Oh -- Another Busy Weekend

I am working this weekend, both today/Saturday and tomorrow/Sunday.  Gopher football today/Saturday, Vikings tomorrow/Sunday.  If I really think about it, I'll be tired and intimidated.  So I don't.

This is not the first time.  In fact, it's not the first time this season.  It's the third time I'm doing a Golden Gopher-Viking weekend, actually, which makes me wonder why and how both football teams have home games scheduled on the same weekend at least three times this season.  I mean, isn't there any communication between the NFL and the Big Ten to not do that?

I've noticed another thing.  For the first two weekends, the same network was broadcasting both games.  I did not get the feeling that the crew for each game was ever in contact with the other.  On the one hand it makes sense since they're such a big network.  On the other hand they are in the same department, so they have had to at least bumped into each other at their home base.  Wouldn't they be at least curious enough of the co-workers who happen to be working in the same metro area to talk, or maybe even to hang out?  By the way, it was one network doing both games on the first weekend and a different network doing both games on the second weekend, but on this weekend, they're split -- I'm doing one game for each network.  I hope I don't wear the other company's clothing when I work.

I Thought There Were Clever Elves Living In My Front Yard

I'm at home because the water sprinkler person is coming to winterize/close down the sprinkler system for the season.  I got dizzy and therefore went to bed early (at least for me), around 12:30, and I woke up around 5:30 because, in all the drama surrounding the adjuster coming to the house yesterday afternoon (I'll blog post about that, but I thought I was going to blog post about it now), I forgot to turn off my alarm.  Luckily I fell back asleep around, oh, 7 and woke up around 10.

Groggy of course, I go to the bathroom and, of course, I look out to the front yard.  There's a tree.  It's a young one, but it looks about a dozen feet tall.  It's not planted where the previous tree was taken out earlier this year.  But it's there, and I didn't ask for it, and sure as heck no one told me about it.

No one told me about a utility company marking down water and gas lines in my front yard with paint, either, but I saw those over the past couple weeks or so, too.  I didn't have time to check with the city about the painted markings, but now, with a day off and some darn tree in my front yard, it was time.  So I called the city and, yes, they knew about it.  It was their plan to plant the tree, and since it involves digging a hole, the utility had to come out and mark where the gas and water lines are.

Ah, so I see.  One thing that gives me pause, though, and I guess I should have been more cognizant about this when people stepped onto the front yard to remove the old, diseased ash tree.  The person I spoke to at the city said that they can plant (and, theoretically, remove) trees because it's a "boulevard" tree ... and the front yard is city property.  Wait -- my front yard is city property?  So why in the hell am I mowing it half a dozen times a year?  If it's not my property (and I don't know how it could be my property if it's city property), why in the hell isn't the city coming over to mow the lawn?

Feh.  I'm trying to make lemonade out of lemons; I asked what kind of tree it is.  I had thought that if we wanted a replacement tree for the front yard, we had to buy it and plant it.  So I had gone down a rabbit hole of trees that are good to plant in our climate, like this page.  I had dreams about what trees I wanted in the front yard, but the city obviously has other plans.  The city's supposed to get back to me.  Hopefully the tree up front is a hardy, Upper Midwest tree and not one that will get emerald ash borer.  

The woman who looked at the house Monday texted me at work yesterday saying the claim with the insurance company has been filed.

What does this mean?  I don't know all the ins and outs.  But Mother said, when I spoke to her also on Monday, that if they can get reconstruction on the house going, they'll be flying home to oversee it, probably next month.

Well, on the one hand it sucks that they're not going to just stay away from Minnesota for a whole year even though it's now the coldest time of the year (or at least it should be -- damn you, El Nino).  On the other hand, I don't have time to oversee people re-do the house's roof, siding and gutters.  Plus, this is my parents' idea.  If they want this done, they can come home and watch the house.  In the meantime I need to work ... and then at night go to concerts ... or sporting events (like I did last night -- USMNT beat the Canadians, 1-0!) ... or plays ... or do nothing.

Glad I got that off my chest.

Another Conflict Preventing Me From Seeing My ATF

My parents now seems hellbent on getting the roof fixed.  Don't know why, but I think tomorrow/Monday, after work, a second person is going to inspect it, and maybe the siding, too.  Look, I don't know the first thing about home insurance, so I'm just going to defer to Father and this roofer and the insurance company (maybe, this is an insurance company after all).  It's yet another thing I've been thrust into "knowing" because Father wants it done.

What I know, and care, about is that it might be cock-blocking me from ******a coming over.  See, this all started late last week, when Mother asked me to call her while I was at work.  Once I got home, I called her, and she told me this second roofer wants to see the roof Saturday morning.  That would've worked until, like, Wednesday, when I picked up a gig at the Gophers football Game.  (Glad I took it, if only to have a great vantage point of the fans storming the field after they beat Michigan at home for the first time since '77.)  Mother gave me the roofer's number to text an alternate day and time.  We agreed on Monday evening, which is a little late considering the time of night the Sun sets nowadays.  But Mother wants this done ASAP, even though I have Friday free.

Once we agreed to Monday, ******a texted me.  She has been busy, plus she is dealing with a bad back that appears to be preventing her from giving me a massage, but out of the blue, she asked me what I was doing ... Monday.  Shit.  I told her what's happening, so right now, I'm going to text her once she's done.  She wasn't totally committing, either, because she doesn't want to come over too late.

There are so many variables to deal with this -- when within the two-hour time period she gave me she can get here, how long she's going to be here, if I can get home earlier than that, etc.  The big wrinkle, in my estimation, is that this roofer is friends with my sister's best friend.  This roofer actually re-did my sister's best friend's roof last year.  In fact, I want to say that my sister's best friend gave Mother the roofer's information.  Well, I think I said this here on WAF before, but my sister's best friend lives down the street from me.  And by the way, the roofer apparently is friends with my sister's best friend.  Now, imagine that once she gets done inspecting the roof, she'll just mosey on down and talk to my sister's best friend for a while.  If they're there talking long enough, maybe they'll notice that someone's dropped by my house for a visit.  And then the roofer (and maybe my sister's best friend -- who knows, maybe she and Mother are besties now) will tell Mother, and then she'll ask, "Who visited you?!?!?!"  Fuck that shit.

So I'm trying to see if the roofer might be able to reschedule.  Mother won't like that she might not come tomorrow/Monday, but I need to get all my muscles worked over (including the one that matters the most, hint-hint), and I want that HE in peace.  Maybe it'll work.  Or, maybe this will be the second time ******a has offered to touch me, only for me to decline because I have plans.  First it was the WNBA Draft (Olivia Miles doesn't look so good now that she was benched for all of the Second Half of Game 2, so me throwing my glasses on the table when she was announced as the pick now seems prescient), and now it's this roof inspection I'm told needs to be done.  Bad timing is so much of my life.

For The First Time In A Long Time, I'm Trying Something New

I will be working a game today, and I will be working as a parabolic microphone holder, or a "parab."  I don't know if you've seen these people holding these clear, curved cups or dishes in front of them, but today, that'll be me.  It is my first time ever being a parab, and it's scaring the hell out of me, but I think that is the definition of "growth," such as it is.

Strange how I got this job.  I've worked this type of production before, but while I knew the company would be in town, they had not said they were hiring until this week, and technically Wednesday, three days before the game.  Then, I was sent an e-mail asking for people who could be parabs and, this is important (at least in my mind), no experience is necessary.  You don't come across opportunities like that too often, especially at my age.  But I wanted to demonstrate I wanted to be a part of this company's production, and the pay is pretty good.  Plus, I need to spread my wings a bit.  I don't work games from the sideline too often, so this will be fun to experience.  Well, until a football player runs into me.  That's what I'm really scared of.

Anyway, I answer this e-mail that I am interested.  I then go through e-mails I received after that ... and that's when I see an offer to work this same production, but in a capacity I've worked at before.  I said yes to this, but the person making hiring decisions texted me and said I'm working the parabolic.  OK, but what about this other job?  I would prefer to continue on a position I've done with these guys before, so now that I'm not, am I showing this production that I'm flexible, or has a door been shut because I go through e-mails in order, answer them one by one, and was pegged to the first job I said yes to?  Because I know there are a few people there I'm familiar with, and it'll be strange to see them where they always are and I am not, and I have no assurances I can go back to my old job ever again.

I get uncomfortable in unfamiliar surroundings, and that's why I'm getting a bit testy.  This will always happen when I go to somewhere new, but I don't know where I'll be today, I don't know who I'll work for, and so I don't know how it'll turn out.  I know how things are with the position I've been at before, but I don't understand how I wasn't even considered to come back.  Because I would have said yes, they just didn't say anything until three days ago.

Well, alas and alack.  I have a few hours before I need to report.  Maybe not the best idea, then, to blog post now, and then eat those leftover mozzarella sticks from Applebee's Thursday night.  (I'm chasing them down with a Coke at 2 in the morning as well.)  But I was crashing around 7 in the evening, so I listened to my body and went to sleep, only to wake up a bit past midnight.  Hopefully I won't be asleep as I stand during the game.  That's a surefire way to be tackled by a football player on the sideline.

Addendum To: Addendum To: Fucking Sprinkler Head ...

There was such little work that, even though I came in early, I got done at 2.  Another sign that I should try and fix the sprinkler head!

The old and busted one worked, or "worked."  I just wanted to know if the head would stay screwed in, and it did.  (I also saw, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it's broken; the inside sprung out of its case so much that is began spurting water from behind, and not just from the small hole in the front.  That's the reason why there was such a flood around the part of the backyard it was in.)  So it wasn't the pipe but the sprinkler.  I breathed a sigh of relief that all I need to do was buy a new sprinkler head ... but I decided to try and put in the one that was in the hole, just one more time.  I made sure it was screwed in ... and it worked, perfectly.  Well, I have to adjust the arc again, but besides that, I am where I was Sunday afternoon before I yanked the whole damn thing out.  I don't know how it worked now.  Like I've said, I screwed it in before, I swear.  But it, well, works now.

I'll turn on the cycle Saturday afternoon at the duration I want it to run.  If there are no problems then (Lord willing), I have fixed yet another cycle of sprinkler heads!

Great, Now I Have To Go To The Soccer Game

So there's one more Leagues Cup Match being played tonight.  Minnesota United FC wasn't going to be one of the four MLS clubs (out of 16 participating in this tournament) to reach the Knockout Round after losing in regulation last Tuesday to FC Juarez, but just in case, their Shootout Loss to Tigres eliminated them for good.

I knew MNUFC wasn't advancing after last Tuesday's Loss, so I didn't think there was any good reason to watch what was now a glorified exhibition, so I sold my ticket for Friday's Game.  That got swept up quickly; Tigres isn't part of the "Big Four" Liga MX squads that are considered the most popular, but maybe they are popular anyway.  I had also put up today's/Tuesday's ticket up for sale.  But probably because the opponent is a franchise, Atlante, that technically bought its way up to the Mexican first flight (it's a long story), the ticket hasn't been sold.  Thing is, when I saw it wasn't selling on SeatGeek for $20, I tried selling it for less, but it wouldn't let me.  Guess SeatGeek has some things they won't do.

But for a week now, no one was buying.  I really don't want to go, but I already paid for this ticket, so if no one wants it -- shit, man, I'll go, dammit.  I have to go now!  Weird saying that, but (and I'll touch more on this in the WMNSS), things with the Loons are pretty bad now, and I don't expect them to turn it around tonight/Tuesday night, even in a de facto Friendly vs. Atlante.

My Sprinkler Head-Fixing Issues Apparently Continue

I have become obsessed (at times) with fixing the arc of the heads of the sprinkler system Father put in years ago.  When I see the cycle, most of the heads arc so far that they wet the sidewalks, curbs and, eek, the neighbor's driveway.  And so I have looked at the instructions to see how to fix that.

In case you don't know, the system comes with a key.  I had been using the metal, hex-style end to put into one of the holes on the top of each head; I twist it one way or the other and that is supposed to shorten the left-most side of the arc.  Alas, the arc didn't change.  After carefully reading the instructions, I realized that I needed to use the other end, the plastic end that's wider and have notches on the end.

I did that ... and it's gotten worse.  Not only do the heads (and I only tried to fix two of them; there are several others I still need to get to) still water pavement, they arc even further, jutting out onto the street and well into my neighbor's driveway.  I'm scared as hell one of the sprinklers will hit my neighbor as they're walking to the car, or they'll see their car drenched in water and that'll piss them off.  Worse off, the right-most side of the arc is different, too.  You can't use that key to fix the right side.  Instead, you have to literally take out the sprinkler head and re-orient it so that its right-most extent lines up with the edge of the grass you want to water.  I was able to twist off one of them, and I thought I had put it in correctly, but now that's watering my walkway.  I think it's hitting the side of the house, too.

Add that those sprinkler heads are a bitch to take out of the ground -- you have to dig around the head, and sometimes twisting and pulling them is difficult, and by the way, I was unable to find the ones I tried to fix without turning on the cycle so that the heads pop out from the dirt and grass that seemingly was buried above them, and that's a pain in the ass -- and after a bit more failed tinkering (I did all of this on Wednesday because I came home from work early), I quit.  Maybe I'll try again Sunday.  But even though the grass is yellow and crusty, I dare not turn on the sprinklers now, now that I've made a slightly bad situation a lot worse.  I just need to fix these damn things.

Changing Plans (Stripper, Stillwater)

So right around this time I was supposed to see *****y at her cottage for a wank session.  Then, I would switch out of my porno pants and spend a couple hours around Stillwater close by.  Then, I would go home and nap before the Loons Match.

But nooooooooo, my stripper girlfriend changed plans again.  Instead of 1, which is when she wanted me to come over, she now wants me to come over a bit past 5, which is when her son goes to work.  Well, shit, why in the hell didn't you just say 5?  Your son doesn't know when he's working until the day before?  And of course this fucks up all my plans.  If I want to still hang out in Stillwater -- and I guess I do -- I now have to do it before getting jerked off by *****y, and then I can't come home because I might as well just hang out on that side of the Twin Cities and go down to St. Paul.  Weird to be doing something out in public after getting an HJ.  Oh, well.

Hanging all over this is the weather.  It's supposed to get hot starting today, but it's been cloudy all day.  That and, you know, meeting *****y when she first wanted me to cum over would lead me to going out and walking outdoors around Stillwater for an hour or two.  But not only will I not do that now, I might not do that at all because the Sun is supposed to come out later this afternoon.  I might be spending my time in Stillwater indoors, which may or may not be fun.

Is Mother Dying? Is She Lying About It?

The damndest thing, I got two voicemails yesterday/Monday that were left for Mother.  It's from the same phone number -- a cancer center, where they were talking about schedule surgery.  Surgery??  Cancer?!?!

OK, I try to avoid talking to Mother as often as I can; hell, there's an insurance bill that came yesterday/Monday that I haven't told her about yet.  I am keeping that a secret because I was hoping that me just texting her that I received these two VMs would be enough for her to take it from there.  But no, she calls me.  She asks me to text her the voicemails, which I had no idea you could do, but I did.  She said she would listen to the VMs and then get back to me.

And she did get call me back ... and supposedly after listening to the voicemails, Mother said not to worry about it, they dialed the wrong phone number.  On the one hand, phew!  On the other hand, I call shenanigans.  How much time do you need to determine a VM -- left for me, by the way, and not her -- that is scheduling surgery is BS?  Wouldn't having surgery be something foremost in your head, so that if you get information that the place you're having said surgery is looking for you, you would immediately go, "Oh!  What's their number??  I need to get in touch with them ... and oh, by the way, I have cancer!"

Well, Mother didn't do that.  So ... is she lying?  Does she really have ... cancer?

How Did Draining The Water Heater Go?

Well, I haven't burned the house down and I have hot water, so I don't think I've fucked up severely!

But the problem is I don't know if I did it right.  See, as I drained the water, I didn't see any dirty water.  I was initially putting this supposedly bad water in buckets to note how dirty it was, but the first few bucketfuls were completely clear.  That's when I decided to take out a garden hose from the shed, attach it to the short leader hose I also found in the shed, connect them (with a bit of difficulty; I sprayed some water all over the floor, dammit), and laid the other end in the floor drain in the laundry room.

I think I waited half an hour before it appeared as though the water from the hose slowed to a trickle.  I also checked where the garden hose connected to the leader hose, which I put in a bucket to collect the water coming out of the poor connection.  That seemed to also slow to a trickle, and that Internet tells me that means the water heater is completely empty.  So, I began flushing it by opening up the water valve for between five and 20 seconds and then shutting it off.  That start and stop is supposed to rustle up any sediment that settled in the bottom of the tank of the water heater so it could be sucked out of the drain plug.

At first, the water was dirty -- well, not brown like I was afraid it would be, but not as clear as the water that was taken out of the heater.  So I dumped the first bucket in the front yard while I took out a second bucket in which to continue to drain the tank.  Once in a while I would open and shut the water valve.  And the water continued to be dirty.  What it didn't appear to do, I'm afraid, is get better.  I kept dumping out bucket after bucket for, I believe, 45 minutes.  And while I could trick myself into thinking it was getting clearer, it was not getting clear.

I didn't know what to do.  I Googled and the damn AI said that this flushing method should take no more than 15 minutes.  Then why in the hell was I still getting brown-ish water after flushing for damn near 45 minutes?  Could it be the buckets I'm using making it look not clear?  They buckets aren't clear.  They're white; maybe that's the issue?

I stopped at a quarter to 11, about 2 1/2 hours after I started this ordeal.  Not because I was done, but because I indeed did not know what to do.  I closed the drain plug and opened up the water valve all the way.  After dumping the last bucket and wrapping up the garden hose I used, I saw that all the faucets I left open while doing this gravity drain was gushing out water and not air.  I didn't think that took a long time, however, so I kind of wonder whether I emptied the whole tank after all.

Oh, well.  It's all over.  Maybe I don't have to do this maintenance every year like I thought I needed to.  Me spilling water everywhere, because of the bad connection of the hoses and because of spilling hoses and the filled buckets on the floor, is something I don't want to revisit.  But I have just extended the life of the water heater -- maybe?

Addendum To: Planning World Cup Viewing Where

And complicating all my World Up watch-planning is something I thought of, and just did, this/Saturday morning: The food I have at home.  After I watched the U. S. take it to Paraguay, I'm all in on the World Cup.  Hell, I might take off work to watch Matches.  (I already have one planned for two weeks from now, but I might just take more days off.)  I want to go out every day.  But I shouldn't, because I have milk that's about to go bad, bread that's been in the fridge for two weeks, deli meat that I've barely made a dent on, and frozen waffles and french toast that I should get around to eating.

But dammit, I don't feel like staying home on the weekends and eating them all.  I really, really prefer going out Saturday and Sunday and watching soccer.  Guess that food can wait till the workweek ... but right now I really, really prefer heading out after work to watch soccer at a pub or restaurant, too.  Man, I don't know what I'm going to do.

I was so tuckered out after the USMNT Game that I promptly fell into bed.  Probably conked off around 11 p.m.  Woke up a quarter after 8, totally refreshed.  The one thing I am going to do today is go to this Mexican craft brewery and watch Brazil-Morocco there.  My secondary plan is going to this Mexican place close to me and see if I can watch at least part of Haiti-Scotland there.  They have a TV on, and for some stupid reason it's on a Fox local channel (not Fox News, not the Fox station here in town, but "Fox Local" -- it shows news stories that come from a random series of local telecasts, or at least that's what it appears to be).  I kind of want to know if they take TV requests, and if not, this will be the first World Cup Match I won't be able to follow, either on TV or through the radio.

So this involves a lot of eating out, as you can tell.  And yet I also had a plan to, if I woke up early enough, eat either the frozen waffles or french toast sticks whose boxes I've already opened up.  I just ate the waffles (and chased it down with milk).  I'm not hungry anymore, but because I'm up and because the first WC Game of the day, Qatar-Switzerland, is not until 2, I think I'll go shopping and eat lunch.  I need creamer, but I thought about getting ground meat for spaghetti I might make next week.  But if I'm going out at least thrice next week, what's the point?  And sure, why eat lunch when I'm already not hungry after breakfast?  Good question, but I think I'll still have soup and a sandwich.  Or, I might take the sandwich home and eat it later.  That might be the food I'll have next week ... well, beyond the food I already have at home.

I Don't Believe Her

So my cousin, who I haven't seen in at least a quarter-century and whose son is going to medical school here, wanted to know when I was free, right?  I asked if I could get back to her in the middle of the week so I could figure things out.  Well, the soccer results being what they were, I texted her on Wednesday -- like she asked me to -- and I told her that besides Saturday and Sunday morning, I was totally free for the weekend.

Then, nothing.  Well, I hadn't heard from her until yesterday/Friday.  Since I moved up my speakeasy visit from last/Friday night to Wednesday, last/Friday night was free for me, and that's when the both of them would get into town, so I figured that if last/Friday night was the only time the two of them could see me, I should text again.  She got back to me ... and she said sorry, they're busy, they can't see me this time around.  Maybe closer to the beginning of school, when they come back, but not now.

Sorry, I don't buy it.  At all.  She reached out to me, out of the blue.  She then called me, enthusiastically, asking when we could meet.  All I asked for was a few days and then I would get back to her, which I did.  And then my cousin just says, basically, whoops, can't see you?  I don't understand the about face at all.

Sure, I'll be dark and conspiratorial.  Maybe she decided that me asking, oh so gently, for some space and time was a rejection to her.  She took that as a sign that I didn't want to see her at all, which is not true at all.  My only other theory is that Father talked/got to her.  He had some dumb fucking thoughts in his head that when I said I needed to get back to her later, I really meant that I didn't want to be bothered, and so he told her to lie and say that she and her son realized they were busy.  I can't think of what else it could be, because I don't believe her when she texted me that they're busy.

Honestly, this hurts.  She wanted to see me and now she doesn't?  I blocked out some time and moved around some things so I could spend an afternoon or evening or day with them.  She basically said to forget it.  Don't understand.

I can't do anything except wait until my cousin and cousin once removed supposedly come back late in the summer to see if they really want to see me.  If they do, and we meet up, great.  If not ... why in the hell did she even ask for my phone number?

Oh, by the way, because my Friday night was free, I went back to my original plan of greeting The Beginning Of Summer by going to my speakeasy.  Yes, it was the second time in three nights.  I can't quit the place, and after this emotional whiplash, I needed a couple drinks.

Yeah, about tonight's/Saturday night's Lynx Game ... as always, I get up to two tickets, and as usual, I don't use one of them and go by myself because none of my friends are sports fans.  But I got yelled at by one of my friends, or "friends," when I posted about the other ticket I got for the Timberwolves playoff Game in which they eliminated Denver.  He wanted a direct message.  I'm thinking, "Bitch, I have to cater to your ass over everyone else I know?"  I guess I understand that people get busy, but the more I think about it, the more entitled he sounds.  The hell does he get off asking me for special treatment?

And yet I don't want this ticket to go to waste.  And finally, I want to DM him about this offer to see how grateful, or even normal, he will act if we sit next to each other to watch the Game.  I can't believe he'll behave like a dick who thinks he deserves to be waited on hand and foot.  But if he does, well, I'll have proof beyond doubt to never offer anything to him again.  So, should I do it?

Buying Wiper Blades Has Become So Complicated

Finally put on the new wiper blades I bought through Amazon yesterday/Friday.  Bought them for both my car and my parents', so there are six total blades that have been on both since ... oh, I want to say March of last year.

I bought five total.  One of them is the wrong length -- maybe (see below).  So there are two that still need to be replaced: My passenger side and the rear on the minivan (which, I want to say, has been back there for years).  Yeah, it's kind of a half-assed job seeing that two blades still need to be swapped out and I bought one that doesn't fit.  And surprisingly, Amazon wasn't much of a help; I ordered these through them before, but for some reason, like you see, I couldn't all of the right ones ordered.

It still seems strange that I would buy wiper blades through Amazon when Wal-Mart has them, so a few months ago, I went there.  I've bought a replacement or two there in the past, but this time around, things were different.  I'm going by the length of the blade, which used to be printed, in big digits, across the top of each blade package -- you know, "25," or "16," etc.  For some goddamn reason, there aren't just digits there anymore.  Some of them have a letter in front, and then a dash, and then what appears to be the length of the blade, and then some of them have a dash and yet another number after it.  What the fuck, man?  I just want a blade that fits my car, and they're complicating it, and I know it doesn't have to be.

About that blade I may have ordered by mistake: It's 13 inches long, and I swear I was told that is the length of my car's passenger-side wiper.  But I have seen in other places that it's actually 14 inches.  And believe me or not, the manufacturer can't give me a straight answer, and Google can't aggregate the websites that will tell me definitively whether it's supposed to be 13" or 14".  I looked through the links, and I see both lengths given.  Can it be either?  That seems dangerous to me.

Maybe it's my fault for not writing the lengths down.  But damn, they're just wiper blades.

Yellow Poles? For Me?

Weirdest thing when I got home from work last/Friday night.  I noticed that the screen door was opened.  Then I saw a bunch of plastic thin yellow rods propping up the door.  And no, I didn't buy them from Amazon.

Freaking out at this "gift" left for me, I ran to the door.  It was a half-dozen stakes -- you know, things you would put in the ground of your front yard to let you know where your gas and water lines are.  But why in the hell would they piled up against my front door?  And backing up here, what the hell are they?  It looks like the closest thing they could be are like these reflective driveway poles.  I think a part of each rod, close to one end, is painted white, and it's that white part that is supposed to reflect light from a headlight to guide a driver onto the driveway.

Or something.  I didn't take a close look at them because I didn't know why in the hell would someone leave those for me.  It's not like they were lying around my front yard.  Who would even think to give these to me?  That's why I'm still suspicious as hell why they're there.  And yet ... well, these things might come in handy.  I don't know for what, but they might.  So I threw them over my side door.  I'll get around to them when I have the time and if I am no longer scared as to why and how they got to my front door.

Seriously, though -- who would give me these ... yellow poles?  Is this a set-up of some sort?

Fucking Sister's Fucking Mad At Me

So on Tuesday I was downtown at our college Game-watching bar watching the Match for the final World Cup spot between Iraq and Bolivia (the Iraqis won) when I got a text from WhatsApp.  My sister texted me a picture of a piece of mail she got ... and it was in my name.  I don't live where she lives -- how in the hell is my name on a piece of mail sent to my sister's place?

So I texted her, not really upset as she was, I soon realized.  I was hanging out by myself watching some important soccer, so I texted back something innocuous but showing that I am empathizing with her.  That conversation petered out, though, so after I got home and then when I woke up Wednesday morning I thought I would check up on her.  "Do you need me to do anything?" I basically asked, to which she replied, "No, just stop talking about it."  Now I know she's mad about this, and I have to now understand whether she is mad at me.  So I ask her, and she says, "Yes, but stop talking about it."

Well, fuckin' A.  She obviously is upset that my name appears on a piece of mail (junk mail she said -- she threw it away) that has my name on it.  I don't know why or how that happened.  But it's dawned on me that she blames me for this. I texted her, both Tuesday night and Wednesday, how she wants me to help solve this.  But telling me to stop talking about it isn't solving a goddamn thing.  She just shut me down, and not only is that not productive, but it's pretty damn hurtful, too.  She won't let me fix this, so the only thing I can think of as to why she is acting like this is because she's mad at me and she wants to stay mad at me.

I thought for a long, long time to just end the conversation by giving her the middle finger emoji.  Shit, I'm still thinking about giving her that.  But I have to look to the long term, stop needing to have the last word, and not do anything that could really, really piss her off, even though by what she said she's already plenty pissed.

We have very occasional blow-ups.  I don't remember the last time she was this upset with me.  But whenever we do, it's a damn knock-down drag-out.  She can be extremely petty and unreasonable, and in turn, I decide I need to be defensive.  So, instead of giving her the finger, I didn't come back on her at all.  In fact, I muted her on WhatsApp.  And I would mute her on Facebook too if I knew how to do that without blocking her entirely.

I hate how she's making me feel.  Out of all the family members, I'm the closest to her.  She's the only one I think I can be honest and even a bit vulnerable with.  I think she understands me more than the others.  But I don't understand her right now, and I have spent a long, long time since this "exchange" thinking about what she thinks of me right now and when all of this is going to be over.  I'm trying to help, but her silent treatment is making me angry because I don't deserve that.  And I really, really don't know how in the fuck my name got on a piece of junk mail sent to her place.

This fucking sucks.  I feel like the black sheep of this family, but moreso now that I'm fighting with the only family member I am on good terms with.

I Hate It When I Panic, And I Really Hate It When I Don't Have To Panic

I wasn't in a good frame of mind when I came home last/Tuesday night after the Timberwolves Game (which they won, even though they finally took the lead on The Bastard Vancouver Grizzlies just before halfway through the Third Quarter).  Naturally I checked the thermostat first thing when I got home.  And the thermostat was blank.

Ah, so the batteries ran out.  Well, Father bought a huge stash of AA batteries, so I replaced them.  But the thermostat still didn't work.  Oh, no.  The thermostat we have is just a programmable one.  It also has been there as far as I can remember.  It's been so long since it's been replaced, it makes sense that the damn thing just conked out.

Unfortunately, I suddenly realized I was in the lurch.  You can't really go without a thermostat, can you?  Well, I should take that back; if it were not too long ago, when the temperature was below freezing all day, not having the ability to heat the house with the help of a thermostat would be dangerous.  But we are, thankfully, having a mild (if not necessarily a heat) wave with temps punching into the fifties most days this week.  I have been told that you don't want to let the ambient temperature of the house drop below 60 degrees.  That would happen if it were below freezing, but probably not now when it's much warmer than that.

That would give me time.  To do what ... well, that's what I have been doing the next couple hours.  I ran into a YouTube video whereby you could hack the furnace on using this special two-way wire that does the work of a thermostat, including stopping when it reaches a certain temp.  But my main concern, obviously, is getting a new thermostat.  I tried looking for the exact type of thermostat, but that thing is damn old, so it's not in stock at any hardware store.  It's plentiful online, but that obviously would take time to get shipped, and as much as I think the house could survive without regular heat because of the milder temps, I don't know how long I want to tempt that.

Unfortunately, the thermostats that I could just go and buy are way, way different from the one that's in the house now.  First of all, I see these smart thermostats and they are way too smart for me.  Then, as I fell further down the rabbit hole of learning about the world of thermostats, I saw that the wiring pattern behind the thermostat is very, very important to note and even take a photo of.  Each brand and maybe even each model of thermostat will or might have a different configuration of the ends of the wires being plugged into its socket.  Moreover, the configuration of how the sockets are arranged vary by brand and even by model.  So if I bought one of these things off the shelf, I would have to unscrew the wires, unscrew the mounting plate, put the new mounting plate in (while making sure it's level), then carefully matching up the wires to its socket in the new configuration.  And I'm supposed to make sure the HVAC is completely unplugged while I do this, and I don't know how the hell to do that.  I was going to just wing it and do this intricate wiring work without shutting the power off to the HVAC.  Hey, I'm a big boy now, right?

Ultimately, though, I decided I was too chickenshit to do that.  My dumb ass was sure to get electrocuted.  And then I went on Amazon, saw this particular brand of thermostat, and then saw that magic word: "Prime."  If I sign up -- and, of course, it's only a free trial! -- I can get this same brand of thermostat delivered in two days.  I think the house can go without heat for two days in this weather, right?  So I signed up to get it this Friday.  I just have to remember to cancel Amazon Prime in 30 days because Amazon is the devil.  I just had to dance with him because otherwise I would have no heat.

With that bought ... well, why don't I try new batteries in the old thermostat again?  There are plenty down there, and maybe I just got two bad ones or something.  So I took that old thermostat downstairs, found two other "new" batteries, put them in ... and the display was back on.  Jesus fucking Christ, did I pick two new batteries that just didn't fucking work?  Or is this thermostat being so flighty that it just decided to work then and there?

So I have heat now, and it seems to be working fine.  I thought about cancelling delivery of the new/old thermostat and Amazon Prime.  But remembering how panicked I was, I'm keeping it.  This is a prime example where it's smart to have a back-up.  Of course, I have to remember that I have a back-up thermometer.  If this one conks out for real, there's a good chance I will forget I bought a replacement.  Where would I even put this one once it comes in?  Well, that's not the worst problem to have.

---

I told you at the start of this blog post that I was not in a good frame of mind.  That's because of the car.  I'm scaring myself into thinking it's way too low on oil.  I have checked, or tried to check, the level a few times over the past week or so, but the goddamn thing is so hard to read.  I have a dipstick that has a plastic orange end.  It's hard to read when there's clear, new oil, and it's also a bitch to decipher because it seemingly has oil above the full dot and below the empty dot, and then it's completely drenched in oil on one side of the dipstick but completely dry on the other.

I checked the oil level before driving out of downtown after the Wolves Game.  The dipstick was how I described it above, and it wasn't the first time it looked like this.  So is my car completely tapped out of oil?  I can't believe that; I got an oil change about 2 1/2 months ago, and I don't think it's leaking oil.  And what if I have overfilled it, which is something I am scared as hell I have done if I fully believe what I saw on my dipstick these past few times, acted as if my engine was empty, but got suckered because it was in fact full, or even more than full?

I am in a bind.  Or, I have put myself in a bind of my own delusions.  I have blog posted before that I might be scaring myself into thinking I am about to do catastrophic damage to my car by doing and/or not doing something when the best thing I could do is just chill and drive.  Maybe that's the case here, and I should just relax ... no, fuck no, I need to take this into the dealership.  Maybe they can figure out how much oil is in my car without charging me for an oil change, or something.  And then they can teach me how to fuckin' read the oil level on their shitty dipstick.

And I am changing my mind on that, maybe.  I am leaning toward putting in just a little more oil.  Maybe that'll be the thing that finally gives me the results I want to see on the dipstick.  But what if I overfill it?  I've seen so many fucking disaster films.  Man, why do I have a car?  Why do I even drive?  It's just one more burden you're placing on yourself.

Deep breaths, trying to take deep breaths. ...

Venmo Trouble

So I sent ****e* her money not too long ago.  I usually pay her in cash, but since I wasn't planning on using any cash yesterday/Thursday, and since the money I took out Wednesday thinking I was going to spend it on some sexytime with a stripper (which fell through) I am going to use at My Favorite Stripclub (Cover Version) tomorrow/Saturday instead, I was going to pay her through the "fake money" of Venmo.

I actually left last/Thursday night to attend a concert while ****e* was still working on my house.  She was gone by the time I came back, and, like she said before I left, she would request I pay her through Venmo.  I think there was a bit of a miscommunication; I asked for her username, but she thought I could just pay through the app, and I told her I never put money apps on my phone because someone might get in there and steal all my money.  I was able to find her username after I clicked on her request, so all is right with the world.

I have used Venmo a lot, so much so that I need to replenish it more often than I want to.  So after paying off ****e*, I tried to transfer money from my bank to my Venmo.  But I can't.  First, I tried to find the page where I can do the transfer, but there wasn't one.  I swear I've done it before, but I don't know where the hell the page is.  I look up instructions on Google, but first I only saw ways to add money through the app, and then I was told that I had to go to the "Me" tab, but there isn't one.

Finally, I stumbled on a Business Insider article that tells you how to do it.  I saw a URL.  I cut-and-pasted it, and that's when I finally saw the (unfamiliar) page whereby I can send money from my bank into my Venmo.  But then I tried it, several times, but I got an error message.  So I logged out.

Like I said, I haven't quite encountered the trouble putting money into my Venmo like I did last/Thursday night, but I have encountered the occasional trouble from this stupid application.  That thing is difficult to use, yet everyone swears by it.  I don't get it.

Two Changes Of Plans

So I was plotting out which days I would eat out and which I would stay in and eat leftovers.  Specifically, because I wanted to finally pay for limes and lemons for the cocktails I am going to make this weekend, and since they're discounted on Tuesdays, I would eat out today/Tuesday and, to make up for it, eat in tomorrow/Wednesday.

But those plans blew up.  While at work, I got this text from ****e saying that she and ***i* are having a party tomorrow/Wednesday.  Then, she texted ominously, "Last chance."  Last chance for what?  Will I not be invited anymore if I don't come?  Are they hanging up the wanking lifestyle?  Is one of the two women going to die soon?  I don't know what she meant by that, but it has been a long, long time since I got serviced by either babe, so I decided I am going to this house party on tomorrow/Wednesday.  And since I'm spending money then, I might as well eat out then, too.

Then, I got another text, this time from my aunt.  She wanted to know when I was going to be home because she made food for me.  Then I remembered that around the Chinese/Lunar New Year, she has always come over to give me food she made for the holiday.  Very sweet of her, and it allows me to eat in several days over the next week.  And it would make sense, then, that one of those days would be today/Tuesday.  It's a lot of food, and I should get on it in an effort to eat it all before it goes bad.  And yes, this blows up my idea of getting citrus for my cocktails, but hey, I can make cocktails without lemon or lime juice, and besides, there's a good chance I will be out both days this weekend.

So, to sum up, I went from eating out tonight/Tuesday night to staying in, and I went from staying in tomorrow/Wednesday night to eating out.  And for once, these changes aren't frustrating to me.  It just necessitates a change of plans -- two changes of plans, in fact.