It's Only A Paper Rose

I was on my way downtown to a lunch date with Brian when my car started to stall. Now, Marian's gas gauge has always been a bit wonky, so normally I don't look at it and instead check the trip meter - I usually get about 320 miles per tank. Unfortunately, this time around I'd forgotten to adjust for how windy and rainy and utterly nasty the weather's been lately (see previous post), and I only got about 300 miles. Long story short, I ended up stalled out in the turn lane of the Douglas bridge intersection - approximately 50 feet away from the nearest gas station. (I seem to be making a habit of this...the only other time I've run out of gas was also about 50 feet away from a Tesoro.)

Anyway, I put on the hazard lights and the parking brake and dashed across the rest of the street and down to the Tesoro. It must've been a pretty funny sight - relatively attractive 20-something girl comes dashing in almost completely soaked (see previous note about weather) with a semi-panicked look on her face going "Please tell me you have a gas can!" Fortunately they did, so I was able to go stick most of a gallon in and pull through to the station, and eventually get to have most of my lunch date with Brian. But it was kind of an interesting adventure, nonetheless. I'm glad I got the car moved before any cops came by, and I'm glad nobody hit me or Marian, and I'm especially glad there wasn't anything more wrong with her than that (though I should probably get the fuel filter checked). So I'm out nothing more than some overpriced gas (Tesoro's got some of the highest prices in town) and a dry set of clothes. But I suppose it'll be fun to tell people I was sitting here steaming through most of the afternoon...=)

Also, here's my Jeffus & Williams quote of the whenever-the-heck-I-feel-like-it:

Don {doing a test call on a speakerphone}: Hey, Rose, how do I sound?
Me: You sound fine, as near as I can tell.
Random Background Guy: Aw, tell him the truth. He sounds like he always does!

Spent most of this morning helping Brian's mother Julie move stuff out of her house and into the moving truck, since she's planning on leaving early this week (Monday or Tuesday, last I heard). There was a bunch of junk out front that she didn't want - old bookshelves and the like - so they had a bunch of "Moving Sale" signs to draw in unsuspecting victims, and then load them up with free junk. ;)

Anyway, I was looking through some of the stuff out there when I came across a box of old cassette tapes. Since my iPod is currently out of commission (the battery quit charging but it was still under warranty so it's on its way back to Apple now), I figured I'd pick through them and see if there was anything worth taking so that I could have something to listen to in my car aside from the radio.

As a matter of fact, it turned out that Brian's parents actually had pretty good taste in music - I managed to find six or seven that looked interesting (a few Enya albums, a Don Henley tape, some random Irish music that looked fun, and a Garrison Keillor story tape that might be fun for a road trip), so I tossed them in the car along with all the other junk that we're taking from her place.

When I got in the car to drive home, I put one of the Enya tapes in, and then hunted around (I've never used the tape player in my car before) for the rewind button so I could play it from the beginning. I found out that the "Seek" buttons function as rewind and fast forward - but it kept stopping the rewind before the end of the tape. This puzzled me until I realized that I have one of those tape players that automagically searches for the blank spaces between songs, so that when you hit "forward" or "back", it finds the beginning of the previous or next song, rather like a CD player. I'd heard of them, but to the best of my knowledge they came out shortly before CDs became really popular, so they never really caught on as an alternative. This is the first one I've ever seen.

I guess there really are perks to having a low-end luxury vehicle from 10 years ago...=)

In other news, Dexter was an absolute pillbug last night. Around 8 in the evening he decided he was going to claw the bedroom curtains and ended up pulling them out of the wall (it was actually sort of funny - he had one paw worth of claws stuck in the curtains, his rear feet balanced on the windowsill and another paw on the window and was trying to extricate himself when they (and he) fell to the floor with a crash). At 2:30 AM or so he decided that it would be fun to pounce on my feet and try to bite them through the covers, which he does on occasion - usually shoving him off the bed with said feet is enough to get him to stop. However, at 3:30 I awoke to him sticking his paw under the covers and (gently) clawing my leg; at 4:30 he was doing his thing where he presses his nose up against yours, which generally means he wants attention and is kind of cute but not at 4:30 IN THE FREAKING MORNING. At that point, Brian realized that he hadn't cleaned his litterbox the day before, so he went and did that and Dexter quit bothering us. I think he was annoyed both about that and the fact that we're out of his dry food and all we have at the moment is a box of the seafood flavors of Fancy Feast that he seems ambivalent about at best. But I have been feeding him, and it's his choice whether to eat it or not.

Silly cat. Good thing he's so cute and we love him so much, or he'd probably be back on the street...heck, maybe I should threaten him with that anyway. =D

Anyway, Donna's coming over to work on sewing project-type-things, so I'm going to go try and clean up at least some of this stuff that's hanging around...

Brian and I had planned to have Danél (my onetime boss and the buyer of Brian's Civic) and his lovely wife Donna over for dinner Sunday night, but since Sunday was spent moving a bunch of junk from Brian's mother's house over here (specifically a very large television set, a very large desk and chair, and a very large curio cabinet, along with other assorted stuff), the place was hardly in any sort of condition to entertain guests. Fortunately we were able to postpone, and I spent most of Monday cleaning up our apartment to make it presentable. (I swear, I should invite people over more often - it's the only time that everything in the house suddenly gets clean.) Dinner was supposed to be broiled salmon, cumin rice, and salad with mandarin oranges and almonds; unfortunately, I found out too late that we were out of mandarin oranges and I forgot to start the rice. And I didn't cook the salmon long enough. >< The guests were very gracious about it, though, and I like to think we all had a fine time regardless. Brian and Danél hit it off right away (though I think this was in part due to Danél having a new audience - i.e. not Donna or me - who would listen to his various theories on film and whatnot). Meantime, I found out that Donna was unschooled in the use of a sewing machine, something which I promptly rectified. We have a date to go fabric shopping on Thursday night and find some fleece for pajama bottoms that she wants to make - which I just happen to have an excellent pattern for. So there - I'm justified in having an entire box full of patterns that I haven't used yet. =)

This morning I took the car in for brake work and ball joint replacement. The guy said that it shouldn't go over $400, but I'm mentally budgeting $500 just in case. I'll be car-less for a day or so, but it's sunny and nice outside - I rather enjoyed the walk back home from the shop. And that's one of the rather convenient things about working almost exactly two miles from where you live - you're not quite so dependent on motorized transport.

I just hope the sunny weather keeps up. We've had little enough of it, this summer...

Only thing I really have to grumble about at the moment is that I just got the bill for my wisdom teeth - and apparently the insurance company isn't going to pay up until my mother sends them info proving that I'm single and enrolled in school and whatnot. So I get to find a printer and and print out a transcript showing that I have indeed been enrolled full time so I can fax it to my mother, who can fax it to them. Fun. Still, though, it's better than paying a $1400 bill.

Anyway, time to get ready for work, I suppose...

Last week took forever to go by, or so it felt like - I was feeling so braindead by the end of it I wondered if I'd ever feel happy or alive again.

This week seems to have gone by in a flash - I literally went "Wait a minute, it's the weekend again?"

There doesn't seem to be any accounting for it. Nothing particularly bad happened last week; and I'd certainly think the whole car issue might have made this week more tiring. Oddly enough, though, it's been the exact opposite. I've felt almost nothing but happy and content, car problems be damned. Even the $270 bill I racked up with towing charges and battery replacement didn't do anything to dampen my mood - I was glad to have the money, and happy to pay for it - I certainly got my money's worth.

It's times like this that really make me believe that there probably is something to the theories of astrology and whatnot. Yes, 99.99% of astrology is just simple BS, but if you zoom out to a macroscopic enough level, everything's made of the same matter. So it stands to reason that things like the phases of the moon and positions of the planets, while only distantly related on a physical level, can affect us profoundly on the quantum level. It's a variation on the whole butterfly-effect theory, I guess.

Meantime, life goes on as usual. Brian's mother had a raspberry bush out front with lots of ripe berries, so I picked a bunch and made a raspberry quick-bread/cake type loaf. Didn't come out too badly, flavor-wise, but the recipe was designed to be used with raisins (which absorb moisture) as opposed to fresh berries (which are full of moisture) so it ended up being a little soggy towards the bottom. I think I'll try it with 2/3 a cup of buttermilk next time.

I think I'm finally finished playing Knights of the Old Republic, and I'd highly recommend the game to anyone who enjoys RPGs or Star Wars in general. It's got that perfect mix of interesting characters and interesting plot that makes for a great story, and as a game it's also quite fun. I've played it through about two and a half times now (once as uber-light-side-Jedi, once as how I would play, and then the last bit as a dark side character just to see the alternate ending), and I still wish the story went on longer. It didn't surprise me to see that about 98% of the fanfiction in Fanfiction.net's "Games>Star Wars" catagory was KotOR-based, given what strong characters it had. I'm actually a bit tempted to write a piece of my own; the romance angle between the player character and Carth Onasi kind of intrigued me. I really liked Carth...I guess in a lot of ways he reminded me of Brian. Especially with how honorable and brave he was. And handsome. ;)

Amusingly enough, Brian's and my positions are almost exactly reversed from a week ago - he's spent most of the evening reading through Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, and I've been puttering around in the kitchen or on the computer or whatever, and occasionally getting him drinks and the like.

It's really nice to not be worrying about money or upset about my life or whatever. I have a job, I have a boyfriend, I have a (now) working car that will soon have fixed brakes, I have a home, and I have a warm, purring kitty in my lap - what more do I need to be happy?

The last few days, my starter's been sort of coughing before starting the engine. I had a feeling it might be a battery issue, but it actually started, so I figured I'd have it looked at when I took the car in for brake work later this month. Unfortunately, last night after work it wouldn't start at all, so I ended up sitting around waiting for Brian to pick me up. I called the auto shop and they're going to tow it this afternoon, but meantime I'm car-less. It kind of sucks, but it could be a lot worse - I only live a mile or two from where I work, so I should be able to walk over there without a problem. Plus it's a nice day.

I'm not so frustrated about the car part of things...with my current work setup I'm not entirely dependent on her. Mostly what annoys me is the fact that this is my last free month of rent, and I was hoping to be able to put the $500 that my mom gave me into savings. Instead, it's going to go towards this, as well as probably whatever extra I have from my paycheck. *sigh* Oh, well, I have my friend C.C. if it ends up being too much - the interest isn't going to be fun, but I should be able to pay it off next month at the latest. I'll be working full time by then, so hopefully I'll be able to save at least a bit of money on top of rent.

For all of that, though, I'm not really that upset about it. I suppose you get used to not having anything in savings, after a while...