Confessions of a Meditative Mind

I like to meditate. 

Well, I like to say I like to meditate. Rarely do I actually stop and meditate.

But it just so happens there is a meditation group that meets 8:00 a.m. Tuesday mornings at church. It also just so happens that I have yet to attend the meditation meet-up. The week I was going to start? Canceled due to weather. The next week? I totally forgot and slept in til 8:30. This week? That's today. Let me tell you about today.

I set the alarm on my phone for 7:00 a.m. I set the message to say, "MEDITATE!!!" so I would remember to not hit the snooze button. I hit the snooze button three times. So at 7:27--

side note: Why is the snooze 9 minutes? Who among the makers of digital clocks decided this? Why can I not adjust the length of snooze? You would think that with all the technology in the world and all the adjustable settings that come with that technology one would be able to adjust snooze instead of having to set another alarm for however many minutes til the next 5- or 10-minute mark because who chooses to wake up at multiples of nine? You set your alarm for 7:00; you get up at 7:30. It just makes sense. I'm not going to set my alarm for 7:03 in order to wake up at 7:30. It throws things off. Case in point...

Today, at 7:27, I get up and say, "I got this. Let's go." At 7:50 I say, "Shit! I gotta get outta here!" I drove down the street reciting expletives in my head. But I stop, I try to be mindful of my situation, I relax...for about two minutes, until I hit the red light and then had to dodge not one but two construction crews in the street. The point is I walked up to the church at precisely 8:00 a.m. I saw candles, evidence of humans, and...the door was locked. I didn't want to bang on the door or wave in the window but that is the polar opposite meaning of calming one's mind. So I watched the squirrels play in the garden without a sense a loathing (I hate squirrels normally) and tried to appreciate nature, blah, blah, blah, and then I cried in my car.

Why did I start crying? I don't know. Yes, I do. Maybe it was because I have depression. Maybe it was because I was disappointed in myself for not making it on time yet again. Maybe it was because I was mad that what held me up at home was my daily struggle to find clothes to wear because I have body image issues. Maybe it was all of these things. 

So. Another Tuesday. Another failed attempt.

Not to meditate, mind you, I can do that at any time, but to meditate at a specific place at a specific time. Because clearly, I'm the type of person who needs a heavy dose of expectation to go with my mindfulness. 

Therapy has taught be to think rationally. So as I drove away at 8:07, with tear-streaked cheeks I recount the facts to myself, "You're awake. You remembered. You made it to the building by 8:00. Last week you were still asleep. Tuesday will come again." I resign myself to get a cup of coffee and some breakfast.

As I am meandering my way back from whence I’d just come, I spotted someone trickling down the hill with a flat tire. I remembered my dear, old dad had purchased me a tire inflator that plugs into the cigarette lighter. I immediately turn my car around and stop in the street to see if I could help. I met Anthony, a nice man whose tire, we soon realized, was blown and no amount of cigarette lighter-powered anything was going to help. But we chatted for a while. I tried to convince him that it looked like his tire had a bubble in the sidewall and had blown out, that it had not been slashed. He offered to take me to Red Lobster to say thanks. I declined. He thanked me again and said he hoped he’d not made me late for work or something. I told him he’d actually made my day. I mentioned how I was upset with myself for being late to something but that I think it was because I was supposed to meet him. And all I was really able to do was show him a gadget and recommend he buy one in the future. But it made my day and allowed me to ruminate, if not meditate, on many things.

So. Another Tuesday. Another failed attempt to meditate at a specific place at a specific time. But I, for one, had a pretty great morning. Had a good dream. Had a good cry. Met a nice person. Had a good coffee. Besides…

Tuesday will come again.

Here's a picture I took of a tree.

A phone conversation I just had with my mother

MOMENTS AGO...

Me:  I’m making a costume. Did Paw-Paw have any welding goggles?

Mom:  What kind of goggles?

Me:  Welding.

Mom:  What kind?

Me:  WELDING.

Mom:  Lower your voice and say it. [You know, sound wave frequencies and all that.]

Me:  WELD.ING.

Mom:  Walgreen’s??

Me:  No. Mom, Mom listen to me. When you make wrought iron, to put two pieces of iron together you weld them together.

Mom:  You want the iron?

Me:  NO! Forget the iron. To “glue” two pieces of metal together you WELD them together.

Mom:  You’re gluing metal?

Me:  NO!! It’s like another word for gluing metal together. You don’t glue metal you WELD it.

Mom:  Weld? W-E-L-D? weld?

Me:  Yes! You weld metal. What was the verb I just said?

Mom:  Weld.

Me:  Right. And a person who welds is a welder and they wear welding glasses, er, goggles.

Mom:  Oh! You want the big mask or the—

Me:  No!

Mom:  --goggles?

Me:  The goggles!!

Mom:  Oh…no. We used to but they were probably sold in the auction. But we can ask the welder. He’s my cousin you know. He’s weird.

[facepalm]

My new purse

While rereading my Easter basket post I was reminded of yet another occasion when my sister usurped a prized possession. Madonna* is three years older than me and as such, was always the first to know and do anything. She was a teenager before I was. She got to shave her legs before I could. She wore makeup before me. She taught me a lot of things. She graciously let me listen to her Wilson Phillips tape once she was through with it and the sound quality had faded. She introduced me to grunge and bought me my first cd which she would sometimes allow me to play on her cd player. And because tweens will be tweens, she began toting around a purse full of lip smackers and “hide ‘em” tampon pouches shaped…just like tampons before I did.

About the time I wanted to start toting as well, she had been through several stylish, pleather, bulky purses of her own as the fashions had already changed of course. Again, I was the lucky recipient of a cast away hand me down purse. Thick, dark blue pleather trimmed with brown, pleather handles, two for hand carrying and one, long, wide strap for shoulder usage. It zipped open, wide and boxy, to reveal a dark, dusty, fruity-smelling interior. The most awesomest part was the extra compartment under the purse. That’s right, I said u n d e r. There was another zipper circumventing the entire circumference of the bottom region of the purse. Once it flapped open there was a mirror attached to the underbelly of the purse and little pouches sewn into the flap to hold your most valuable makeup accessories…which you could then apply using the ever-so-handy-and-useful mirror that came…with the purse! Why anyone would design something where your most expensive and prized possessions would be forced to carry the entire weight of whatever the crap girls find to put into purses, underneath a mirror no less, which must also bear the burden and not break all over those prized accessories, is beyond me. However, this was a very attractive feature and surely the very reason I picked said prized purse from the pile of discarded purses despite the slight “zipper becoming unsewed from the edge of the purse” flaw. But nevermind that, I filled that puppy up and proudly walked the school bus cat walk back to my assigned seat everyday so that I could then spend the next hour rummaging and discovering new things to pull out and look at among all the things I already knew were there. Oh, glory be. Tween heaven.

Finally, the day came when I got to purchase a new purse. No more of this grimy, dirty, stinky, torn, ugly, boxy, blue, and brown monstrosity would I ever have to carry around ever again. I went to the mall. Okay, I’ll be honest, I probably went to Wal-Mart, and picked out this sleek, stylish, small, rectangle but rounded on the edges, beautiful, sun-desert brown, $10 handbag. It had but one long, thin, smooth strap for perfect shoulder to hip carrying. It was beautiful and new and stylish and all mine…until I started transferring my lip gloss and notes and hair pins and perfectly packaged pink panty liners from the piece of shit purse to the new and beautiful purse. In mid-transfer my sister comes to me and says, “Catherine, because I let you use my piece of shit purse, you have to let me use your beautiful and new purse first. It’s only fair.” This time I was less agreeable (“That’s bullshit!” okay, not really. I hadn’t started cussing like a sailor yet.) but still all the more controlled by her. So she takes it and fills it with all her junk and goes to school and proceeds to carry around and show off MY brand new hand bag. And then, the inevitable happened. 

On the way home from school, while riding the school bus I can see my sister a few rows up and because she is my big sister and because she always was the first to do anything, there she is flirting with a boy (I had not yet reached this phase) when a playful game of “let me see what’s in your purse” ensued. Of course, no teenage girl in her right mind would ever allow a boy to see her secrets she kept zipped up in a tiny side panel pocket, so my sister fought back. This “fight” that took place was more like my sister and boy both tugging on the one, long, thin, smooth strap which proceeded to promptly snap free from one end of the purse and break permanently. And there I sat watching it all happen in slow motion while my assertiveness took its sweet-ass time to mature and reveal itself years later…in blog form.

When we returned home, my sister quickly emptied the purse, proclaimed her innocence in the matter, and dumped the torn and useless piece of shit purse in my lap. I never even got to use it. I NEVER GOT TO USE IT. I am bitter now. I was bitter then and it has not left. It is the same bitterness. I love my sister and she has repaid me by always being there and teaching me and lavishing me in gifts…later in life. But when it mattered, when everything that shouldn’t matter mattered the most, she just took without warrant and left without reason while I, I started putting my most important prized possessions, one by one, back into last season’s blue, brown and boxy piece of shit purse with a strap.

*Names have been changed to protect identities.

Several bad things just happened to me

Several bad things just happened to me and I needed a forum of more than 500 characters to express my feelings about said events when I remembered, ‘I have a blog.’

It is a lazy Sunday and I take a nap on the couch because reading public health articles makes me tired. (Does this mean I have chosen my destiny to be forever tired?) The nap is nice but the dreams not so much. I was on Chicago’s “L” train blue line heading to the airport. This makes sense as I recently travelled that very line on a trip to Chicago. But what does not make sense is that I get off at my friend’s stop. I do not know from whence I came but I was not meant to be visiting my friend. I leave the platform to look for a cab to the airport when I remember that the train will go all the way to the airport so I reenter the platform only to realize that I do not have my black, rolly suitcase. I have my giant duffle and my backpack but no rolly suitcase. Then I start to question if I even brought my rolly suitcase and try to rack my brain as to where I last used my rolly suitcase, one of the options being my late grandmother’s house which I have not been to in a while. Whatever. The point is I never make it to the airport as I am transported into dream two, rolly suitcase in hand. (Wha? Where did my duffle and backpack go?) I start dreaming of real strangers about whom I know nothing. Personal stuff too, like watching the wife have a new mother emotional breakdown as I omnipresently judge them on the smallness of their house when actually they are the kind of people whose house is featured in magazines. I should not be dreaming this so I pause the dream and wake up to find the clock reading noon.

Great. I just had not the best dream and now it is pm and I have not accomplished as much as I had hoped in the morning hours, but that is not news. What is news is that it is lunchtime. In an effort to be tidy despite my mood, I carry some dishes from the coffee table to the kitchen when it happens. Simultaneously, the garbage disposal decides it is unwilling to eat the hidden spoon in the drain so instead decides to spray day-old, seaweed filled miso soup all over my face and white tank top while a cup that I just placed on the counter falls off the counter and breaks while it sprays the last few drops of cereal milk over my toes and the floor. I am a little upset. I understand it is just an old, plastic, college cup and I in fact, have another just like it, but the fact that I have had this cup for 11 years gives it some value. I then pour my next cup o’ generic bag fruit rings into yet another old, plastic, college cup and eat it, grumpy and standing in my dirty tank top, in the kitchen while my leftover potatoes are heating up under the broiler in the oven. I would love to say I was distracted composing this post in my head and all the potatoes burnt to a crisp but they did not. They were delicious.

An Ode to Maxine

So I just went to my blog to post this fine specimen of a story there and found that my last blog was also about my car. Specifically, one particular day that it died. So some of the things here are re-mentions but this story is much more in-depth and there are some changes and updates. One in particular, the name.

Begin original transcript:

I would like to take this opportunity to talk about my car, Maxine. Yep, that's her name and yes, she is a girl. (I will explain this name and gender thing in a moment.) But first I must talk about my love/hate relationship with my car. I love it like I love Daddy Yankee; it's so obnoxious that instead of hating it and being bothered by it, I simply choose to accept and love it. I love it because it gets me places I want to be and allows me to explore my world and experience the places and things in it. I love it because it's spacious and I, having mad geospatial reasoning skillz, can fit my kitchen table in it without removing any of its seats (I took a picture I was so impressed with myself). But at the same time, there are so many things that I do not love about my car.

Have I mentioned it's a '94 Dodge Caravan? I don't hate that about it. How could I? I love it because it belonged to my beloved, late grandparents. I love it because at a time when I was destitute and barely above penniless, it was signed over to me as my from-A-to-B-mobile, for free, no questions asked. Little did I know it would be like resurrecting a being from the dead, requiring the same, if not more, maintenance and having a similar functionality level as Frankenstein's Monster.

Where to start? How about at starting? Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Her thing now is I just have to hold the ignition in the start position for about 17 minutes while she talks it over with herself as to whether or not she's going to start. Real classy when entering federal parking lots where they make you disengage your vehicle and step away from the car. Once I'm back in, I'm just one faulty start from..kaboom..NOOOOOOO! At least that's how it is in the movies. I just smile my pretty, prolonged smile to the attendant who knows there's no bomb under my car (the dentist mirror for giants confirmed that) and pray that the engine turns over soon.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I think what really gets to me at the core is the inconsistency of it all. For example, there are some things that consistently don't work. Like:

I know the cassette tape deck does not work. I don't have a Discman with tape convertor anymore anyway.

I know no matter how many times I scan the radio, looping through the possible stations, the FM wave will not work. (It helps that there's an AWESOME AM station in Atlanta. And one in Nashville too.)

I know that if I unlock all the power locks from the passenger side I'll have to then walk all the way around the car, over to the driver side to then relock all the power locks.

I know that the latch to the handy drawer underneath the passenger seat is broken and will incessantly bang against the heels of my passenger every time I brake as we travel from here to there.

I know that air will blow from the vents even in the off position and that I must regulate the interior environment by adjusting the temperature gauge and airflow routes.

These quirks are consistent and I have come to terms with them, accepted them, and learned to adjust my behaviors and attitudes towards them. But like I said before, it's the inconsistencies that really get to me. I have already mentioned the seemingly elementary task of an auto-mobile, starting. I would like to now list some others.

Inconsistency #1: The release latch for the back hatch

Being a caravan, instead of a trunk, there's just a giant flap of a door that occasionally can be unlatched from within by the driver so that whoever is outside of the vehicle can access the extended rear. However, this latch doesn't always work, resulting in the driver having to reluctantly kill the engine, exit the car, and manually open the back door with a key. This is less so a problem if again, we didn't have that whole starting back up issue.

Inconsistency #2: The front, left speaker

So as I'm rockin' out to my AM jams, windows down, wind blowing in my hair, I most likely already have the volume cranked to full force for several reasons. One, wind and words, not a good combination. Two, an awesome song is playing. Three, it's AM and fairly weak to begin with. And four, the front left speaker doesn't work...most of the time. So when it does decide to grace us with its presence, it usually comes as a shock to me, the driver. I usually get all excited that it is working and in just about the time it takes me to adjust the volume to accommodate Front, Left Speaker and still operate heavy machinery at a cognitive level required by law, it goes out again, ruining the song and killing the moment.

Inconsistency #3: The direction/temperature monitor

So whether it's dark and cloudy, thus rendering useless my ability to tell what direction I'm going by the sun or stars, and it is imperative that I know what direction I am currently going or I simply need to know exactly what degree of hot or cold it is outside, I find having this handy monitor comforting. It adds a cool, green glow to the ceiling console on those balmy, jazzy (re: AM radio) nights. But some days it just doesn't show. How am I to know what the weather is like if I don't know what the temperature is in the shade? I am left clueless and ill-dressed for the conditions. Literally, leaving me out in the cold. The highest I ever saw it register was a whopping 102 degrees Fahrenheit. Which is when I learned that much like humans, cars also die when they have a fever. (That was back in its "I-don't-function-in-the-heat-of-the-summer" phase.)

Inconsistency #4: The barn door

Whether unlocked or not, either automatically or manually from inside or with a key from outside, the barn door will sometimes open, sometimes not. Kind of a big deal. Which is why, in a vehicle that will legally seat 7 (including two, count them, two built in child seats...which I used to strap my teddy bear into on trips with Grandmother), I will only accept one passenger. God forbid I careen off into a body of water and my passengers are trapped trying to maneuver past both bench and bucket seats to get to functioning doors whose power windows will still be rolled up (why I'm an advocate for manual window rollage--okay, so I've seen one to many "How-to-escape-from-a-car-that-has-careened-into-a-body-of-water episodes of Dateline but I can't help myself). And until I purchase several of those pressure point, clicky, window breaking thingamadooges or my door decides to function consistently, my preferred passenger quantity will remain at one. Yes, I still realize I am driving a caravan.

So I think this just about covers it. Except for the fact that the radio knob fell off tonight while I was adjusting the volume which was kind of the cherry on top that broke the camel's back which led to this ode/tirade. I don't understand. I treat her nice. Keep her full of gas and her oiled changed. I even ornamented her with a sticker from my alma mater. I'll add another once I graduate from grad school. (I don't like to count my chickens before they hatch.) I do consider this an ode because I do love this car. There are lots of neat things about it. Like there's these cool, little tuck-away cubbies in the ceiling console for your sunglasses and garage door opener. (I lost my sunglasses and my garage door opener clips to the visor but no matter.) And both the driver and passenger vanity mirrors have lights that come on when you flip up the flap. "Standard on all models," you say? Well does yours have a dimmer switch? A dimmer switch...for the vanity mirror! And there's separate controls for the rear vents so if it's just me in the car I don't have to waste gas cooling the very back of my extend-a-cab AND on that control there's a control to switch it to rear control so that if I ever were to have multiple passengers THEY could control the temperature and flowage from the controls located in the back seats! (Seeing as how they may be cooler due to the ghetto, blacked-out, rear tinting that Maxine has.)

Which brings us back to her name. It was an evolution really, but one that took about 5 seconds as the synapses in my brain fired full throttle at a wine tasting one night. First I said, "It's a minivan. No, make that a maxi-van." Which I said simply due to its large size. But as soon as the word maxi crossed my lips the image of a maxi pad came to mind. "Appropriate," I thought, "seeing as how it is long, white and has a red interior." SUPER crass I know. I couldn't help it though, it just happened. So I settled on Maxine. I'm thinking of getting an airbrushed vanity plate for her front grill with her name inscribed on it. Whatd'you think?

The Maxi Pad -or- About My Day

So I've dubbed my vehicle the Maxi. It started out innocently enough. It is a '94 Dodge Caravan and it's big and boxy. Commonly referred to as minivans, I said this is not a mini, it's a maxi. But then I started thinking (and it gets a little vulgar here), it is long, white and has a red interior. I know, I know, so middle school right? But I have a love/hate relationship with the Maxi.

It belonged to my beloved grandparents. My mother inherited it and when I moved back home jobless and floundering she signed it over to me so I could transport myself to and from the video store. It was fall, my favorite season, and everything was driving smoothly. But soon the crisp, cool days turned into never-ending bitter cold and the Maxi did not take kindly to such events. Her solution was to stop opening her doors. Well just one door really, the barn door, thus limiting my passenger capacity from seven (including two small children thanks to the built-in child seats-whoopie!) to two. Since I am somewhat paranoid, in the event of an underwater emergency, my backseat passengers would be done for.

Fine. Don't work. Fine. I will climb through the car like a spelunker in a virgin cave. Fine. I will squish large bags of giveaway and recycling through from the front just to save the planet. Yes, I am aware that my carbon footprint increases exponentially with every trip to the recycle bins just by driving it there.

But with every winter comes the hope and promise of a spring, a dawning, a rebirth, and a door that opens. Warm weather suits the Maxi quite well. She perked up, ran well, and the door even opened and closed on command. Everything was going so well until one rather hot day in April, was it? It was still spring, mind you, but we were having a bit of a hot spell. Well, this did not suit the Maxi one bit, especially when I coerced her to perform such tasks as drive on the interstate in the heat of the day. She was dones-ville and promptly died. Thankfully, on an unoccupied side street in a not-the-most-horrible part of town. $200 tow later and the shop can't find anything wrong. Fine.

Fast forward a few months to July. Summer has officially begun. People are travelling around seeing the sites and visiting friends. I too, was on my way to a potluck with some friends two hours away. I was running a little behind, accepting my arrival as being fashionably late yet proud of accomplishing the tasks I had laid out for myself earlier that day. So I set off a little later than expected. No problem, until I realized that a little later on a Friday afternoon meant one thing, rush hour.

So I'm going to be a little later than the pre-expected late arrival time. No worries. Start without me. I'll be there in time for cocktails. I got about a half a mile in half an hour. I'm in the center lane on the interstate in stop 'n go traffic when it hits. The Maxi is dones-ville. "In the heat of the day? Seriously? First you speed me up to speed limits that didn't existed when I was born, then you slam on the brakes like they haven't been slammed one too many times in their day, and now you expect me to stop and go and stop and go and--ooh no, not this Maxi."

I don't feel too bad because traffic already sucks but I kind of feel really bad because I just made a crappy situation crappier for everyone else as well. Well, it wasn't me, it was the Maxi. She finally manages to sputter to the shoulder when there happened to be a break in the traffic to my right. Miracle. I park her in the zebra-stripped webbing between the interstate and an exit, call Mr. Tow Truck Man and wait for yet another towing bill. Fashionably late potluck...unfashionably late potluck...I'm not coming...I could use that cocktail right about now though. Get the tow and this time the padres decide...she's going to the dealership.

Aaaaahhh...sings the choir of angels. The Maxi hasn't seen the dealership since my grandparents bought her off the lot for way too much money. She loves it there. So much so she decides to take a week long vacation spa retreat there leaving me in the lurch. Oh, and does she show any symptoms or die for her caretakers? Of course not.

Fast forward one month later aka present day. I had a tiring last two days with no end in sight. I go to bed at 11 pm and wake up at 2 am and 6 am and 7 am and finally roll out of bed around 8 am which is the time I was supposed to roll out of town. I have my tasks that I don't perform with the alacrity I had hoped and then my mom calls with a task. Long version: It involves driving out to her house to get her drivers license. Clever me got it yesterday when I was out there in the afternoon. Do you want your credits cards? asked yesterday me. No, said yesterday mom. Okay. I will take the drivers license and be prepared, thought yesterday me. Today I get the call from my mom. I need my drivers license and my debit card, says today mom. Great, thought today me. Now, instead of driving two blocks to the post office on my way out of town, I have to drive to your house nowhere near the post office, get your debit card which I asked if you wanted yesterday when I was already at your house and coming back into town, drive all the way back into town and mail it. Because have I mentioned what the task was? Mail her her drivers license and debit card because she left her purse...on Vacation...a Roadtrip Vacation. But these are mommy issues. I had to stop by the house anyway and I mailed it from another location. (Although it wasn't the airport post office my mom wanted me to mail it from so that it would be that much closer to its destination. If you pay for overnight, they get it there overnight. Sorry. Mommy issues again.)

So I make it to my sister, Madonna's school where I am to help her set up her classroom for the coming school year. Oh, did I mention that I pulled my back on my destination beach vacation? I did. It still hurts so pushing around heavy desks and lifting heavy chairs and boxes really wasn't my cup of tea. That, and my brain was dead from lack of sleep and energy. Needless to say, my sister and I weren't communicating very well and that's when we get testy. But after an energizing lunch, her kicking me out, and I refusing to leave, we got some good work in. Okay, one more errand, kind of out of the way but in the same general I-bothered-to-come-into-the-city kind of area, so let's get it done with, after which I'm home and in my bed. Take the recycling. Not all the recycling, just the glass because my county doesn't do glass.

Okay, I've never been there before but I know the street. At least, I think I know the street. I thought I knew the street but then the street exit off the interstate exit wasn't the street and then I had to drive even more to the next exit that was in the next town over where I had to cross under that exit to get back to the first exit that still isn't the street I wanted in the first place but thankfully I do know how to get to the street that I do want from this street. But is it right or left off of this street? Left. Nope. Right. Okay. Turn around. Found the street that I want, but is it right or left? Left. Left? Yes! I remember now. Okay, maybe half a mile. On the right? Right. There is was. It looked closed. Okay. Turn around. There it is on the left. Closed? Yep, closed. Hours? 7 am-4 pm. Time? 4:20 pm. Damn it!

Maxi? Maxi?! Are you okay? You seem a little...nooooooooooooooooo!

At 4:20 pm with a fever of 102 (or maybe that was the outside temperature but by the by it was what Maxi's thermometer was gauging at) Maxi died a third time. But third time really is a charm as she coasted to a shady stop at a trusted gas station. Thank goodness Madonna lives fairly close. She came to get me and we instead went shopping. She invited me to dinner with her and her husband and I suggested the nice Cuban place she had been raving about all day because if not we would end up at the lovely Mexican place we go to every time I visit so that they can watch me speak in Spanish with the cook they want to hook me up with, and so that my brother-in-law can eat and drink too much with no patience for the latin lax and then be obnoxious in the car ride back to their house four blocks away while my sister yells at him.

We pull up to the Cuban place. Closed. Oh I forgot, the Cuban is on vacation. Of course, the place I suggest would be closed today. Hope he doesn't pull his back on vacation. Mexican it is, where the cook asks for my number, my brother-in-law eats and drinks too much with little patience and where, as my sister is making a left-hand turn, he unexpectedly swings open his passenger side door without wearing his seat belt...twice...in order to litter. I yell at him this time.

Fine. Maxi has rested and I won't take the interstate home. You just have to get through four towns and the fifth is home. At town number four she starts sputtering a little. Fine. Fine. I won't go 40 mph. (She hates 40 mph. That's when she starts getting testy.) I could go 50 but you've had a hard day. 35 mph it is. Hazards on. Everyone else feel free to pass me going 60. I am perfectly happy just moving. We make it home. It is now midnight, I'm still exhausted, my back still hurts, I'm still awake, and I still have a busy, exhausting day tomorrow. Wish me luck.