My Housecleaner Stripper Girlfriend Needed A Mental Health Day

So I had one of my stripper girlfriends come over Saturday to clean the house.  She's great because she's thorough, but she was late again, as usual.  (She did have mitigating circumstances, though, and I want to keep that private.)  She got here around 9, and she stayed until about 1:30 or so.  She has come and stayed for upwards of eight hours, which seems insane to me.  It's not as if I'm moving.  But I was prepared to have her stay until 5 in the morning as befits her pattern.  Unfortunately (or fortunately), she hit a wall halfway through her cleaning; apparently I was her third client of the day, and she'd been working since early Sunday morning.  That's fine, I said; she could leave her stuff here and come back to finish up the next day.

That "next day" was yesterday/Sunday, but goddammit, no, she did not come back.  She was so exhausted that she needed the day off.  It was going to be kind of awkward since I just wanted to sit and watch football all day; hearing the TV over her vacuuming would be hard, and it's hard to relax when I need to move my butt around so she can clean.  But now that she's coming back today/Monday (or at least she's saying that she is), that brought up a host of other conflicts because I work, obvi.  She wanted to come over in the morning, when I work, and she wanted me to just drop a house key in, like, a potted plant or something so she could work.  I trust ****e*, but I cannot allow just anyone to come into this house without me being present.  I am not worried that she'll steal something; I'm worried that someone will find the key I would leave for her and break in.  And heaven forbid if a member of my family just somehow drops by while she's there; I would be at a total loss of words to explain that.

So I told her no, she can't do it, even though it would be super-convenient for her.  I asked if she could come in the afternoon; no, she said, she needs to pick up her kid.  I asked if she could come later in the evening, like around the time she came Saturday.  Yeah, she said, but she might have to bring her kid with her.  I said OK; I've had a stripper girlfriend clean my house with her son once before, and it wasn't a big deal.  Maybe having a child in tow will compel ****e* her to work a little quicker.  I can't imagine she needs to stay longer than, like, a few hours anyway; it's just blinds and floors and walls at this point.

The big problem is if she can't come tonight, for some reason.  I can't see why -- after all, all her cleaning supplies are here, and she can't work without them.  But beyond the fact that this cleaning job is not done after 24 hours is, well, my Chinese-ness.  You see, Chinese New Year is Tuesday, and one of the big traditions is to clean everything before the New Year.  Moreover, you're not supposed to clean anything for at least New Year's Day, if not the first two days of the New Year, because you'll be "sweeping away your fortune."  (I've seen some websites saying you can't clean for the first five days, and one that forbids you from doing it for the first week.  Oy.)  I can't do anything if for some reason ****e* says she can't come tonight, but as much as I tout that I have a degree, breaking this tradition (which I only heard of recently, so I've been a johnny-come-lately adherent on this) scares the bejesus out of me.  So she has to do this tonight or else.  And dammit, she should know about this because she's half-Asian.  Lordy.

You Lied To Me, Burger King

So, as one of my stripper girlfriends is here cleaning the house in time for Chinese New Year, I decided I was going to use the offer I got through T-Mobile Tuesdays to buy Burger King for dinner.  I told ****e* that and I offered to buy her some food, to which she accepted.  I made sure I found a BK that was open for drive-thru by the time I could get out the door.  I found one, put my order in, used the free food code, and paid through my phone.

And then, lo and behold, once I got there, the damn place was closed.  Not even drive-thru.  It said both on the website and the app that they closed at 11.  I even drove up to the drive-thru window and saw they had hours stating that its drive-thru closed at midnight on Saturdays.  But no one was there.

I understand the pandemic has encouraged many people to quit their jobs because those jobs are too dangerous, and it has morphed into a "Great Resignation" where people are re-evaluating their jobs and deciding to quit for other reasons.  On the drive-thru speaker, next to a paper sign saying they'll open at noon, they also had a "due to a lack of workers, wait times to get your food will be much longer" sign.  I understand all of that, I really do.  And yet I don't think it's too much trouble to update your goddamn hours on your fucking website and application, for crissake, so you don't fuck people who ordered through your app.

So now I have to go to this BK when they open tomorrow and get them to credit me for the charge to my card and/or dispute this charge with my credit card company once the statement comes.  (I'm already disputing another charge; if I haven't blog posted about it yet, I will.)  And this is why I was initially hesitant of getting apps and purchasing things online: You're not guaranteed the products or services you bought through a device while you're physically miles away from the place from which you'll get that product or service.  This is the worst-case scenario.  And I don't quite know what to do in order to get un-fucked.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Wild (Last Week: -2).  Don't let the hype over Kirill Kaprizov before the season began blind you to the somewhat precarious position the Wild find themselves in right now.  Yep, they went 3-0 this Week, and the different ways they won -- they came back from 2-0 and 3-1 down to defeat Chicago in Overtime at the X (thus finishing off a home-and-home sweep), quadrupled guest Montreal, then came back from 2-0 down to beat the Rangers at Madison Square Garden the night they retired Henrik Lundqvist's number -- portends a resilient team that doesn't shut down just because their A Game is taken away from them.  But they still remain in fourth place in the Central Division.  They're still relatively safe for at least a Wild Card spot, and they have several Games in hand compared to the clubs they're chasing.  But how the Year plays out largely hinges on how they play in the rescheduled Games next Month, and like I've said, if that gauntlet goes sideways on them, maybe this club will be fighting for their playoff lives.

Those rescheduled Games come after this screening Week, in which Minnesota plays only twice -- at the Islanders tomorrow/Sunday night, then at Chicago (for the second time in less than two Weeks) Wednesday.

#-2: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: -3).  The main obstacle this Year's team has is either making with or dethroning the current hegemony in the sport, which is manned by Wisconsin and Ohio St.  This team enjoyed serendipity with their schedule as they play both powers on back-to-back weekends.

The good news: They completed a sweep of the top-ranked team in the nation last Saturday, outlasting Wisconsin at Ridder Arena, 4-3.  The bad news: At Columbus last/Friday evening, the U. lost in Overtime to Ohio St. (which is either ranked second or third depending on which poll you're looking at), 2-1.  They appear to have benefited a lot from the sweep of the Badgers, and they currently are behind only the Buckeyes in the PairWise, so I will say that their Win outweighs their Loss, and therefore I slot them this high.

One more (actually final) chance to improve their tournament CV against Ohio St. this/Saturday afternoon, and then it's the dregs from here on out; they host Bemidji St. for two starting Friday night.  It'll soon be a case of not slipping up.

#-3: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -4).  Got blitzed by Michigan in the second Game of a two-fer last Saturday, 4-1 at Mariucci.  They then turned around and immolated Notre Dame in South Bend last/Friday evening, 5-1.  Unfortunately, they appear to be slipping down the PairWise.  They're now in tenth, and I believe that there have been a few teams in that spot at this time of the season that have gone on to slide out of NCAA Tournament consideration.

They finish up with the Fighting Irish this/Saturday evening before coming home for a two-Game series versus Michigan St. beginning Friday.  The squad is currently playing without three of its players -- Ben Meyers, Brock Faber and Matthew Kneis -- as they were named as replacements for the U. S. Olympic Hockey Team that begin play next Week.  (Ex-Gopher Aaron Ness also is a part of the squad.)  How will their absences affect the U.?

#-4: Timberwolves (Last Week: -1).  A 1-2 screening Week; outlasted the Trail Blazers in Portland Tuesday, 109-107 (I think this is the Game after which Anthony Edwards called himself "Black Jesus"), but then got thoroughly beaten at Golden State and Phoenix, the two best teams in the Western Conference (and possibly the NBA), on back-to-back nights.  This is the second time in about ten Days the Timberwolves have played back-to-back road Games in cities that aren't that close.  First was New York City to Atlanta, and this time it was San Francisco to Phoenix.  Seriously, that's not fair, so I'm cutting the Wolves some slack here.  Also, they right now are tied for eighth in the West, which puts them firmly in the Play-In rounds, so that's why I am putting these guys here, above two teams who finished .500 for the Week.

As for this Week, the Wolves host Utah and Denver, then visit Detroit.

#-5: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -5).  Did I say in last Week's WMNSS that these guys are playing at Michigan in two Weeks?  I don't know why I said that because they played the Wolverines last/Friday night in Ann Arbor.  I guess I saw that their previous Dual was more than a Week from this one, and therefore I thought these grapplers were taking a Week off.  Whoops.

The Wolverines are ranked fourth in the country, so I am a tad encouraged the U. only lost by a score of 20-14, and ... well, just to throw them a bone, that nice try puts them not at the bottom of the survey.  Both teams had a pair of Major Decisions, including U. Heavyweight (and fuckin' grapplin' God) Gable Steveson.  But the Wolverines won two more Decisions, and two Decisions equal six Points.  Maybe 24th-ranked Gopher Jake Gilva could've gotten one more Takedown on 8th-ranked Wolverine Dylan Ragusin at 133?

That visit to Ann Arbor commences a three-Dual roadtrip.  It continues Friday in Illinois.

#-6: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -6).  Broke a four-Game losing streak Saturday at The Barn by gutting out a 68-65 Win over a resurgent Rutgers outfit, but then got blown out at Williams Thursday by Ohio St., 75-64.  One factor that you can point to in determining whether or not the Gophers can stay in a Game: Rebounding.  They eked out that battle vs. the Scarlet Knights, 27-25, but they got blasted on the boards against the Buckeyes, 48-22.  (Twenty of those were Offensive, resulting in 27 Second Chance Points for Ohio St.)  They have no inside size, so Big Ten teams were going to eat them up on the down low.  And any thoughts their hot start could translate into a surprise birth in the NCAA Tournament have just gone up in smoke.

At Wisconsin Sunday afternoon, then hosting Purdue Wednesday evening.

#-7: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -7).  Showed some fight Sunday afternoon before falling in Michigan St., 74-71, but then got blown out at Purdue Thursday by 14.  The club's losing streak now stands at four.  Yeah, this is yet another lost season.  Host Wisconsin and then at Indiana this Week.

I'm having a stripper (or is it ex-stripper) clean the house tomorrow in time for Chinese New Year.  Haven't seen her in a couple years, definitely not since the pandemic.  She's a great cleaner.  But, since she's a stripper, I've always had the urge to get naked around her.  I think I've managed to do that half the times she's cleaned my house.  But since it's been so long, well, I think I'll do my best to whip it out in front of her.

Has she done anything with my dick?  No.  But you've got to be persistent, right?

I Flew The Unfriendly Skies

I can finally get around to blog posting about this.

I decided to fly out to Las Vegas to see my parents last month knowing the risks I was taking.  Most pervasive of all of these was contracting the coronavirus, of course, but I was particularly scared of was any bullshit that could have happened from belligerent anti-masker pricks being on the same plane as I.  I have read and heard the horror stories of these assholes arguing, coughing, and hitting flight attendants because they refused to wear their masks like they were told.  I swore that my bad juju was going to attract these motherfuckers on the planes I would be flying on, and since I had to make a stop going to and flying from Vegas, that increased the possibility manifold that I would see or even have at least one run-in like this.

OK, that didn't happen.  But oh, God, there were fucking pricks on my flights, specifically the second segment both going there and coming back.

Knowing the dangers of being a captive citizen needing to breathe the possibly dirty-ass breath of strangers, I double-masked with an N95 over my surgical.  I love eating and drinking while flying, but I refused all offers for complimentary food and drink from the attendants while I was on the planes.  First time ever, but I think I made the right decision.

No, there weren't anti-maskers on the plane.  But there were rude asswipes.  On my Denver-to-Vegas segment, I made the (possible) mistake of taking off my masks because I brought coffee on board with me.  While I was sipping it, some Asian (guessing mainland Chinese) fucker decided to take the seat right behind me and began chowing down on what sounded like a large bag of chips he brought on board with him.  He was crunching loud enough I have to believe he was eating with his mouth open, and not only did that mean bits of chips were flying out of his goddamn mouth, he was spewing his filthy (and possibly COVID-ridden) breath all over me and the entire plane.  On top of all that, who in the hell scarfs down a whole bag of chips before taking off on a flight?

Worse than that, though, was this old biddy on the Austin-to-MSP flight home.  I was really tired and lucked out on having a whole row of seats on which I could lie as flat as I could and sleep.  But I heard this extremely loud movie going on all throughout this 2 1/2 hour trip, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out where the hell it was coming from, I just knew it was so goddamn loud I couldn't fucking fall asleep.  I finally figured out that a couple rows behind me, this rude bitch was watching a movie on her laptop without any headphones.  She just fuckin' cranked up the sound so she could hear above the noise of the airplane.  It was so bad that I did something else I don't think I have ever done before: I surreptitiously complained to a flight attendant about her.  She got on the speaker to, in so many words, ask that this fucking woman turn that shit down.  But she didn't.  Goddamn her; couldn't fall asleep because of her bullshit.

I was too anxious to commit violence on her; I had to use public transportation for an hour and a half to get home to a house that I had abandoned under half a foot of snow for three days.  I could have been high-stepping in snow only to find that the basement was flooded, for all I knew.  Having that in my mind kind of distracted me from exacting revenge on this unmannered woman.  But it nonetheless reinforced my fear and disdain for flying.  And I wonder whether dealing with people like those two is a phase and a reaction some insecure people have to our pandemic-stricken world right now, or a sign of the further deterioration of our civilized society.

Expenses Without Receipts

Christ, late again.  Starting from Wednesday, January 26, 2022:

• Well, go back to Monday the 24th, where I finally invited ***e* to come up here (since my folks are gone) to give me a handjob.  Price stays the same, inflation be damned: $120.
• ETA at 1:21 a.m. on January 28 that I also stored two quarters that are, I think, new to me.  So that means I took out of my pocket: 50 cents.
• On Sunday the 23rd I decided to try the local Carbone's pizza.  Got a pie, bread with marinara sauce, and a salad in case I was going to be hungry after the football Games were over.  When I got there, I was, and this is something that doesn't happen often but happens more than I think should (if that makes any sense), offered another pizza.  The way the chef described it, the person who originally wanted that pizza wanted it cut a certain way, she screwed it up somehow, and that person just refused to take the pizza.  Because it was cut wrong?  The hell?  Sure, I'll take it.  Now, that meant that of the 40 total slices (Carbone's is a square-cut joint) I could eat I could only eat 18 -- less than a whole pizza, which is a step back from the previous Sunday.  I gave ***e* the remnants of the pizza I ordered, all 11 remaining cuts.  Have the receipt for the whole thing, which I paid in cash, but I threw in as tip, with a little extra for the second pizza: $3.58.
• On Friday the 21st I indulged in a massage with the training place in town.  For the first time in my life -- I think -- I went all-out and went for the maximum time, 80 minutes.  The trainee was, in short, excellent.  I had her concentrate on my neck and feet (I was given two areas of concentration), but it was her working my forearms and the back of my legs where I felt the best release of tension.  I kind of thought I screwed up because I was working immediately after (it was second shift), and I thought the hectic pace of work would get my heart rate up and effectively "ruin" the massage, but honestly, I felt the relaxation and, well, good vibes from the massage the whole night, and the next day, too.  I could not add the tip to the charge on the credit card, but she deserved a tip, so even though I didn't plan on using cash on this day, I passed along: $20.
• Back to Thursday, January 6, where I went down to ***e*'s place to see her and ******e for a double-team handjob.  They DT'd me around Thanksgiving, and I commented on seeing ******e again in less than two months here.  Total: $240.
• Man, I miss 2021.  On New Year's Eve I went to ***e*'s again for a solo HJ.  Wow ... I now see that she's wanked me thrice in less than a month.  I love her but I don't need to see her that often.  Oh well: $120.
• Finally, back on Thursday, December 23, I got my shoes polished.  That was where and when my shoeshiner told me she was retiring her spot in downtown Minneapolis on February 1.  Shocked the hell out of me, but she said she's now going to polish shoes on Saturdays in St. Paul at this haberdashery that I have been meaning to go to in order to find a new suit that fits me.  I'm happy for her, and her new part-time gig will now finally compel me to do something I've been meaning to do for some time.  With tip, the shine was: $15.

OK, good through Wednesday, January 26, 2022.

Cold Weather: The Big De-Motivator

This is totally obvious, but if I haven't said it yet in my years here on WAF, I think I need to say it now: Really cold weather sucks because you don't want to do anything except stay underneath the covers all day.  Lately I've been able to get up well ahead of when I really need to; I may hit the snooze button on my cellphone once, maybe twice, but I'm walking and the lights are on way ahead of schedule.  But then ... but then ... I think I have time and so I lie back down on my bed to scroll through my phone (either Twitter or my e-mail) and stay warm.  I finally have to get out of the house, of course, but usually I am no more than a couple minutes earlier than I would have been, say, in the summer.

Hey, it's just hard to bolt out the door when the weather is telling you to stay inside because it's nasty out there.  And I'm not talking about temperatures just below freezing.  No, I'm talking about, at best, single digits above zero and, more often, temps below zero.  That's when it's really cold to a Minnesotan.  And that compels me to stay in the safe space of my bed, with only my grown-up attitude and the need to make money finally pushing me out the door.

We have possibly the coldest temperature of the season this morning.  If I (and my car) can get through that, it should be smooth sailing, at least for the next 48 hours; temps will rise almost 30 degrees through this afternoon.  Lower-to-mid-twenties will feel so balmy, I might just take off my pants!

Deceptively Bad Day

It's hard to get out of bed on Monday to go to work.  Even harder after a workweek where you could just roll out of bed anytime because you're working second shift.  Add that it's cold and the safest place you could feel is in bed, and you can see how and why it was so hard to trundle off to work.

Worse than that is something I should blog post about further.  We have a fancy (-ish) coffee machine that makes a cup immediately after grinding beans.  I swear I now understand why a coffee is better brewed immediately after its beans are ground up.  But it has been on the fritz lately, and after about a week of it being OK, it was broken over the weekend.  Knowing that there would be no cup of joe waiting for me in the break room, I had to instead get up early and leave for work early because I needed to get to the gas station in order to have enough time to buy this fake frap, get cash (for my handjob with ***e* later that afternoon), and get to work on time.  But I didn't do that.  Maybe it was the water coming out of a couple of the holes from which I wanted this fake frap, or maybe it was me taking an extra couple second shaking the snow off of my windshield screen.  But I was a minute late for work, and that's a no-no at work, and so I didn't start off work on the right foot.

And then I saw that I had to go inside the lab, which I hate, to start my day because there was no work outside.  That made things worse.  But all that morning I was spiraling in my mind.  All I could think about was this pseudo-nightmare/fantasy that I was put up for adoption, was never adopted, was about to age out of the system when my parents found me, basically bullied me into visiting them, and after caving in and flying out to Minnesota to see them, throw a weekend-long temper tantrum and essentially pick a fight with every member of a family that, in this situation, I never knew I had nor wanted to ever get to know.  I was locked in to thinking about this, man; I was making up dialogue, and my heart was pounding with anger so much that I could feel my left arm tingle.  I usually get into this mindset when bad things happen to me.  Yesterday morning wasn't great, but in retrospect, I don't think it was so bad I should have these violent ideations to get me through my workday.

Speaking of spiraling, however, my annoying-more-than-bad day did turn into an actually bad, if not shitty, one.  Once I got done in the lab, I was locked out of my computer even though I swear I put in my password correctly a dozen times.  When you get locked out, you have to have your supervisor call the IT department.  And apparently they are as short-staffed as any business in America right now, so my boss told me to just take lunch early.  I set up my alarm and close my eyes in the hopes of napping, which I really needed yesterday because I only got, get this, 2 1/2 hours of sleep.  (I slept in Sunday morning, what can I say?)  I fall asleep, I wake up, I wonder how long I've been in my car ... and then I see I should have gotten back from my lunch break 15 minutes before.  The alarm I turned on is one I use for Tuesdays through Fridays because my regimented schedule for those four days is different from the one I have for Mondays.  I turned it on, but it wouldn't have sounded because it was Monday.  Didn't occur to me to think that.  Hey, I had less than three hours of sleep, and I worked second shift all last week.

I'm running back in to work.  I get this 60-digit recovery key to input in order to get back into my computer.  I do, but I figure that I should change my password anyway.  But first I have to answer my security questions, and for fuck's sake, I apparently didn't answer them correctly, because I got locked out again.  In frustration I decided not to change my password and just put in my old one.  And I got in.  Oh, now I get in with my old password.  And don't say I must've put it in wrong before.  I entered my password correctly each and every one of those dozen tries, goddammit.

Well, that's when the bad day stopped.  My boss told me I should stay late in order to make up for my extended lunch, but other than that, everything at work was good.  And then I got home and that HJ from ***e*, then took a nap, shoveled a third of my driveway, and got a workout in.  Got home, ate a Jersey Mike's sub (they're good, I must admit) and washed it down with a vodka cran.  And now I go to bed.

But damn, yesterday morning absolutely blew.

Addendum To: Am I Afraid Of The Blower?

No, I am not afraid of the snowblower.  The last time I used it -- and I don't remember when, it's been some time -- it worked perfectly fine.  I don't remember the last winter in which I was able to use it twice in the same season, but it has worked so far in 2021-2, and if there's another hellacious snowstorm, I expect to be able to use it again then.

Just an update.

Lazy Sunday

You know, this is one of those days where I could have done a lot, like going through my stuff or washing my clothes.

Instead:

• I woke up at noon.  I don't remember the last time I had eight hours of sleep.
• I decided to order pizza from this new place, giving me little time except to water the plants and clear the cars of snow.
• I then got the pizza, but not before picking up lottery tickets and pop.
• And I've been watching football ever since.

I might do stuff after football's over.  The main thing, though, is looking to see how much more snow we get from tonight's snowfall, the last of three clipper systems dropping off the white stuff.  Each system on its own will drop one or two inches.  But these three are coming over successive nights, so before you know it, there's half of foot of snow on the ground and I can't get anywhere.  So I have to make sure I can get around.  And then I ... will probably shower, trim my nails, go to bed and get ready for the workweek.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Timberwolves (Last Week: -4).  No team stood out this Week.  But only one won more Games than lost, so by default I guess, the Woofie Dogs claim the top spot for this Week's WMNSS.  They crushed the Warriors at Target Center Sunday by 20, then survived an absolute shit-ass Third Quarter to somehow outlast the Knicks at Madison Square Garden Tuesday, 112-110.  Jaylen Nowell bailed out the team with his clutch, out-of-nowhere shooting, and having role players unexpectedly step up has been one of many bright spots that Wolves can claim as proof of a turning point.  Unfortunately, they had to travel from The Big Apple to The Terminal City and play the next night vs. the Hawks, and understandably (yes, I'm making an excuse for these guys -- playing on one side of the country to another on back-to-back nights is ridiculous!) they got beat, 134-122.  In that contest, there were more offensive fouls called on Karl-Anthony Towns, and there was more bitching from KAT about not getting calls.  At this point, both occurrences can be considered features, not bugs.  Surprisingly (at least from my standpoint), streak shooter D'Angelo Russell is becoming The Voice Of Reason when it comes to complaining about calls.  He might not be the most tradeable of The Big 3 after all.

An incredibly busy screening Week starts tonight/Saturday night at home versus The Bastard New York-by-way-of-New Jersey Nets.  Since this is a road Game, Kyrie Irving can play in this one.  They then tuck in a three-Game road trip -- Portland Tuesday, then a horrid back-to-back where they play at Golden State Thursday and then Phoenix on Friday.  Like the previous Week's consecutive Games on the road, this part of the schedule is bullshit.

#-2: Wild (Last Week: -1).  They battled The Bastard Quebec Nordiques in Denver in an MLK matinee before dropping the second Point in a Shootout.  They then routed the once-mighty Blackhawks in Chicago last/Friday night, 5-1.  They still sit seventh in the Western Conference with seven Games in hand.  Those Games, postponed because other squads were facing COVID outbreaks, were finally rescheduled in February, when the NHL was supposed to be taking off to let its players compete in the Olympics.  Six of the seven Games will played every other night.  That means that the Wild will be getting in six tilts over the course of 11 Days (and the seventh one happens four Days before the first of this gauntlet).  This will be extremely busy and extremely taxing, and the once-high-flying Wild may be in for some turbulence if this goes sideways on them.

But that's next Month.  Tonight/Saturday night they complete the home-and-home with the Blackhawks as the two clubs cap Hockey Day In Minnesota 2022.  They then host Montreal before visiting the Rangers at MSG.

#-3: Gopher women's hockey (Last Week: 0).  You may not have noticed, but this was a horrible Week for Golden Gopher sports.  It was somewhat difficult for me to rank all the U. teams this screening Week.  I had to put someone up this high, and I have half-heartedly put the female Dinkytown icers here.  It doesn't sit well with me because of what happened last Saturday: The Goofers allowed their 53-Game winning streak over Minnesota State-Mankato to be snapped by losing to the Mavericks in Overtime, 5-4.  And this was fucking at home, too.

And yet they were redeemed (sort of) by what happened last/Friday night.  The top-ranked team in the nation, Wisconsin, came to town to start a two-Game series, and in a tight one, the Gophs came out on top, 2-1.  Amy Potomak, whose five-Minute Major for Boarding allowed the Badgers to tie the score at 1, made up for it with the Game-winning Goal.

Somehow, the U. probably now rank only behind Wisky in the PairWise.  So does the Badgers Win count more than the Mavericks Loss?

The second Game against the Badgers comes this/Saturday afternoon.  They then head out to second-ranked Ohio St. to start a two-Game set there on Friday.

#-4: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -3).  Similarly to their female analogue, the Gopher men's hockey team suffered the indignity of losing at home to a program that is beneath it.  Now, I doubt they had a 53-Game winning streak over Alaska, but last Saturday's 3-2 Loss was still shocking and humbling.  (It also snapped their winning streak at five.)  They bounced back last/Friday night against Michigan.  In what they say was a heated crowd at Mariucci (the Big Ten must now be smiling that these schools are finally bearing some fruits of grudges that should hold fanbase interest), the U. took advantage of a five-Minute Major (just like what happened in the women's Match just across the street!) on the Wolverines' Jacob Truscott late in the Third Period to, in OT, score the Game-ending Goal courtesy of Ben Meyers.

The U. is tied for ninth in the PairWise; I think that's good.  One more against The Maize And Blue before heading out to South Bend and beginning a two-Game series vs. Notre Dame starting Friday.

#-5: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -2).  The then-14th-ranked Gopher grapplers lost at home to then-ninth-ranked Wisconsin, 21-15, Sunday afternoon.  The U. won only four Matches in the Dual, but three of them were Major Decisions, including Gable Steveson at Heavyweight.

At Michigan in two Weeks.

#-6: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -6).  COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on the college basketball schedule.  Go through a daily schedule for the sport, and you'll see several Games on the bottom of the page either say "POSTPONED" or "CANCELED."  The former is what happened to Wednesday's scheduled tilt versus Penn St. at Happy Valley.  So the only data point from which to evaluate this team is Sunday afternoon's 81-71 Loss at the hands of Iowa at Williams (which, by the way, is attached to Maturi Pavilion ... where, at the same time the Gopher men's b-ball team was falling to the Hawkeyes, the Gopher wrestling team was putting the finishing touches on their Loss to the Badgers).  The club is still getting slapped with a hard dose of reality.  They host Rutgers and Ohio St. this Week.

#-7: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -5).  OK, if Lindsay Whalen wasn't heralded as a goddess in her home state, Thursday's dehumanization by Iowa at The Barn would immediately put her on the hot seat.  The Hawkeyes beat them by a score of, get this, 105-49.  It's the second-worst defeat in program history.  Oh, and they lost to Ohio St. last Saturday by eight, also at home.  Plus this Week they travel to Michigan St. (Sunday) and Purdue (Thursday).  Yep, they're not going to any postseason tournament this season, either.

I called Mother to catch her up on the mail and she blindsides me with the date those two are coming back home.  I have time, but once there's a date, you don't have much time, you know?

Yeah, I love 'em.  But that's such a goddamn buzzkill to hear they're coming back, know what I mean?

The People At Work Have Shitty Taste In TV

We have two break rooms in the building in which I work.  One of them, deemed the "main" or the "big" one, has a TV.  You know, that's a good thing, especially during, say, second shift, when there is (sometimes) fewer people and you can sneak-watch, for example, the beginning of the latest episode of The Amazing Race, the one you wanted to see in its entirety because it was going to address how they were going to re-start the race after a 19-month (!!!) layoff, but couldn't because you were asked to work second shift.  I was fortunate that no one was actively watching something else.  The two or three people there were just listening to something or otherwise on their phones, so I picked up the remote and flipped it over.  If this was during day shift, I don't know if I would be able to do that because there would have been so many people there that I either would not be able to grab the remote or be able to watch what I want to watch without some passive-aggressive tut-tutting.

Anyway, this brings up something I have noticed now that I have worked there for three-plus years.  Whenever I go into this break room and see the TV on, it's nearly always tuned to a re-run of an old show on one of those subchannels, you know what I mean?  Those ".1" or ".2" channels that show these out-of-nowhere networks playing very old movies or television series that were on a decade ago, or older.  I have always wondered what stuck-in-the-past loser would watch these old fogie networks.  Turns out I work with them.

For example, tonight I took a break while glancing at an episode of CSI: Cyber.  The last of the CSI series, and the one that lasted only two years?  That one?  Damn, over-the-air networks will show anything.  And I frequently see the TV changed to The Closer, which is on one of those subchannels, and I think that show is shown on one of the local subchannels at any point in the day.

We obviously don't have cable at work.  But who in the hell wants to watch this dreck?  I immediately question the taste of anyone who goes out of his or her way to change the channel to this old show BS.  No sports?  No late night television?  Not even the news?  Wow, you've got shitty taste in TV.

Mixed Feelings About Second Shift (Again?)

Pros of second shift:

• Not being tired when you wake up.
• Having the afternoon (and even the morning) to do things you can only during the day.
• Not feeling like you need to rush to do things.
• Having the run of the workplace to yourself.
• No supervisors around.
• No pressure.

Cons of second shift:

• Being tired when you go to work because you need an afternoon nap.
• Wasting the afternoon (and even the morning) not doing the things you planned on doing.
• Not having the evening to do things you want to do during the evening.

And ... that's it.  On the whole, it's better to work second shift.  After doing the above list, I now see that the dividends of working second shift are unanimously positive when it comes to work and work alone.  But -- and I was talking about this with one of my co-workers -- it's the other stuff that, I have also come to realize, gets in the way of someone who works second shift full-time.  While chores I have to do during business hours can be done without me taking time off, there is a tradeoff of not having the time of my day I usually have off, the evening, off because I'm working instead, and it's getting rougher to get used to.  Moreover, when I wake up in the morning and see that I have several hours to do what I want/need to do, I get overwhelmed, I do some things, and I mentally beat myself over the head over the things I couldn't do because it feels to me like I instead chose not to do them.  In that case, having time on my hands is a curse.

And now, instead of going through my stuff, I think I will try and take a nap instead.  Sigh.

Bad Food And Drink

I got hit with the grocery shopping bug Monday night, when I had the jalopy loaner car.  I went to Cub Foods because (well, among other things) I wanted to broaden my cocktails.  I decided to buy cranberry juice because I thought that it could double as another non-alcoholic drink I could, uh, drink if I didn't want alcohol.

Bad decision.  I was thirsty Tuesday night and reached for the cranberry juice, and the damn thing is blood-colored swill.  Now, only after perusing the juice aisle that I saw that not all cranberry juices are alike.  There is cranberry juice "cocktail" and cranberry juice "blend," both of which add other stuff like sugar and apple juice.  I didn't want those because I think the cranberry juice required in cocktails like the cape codder and the cosmopolitan has to be pure cranberries with nothing added.  Well, after taking several sips, I see why sugar and apple juice needs to be added, because pure and unadulterated cranberry juice is just about undrinkable.  And I bought 32 fluid ounces of it.  Hope it tastes better in a cocktail.

Around the same time I drank the cranberry juice -- which was after work, by the way -- I also had cereal.  I had my lactose-free milk, and I used two boxes of generic cereals my parents bought.  One looked bland, so I thought I would even that out by combining that with a cereal that looked extremely sugary.  Big mistake.  I don't know if I ever had bad cereal before (there was one time when I was really young that in my Rice Krispies I saw an insect that was long, very tiny, and had a lot of legs), but damn, this was it.  Each cereal seemed to bring out the worst in each other; the friggin' bowl of cereal managed to be both bland and sugary.

I don't remember any time in my life when I consumed back-to-back things that were so terrible they were inedible.  Made some stupid bad choices when it came to what I put in my mouth.

If I Catch It, I Caught It Here

I got a shave this afternoon and I already regret it.  It was a good shave, I like being pampered, and the customer service was good enough.  But all the people working there had no masks on, they were alluding to "being tired" of COVID news, and it was unnerving to see my shaver just talk and talk and talk while she was around me.  (Yes, I have eaten in restaurants many times during the pandemic, but they were not this close to me, and anybody who was that close to me while unmasked were family or friends.)  Finally, when I was asked to add tip to my service, the minimum, the minimum, was 25%.  Come on, don't fucking upsell me on this shit.  What are you guys, Republicans?

Worse than that is I might have walked into a situation I could have avoided.  Once I sat in that chair and realized that nobody working there was going to be wearing a mask even though I had to take my mask off, I remembered the last time I went to this place.  All the things I'm complaining about happened then too -- no masks, doubts whether they take the coronavirus seriously, the gouging, all that.  So, why did I come here?  Well, I guess I just got dazzled over paying a premium for a shave.  They do good work, after all.  But I used to go this barber training school where they also teach shaves.  I could have gone there.  To that specific point, I will say that I needed to get my facial hair shorn off but didn't want to do it myself.  I had scheduled a shave for this place in the evening, but when I was asked to fill in for someone second shift at work for the week, I thought it was a chance to come in in the early afternoon when it wasn't so busy.  That I could have gone to the training school, which is only open during the day while I'm at work, didn't cross my mind till after my shaver put the cream on me.

---

If I wake up early enough tomorrow, I might try to get in a test.  If I can't get a test, I'll just hope and pray I don't catch the 'Rona.

A $240 Mistake? Really?

So it took an extra day, but they were done flushing the concentrated antifreeze out of my car Monday evening, and so I swung by yesterday/Tuesday morning to pick it up.  Everything works fine, and I have no anxiety while driving it ... well, at least not yet.

However, I should have looked at my bill.  The whole shebang cost me $240.  Really?  I just took a quick perusal/Google search and the maximum, the maximum, I see quoted for such a job is $200.  Worse than that are the line items.  I see one thing, talking about "flushing" with "additives" and "cleaners" for just over $100, and then I the next item is "perform cooling system flush with cleaner and additive."  That's the same damn thing!

I know it's good to have a full-time job so I don't really need to sweat every single cost I see.  But for God's sake, this looks like a ripoff.  So now I'll have to call them tomorrow to see what this is all about.  Man, I pour into my car undiluted coolant and it costs me that much money?!  Shit ...

One Mistake And I Sabotage My Whole Day ... And Get An Adventure To Go Along With It

Yesterday/Monday morning I woke up bright and early around 8:30.  Went to bed around 4, but the previous day I got a big sleep in plus added a nap in the early evening, so that checks out.  At least I had the opportunity to do all the things I wanted to do -- get one of the cars washed, get my shoes shined, go to Hooters and see that babe waitress, drop off the dry cleaning, get gasoline for the car with the online coupon that expired that day, and maybe even get a nap in before going to work!

And I had time to check the coolant level in my car.  It was low, so I went into the trunk and grabbed the leftover antifreeze jug that's been lying around and topped it off.  But hey, it looks funny.  And then I saw it was the kind where you're supposed to dilute it with distilled water.  I didn't.  Whoops.

But maybe that's no big deal!  So I Googled it ... and the first two entries warn me that pure and concentrated coolant will actually overheat the car.  Fuck me.

I had to call The Mechanic Around The Corner.  Couldn't go anywhere else because, hey, what if the car overheats?  They couldn't get me in right away, but I could come in in the afternoon, just before I go to work.  If it they can pull it off, it sounds perfect.

But in the meantime I have to scramble.  What I thought I would be doing in my car I would instead be doing in my parents' minivan, and I'd have to do it with about one fewer hour available because I needed to get home to drive my car to the shop.  Yet I was undaunted.  I had several hours to kill and I wanted to see if I still could do all the things I wanted to do.  And besides, I had the minivan that has a new water pump, timing belt, motor mount and brakes.  It should drive me anywhere and everywhere I wanted to go.  If it didn't, The Mechanic Around The Corner has some things to answer to.

And you know what?  The minivan held up.  Drove it down a side street to get it washed, then drove it downtown, then down to the Mall Of America, then back up to Roseville to drop off the dry cleaning, then I filled it up with gas (instead of my car, which was my intention) before going home and immediately taking the car I inadvertently poisoned to get it flushed out of its body.  I felt the key after I parked it; it was hot, indicating the inside was getting real hot.  But the thermometer never went above what it was supposed to be, thank Buddha.

Now this is where I tell you all the plans that went awry.  Went downtown, but my shoeshiner wasn't there.  Then I went to the Megamall Hooters, but that babe waitress, who says she works Monday afternoons, wasn't there.  I ate there anyway because I had a buy-ten-boneless, get-ten-boneless free coupon off of the calendar.  But honestly, if I had known beforehand neither of them would be there, I wouldn't have bothered to go.  Would've saved me some time.

And worst of all, when I walked down to The Mechanic Around The Corner to drive off with my flushed car, I was told they hadn't gotten around to it.  They could get it done by the end of business day, but I'm working second shift all week, so I could pick it up in the morning -- or the afternoon, if I am sleeping in.

Just because they didn't get my car serviced when they said they would (the manager told me a couple of her mechanics called in sick and they got a ton of tow-ins last minute ... ?), I was given a loaner to take to work.  I had used one of their loaners before, and I realized late in my use of the car for the day that there was a strategically-placed strip of black tape on the dashboard.  If you looked around the piece of tape, you would see that the check engine light was on.  So, the mechanics just put that tape on in that spot so people using it wouldn't freak the hell out.  Actually, that's kind of genius.

There wasn't that on this loaner.  But I got pretty much everything else.  First thing I noticed was that, when I opened the door and instinctively knocked the side of my boot against the bottom railing of the front door to loosen the snow off of my Doc's, the railing shook.  (I noticed later that the passenger side had no railing.  All it had was rust.)  The car looked dirty.  Smelled too, but with an overpowering fragrance that makes you think it is overpowering because it's supposed to mask the nasty-ass scent that's there for real.  I was given two keys; apparently, one is to open the door and the other is to turn the engine on.  All night I was mixing the two.  Oh, and when you use the key to open the door, you have to turn it counter-clockwise.  Usually it's clockwise, am I right?  Finally, and this is the worst, the windshield wipers don't retract to its position at the bottom of the windshield.  Instead, if you stop the wiper feature, it stops at the other end of its pattern -- with the left one right up against the left side of the windshield, and the right one right in my line of sight.  I tried driving it with it going on intermittently because then the wipers spend most of their time at the bottom of the windshield and out of my way.  But there was no rain, and so the wipers would make these louder and louder grinding noises to the point where I just preferred to shut it off and cock my head to the left so as not to see the windshield right in my face.

And yet it got me where I wanted it to take me: To work, then some late-night grocery shopping at a 24-hour Cub Foods, then home.  It had trouble getting up the driveway when even the minivan didn't have an issue; I'm guessing the loaner has balding tires.  Can I complain about the car I got?  Well, I drove pass The Mechanic Around The Corner and saw that unlike the minivan, which they kept locked up in one of their bays, my car is outside, waiting for it to be broken into.  If someone messes with my car, then yeah, even though it has nothing to do with the loaner vehicle I have, I would complain.  My car gets effed up because you couldn't bleepin' flush the coolant in time?

Then again, I could have avoided all of this crap if I didn't pour the wrong damn antifreeze into my car.

A Good Surprise, I Think

It was in the middle of me plopping down to the see the Chiefs-Steelers Wild Card Game when I saw a text from my boss.  The woman who does second shift needed the whole week off -- could I do it?  Hell yeah, I can do it!

That does alter the plans I had for this week.  For example, I wanted to see The Amazing Race and the twist that's coming now that they are about to resume the race after a 19-month (!!!) layoff.  I had designs to see The 355 before coming home to see TAR.  And I was going to drop by a speakeasy and take a load off Thursday evening after getting a shave.

But honestly, I see opportunity here, and maybe even too much of it.  I can get my shave at a less-crowded morning or afternoon date now.  And having the daytime to work with means I now get to do a lot of things I would have needed to wait on.  For example, there's a suit I need to get drycleaned, and I will have the time to pop into my shrink's office building to drop it off at the locker.  I can try and get lunch, not only at a fast food restaurant but also at a fancier place.  I can get my shoes shined; it's not been a month yet, but she's retiring real soon, and I think I want to see her again, and besides, my Docs could use another polish.  I probably can exercise if it's early enough in the day.  And, maybe, I can get myself tested.  It might take an hour, or two, but if it's early enough, I'll have the time.

I usually don't like surprises like this.  I usually hate being confronted with a possible change in plans because I usually have some things I have in mind to do.  But it's like this world has just been opened up to me when I received my boss' text, and these things I now can do this week have instantly made me a more productive, and more alert, and happier, man.  Besides, you can't beat second shift.

Still Got It (If Eating A Whole Pizza Is Something To Brag About)!

I have spoken in the past about eating a combined whole large pizza in 2013 and a whole medium pizza in 2019.  Well, I just ate a whole large pizza from Pizza Hut earlier this afternoon, while watching the NFL Wild Card Game between Tampa Bay and Philadelphia.  It took me a little longer than before; I was cruising through the first 6 1/2 slices before hitting a wall, but I managed to finish the rest after a bit of a break.  Maybe the tartar sauce I used to dip the crusts has something to do with it.  Anyway, I finished the last slice just before Halftime, so it took me about 90 minutes to eat the whole thing.

Not to say it was a goal, but I planned on buying a pizza from Pizza Hut as part of watching the NFL Tripleheader today. Was I planning on eating the whole thing?  Well ... I thought in my old age that if my stomach told me to stop eating, I would listen to it.  And I think my stomach didn't say "stop" but instead said "wait."  And then I finished.  So ... it was sort of a goal?

I know that I've already added more than 2,000 calories by eating the whole thing.  Add to that all the Coke and Pepsi I have been drinking -- and will still be drinking because eating all those pizzas are keeping me thirsty.  I just hope I haven't reached some diabetes tipping point because of what I have just done/accomplished.

Bottom line: I still can eat a whole large pizza in my advanced age.  So ... yay for me ... ?

Just About Gone Through All The Drinks I Can Make

Man, one of the things I love about my parents not being here right now is the freedom to drink.  Well, not just drink, but to also buy small bottles of liquor, all the barware I need to make cocktails, and set all that stuff out on the counter without worrying about putting them away or throwing them into some storage container (although I did buy one the other day when my folks come home).

I may have trouble finishing even these small containers of booze that I bought, and I may deceptively be getting fat from them -- there's a lot of sugar in some of these cocktails!  But I have enjoyed learning how to make cocktails out of spirits.  I also like that I bought lime, lemon and orange juicers, taught myself how to make simple syrup, and bought a small bottle of Cointreau to expand the kinds of cocktails I can make.  I should make a spreadsheet about which cocktails I've made and the ingredients and amounts for each of them.  Till then I can make some grand conclusions about my taste in cocktails:

• I love drinks that have simple syrup in them;
• Contrastingly, I hate drinks that have club soda in them.  Have you tried it?  That shit's nasty!
• There's no simple syrup in a Sidecar, but the combination of cognac, Cointreau and lemon juice makes for a really sweet drink.  I bought small bottles of cognac and Cointreau after I bought those of vodka, gin and rum because I was feeling boxed in with the drinks I could make with just those three spirits.  And I'm glad I did because it's good, and I think I make them OK.  I've been fascinated with Hennessey because I remember her having a big bottle on her nightstand when I was really young.  I never saw her drink it, but I was always fascinated by the mysterious contents but impressive, almost regal look of the bottle.  So I associated Hennessey with Grandmother.  The evening we said goodbye to her in Hong Kong I cajoled my sister into going to a big fancy Hong Kong bar to celebrate her life.  I made a point of buying the expensive drink with Hennessey.  Anyway, I make and drink Sidecars as an homage to my late, dear Grandmother.
• Just made myself a Long Island Iced Tea last night, which is an amalgam of everything I have except whiskey, tonic water and club soda.  They say it's a drink that lulls into getting you very drunk, and after having one myself, and I can understand why.

I think I'll leave it there for now.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#0: Gopher women's hockey (Re-Entry!).  Yeah, the Wins are over tomato cans.  But going 3-0 is still a fine feat.  Plus, they crushed top-flight newcomer St. Thomas in a home-and-home last weekend by scoring eight Goals in both Games, then slaughtered Minnesota State-Mankato by a 7-2 score last/Friday night.  You want a statistic that shows how unbalanced women's college hockey still is?  The Gophers have now won 53 straight Games over the Mavericks.

And yet I cannot give this squad Positive Numbers.  I peeped at the PairWise, and while the U. is flying right now, they remain in third behind two other WCHA schools, longtime nemesis Wisconsin and budding nemesis Ohio St.  This gives me bad flashbacks to last Year, where the Gophs were behind the Badgers and Buckeyes all season and, due to both becoming entangled with Minnesota-Duluth in the standings and a conspiracy theory that the NCAA women's hockey Tournament could not have four teams from the WCHA, the Gophers did not get in.

The only way to be absolutely sure that they'll get in this Year, and to prove that this program isn't losing it, is to beat both Wisconsin and Ohio St., who, by the way, are currently ranked first and second in the country.  And it just so happens that the Golden Gophers play #1 Wisconsin next Weekend at home, then go to Columbus to play at #2 Ohio St. the following Weekend.  But first, one more tilt vs. the Mavs, and since this is a home-and-home, this/Saturday afternoon's matchup will be at Ridder.

#-1: Wild (Last Week: -4).  They may be righting the ship now that they're able to play some Games.  They played only two, but they won both, and each in diametrically opposed ways.

On Saturday it looked like it was curtains for the Wild as they were down at home to Washington, 2-0.  But Minnesota got an Own Goal about six Minutes left in the Second Period, and then Mats Zuccarello (who's been coming on as of late) scored to tie it up with 35 Seconds left in regulation.  They won in a Shootout, 2-0, the second of which was scored by Freddie Gaudreau and the first of which was scored by Kevin Fiala, who may have gotten out of Dean Evason's doghouse.  And then last/Friday night they beat the pants off of Anaheim, 7-3, also at the X.

Unfortunately, because they have had seven Games postponed (all due to COVID outbreaks and/or policies that have nothing to do with anyone on the Wild), they have slipped from first all the way down to fourth in the Central Division.  They're only four Points behind the leader, Nashville (!!!), but if there is a coronavirus outbreak or if they just play lousy for five or six Games, they'll soon find themselves fighting for their playoff lives.

On the road this screening Week: Colorado Monday, Chicago Friday.

#-2: Gopher wrestling (Last Week: -6).  Crushed then-15th-ranked Northwestern Sunday, 31-9, then outlasted 10th-ranked Nebraska last/Friday night, 19-13.  It might have helped that both Duals were at Maturi.  But the 14th-ranked Gophers probably are around where they should be, if these two data points and a third of getting their asses kicked at #1 Iowa back on the 7th are credible.  This still remains a good-to-very-good program that has no chance of winning an NCAA championship.

By the way, the last two Gopher grappler NCAA champs, from 2001 and 2002, will be feted Sunday afternoon as the U. finishes their three-Dual homestand, and the fourth consecutive Dual against ranked Big Ten opponents, vs. Wisconsin, which is ranked ninth.

#-3: Gopher men's hockey (Last Week: -1).  Completed a sweep of Michigan St. on the road after doubling up the Spartans Saturday, 6-3.  Then on Friday they began a two-Game set versus Alaska at Mariucci by beating the Nanooks, 4-1.  As of press time they are ensconced in eighth in the PairWise, which is safe territory.

And yet a seismic, potentially chemistry-destroying change hit the team this Week.  Stalwart Golden Gopher Goaltender Jack LaFontaine abruptly left the team and school to sign with The Bastard Hartford Whalers.  According to Gopher radio analyst Frank Mazzocco on Friday's pre-Game show, it came out of left field.  LaFontaine sat with Mazzzocco on the plane home from East Lansing on Saturday to schedule interviews for the rest of the regular season.  On Sunday, LaFontaine was telling people he was leaving.  The Bastard Whalers must've come with one fucking huge contract.

So it appears that main goaltending duties for this team that seeks to make noise in the NCAAs will fall to Justen Close, a Junior for Saskatchewan.  So far, so good, of course, but after the second Game against Alaska, they'll re-enter Big Ten play and host Michigan for a pair next weekend.  Can the U. keep up the good play without their veteran backstopper?

#-4: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3).  So the Wolves have kind of hit a roadblock this screening Week.  They trounced the Rockets in Houston Sunday to extend their winning streak to four, but lost in New Orleans on a last-second Three-Pointer by Brandon Ingram on Tuesday and then could not catch The Bastard Vancouver Grizzlies in Memphis Thursday.

They remain in good position to participate in the Western Conference Play-In Tournament, which is why I place these guys above the Gopher women ballers.  But there are two recent developments that might explain the slide in this team's recent play.  First, Naz Reid is shooting horribly this season.  Second, and this stat is mind-blowing, someone on Twitter noted that Karl-Anthony Towns leads the league in being called for Offensive Fouls.  Not only that, it's not close, and he has led the NBA in that category for several seasons now.  Combine that with his, uh, lacking defensive play and his penchant for complaining for fouls, and this could become a defining trait of KAT's career ... if it hasn't already.

They host The Bastard Philadelphia Warriors Sunday before playing in New York and Atlanta on back-to-back nights.  God, that sucks.

#-5: Gopher women's basketball (Last Week: -2).  Got crushed at home Sunday by Maryland, 87-73.  But they then sent the pain along, going to Wisconsin Wednesday and dominating the Badgers, 82-66.  This is a weird statistic: As Coach, Lindsay Whalen is 4-0 at Wisconsin.  They host Ohio St. and Iowa.

#-6: Gopher men's basketball (Last Week: -5).  Yeah, reality is getting harsh for this club.  Their losing streak reaches three after road Losses against Indiana and Michigan St.  They had a real good shot at upsetting the Spartans in East Lansing, but a drive and pinpoint pass by A. J. Hoggard for a Lay-Up by Joey Hauser with a tenth of a Second left in the Game gave Sparty the 71-69 victory.  Moral victories might be the only victories this team has the rest of the way.  Sorry to be so down, but it might become true.

This Week: Host Iowa Sunday, at Penn St. Wednesday.

#-Infinity: Vikings (Last Week: -7).  So the probable happened after the Vikings finished off the 2021-2 season with a 31-17 Win over the Chicago Bears on Sunday, thus finishing at 8-9: Head Coach Mike Zimmer was relieved of his duties after eight Years at the helm.  What was a tad more surprising, if only because he was General Manager for so long, was that Rick Spielman was also fired, and he was not promoted to some other front office position within the organization, as I speculated could happen.

It was time.  Now that the ax was swung, all the reports about Zimmer's treatment of players, headlined by Eric Kendricks saying he now hopes there will be better communication and a team environment based less on fear, come crashing ashore.  I understand that's the nature of journalism when Head Coaches get shit-canned, but this would be some palace intrigue I think we fans should know while the team was still struggling through its season, not after.  But that could just be me.

In his post-firing press conference, Mark Wilf answered a question about whether the franchise needs a rebuild by saying he thinks they're still only a couple pieces away.  Really?  Zimmer and Spielman rode-or-died (and the answer obviously is the latter) on a bunch of veterans Zim trusted to the point they were given large and long contracts.  Foremost among these, of course, is Quarterback Kirk Cousins.  If he were a Free Agent, he probably would be the best FA QB out there.  And yet he has obvious limitations that put a hard ceiling on any club that wants to win the Super Bowl.  Moreover, he is owed more than $40 million next year.  And Mark Wilf thinks the team's only a couple pieces away?

Don't rush this process.  Find the right GM first, and have him, or her, find his, or her, Head Coach.  The most notable names out there (Dan Quinn, Brian Daboll, Kellen Moore) might be picked up even before the Vikes find their GM.  So what?  What this squad and franchise needs is a serious overhaul.  The new GM needs to either convince Cousins to play for less money next Year or flip him so that the organization can get out from under his onerous contract.  All the other issues flow from the resolution of the Cousins issue.  Fixing this team will take time, and I think a Year or two of retrenchment is not only in order, but is the best way for this team to finally break through and even think about winning a Super Bowl.  I kind of hope Mark Wilf knows this too and only said what he said so he doesn't lose his ticket base.

We'll see how this goes.  But right now, of the Big Four Sports Teams in the Twin Cities, it's the Vikings who now seem to have the dimmest hopes of a championship.

Damn Laptop Really Might Be On Its Last Legs Now

I was going to talk about how the opening wallpaper on my laptop, the one before I enter a password to get to my screen, which usually changes because I signed up with Bing to rotate wallpaper, has not changed in the last week, maybe two weeks.  But now I have to note that the keyboard is red hot.  Seriously, if I keep typing on this, I'll burn my hands.

Broken fan?  Blocked vents?  Old battery?  Old laptop?  I'll try and get the battery changed, whenever that is, and then I'll ask them to clean the insides.  And if it still doesn't work, well. ...

Got Tirangry At Work

So a combination of things led to me snapping at work -- if not for the first time in a long time, then the first time ever.  I have not been so upset as to think "fuck this" at this job ... well, until a couple days ago.

There was a perfect storm that led to this.  First of all, I was assigned to go into the lab to open up packages because, I guess, they are short-staffed there (COVID?).  I knew this the day before, but I still don't like the job.  One station has you cutting open the packages, which is boring and may lead to me cutting myself, which is a fear I have.  But there's another station that I did do, which is taking out the contents of each package.  We test for urine (among other effluvia), and sometimes, well, the damn package leaks.  So there were several occasions where I was reaching in only to be met by cold, fucking dirty piss on my hands.  And that's when I utter "goddammit," and find a sandwich bag to put the leaky piss bottle into.  So when I got done two hours later, I wasn't in the greatest of moods.

Moreover, I did not take my usual nap (or at least my attempt at a nap) during my lunch because the company bought us all free food for the day, which is their annual thank-you for being an employee.  I guess I could have skipped it, or even waited until after I got my nap, but I decided instead to take the boxed lunch into my car, eat the sandwich part (steak and arugula), then try to nap the last ten minutes of my lunch break.  I did not sleep.

About half an hour after I got back from lunch, my drowsiness hit me, and hit me hard.  I don't remember feeling this drowsy while at work since I was starting out as a temp and I actually fell asleep at my desk.  I didn't do that, but as I have gotten older I have come to realize that I get quite upset whenever I am sleepy and don't have the opportunity to sleep.  Slangry, or tirangry, in other words.

My attack of the naps was nobody's fault -- including mine, even though if there had to be someone at fault it would be me.  And I think I conked off for a few minutes while on afternoon break.  But I guess I still had the anger in me when I came back.  I knew since last week that there was another, uh, task that I was assigned to do around this time of the workday.  And I was doing it until I was told by my supervisor that my boss wanted me to instead give this task to another co-worker and go back into the lab -- not to cut open packages or shove my hand into piss, but it was another thing, and I was in no mood to go back to the scene of such humiliation.  So I got up, took this folder I was working on, laid it next to the person who was going to work on it now, and said, not at a conversational level but it was above a whisper ...

... well, come to think of it, maybe I should not say it, because of the reason I am writing about it here.  The boss who ordered all of us to go into the lab was well within her rights to do so; work was winding down out where we work, there was work in the lab, so we go to where the work is, as we have many, many times before.  My frustration comes from the out-of-context fact that I thought I was told to do something and then I was ordered to do something else.  I think that every employee has the right to blow off a little steam now and again.  Unfortunately, I uttered what I uttered within earshot of a couple of people, one of which is my supervisor with whom I have a, uh, rocky relationship.  It's been a day, so maybe I'm overreacting.  But if my boss calls me into the office to have a "talk," or even if I get an e-mail sent to the entire team "reminding" all of us that when there is no more work out in the hallway, we have to go into the lab, I know that one of those two ratted me out to her.  And that will damage, if not ruin, my relationship with that person.

So let's hope my tiredness doesn't lead to losing my job.

Wet January

There is a phenomenon called Dry January, in which people who want to make New Year's Resolutions without making any, you know, real New Year's Resolutions compromise by abstaining from alcohol for the first month of the year.  It has become such an (and I hope using this word doesn't have any pejorative connotation, either now or in the near future) endemic that popular New York City bars have gone on to Instagram to post photos of their largely empty places, enticing those who are not "observing" Dry January with dreams of finally being able to get into the spot they always wanted to get into but couldn't because it's so crowded.

I'm not observing Dry January.  It actually has been very, very wet to me.  That's because, as soon as my parents left, I bought all these barware tools (shaker, jigger, juicers for lemons, limes and oranges) and all this liquor and am trying to teach myself some basic cocktails.

I'm learning things, though they probably are mundane compared to other people.  I realized I think club soda has a bitter taste, and tonic water, because of the quinine, actually tastes pretty good.  I realized that the simply syrup I made by heating up sugar in water makes any cocktail better.  But mostly I realized that, like drinking one cocktail I make for myself makes me plenty tipsy, and two -- like tonight -- even more so.  I have drank a steady clip for the past two months, and after almost every drink I invariably have a headache and a fatigue so bad that I think I'll end this blog post now and go to bed.

Budgeting My Time

I am at the point where I can see my parents moving back home.  And while I finally made some -- OK, a little -- headway with my stuff, there are still large piles of ... stuff strewn all around the living room.  Combine that with all the things I need to, you know, maintain (keeping up with e-mails, eating all the food that's in the fridge, exercising), and I see that I'm overwhelmed with a bunch of chores I feel I have to do without feeling as though I have the time to do them.  And that's when I need self-care, a time when I can just cut loose and not give a damn about anything.  Then I need to budget that into my time as well.

With the Vikings season over, however, I believe things will start to settle down.  I can formulate in my head the beginning scaffolding of how many days I will devote to what.  What I feel it's going to look like is this:

• One or two days working out.
• Wednesdays not doing anything -- buying coffee before work, buying stuff after work, I'm just going straight home and eating leftovers -- because I want to watch The Amazing Race and ABC comedies as long as they're on.  It's a good time to wash clothes and dishes, go through the mail and, if I have all those things done, sort through my stuff.
• Weekends I will stay home, or close to it.  I can't exercise because it's so darn busy at the community center.  But especially now with the omicron variant ripping through the state, I don't think a good night out at a crowded bar or restaurant or movie theater seems like a smart idea.  While everybody else is partying, I think I'll hunker down and, well, listen and/or watch Minnesota Golden Gopher men's hockey while I do my chores.
• With that being said, I think I need to give myself at least one workday, Monday through Thursday, out.  Watch a movie, visit downtown and see the bars I frequent, eating out, what have you -- I need to give myself some freedom.  And I hope I won't catch the 'Rona as a result.

We'll see how this all shakes out.  Football still dominates my weekends.  For example, I expect to pig out on a lot of food that I'll both take out from the refrigerator and buy between Saturday and Monday.  I'll probably do it again the next weekend, both days.  After that, my weekends open up, and I'll ... well, hopefully I'll use it to do the things I find necessary to do.

---

On a side note, I've been told I need to do some time in the lab tomorrow using a knife.  I'm not usually a fan of going in there, and I hate the job in the morning where I open up packages.  And if that weren't bad enough, there's a slight chance of freezing drizzle during my drive into work in the morning.  Great.  Something to look forward to.

So I Took The Minivan Out For A Drive ...

... even though, frankly, I was scared to drive it.  And it's been fixed!  I mean, if I was so scared to be without a back-up car that I spent more than $1,300 on repairs for this one, why in the hell would I be scared of driving the back-up car?  Sure, a new water pipe (with attendant timing belt change, and a new mount, and brakes and rotors too) may not have been necessary, and I sure could have been ripped off.  But I assume that whatever The Mechanic Around The Corner did, the minivan would ... you know, drive, right?  So what am I so afraid of?  I have to know if the minivan works, and I have to know if those guys didn't fix it.

I was going to drive it to the closest Buffalo Wild Wings to me in order to catch the Second Half of the College Football Playoff Final, but the damn place closed by 9 p.m.  Damn COVID ... I guess, although it would have been nice if the Google search and the B-Dubs website both updated the hours for this place.  Which meant that I spent a half-hour driving the minivan there and back without stopping.  Honestly, half the time I wasn't looking at the windshield but at the thermostat, afraid it'd slowly inch upward until it hit the red.  I remember being stopped at red lights, nervously rubbing the steering wheel and grinding my teeth.

But, I made it home.  And the needle on the thermostat was where it was supposed to be at optimal operation: Just below level.  So, do I trust driving it?  Eh, not yet.

I'm Just Maintaining Man, I'm Just Maintaining

I think I stumbled upon an epiphany the other day.

So I complained here on WAF about not having the time to get around to go through my stuff.  So on this other day I pull out my computer to do two things: Go through my e-mail, most of which is junk, and catch up on status update on Facebook.  That has been my routine for a while now, and while I have noted in myself levels of frustration doing these two, well, chores, I didn't realize, until this other day, that I could instead be spending the time going through my stuff.  But I can't.  Because otherwise the e-mails and the Facebook status updates will continue to pile on, and then where would I be?

And that's where I realized I'm not really, you know, advancing.  I'm just maintaining.  There is stuff I could take care of, but I'm too busy making sure that the things I have deemed a higher priority are ... uh, in the state I want them to be in, if that makes any sense.  And that's too bad, because as long as I am maintaining -- as important as that is in a practical sense -- I'm not advancing.  I'm not getting around to the things that have been piling up for years.  I'm not getting around, specifically, to the stuff that I need to either sort through or get rid of.

And so I find myself spinning my wheels, with a bunch of stuff in the middle of the living room that I swore I would get to but can't because I have crap to do on my computer.

Now The Computer's Crapping Out On Me

I had it on sleep for much of yesterday, and it's been out in the cold.  But the damn battery is totally kaput now, and I think that's why, when I tried using this for the first time this morning, it automatically shut itself off because it ran out of juice.

On Friday I took my computer to a, uh, computer place to get the battery replaced.  I thought I could get it back the next morning, on my way back from seeing Grandmother's best friend.  But damn supply chain issues; the guy said it could come in five business days or in two months.  Great.

I've had this computer for some time, and it's been good to me.  But it is in no way as fast or dependable as it was when I turned it on for the first time.  I am not even thinking about getting a new one -- yet.  I just hope this holds on until they can get a new battery for me.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Again, just for the record, since this is a New Year, we are changing the Day of the Week The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey is published for 2022 to Saturdays.  Not Saturday's ... Saturdays.

#-1: Gopher men's hockey (Re-Entry!).  We start the New Year by giving the top spot (though not non-negative numbers) to the Gopher male icers.  This was the holiday season, so the U. generally stops for a couple Weeks before going back to playing in that limbo Week between Christmas and New Year's, so these guys just got back on the ice to start a two-Game set at Michigan St. ... and they get off on the good foot, with a 4-1 victory featuring a pair of Goals from Ben Meyers.  The line of Meyers, Chaz Lucius and Matthew Knies tallied three Goals and five Assists -- maybe this has the makings of a powerful line?

The downside to doing the WMNSS on Saturdays is that weekend college hockey contests are now split.  I recap the Friday Game but wait until the next Week to recap the Saturday Game, at which point I will also have to do the Friday night tilt.  Saying that, the U. plays the Spartans again tonight/Saturday night, then begin a two-Game set at Mariucci versus Alaska.  There used to be two top-flight programs in the state of Alaska, but both were abandoned by the WCHA and therefore forced to become independent, and then one of the programs (I think it was Anchorage?) got shut down (even though people are trying to revive it), so instead of playing Alaska-Fairbanks, they're playing just Alaska.

#-2: Gopher women's basketball (Re-Entry!).  Some tribulations with this squad.  First, their New Year's Eve battle at home vs. Northwestern was postponed due to a COVID-19 outbreak in the Wildcats' program.  Then, Head Coach Lindsay Whalen needed an appendectomy and thus missed her team's tilt at Rutgers Thursday.  But, they won!  First time ever over the Scarlet Knights, 62-49.  Doesn't seem like the greatest of omens that the Gophers won without Whalen.

Don't know if she'll be back, but the next tilt is a tall order: Hosting Maryland Sunday afternoon.  They then visit Wisconsin Wednesday night.

#-3: Timberwolves (Last Week: -1).  It's been a busy eight Days for the Wolves.  Didn't start out well; they lost in Utah New Year's Eve and then got clipped in L.A. by The Team That Was Stolen From Us v.1.0.  But then they stayed in Los Angeles and beat the Clippers, then took both ends of a home-and-home vs. The Bastard Seattle Super Sonics to complete a 3-2 screening "Week."  They are thoroughly in the mix for a playoff spot (well, if you count the Play-In Games, and maybe you shouldn't).  Moreover, they got Karl-Anthony Towns and D'Angelo Russell back from COVID protocols before the home-and-home.  You may not know it, but the Starting Five that the Timberwolves want to trot out if everybody is healthy -- Russell, Patrick Beverley, Jarred Vanderbilt, Anthony Edwards and Towns -- is the best Starting Five in the NBA when it comes to, uh, the advanced metric of Net Rating.  I should see for myself how good this particular unit is, but if it is, it is good to finally see this team, this organization, both build and luck into something good.  It is beyond time for these guys to stop being ass.

They're on the road this Week, at Houston, New Orleans and Memphis.

#-4: Wild (Re-Entry!).  When the Winter Classic finally rolled around after a Year's postponement, the Wild hadn't played since the 20th.  The opponents for all the Games that had to be called off all suffered coronavirus outbreaks.  Not to be a conspiracy theorist, but for all we know, either Minnesota or the St. Louis Blues could have had an outbreak on the eve of the Game but it would not be disclosed, because the Winter Classic is the centerpiece of the NHL's regular season, and this contest could not be delayed a Day beyond a second Year.

I have already detailed how I felt while I was at Target Field.  As for the Game, well, the Wild were rusty and were without their top two Defensemen (Jonas Brodin and Jared Spurgeon), and the Blues, who had recently passed Minnesota in the Central Division upon their recent (well, not really recent, they'd been off since the 20th), made short work of the Wild, scoring five times past Cam Talbot in the Second Period of a, let's face it, humiliating 6-4 result.  Wild fans after the Game were commenting on Minnesota not getting a Winter Classic for the next half-century because of this emasculating Loss.  It doesn't work that way; as far as I can tell, no franchise has doubled up on hosting Winter Classics yet (although a couple teams have served as the guest on more than one of these Games, and that's a matter of finding a quality opponent only).  I'm sure that every team will get to host a Winter Classic before they go back and give organizations a second one.  Nevertheless, this was an embarrassment for the home team, and this survey recognizes it.

They broke their losing streak (which was at five) Thursday at Boston, but in that tilt, Kirill Kaprizov was taken out of the Game by the Bruins' Trent Frederic.  At first I didn't think it was a dirty hit, but I saw on Twitter someone take isolated screen shots which showed that Frederic had ample opportunity to swipe a loose puck and go down the ice, and instead he went after and through a defenseless Kaprizov, whom Frederic took to the boards.  Now Kaprizov is out indefinitely, and as a result two Wild wunderkinds, Matt Boldy and Marco Rossi, were called up from AAA Iowa to play for the Wild in Boston.  Boldy, a Massachusetts native, scored in the Game, becoming the first Massachusetts native to score in his NHL debut, in the city of Boston, but on the other team.

Home to Washington tonight/Saturday night, then host Anaheim Friday night.

#-5: Gopher men's basketball (Re-Entry!).  Again, first-Year mulligan and all, but the rubber was always going to meet the road for this club once Big Ten play began.  And Tuesday evening's 76-53 drubbing at the hands of Illinois at Williams Arena may be the first of many, uh, humbling memories this team will see.  In particular the Gophers just don't have any size down low.  The Illini almost doubled up on the U. when it came to Rebounds, 39-20, and did double up on them when it came to Offensive Rebounds, 13-6.  That is going to continue to happen the rest of this season, I'm afraid.  Now, the big thing Head Coach Ben Johnson has to guard against is his team losing confidence as the losses mount, and they will mount, especially (I'm afraid) this Week as they travel to both Indiana and Michigan St.

#-6: Gopher wrestling (Re-Entry!).  The annual Dual versus Iowa is a rivalry in name only these days.  Doesn't help that the Hawkeyes are ranked first in the nation right now.  No upset here as Iowa beat the ever-living piss out of the Gopher grapplers in Iowa City, 22-10.  The U. won only three of the ten rounds, including at Heavyweight, where Gable Steveson, ranked first in the nation in his class, beat fifth-ranked Tony Cassioppi by Major Decision, 17-7.  Iowa wrestling fans, possibly the most knowledgeable in the country, actually gave Steveson a standing ovation, mostly for his performance in winning gold in the Summer Olympics.  That's really cool.

The first of three consecutive Duals at home come this screening Week: 23rd-ranked Northwestern Sunday, Nebraska Friday.

#-7: Vikings (Last Week: -2).  And it's all over but the shouting.  Defeating the rolling Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field was always going to be a tall order.  Then what many thought inevitable finally happened: Kirk Cousins, whose follies obeying the NFL's health and safety protocols while insisting on not taking the COVID-19 vaccine, finally got pinched for the coronavirus and had to sit out the Game.  Sean Mannion got the nod.  It was his third-ever start, and the first that mattered, and this one really mattered.  And the result was, heh-heh, a 37-10 Loss that officially eliminated the Vikes from postseason play.  People said Mannion has a cannon for an arm.  His statistics: 22-for-36, 189 Yards and his first-ever NFL Touchdown to K. J. Osborn, late in the Third Quarter, that made the score 30-10 Pack.

Jon Krawczynski, who ripped the Timberwolves a new asshole for their lack of effort in November, had a great thread on Twitter refuting the thought by some that the Vikings were playing like a team this season but just did not make enough plays to win Games.  Krawczynski, whose main beat is the Wolves for The Athletic, went back to the unrefuted fact that the Vikings were the team with the lowest percentage of vaccinated players going into the regular season.  Cousins was the third of at least three Vikings to miss a Game because they tested positive for the coronavirus.  The others?  Dalvin Cook missed the Game vs. the Rams, and Harrison Smith missed Games against Baltimore and the Chargers.  Of those Games, Minnesota only beat the Chargers.  Now, I'm not exactly sure how those players would not have missed Games had they been vaccinated and then caught the virus.  And I'm not sure they would have beaten the Packers, Rams and Ravens even if they were playing.  I think what Krawczynski was saying is that Mike Zimmer's players in fact haven't done everything for the team.  They made the decision to be anti-vaxx because they were thinking of themselves first.  You may not be able to draw a direct line from A to B, but it's more wrong to think that one has nothing to do with the other.

And so the Vikes walk into U. S. Bank Stadium, probably in toxic conditions (I'll be shocked if fans don't wear paper bags over their hands or don't break into "Fire Zimmer!" chants), to play the Bears who, like Minnesota, possible/probably will fire their Head Coach.  Will General Manager Rick Spielman stay?  Will he be fired?  Will he in fact be kicked up to a higher-level position within the organization?  The Spielman/Zimmer window has lasted eight Years, and while I believe an overhaul is in order, some people think that retooling around the edges is all this squad needs.  So, does Cousins go?  Does Cook?  Smith?  Adam Thielen?  Anthony Barr?  Eric Kendricks?  I could go on, but we might know a little more about the direction the Wilfs will go this time next Week.

Gotta Get Around To, You Know, My Stuff

When my parents left for the winter, I once again had the space and the time to take all my stuff from my storage unit, sift through them, read the magazines and newspapers I have kept all these years so that I would one day read them, put copies of Entertainment Weekly and programs for sporting events in their separate bags, and finally throw as much of the crap I have away.

Well, we're coming up on seven weeks and I haven't done jack.  Well, let me take that back -- I read the first thing I put in my bags of stuff, a copy of the late, lamented Star Tribune-created alternative weekly Vita.MN (which was put down when the Strib but the standard-bearing alternative weekly City Pages ... which was also put down by the Strib last year, presumably because of the pandemic), uh, just last night.  The cover story was that year's South By Southwest.  It was from March of 2011.  Yep, almost eleven years I kept it.  It's now in the recycling bag, but a part of me wonders if it's worth something.  Nah.

I have dozens of bags of that.  Dozens.  I am so overwhelmed that I should just chuck it in the recycling bin.  But, goddammit, I made a promise to myself that each one of these pieces of ... stuff has something worth reading at least once, even if the information on it is more than a decade old.  So I soldier on.  No, that's not true; I continue to possess them in the increasingly vain hopes that I will pay proper attention to each piece and in good faith read and consider them before either keeping it for posterity's sake or finally disposing of them.  There's just so many that it's intimidating and that's why I've barely started, that's all.

Called Mother last night.  Wanted to slightly and calmly act as if things are back to normal after The Mechanic Around The Corner ratted me out to them about their minivan.  See, the garbage wasn't picked up yesterday morning, and although they came around in the evening (possibly while I took a nap after work, and picking up more liquor, and eating at Jersey Mike's), I took the opportunity to reach out to my folks by asking if our trash is still picked up on Thursdays.  Anyway, after Mother said that it was, we moved on quickly to other things.  I thought that they told me they were coming home.  I almost had a heart attack.  But I misunderstood what they were saying.  They actually are in Utah for the time being, but will be back in Las Vegas in several days.  Good thing, because I still have a bunch of my stuff that I, well, intend to get around to, and that's not even counting all of my crap that is piling up in my storage unit.

I have other thoughts as to what I'm doing instead of going through my stuff, and what those opportunity costs show what I value.  Maybe I'll put that in another blog post.  Let's just say that it's high time I get around to going through my stuff.

I Don't Know If I Trust My Parents Or The Mechanic Around The Corner Less

So my fears of going to The Mechanic Around The Corner, and its subsequent trust issues, have been realized.  So not only did they have to replace the water pump and, because of its location, the timing belt as well (allegedly; I have no fucking way to figure out 100% if both parts needed to be replaced), they called me at work today saying that, in putting the engine back together, they "discovered" that a motor mount needed replacing.  But I OK'd that; it's an old minivan, and I can see My Father deciding not to fix something like that.  But he's not fuckin' here, and I am, and I determined I need a backup car just in case, so I gave the approval to get new mounts.

But oh no, that was not all.  I got cut from work early, and I was grateful this time because I got to use the snowblower on my driveway and then get to the car repair shop to pick up my car.  When I drove home, I called them while I was in my car.  No, it was not ready when I called because it just so happened that they also "discovered" that the brake rotors and pads were worn to the nub, and they were frantically trying to get the parts in order to replace them.  Mind you that unlike with the mount, they did not call me.  They just decided the brakes needed to be replaced, and they did them.  And as grateful I could be though to be, I'm kind of pissed because they in fact did not call me in order to OK the charges.

Oh yeah, about the calling ... they did fuck up, in fact, when Mother called me the previous evening about a message they got.  I called The Mechanic Around The Corner twice during the workday and they, if I have this right, did admit they called My Fucking Father's phone.  Apparently, even though I told them when I dropped off the minivan that any questions should be directed to my phone number, one of those dumb motherfuckers either forgot or didn't bother to heed my message and called My Fucking Father instead.  I would not call it a misunderstanding, rather a refusal to do what I told them to do.  And that does piss me off because now I've been had by my parents.

So I hope you understand my plight now.  On the one hand, this car repair shop is hitting me up for charges after saying, "Well, we were doing this and we just happened to notice that ..."  (This is why My Fucking Father is so mistrustful of car repair places.  Long time ago, when I still had the Lexus, I took it into a reputable independent shop who said I needed the mounts replaced.  I called My Fucking Father ... and he drove over to that shop to refuse the fix recommendations in person and get the car back -- and I think he was being a rude asshole to the people working there.  I hear they're still a good place to bring in your car, but I have never gone back there because of the embarrassing way My Fucking Father treated them.  And this was about two decades ago!)  On the other hand, My Fucking Father is fucking notorious when it comes to skimping on things he does not want to spend money on.  He'll go on a two-month cruise, but a grand to fix a workhouse vehicle?  Are you fucking kidding me?

In the end, I let those car mechanics fix whatever they claimed needing fixing, and I just threw up my hands and waited for 48 hours before getting the minivan back.  It seemed fine on the way home, which was short, but they had warmed it enough so that the thermostat would be as hot as it gets under normal driving conditions, and by the time I got the minivan home it was where it should have been: A little bit lower than halfway, but not fluctuating and certainly not spiking upward.  So yes, maybe the water pump was broken.  But I can never be too sure if they're leaning on a fear I have of being stuck by the side of the road with a broke-down car, asking any friendly face within earshot, "Hey, that's how it's usually done.  Do you want to come back a month from now for a problem we could prevent today?"  Not to mention that I couldn't tell if the engine was shaking underneath the hood.  I can tell you that the minivan braked as well as any other car on the road, so I don't know why or how The Mechanic Around The Corner decided I needed new rotors and pads.

I just hope my parents don't stick their noses further into this.  I am now of the belief that the message they left on My Fucking Father's phone happened late yesterday morning -- after they did the diagnostic on the minivan but before moving on fixing whatever it was that needed fixing.  If the needle is threaded like that, I can tell my folks that I did bring it in for a diagnostic test, but they found nothing, so I brought it back home, and they would have no idea I dropped $1,300+ to reinvigorate a work vehicle that may not need all that reinvigorating.

Honestly, I'm just glad the car is home and seemingly all fixed.  But I feel as though I got screwed by one side of this mistrust standoff (even though, to be fair, it does not look as though they charged me for the brake pads and rotors) while the other just refuses to get a broken car repaired because he's militant about spending money the way he wants to.  Lord, help me break free from this cage.