Category Archives: Paul

I was curious so I went to see what I wrote her last Thanksgiving. I see that I was probably tired and a bit overwhelmed by the events of the holiday. We had just been through a large brush fire a few weeks earlier. There were a lot of stressors in our lives.

I wrote, “Let’s all hope that next Thanksgiving we can all be thankful that those crises are less threatening than they are this Thanksgiving.”

It’s next Thanksgiving. On a personal basis, a number of issues are better, some much better. On a national, historical, planetary basis, those crises are worse, not better at all.

NEXT Thanksgiving – people, we’ve got to do better!

On a much more granular level, it was a lovely Thanksgiving feast. I hope that you and yours had a wonderful holiday as well.

Tomorrow we start the Christmas lights, weather permitting.

Damn, Thanksgiving is late this year!

I’ve mentioned that as a child we spent LOTS of time on cross-country road trips – crammed into a station wagon with seven siblings, and parents, and occasionally pets, playing “license plate games” was necessary for survival. They were formative years. So now I always look for the first sighting of the next year’s colored tags on California license plates.

With Hissy being a “January baby,” I get to cheat. I got her registration about ten days ago and went online and paid immediately. And I’ve been keeping an eagle eye out for anyone else who might have gotten one first. Believe me, with the commute to the new job, I’ve been staring at a lot of bumpers recently.

Haven’t spotted one yet.

I’m a weiner!!!

(Assuming, of course, you don’t take into consideration that I’m so pathetic that getting my car registration sticker earlier than everyone else is such a big event in my life. Good thing there was that wedding last weekend or this might be the highlight of the month!)

Some days…

I don’t even remember what got me off balance to begin with, but about the time I hit my office door this morning I realized that I had left the house without breakfast, and more importantly, without my Diet Coke.

That’s one of the differences between the new office and the old – there are a lot more people in the new office and the kitchen refrigerator is pretty much the same size. So my habit of leaving a six-pack or more is somewhat less than practical. But when I forget to bring one in…

So at lunch, after dealing (more or less successfully) with a number of “challenges,” I went out to find a grocery store.

Which was easy enough. One cold Diet Coke from the freezer section, a couple of six packs to stick in my office, some granola bars for those times when I get a bit hangry…

Only to realize that my wallet was in my coat pocket while my coat was still hanging on the back of the chair back in my office. It had been chilly and foggy when I left home, but by lunchtime it was not. I think that the look on my face said everything to the poor guy at the checkout register.

A quick search of the car showed that there was extremely little cash onboard – I’m *SO* glad that I cleaned it out a couple of weeks ago and dumped that $30+ in loose change into the CoinStar machine! I had just enough to stop at a gas station and pick up a single cold Diet Coke for lunch…

…at which point my shoelace broke while walking back across the parking lot.

So, the laughter might have had a tinge of hysteria at that point.

Hangry, under caffeinated, gimpy with a jury rigged shoelace, I carried on and made it through the day.

How did your day go?

Sure, the entire world’s going to Hell (*waves broadly at US & UK politics and global climate change and EVERYTHING*) but you have to take joy where you can find it, a bit of satisfaction in every little victory.

In my case, the bane of my existence (well, one of them, sorta) has been a quest to reset the freaking “Maintenance Overdue” warning message on my car’s dashboard.

For the most part it’s a lovely car. A 2011 Volvo C70 convertible, a lot of fun to drive, comfortable, nice handling, a big enough engine to make it go “zoom” when needed, and always fun to drive with the top down. Not always practical to drive with the top down, but still fun.

Except for one stupid, frustrating, nagging, and expensive problem. Which still isn’t fixed after a couple of LONG stays at the dealer and way, Way, WAAAAY too much money. But it’s drive able. If I’m okay being frustrated, and nagged, and poorer for the experience.

Which in turn means that I’m not taking it back to the dealer for routine maintenance. I would rather have my eyeballs eaten out by rabid fire ants than go back to the dealer.

But I’m not stupid about maintenance. It needs to be done, and it has been. Just not by the dealer.

Then, even though the vehicle had been at the dealer not too long ago during the last desperate attempt to get the stupid, frustrating, nagging, and expensive problem resolved and had had all of its regular maintenance done then, this warning shows up every time I start the vehicle.

More stupid. More frustrating. More nagging. I’ll be damned if it’s going to be more expensive.

The internet can answer almost any questions, right? So I searched. And found three or four varying sets of instructions for resetting the warning. It’s got to be some combination or sequence of “push this, do that, hold this button for five seconds, turn the key, wiggle your ears, pat your head, rub your tummy” and it resets the electronics. Right?

Right?

Wrong.

None of it worked. I’ve tried every day or two for weeks.

So I got online with Volvo. They won’t tell me the reset sequence is. Bastards!!! All I got from them was, “take it back to the dealer, they’ll do it for you.” (I may have to send them a box of rabid fire ants.)

I finally buckled and called the dealer and asked for guidance. They said to bring it in. I politely (i.e., without mentioning the rabid fire ants) said that couldn’t happen and asked again nicely if they could put a mechanic on the phone or could email the instructions. Nope, they can’t do that.

BASTARDS!!!

Today, again, I tried to reset the code when I left the office. Maybe I had seen something in one of the online sources that had a hint of something to do that was a tiny bit different (“hold the button until just the third or fourth flash of the “i” icon”), but whatever I did…

IT WORKED!!!

So go ahead, world! Fall apart! Oceans rise! Continents sink! Comets smash into the planet!

I’ll die happy because tomorrow morning when I go to work, all I’ll see on my dashboard is the time and temp and how many miles until empty.

Little victories!

This morning I got an email from Tumblr.

The problem I’m having with the hallucinations is that they’re apparently not the “fun” or “colorful” kind – they’re the ones where I go wild and crazy and post adult content on my site but don’t remember it.

Wait – do I even HAVE a Tumblr account? Half wondering if this was some very clever and sophisticated phishing scheme, I clicked on the link to see what “adult content” I had posted.

C’mon, folks!! Even if I hadn’t been wearing pants when my phone went rogue, this STILL wouldn’t have been “adult content!” “Objectionable,” sure. “Disgusting,” possibly. “Nauseating,” without a doubt. But “adult”???

So I disputed the characterization and figured I would get a decision in about three weeks. Maybe.

Three seconds (literally) later, I got this.

Wow, I feel much safer now. Don’t you?