that I can get more than $10 or $11K out of the dealer. I hate to trade in. I've never actually done it. I've always done a private sale.

But I've always done it with all the time in the world - the timing on this would have to be tight because once I sell my 2004 I won't have a car until I buy my new one. That could be tricky.

I hate grown up decisions. I want some ice cream.

Labels: miata

Two true stories:

Number One.

A close friend of mine and her sister love each other but have a sometimes stormy relationship. They are the kind of sisters who are so close that they can drive each other crazy better than anyone else in the world.

Friend and her sister, well, they are animals of the modern age. When they argue.... they do it... I am almost unable to type this... they argue via text message.

Now, I'm sure that you (as I did) might wonder how they get across the emphasis of wonderful accusations such as:

"You're a BITCH" or
"I hate you and so did Mom" and my all time favorite:
"You have HAIR growing out of your chin".

Well I can tell you - they're just master texters. That's the only way this sort of arguing can work.

I'm talking to dear friend the other day and she's recounting a story about a recent text argument she and her sister had. She said that when her sister gets cornered in an argument that her technique is to deflect the argument off point. That's where we come into the conversation - the sister is deflecting but the friend will not be put off.

Sister: (something that is deflectish)
Friend: Cop Out Cop Out Cop Out
Sister: That's a low class word!
Friend: A Low Class Word??? IT'S IN THE DICTIONARY!!!

Yeah. I know. That makes a lot of sense but hey, my friend's degree is in Library Science so I guess if it's in the dictionary then you're just fucked.

Number Two.

I lost my freaking car key. Lost. As in my airliner broke up in mid air, I crash landed on a deserted beach and all the men are still sexy, don't stink, and their teeth are still shiny white even months later. That kind of lost my keys. And of course I'm now late to work.

I'm searching and lifting things up and shaking them, hoping to hear that friendly car key sound. I seriously thought about shaking The Black Dog, just in case. The key is not where it belongs, and it's not where I went when I first came home (kitchen counter). I searched the car like a mongoose looking for the last cobra in India. Good thing it's a small car cause people, I was LATE. I'm so freaked out that I'm actually sitting there thinking "hmmmm could I have left it somewhere?" and I have to consciously remind myself that damned it, I DROVE THE CAR HOME so where the hell could I have LEFT it??

Finally I give up and call the Mazda dealer. This is the conversation:

Them: Can you hold please? (Puts me on hold before I can say OF COURSE!)
Them: Hold.
Them: STILL hold
Them: Badbadbadbad hold music.
Them: Hi can I help you?
Me: I hope so. I lost the key to my car. I have an '04 Miata.
Them: Well you know that's a programmable key - all those cars past '03 have them.
Me: Uh-huh. I have my key code. Can you make me a key and deliver it?
Them: Noooo. You'll have to drive your car here so we can cut a key and then use the computer to program it for your car.
Me:
Me:
Them: Hello?
Me: Did you just say I have to DRIVE MY CAR there? DRIVE MY CAR????
Them: Well we can't make a key without the car here.
Me: OK lets go through this again. L O S T K E Y. C A N N O T D R I V E C A R. HAAAAVVEEE NOOOOO KEEEEYYY. CANTDRIVECANTDRIVECAR.
Them: Well yeah I guess that's true.

Labels: miata, personal urban drama

I do not freaking care what he says. It is all his fault.

If it weren't for the fact that he did this great thing that made me very proud of him, I wouldn't have gone to the grocery store to buy the Crunch 'n Munch as a congratulations present.

And if I hadn't bought the Crunch 'n Munch to congratulate him, I wouldn't have had to get it out of the car.

And if I hadn't needed to get it out of the car, I wouldn't have been naked in the garage, leaning over the passenger door of my zoomzoom, stretching to reach down into the floor well to get the bag the Crunch 'n Munch was in when I heard the automatic garage door opener start to open the garage door.

And if he hasn't hit his remote to open the garage door when he pulled into the driveway, I wouldn't have had the fastest string of thoughts ever in my life shoot through my brain - Garage Door! Opening! Carol! Naked! In Garage! RUNHIDE!RUNHIDE!RUNHIDE!

So it is his fault that I had this chemical flight reaction - there was no "fight or flight" - what the hell would I have fought? - of jerking up from the inside of the car and attempting to twist my left leg to the left and sprint to the left all at the same time because the only cover in the garage was to the left - at the back of my little zoomzoom. There was no way I could make it to the door into the house in time.

The problem is that, when my lizard brain flipped my body to the left to run from utter mortification, the sound that came out of my ankle was POP.

And that is why it is my husband's fault that I am propped up in the living room with my horrifically painful ankle on a footrest, happy that I have a stock of legally prescribed opiates on hand at all times. Happy that after I was recovered enough from The Accident that instead of getting rid of my Durable Medical Equipment I thought, you never know when you're going to need a cane, or a walker, or a wheelchair. Cause, well, ya know.....



It's all my husband's fault.

Labels: husband, medicine, miata, personal urban drama

I was out for supper this weekend with a few lady friends. One of them, Mel, loves me dearly but declares that she has no time to read AC because when she is at work she "WORKS". My thought is, well, yeah. But it's not like she lives in a cave so, if she really loved me, should could read me at home.

The other two ladies said they both read me regularly. One of them, Lisa, I know reads me at work (even though I know that when she is at work she also WORKS).

The other one, She of the Loveliest Hair, Mrs. VDH, well, I have no idea where she reads me. But she started complaining that I haven't been posting enough lately. And then Lisa started complaining, too.

I complained back that I'm not getting the love. I told her that if my loyal public would leave me loving comments, i.e. "Hey Carol Damned You Post Already", I might be inspired to spew more often. To which, she and Lisa both declared: WE ARE LURKERS. Well damned. I'm getting no love from them. But here I am, giving it to them.

This is the latest randomness. I don't normally do randomness, but that's all they're getting.

When I got home tonight and walked into the house from the garage, I smelled food. It's nice to come home and be greeted by the smell of The Husband having supper almost ready.

Hey, you - in the big black SUV who almost rear ended me so you could get around me in traffic today? Yeah, you. You're the same guy who cut off the little red Honda Civic in the lane next to me so you could get in front of them, too. Didn't you feel like a big man when we both pulled up behind you at the red light? Yeah. All that maniacal driving got you way far ahead, huh?

My ZoomZoom has been in the shop for about a week because it had developed a leak at the apex of the driver's side window, the wind screen, and the top. They had to replace all sorts of rubber pieces. I had a loaner. There is a lot of room in a Mazda 3 but there isn't any ZoomZoom.

Exiled Cult member Celeste was in town last week from Virginia for a short visit. I love hugging her. She's tiny and she smells wonderful. She gives great hug, and her hair is like silk. She has the greatest smile, and she hugs like she never wants to let go, even if she just saw you yesterday. Also, her shoes are great. We all miss her.

Cult Leader Susy left me again last Wednesday. I've been really snippy to her because I can be, but I did bring her a dozen roses on Monday. When I dropped them off at her new office the receptionist asked if she should tell Susy who had left them. I told her that no, Susy would know. I'm thinking the receptionist thought maybe I was a girly stalker. Every time Susy leaves me I make sure she has flowers the first day at her new job no matter how snippy I am being. This makes THREE. Bitch.

The 4 year old nephew of one of our Honorary Cult members drown last week. All the horrible things you can think of accompanied that along with some things you couldn't imagine. For instance. On the online version of the Houston Chronicle readers can leave comments. Folks who read the first news story about it left the most vile comments, such as "Why was the mother at work and not at home with her child?" etc. Just disgusting stuff.

Moleskin really works.

I was really sleepy this morning while I was in the shower. I didn't even take the time to dry my hair before I left for work. I had the windows down in the car and I was finger combing my hair, trying to get it to dry. It was very silky because I am using a new kind of conditioner. It felt so good I started to worry that I hadn't remembered to wash the conditioner out of it. I concentrated really hard but I just couldn't remember. Hmmm. Work conditioner into hair. Shave legs. Scrub face. Rinse conditioner??? RINSE CONDITIONER??? Am I going to look like I used Brylcreem all day? Thankfully, no. I apparently am capable of bathing from start to finish even when I am asleep.

I've taught The Black Dog a new trick that is absolutely HELL for him. I take a chicken flavored rawhide. I place it on my left shoulder. (He and I are both on the bed when I'm doing this.) I make him sit at the foot of the bed while I'm at the head of the bed. I make him sit and stay. HE QUIVERS. He mourns. His tail vibrates. His nose sweats. I say, "Stay". I move the rawhide around a bit just to torture him a little. I'll let this go on for three or four minutes before I say "OK!". MAN does he move! But then he very, very gently lifts the rawhide off my shoulder and lays down to kill that hard piece of cow. He's a good dog.

I got a wild hair and bought a bright red purse on eBay the other day. Can't wait til it gets here. Enough of this oh so chic black crap. I want to glow in the dark.

There, Mrs. VDH and Lisa. Happy now?

Labels: cult, husband, miata, personal urban drama

You're trapped in a car that has been smashed to hell - the entire front end has been torn and crushed. You have, too.



It's rush hour in the fourth largest city in the country. Gridlock on the freeways. On a good day, in normal traffic, you're 30 minutes away from the nearest level one trauma center. Once you get cut out of your car. At 6 p.m. on a Monday it will take more than an hour to get your there by land. There is a local hospital about ten minutes from where you are, but if you are taken there you might not live. They aren't equipped or trained to help people who are hurt as badly as you are.

The Memorial Hermann Life Flight helicopter is called for while you're still trapped.



Finally, as you're strapped in for your first helicopter ride you are broken and bleeding, you are unconscious, you are helpless. Thanks to the Life Flight helicopter, twenty minutes after you are cut out of your car, you are in the Memorial Hermann Emergency Department being cared for by some of the most dedicated, talented, and experienced emergency medicine health care professionals in the world. They are your best chance at life. And you don't even know any of this is happening.

You owe your life, in truth, to James Henry Duke, Jr., Md. Dr. Red Duke. He is a legend in Houston. Without him, there would be no Life Flight helicopter to swoop out of the sky staffed with experts in their field to whisk you away to Hermann, to save your life.

The four helicopters that currently fly for Memorial Hermann are, on average, about 17 years old. They have thousands of flight hours. They have no GPS, no ability to download vital information to the emergency room that is your destination. Not a single one was designed to address the special needs of patients who are children. How many people do you know who drive a CAR that is seventeen years old?

The city of Houston encompasses more than 500 square miles. Life Flight services a 150 mile radius from Houston. They go all the way down to Victoria, over to Lake Charles in Louisiana, down to Galveston and up to Brenham. Just last weekend on the way home from Austin I witnessed a horrible accident on Highway 290 at 36 in Brenham that involved four people. One died. The other three were flown to Houston on Life Flight helicopters and they lived.

These helicopters fly more than 3,000 missions a year and are in such heavy demand that, on average, they must turn down over 100 requests for help because there just aren't enough helicopters and staff to respond to all the people in need. What if you are that person who doesn't get helped, who doesn't live because there just isn't help available. What if you are that person's husband? What if you are that person's mother? One quarter of all Life Flight patients are children.

The dream is six new helicopters and support facilities. The helicopters will cost $36 million dollars. It will cost an additional $1 million to build a new central dispatch and operations center, and to add a new operations base for the east side of town which doesn't have one right now. Another $3 million is needed to train staff, upgrade technology systems, and provide community education and outreach. Currently, more than $20 million has been raised toward a goal of $40 million.

You can't even imagine ever needing a Life Flight helicopter. Neither did I. You don't have to be rich to support this fundraising program. You just have to care. As you can see, I do.

Labels: accident, headlines, medicine, miata

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.

It's been a week of repeats, all of them good!

Last weekend I got the Austin itch again and zoomed off to the Capitol City to test the tread on Lime Creek Road. Nothing to get your blood pumping like running 15mph hairpins at 45mph while The Black Dog smiles like a maniac. And again, I can't recommend the chicken verde enchiladas at Kerby too strongly. Nice visit with The Bro. He keeps saying "It feels like you live here and we get to hang out! I know you want to move here. That's how I ended up in Manhattan."

I do love Austin but I wonder if I would like it so much if I had to get up and go to work or do laundry up there all the time.

The best the scrumdiddlyumptious best part of the week was The Cult Leader. The train rides again. My six months of slovenly sweet unemployment has ended with the most perfect resolution. This Monday I started my new job, and I am beyond blessed that it is once again working with my Cult Leader. We make such an awesome team. She calls me her security blanket. I can't see how that is true - I feel so strongly that it is the other way around. How can a person not feel truly loved and wanted when her boss seeks her out and creates three count them three jobs in a row over a nine year period just so the two of you can work together again. Me loves my Cult Leader. Even if she does keep making me get up in the morning.

Labels: cult, miata, vacation

Dear Diary: March 13,2006.

Yesterday I wore at least 1/4 inch of tread off the sides of my tires tearing down 2222 and Lime Creek Road. Total switchbacks, major downgrades (oops there goes the stomach!), altitude changes that make you pop your ears. Three hours on the narrow twisty roads and barely got to 4th gear a few times. Forgot how sore and tired you can get clutching from 2nd to 3rd and trying to steer all at the same time while your tires grasp the edge of a road with a steep drop off and no guard rails. For THREE hours. I got back home, hot showered, swallowed a big Naproxen and slept 14 hours today. PER FECT. A little sunburn, a happy dog, and a WAY happy Miata owner. This is what the car is made for. Stopped at my favorite lunch counter in the Texaco just this side of Lago Vista. It's run by a family from El Salvador and let me tell you... if the drive wasn't so great it would still be worth it just for the tacos al pastor with a big pile of fresh cilantro and chopped onions.

Lots of rain and thunder today - perfect for sleeping curled up under a blanket with The Black Dog to keep my feet warm and all the windows open so I could hear the wrath of God thundering across the sky and flooding Shoal Creek outside. Woke up now and then, ate something, went back to bed. I love Austin. Too bad no one else has the balls to ride in the car with me! It would be fun to hear all the screaming. Oh, and citywide free wifi rocks. AND Austin Java just delivered a mean cheeseburger and caesar salad...right to my door! The only thing they deliver in Houston is pizza and jury notices. I should move. Now if only 2 bedroom houses in bad neighborhoods didn't cost $300K. I'll tell you later about the psycho in the next door back yard who had alllllll these conversations I got to listen to whether I wanted to or not.

Labels: miata, texas, vacation

I hit 20,000 today. I had fantasized about hitting it on the north side of 166 going around Blue Mountain in West Texas, or maybe on 1431 west of Austin. Instead, I hit it driving home from the hardware store where I got a couple of keys made and bought some new door hinges and some screws. But hey - at least I made it to 20,000! My last Miata didn't even live to 4,000. Zoom Zoom!

Labels: miata, personal urban drama, texas

Two years ago, to the minute.

"Live then, beloved children of my heart, and never forget that, until the day God deigns to reveal the future to man, the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and hope." -The Count of Monte Cristo

"Baah. Humbug." -Ebenezer Scrooge

Labels: accident, miata

I am apparently existing awash in a sea of sexual inuendo.

It was time to take my zoomzoom car in for service, where the special mechanics (wearing pristine white gloves) lovingly change the oil, rotate the tires, worship at the trunk emblem. That sort of thing.

Now, I have friends who say I take my car in for service at least three times a year just so someone will wash it for me. That is true.

Aaaaaaanyway. The guy calls me to tell me the car is ready. I've known these guys for a few years, and they're just nice, normal guys. So he starts to tell me everything they did and the brakes are fine, the belts, etc. are in good shape.

Then I say, "What about the squeek in the driver's side window?", and Carlos says, "Yeah I lubed your track."

We both sit there silent for a second.

Then I say, "Carlos, that somehow just doesn't sound right."

He says, "Uh, yeah, Carol, I know."

So I say, giggling, "OK. So how about the click in the gearshifter?"

AND HE SAYS: "Yeah, I hardened up the stick so it slides smooth now."

And two seconds later, we're both dying laughing. I hear him saying "Carol, I don't know what the hell is wrong with me."

And I'm saying "Carlos, Carlos, Carlos just let me come get my car."

And he's saying "I REALLY wish you would."

zoomzoomzoom

Labels: miata, personal urban drama

I had a big old glob of sunshine drop into my lap today.

Do you have one of those friends you've known forever, maybe met in college, who you won't talk to for years and then one of you pick up the phone and you laugh and talk for hours?

This girl, Sylvia Leigh, and I DID meet in college - art college, for God's sake - and we've done weddings and babies and deaths and lost-memory-drunks together over the years, but we go long stretches without contact.

She called out of the blue today and it was like no time had passed, but it's been something like four years! What a delight. Happy Saturday.

P.S. AND the weather was heaven. I probably put over 100 miles on the new tires today, black dog at my side and lid down flat. Yeah, I've got it so bad I bought these unbelievable cool tires for my car JUST BECAUSE it drives a little bit tighter. And that's saying something in a Miata. I just remember all the years that I would only buy a new tire when an old one went flat. Those were the Honda years. Now I have a set of perfectly good tires in my garage, sitting there. Like a car geek.

Labels: miata, personal urban drama

Yes, yes, I'm back. I just flew in, and boy are my arms tired.

Haw.

Thank you for your patience in my absence.

Mike Villena is an artist.
I have a love - ouch - blind faith relationship with roadsters, and I currently fulfill it with a Miata. To yearn over a car since puberty is not so common in girls as it is in boys, but yearn I have. This Mike is a man who understands the love of wearing a car. "And then to go an paint it red, the slowest color."

Labels: miata

Day 9,438: Hostage to Intractable Burping

I started a new tradition for myself on my 40th birthday. I decided that each year I would buy myself a substantial birthday gift that I had wanted for a while.

My first SelfGift was my first Miata. Some of you may remember that it ended badly.

My second SelfGift was my second Miata. (Yeah, my mother always said I was stubborn.)

My third SelfGift is a beautiful, mysterious clarinet. I've had it for a few weeks now. Not long enough to gain TOO many bad habits, but long enough to figure out what my initial group of "I'm too stupid to figure this out on my own" questions would be.

I will digress here and tell you that my first musical memories were burnt onto the hard drive I call my brain in the French Quarter. I remember as a very small child walking down Dauphine Street and being amazed at the music coming from the narrow open doorways that my father would never take me through. I remember old, skinny black men on St. Ann blowing saxaphones and clarinets and I remember crying as I was pulled away from them. I wanted to just sit at their feet and soak up their souls through my ears.

While in school I took up the saxaphone. I gave it up after a few months because:

1. It was too geeky. The cool kids played guitar. Cool girls played flute. (Puke.)
2. It was too heavy to lug around all day along with all my books. Yeah I had a locker but I couldn't ever get it open. Some people just were not born with the gene that allows them to operate a combination lock.
3. It took too much air. It was give up the sax or give up pot. Easy choice.

So now I'm officially old and I don't care so much about the geeky part. (Look who I married!). I still don't want something so heavy and the air part? Ehhh. No comment. Other than to say that the clarinet is cool, lightweight and doesn't need so much air.

Tonight I had my first clarinet lesson. What a nice man! He was patient, brilliantly talented, and his ears didn't bleed when he listened to me play.

I encourage you to go get that thing or do that thing that you've always wanted. My driver's license is proof that we're not getting any younger.

Labels: miata, personal urban drama

It's been an interesting week for me, bird-wise, and it's only Wednesday.

This past Monday I was sitting it line at the James Coney Island getting my chili fix after work. It was a beautiful evening, the lid was down on the Miata, and the line was long at the JCI. The center where the JCI sits is surrounded by big old oak trees, and there were thousands and thousands of grackles and starlings zooming around and raising a ruckus.

I like grackles. They're aggressive but they're honest about it. Not like Blue Jays. Jays always seem to have some list they're keeping up with, some obsessive Must Patrol This Tree thing going on. Grackles, they're just looking for a handout. Always.

I had a bag of chips on the passenger seat and I decided to play with the birds while I waited. Now, a smart person who is sitting still in a convertible and who decides to play with the birds does so in a very controlled manner. To avoid massing of hungry beaks flying above one's upholstery, you know. So I opened the chips and took one out. Broke it into four pieces and tossed them as far as I could from my car, about 6 feet.

Nothing. Not a single bird took to it. Strange. A few minutes later I had pulled up in the line along with the other hungry people and was one car away from the window. I looked to my right and, sitting in the top of a small crepe myrtle was a nice big grackle with a chunk of chip in his mouth, looking at me. I smiled. I said to him, "you're welcome," and turned away. Not 20 seconds later something fell onto my hand and rolled onto the passenger seat beside me. It was a cluster of three pink crepe myrtle blossoms. I think that bird liked my chip.

When I got home tonight I was sitting out back talking on the phone and I looked up to see a beautiful wood pecker having supper in the sugar maple near my back fence. The red feathers on his head were vivid and I loved the black speckling on his wings.

Then, tonight, I walked out into the back yard after supper to enjoy the air a little and look who was sitting on the Time Warner Cable cable that runs from my house across my back yard? He wasn't impressed by me. I was impressed by HIM!

Labels: miata, personal urban drama

Two things tonight:

I took a top-down moonlit drive just now. I wore a light sweater and turned the heat on lightly warm, blowing onto my feet. I have fantasies that this is what it feels like up north as the cold comes in, but with a lot more color and bite. We feel this so rarely. We have the occasional ice storm, but usually in late January, early February. We often spend New Year's wearing shorts.

So tonight is a harbinger of the best top-down driving this part of the world has to offer: it is coming, it is here (for a few days anyway).

Also:

A prior post has caused discussion and surfing, accusations and skin diagramming. The Husband reads the Blog. The other night he wanted to know: What Picture? Referring to my breast cancer post. I told him that was the whole point. I couldn't find it!

This morning, the Husband exclaimed from his computer chair, "You did post your picture!"

Did not. Couldn't find it.

"This is YOU!"

So I go in there and my HEAVENS this man has lived with me for fourteen some-odd years. He doesn't know? I pointed.

See these freckles? That's not me.

He pointed. THAT one is yours!

I point. But look - not the other two. I point at the screen and at my bare arm.

I point other bare things at him. And LOOK. I'm much bigger than her. SHEEESH!

He does not relent.

This evening, a friend of mine called. Also a friend of the Husband, but they were never engaged so he's more my friend than the Husband's. While the guys were talking it occurred to me that this friend might have one of the red-bra pictures. Our relationship was of that time period.

So I ask the husband to ask the friend: Does he have one of the red bra pictures?

Husband looks at me. Husband asks friend.

Husband laughs and reports: He says no, but that he has some of the green teddy pictures.

I retort: We didn't have a camera with us that time.

Labels: ac, husband, miata, personal urban drama

A quick update on Happy Garage: (it's VERY happy!)



Also, one of the things on my Christmas List was a can crusher. I hate to throw away all the soda cans that go through this house but it is impractical to keep and recycle them in their original, fully inflated state. So for Christmas I wanted a can crusher. Don't laugh. They laughed last year when I asked for a really high quality pair of professional grade tweezers, but I've been very very happy with these tweezers all year. Aaaaaanyway, I got the crusher (thanks Sister!). And tonight the Husband helped me mount it. The crusher. On the wall. Get your mind out of the gutter. This is hardware, you fool. So I took the time to crush the three large plastic garbage bags full of cans that I had collected since I had put the crusher on my list.



Oh yeah, and I quit my job. I girded my loins after having stressed over it all day and finally called my vice president at her home around 6pm and just gushed out all the words without really giving her a chance to say anything because she is really really notorious for trying to guilt you into staying and for trying to throw more money at you etc. etc. so I told her I was going to two week her when we got back from the holidays, and that I was going to work for my former boss/cult leader and that is was a drop in pay and a drop in benefits and that I hadn't even been looking but that Susy called and it just feeeeeeeels right and there I'd said it could I go puke now? And she of course said I should think about it. Like RIGHT LADY I haven't been thinking about it? Like I just up and decided to quit this job that I've loved for what this is my SEVENTH YEAR? Total Whim Girl. That's what they call me. Yeah. Sheesh!! So tomorrow the cult will gather and we'll talk about my desertion of them and I'll get suggestions for my exit interviews. Terror in the Suburbs!!!

Labels: cult, miata, personal urban drama

ALERT! ALERT!

I have achieved: MIATA.

Freedom, after 114 days of surgery, rehabilitation and painful recovery, has been achieved. This is the longest I've lived without the ability to just walk out of my door and get in my car and go do what I want to do whenever I want to do it since I was fifteen years old. That's 25 years of total autonomy. This has been hard.

Repeat: I have achieved: MIATA.

Labels: accident, miata

OK OK now so everybody you have to go cross your fingers and light candles and pray to whomever/whatever/wherever you pray to and maybe even put a good word in with Santa for me because if all works out right I just bought a Miata...over the phone. Is this a great country or what? Found it on the MIRACLE that is the INTERNET and called on the MIRACLE that is a CELL PHONE with FREE LONG DISTANCE and will go tomorrow night 99 miles up Highway 6 to the metropolis of Bryan, Texas to sign the papers and drive it home. Oh and how about the miracle that I told them I needed them to take $2000 off the lowest price they offered me...and they DID IT.

I am 24 hours away from achieving HAPPY GARAGE again. It's been almost four months dear people. Hope for me, ok? Please hope.

Labels: miata

I'm just angry today.

I woke up an hour before I had to and couldn't get back to sleep so I just laid there waiting for the damned alarm to go off. Work is so bad I can barely think about it - I am supposed to have one thing that is a priority but it keeps getting pushed back and other things keep getting made priority instead (things that other people actually SHOULD be doing but won't/can't/aren't) and I can't get a damned thing accomplished. It's something I really need. I need a feeling of accomplishment. I need to be able to say at the end of the day, I did this and I got that taken care of and I completed that other project and brush my hands off and say, a good job done. I've done crap.

At one point a director came to me and told me that she needed me to re-do a small project that I had worked on for three hours yesterday, carefully following her instructions. This project came to me from someone else who had already worked on it and who had gotten it from someone else who had worked on it. Now THREE people have worked on this one small project and TODAY this woman says to re-do it and put all the stuff back into it that she had specifically told me to take out of it yesterday. I just refused. I told her no that I didn't have time and that she would have to find someone else, that I had worked on it for three hours yesterday and couldn't give it anymore time. I just REFUSED. In seven years I haven't just refused to do anything at this job.

I got lied to by the guy who I've been negotiating with for my new car. I know you're thinking well yeah Carol he's a car dealer, waddaya want? But I've bought a car from this guy before and he dealt with me honestly so I really feel reamed out by him now. I'm just angry at everything.

For the first time in NINE YEARS I screwed up my checking account - I had over $600 dollars in it, with a slush fund of $200 in a linked account just in case I make a mistake and go over my balance and I forgot a big bill that comes out on the 14th and I'm now FORTY FIVE FREAKING DOLLARS overdrawn. It's been almost TEN YEARS since I've been overdrawn. I've been UNCONSCIOUS on DILAUDID in the hospital and not known my own NAME but not been overdrawn. I'm just ANGRY today.

I'm going to go glue some damned snowmen on some freaking Christmas Cards and try to make the fuckers look CHEERFUL now. Ho Freaking Ho Freaking Ho.

Labels: miata, personal urban drama

Sitting here on the cusp of a new Monday:

1. Shannon rejoins the Cult at work tomorrow after a short hiatus as a fund raiser whose mission was to indoctrinate upper middle class white children into the Christian faith through high schooling. We're very happy to have her back!

2. I re-mounted my stool at my work bench today for the first time since the middle of August. Major steps toward full recovery are happening! I had a piece of glass that I had finished all the metal work on and had put a coat of wax on just before the accident. Total I pulled out my steel wool and polishing brushes and cleaned it up and hung it in a living room window. Very satisfying to be back at the work table playing with glass.

3. Baring any annoying and unnecessary delays I will be the proud owner of a screaming red brand new Miata by the end of the week. Yes I have decided that the only way to do this is, in the words of my big brother, to Climb Back Up On The Horse That Threw Me. My first choice is Strata Blue but in deference to the workings of the human mind and optical system I am choosing the cliche of a red sports car simply because if I insist upon driving a little zippy zoom zoom at least I can buy one that people are more likely to notice when they're running red lights. OK OK OK I realize the fault in the logic there - if they don't see the red LIGHT why would the see the red CAR but help me here, ok? I'm trying. Soon to re-achieve "Happy Garage". My catamaran has been lonely.

4. Did laundry like a good girl so I have clean underwear for the week. My co-workers appreciate the simple things in life.

5. Will have lunch on Tuesday with former Cult Leader, Susy the Wonderful. Can't wait - have you ever had a boss that you just loved? I miss her so much.

6. First real live cold front of the season is supposed to come through tonight - I'll have to wear a coat in the morning. I LOVE the cold. As long as it leaves again soon so I can drop the lid and go zoomzoom.

Labels: accident, cult, miata, personal urban drama

Well, well, well. Ladies and Germs, it's looking like Santa has indeed decided that I've been a good girl this year after all and is going to arrange for my insurance company to FINALLY yes FINALLY come through with a settlement for my car. No, not ALLSTATE (P.S. You are most definitely NOT in good hands) who has yet to accept responsibility for the idiotic red light running bastard who they insure even though three witnesses said "It's the idiot red light running bastard's fault!" and the constable who was on site at the accident ticketed the jerk wad. No, not ALLSTATE but rather MY insurance company which will just end up in a nasty subrogation battle, but hey, that's what I pay them for, right?

So I'm going to my Mr. Wonderful The Lawyer Man's office tomorrow - that's right - an attorney who wants to meet with me on Saturday - and sign the property waiver so we can settle the car and get me back in a set of wheels in the next week or so. FREAKING FINALLY! One funny point - Mr. Lawyer Man said "and bring the keys with you" and I said..."Um the keys are probably still hanging in the ignition right where they were when Idiot Drippy Testicle Guy ran the red light and murdered my precious little zoomzoom." (He loves it when I talk in technical terms.) And in truth that's probably where they are. I sure as hell didn't take them from the ignition - my wrist and arm were broken at the time and not in their best operating condition. And oh yeah, I was distracted by the big red ambulance helicopter coming from the sky to wisk me off to a Level One Trauma Center in an attempt (successful, thankfully) to save my life. (Can we hear a ya-hoo for the LifeFlight folks??) So I ain't got no keys. Mr. Lawyer Man said, "Oh. OK."

Let us examine a fact and see if we can find any:

1. Logic
2. Justice
3. Honesty
4. Fairness
5. Righteousness

Fact: In Texas you are required by law to pay for and keep paying for automobile liability insurance. HOWEVER, the insurance companies have no laws that say they have to actually honor a claim or even make a decision on a claim. They can screw you forever. Thanks, Rick Perry (Drippy Testicle Idiot #2 in my book).

QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"The sheeping of America is nearly complete." -Ted Nugent

Labels: accident, law, miata, personal urban drama

My wildest crazy wishes:

To turn over in bed without searing pain in my left shoulder.

To walk into the kitchen for a drink of water.

To get up in the middle of the night and pee un-aided.

To turn my right hand back and forth at the wrist, just because.

I wonder a lot about the rat bastard who hit my car with his truck.

I wonder, for example, what he was doing about 6:30pm tonight. I was laying in bed in my underwear because it hurt too much to put on a shirt. I was on my right side because I can't get on my left side anymore. My left leg (the one that now has three 3-inch long metal bolts in it holding it together) was propped on two pillows. My right arm was wrapped in a splint and wresting on a pillow above my head. My left shoulder was covered in an ice pack because the codeine alone just can't make the pain bearable enough for me to get up and eat supper yet.

I wonder- was the rat bastard in a restaurant somewhere with his family, enjoying a meal and a good laugh? Did he sit on his living room sofa, his two good legs propped up on his coffee table while he watched the tv news, his faithful dog curled up at his side?

My husband has gone from the terror of begging the LifeFlight EMT to tell him if I would live to the torture of having to watch his beloved wife cry out in pain just because she was trying to pick up a bedsheet and pull it over her shoulder. He is afraid to leave for work everyday, scared that I will fall and re-injure myself and lay alone on the floor, unable to get help until he comes home. He is afraid to go to sleep, worried that in the night he will roll over and hurt my leg or hand or shoulder. He hasn't rested well in three weeks.

The rat bastard got a ticket for running a red light. He'll have to pay a fine. It just somehow really doesn't seem fair.

Labels: accident, husband, medicine, miata

In case you're wondering where I've been these last few weeks...

I call these pictures: "Sad Miata"

What a difference in your life one idiot who doesn't bother to stop at a red light can make:

One destroyed car, a broken leg, a broken pelvis, a broken shoulder, a broken wrist, a broken arm, a nasty concussion, your first ride on a helicopter but it was LifeFlight and you were unconscious and don't remember it, a week in hospital, a week in rehab, two or three months in a wheelchair, the installation in your home of a handicap toilet and railing, having to re-learn how to walk and write, getting a morphine pump and then having it taken away, wondering if you had been driving a Hummer instead of a delightfully zippy little sports car if you would have been hurt so badly, trying not to let your head fill up with hatred of the redlight running idiot...that's just for starters.

Labels: accident, medicine, miata

I call this picture: "Happy Garage"

Labels: miata, personal urban drama

Just got back from a wonderful zoom zoom in the crisp night air. Maybe the best thing about a ragtop is that if you take a drive in the spring at night, when the city is quieter, and you live in the south, the whole town smells like honeysuckle and jasmine instead of diesel and stress.

I must extend my thanks to:

1. The guy in the red pick-up on Westheimer at Fondren
2. The guy in the big black SUV on Chimney Rock and Memorial
3. The lady in the little gray wreck of an Escort on Piney Point and Memorial

Thanks to all of you for doing something stupid that those three cops saw before they saw me speeding.

Labels: miata, personal urban drama

Road trip on the schedule again - leaving Thursday for Austin. Strategically scheduled to miss SXSW - I'm entirely too old to be cool. I may hit the Spamfest, though. First time to go alone - usually take the black dog or the Lisa. First time to take the Miata - it BETTER be dry. You HEAR ME? I told the brother that the agenda includes a) chicken enchiladas at Kerby Thursday and b) getting smashed at the Pier on Friday. He said "Are you kidding?" I said no - I really want those enchiladas, damned it! He's so cute sometimes, I swear... He came late in life to this big brother/little sister thing and it's really fun to watch. Gotta remember to pack my liver.

Labels: cult, miata, texas, vacation

Ahhhhhh. THE smell of summer. Coppertone.

Hint to new convertible owners: Buy some.

Labels: miata, personal urban drama

Yes, it is proof that I'm all powerful - I finally buy a convertible and it's rained now 7 out of the 8 days I've owned it. Yeah of course it's because of me!! Snow in South Texas. Could only be because of me.

And now for something completely different:

Like art? Check out Kurt Wenner. Brilliant talent.

Labels: miata, personal urban drama

Don't be a fool. Don't do what I did. Don't wait 'til you're 40.

GO BUY THAT ZIPPY LITTLE SPORTS CAR RIGHT NOW, DROP THE LID AND ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM!

"The most fun you can have while driving with your pants on." -- Edmunds.com

I suggest the Mazda Miata.

Do you need something from the store? No - really - I'll go get it for you. Vroooom.

Happy happy happy me...

Labels: miata, personal urban drama

BTW - drove the Toyota Spider and the Mazda Miata yesterday.

Spider: That's one tough little sports car! The engine is in the back, and all that power behind me made me feel like going really really fast. At one point, the sales guy said "Go on you can get up to 90 or 100 out here" and I said "Um well I'm already doing 75 in a 50 zone, so no thanks!" but I could have and the car wouldn't have felt it at all. It's an agressive little sucker, roomier inside than I thought, but it has no trunk whatsoever. Also, huge blind spot over the shoulder - could just be that I'm used to being able to look out the side rear window of my Honda to see if I'm going to kill someone. $25K was the first dicker price I walked out with for it. Sweet.

Miata: Zippy car and fun fun fun. Doesn't have to prove anything to anybody. It's energetic but not in the same I Am A Sports Car kind of aggressive way the Spider is. The sun was out by the time I took this one for a ride, so I dropped the top and felt like a movie star. Unfortunately, they didn't have a stick on the lot - they'll get one tomorrow and call me to come try that. What I really don't understand is why the hell they even put an automatic in such a fun little car. If you can't learn to drive a stick maybe you don't deserve such a cool automobile. I don't know about the blind spots until I drive with the top up. Smaller inside than the Spider, but that's just motivation to make my hips smaller I guess. Didn't even talk price - want to drive the stick first.

ALSO: Sat in but did not drive a Nissan Z. Got out of it really fast when they told me it cost $40 grand.

Labels: miata, personal urban drama

I've had this idea flitting around in the back of my head for a few months and, during a conversation with my brother last night, I decided it needed to be put into action.

I've wanted a zippy little convertible car since I was 11 years old. I still have the article I clipped from a magazine that year talking about the Alfa Romeo Spider Voloce 2000 (hunter green with tan interior, or course). I was amazed at the thought of a car that didn't have a carburetor. Apparently, back then, so were the mechanics in America. And yes, it's Amazing that an 11 year old girl who had no mechanical interests at all (and who, this past Wednesday, stood up in an All Staff meeting at her office and stated her New Year's Goal to be to change the oil in her car AT LEAST TWICE this year) would even know what a carburetor was, much less understand that having a car without one was a big deal.

So all my life I've had this pat little tale of wanting a zippy convertible: Well, if I got one, I’d want an Alfa Romeo Spider Voloce 2000, but I’d either have to a) be rich enough to keep an Alfa mechanic living above my garage so he could get the car started every morning or b) have an ongoing torrid affair with an Alfa mechanic. Since I’ll never be rich, and since that the whole greasy fingernail thing just turned me off, I’d have to settle for driving my 100% reliable (even with truly dirty oil) Hondas.

But last night my brother and I were having this talk about doing stuff, about not putting it off, about living the life, and I told him my theory of life (You Could Get Hit By A Bus Tomorrow So Do It Today If You Want To Do It At All) and it struck me – I need to get myself a damned little zippy convertible!!!

There’s no way on Earth that I can afford an Alfa Romeo – the new ones are very expensive, and the old ones really do have to be started every morning by an Alfa mechanic. I like the Honda S2000 and I love the Audi TT, but my bank account doesn’t like either of them (the joy of working for a non-profit?).

However: I think yes I THINK I THINK I MIGHT be able to afford a Miata. Yeah, I know it’s a Ford, I know, I know. But there is a guy here at work who drives one, and for the last month he’s parked right next to me about three times a week (so the Gods are trying to tell me something) TAUNTING me with his little zippy rag top and it’s GETTING TO ME.

Yeah, yeah, I know – I won’t be able to haul the whole world around with me if I have a little zippy (you would be astounded at what I can get into a Honda – lots of people have been), and yeah, yeah, I know – forget driving if there’s even a tiny little possibility of flood waters (a big damned issue in Houston). But. But. But……I Could Get Hit By A Bus Tomorrow!

You can bet I’ll be test driving this weekend

Labels: miata, personal urban drama