it was a very strange day today

[GAspnes]

I was woken early. My son Dan's Jack Russell terrier was standing next to my bed, barking to be let out. Dan was sound asleep, like all 21 year olds at 7 a.m.

My idea of waking up is to slowly reassemble myself. Realize that the dreams were dreams. Something annoying is happening. Oh yeah. Reality. I don't wake up well. Ask any of my ex-wives.

Rub eyes. Stumble out of bed. Let dog out. Start coffee. Rub eyes. Close the windows in anticipation of a hot day. Walk across the living room rug. Step in dogshit. Not even awake yet, and I'm washing my feet and carpet. Oh well.

Once the coffee is ready, settle down with the news and the job boards. By 10 am, I am awake enough to start making phone calls -- either the followup kind, or the cold-call kind. Another day without joy in the search, but each possibility that is cut down is succeeded by a new possibility.

Time for lunch. Eat. Walk. Son gets up, his car won't start. Drive him to work. I hate getting dressed without having a shower first.

All day gloomy, 911 on the TV and overcast on the sky. Rain, dammit. We need it.

3 pm, phone rings. Don't recognize the number. It's my parents' doctor. My Mom is okay, but he's putting her into the hospital for a week for tests on her heart. Been through this before -- give the hospital 2 hours to admit her, leave house. The Jeep at least is running fine, and the first sprinkles of rain are starting. Then the highway congeals to a stalled mass of irritated steel boxes. Get off freeway, get to hospital.

The usual stuff. Mom's okay, drill into her not to do ANYthing without a nurse's help. Yes, I'll call your harp students and cancel the lessons. Yes, I've left phone messages for all the siblings and grandkids. No, I won't tell Dad until tomorrow. Leave hospital when her meal arrives.

Enough, already. Talking to my brothers and sisters on a crackling cell phone while driving in the (now pouring) rain, sun's down, autumn's coming. Bleah.

Get to the gas station near my house. Stop Jeep. Fill up. Jeep won't start. Same thing that happened, on this very spot, two weeks ago. Push Jeep to parking spot and try jiggling the shifter (worked last time), kicking the outside of the damn machine and sitting inside, listening to the rain pouring down.

Phone rings. It's the last of my sons calling. Mike's a paramedic, and the oldest, so it's easiest to explain to him what's going on with his grandmother. And how are you, he asks. Fine, but my car just crapped out. Where are you. The Holiday station at 54th and Nicollet. I'm right around the corner, he says. Be right there.

Thirty seconds later, a Hennepin County Medical Center ambulance pulls across the gas station and parks at an angle behind my dead Jeep. Two paramedics hop out, as the lights keep flashing. Mike asks me to lift the hood, and for 10 minutes we poke around the engine compartment while people come and go from the gas station.

I wondered what they were thinking.

"You mean you can call paramedics for a CAR!?"

I wondered if they expected the two handsome young men in the uniforms to shout "CLEAR!" from under the hood of the Jeep.

Mike figured it out. Hammer on the starter, and the Jeep kicked over and roared to life. Handshakes for his partner, a big hug for my son, and then the ambulance pulled out of the gas station, lights flashing, against the westbound traffic on 54th, a brief "BLURP!" from the siren, cars pulled over, and they were off.

I drove home. Here I am. Another day almost done.

Some are more interesting than others.

[spotbird]

1. First thing this morning I hurt my back lifting a dehumidifier.

Spent the whole day in bed with the laptop and the tube. I’ve learned that if I take it really easy the first day the recovery is faster.

Your day was interesting at least, maybe like the curse though.

[GAspnes]

2. yes, it was

[prolesunited]

3. Any day that starts

with a dog barking stepping in poop is not going to be good.

:hug: Hope tomorrow is better.

[dweller]

4. Replace the starter first

you can do it yourself if you have a little mech knowhow, turn in the other one for a rebuild.

Then, let the dog back in. He'll probably poop the carpet again since you've forgotten him for that long, but hey, the Jeep will start!

:)

dp

[Duncan Grant]

5. great post!

I know you're not fishing for compliments but I appreciate a good storyteller. Thanks! :hi:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. Lousy day here,too

Any day when you're on the phone to support with two different companies is a bad one!

I switched ISPs (bye-bye MSN! :evilgrin: ) today in conjunction with setting up a wireless connection, and after five hours of experimenting and reading help files, which got me to the point where my computer would recognize the wireless base station but wouldn't configure it, I finally called Apple support. only to find out that the store had sold me the wrong base station for my antique computer. :grr:

Okay, so I rehook the cable modem to the computer in my living room--and it doesn't access the Internet, when it had worked this morning for the cable guy. I finally figured out that the Ethernet cable was broken on one end. Fortunately, I had a spare Ethernet cable lying around, so now I could access the Web.

But my email wouldn't work. It kept asking for my password. Finally I called the ISP, only to find out that due to the faintness of the copy of the order slip I had been given, I was misreading the password and entering the wrong one. The ISP guy kindly told me how to change my password and create a second account that didn't have my last name misspelled.

That was punctuated by having to call Portland to find out why my backup ISP wasn't working either.

Well, test messages sent from Yahoo confirm that I have finally emerged from the day's computer hell. Now I get to go to the store and get the right base station.