Petunia rambles on

Egad, it’s NaBloPoMo again!  Who’da thunk it???  How time flies from one November to the next. 

The bigger question is — am I up to it?  a post every day for a month??   There’s so many issues here firmly against my success.  I have that pesky “day job” that unreasonably takes up so much of my time but also pays the mortgage and utilities and groceries and such.  Then there’s those 2 angel grandchildren who occasionally put on their devil suits – lately, every night at their bedtime they seem to put on horns.  It’s turning into a several-hour nightly ordeal – last night Pop was ready to collapse.  It wouldn’t be so bad if we could start putting them to bed right after breakfast, when we’d each just had our 2nd cup of coffee, were alert and well-rested, still had patience.  But this bedtime shit begins at, well, bedtime, and by that time, both Pop and I are already starting to sag in our own right.  I’ve been up since 6am; Pop gets to sleep in a bit later but has a much more physical job.  By post-dinner, we’re feeling our age.  By 9pm, we’re feeling about the age of the Rockie Mountains.  I keep telling myself (and Pop) that this is just a phase that they’re going through and it will pass.  Then I remember wee Briley, who did it for several years straight. when I was 30 years younger.   And there’s the usual cooking, laundry, grocery shopping, re-shingle the roof.  A post every day seems as likely as getting that winning PowerBall ticket.

It’s also NaKniSweMo, so in my spare (???) time, I should be knitting up a sweater of more than 50,000 stitches.  That’s a full adult sweater, so there’s no sneaking by with something quick like a sweater for a 3-month old infant.   While I could perhaps rationalize/justify knitting by tagging it “holiday gifts,” that still doesn’t create hours in the day, or even minutes in the day.  (And I have this big sack of Lorna’s Laces worsted weight that would work up so nicely – top-down, raglan pullover.  Big, loose, comfortable, easy, mindless)

I think, if I start that sweater, I’m going to consider it a form of Stress Therapy needed to ward off an imminent complete breakdown.  Could I then record the cost of all my yarn on my income tax as a medical expense?   (Makes sense to me)  (I’ll have to talk to my doctor about this)

Yesterday

Here’s one small part of my day.   I say little/nothing here about my job.  It will remain so, but yesterday, I got stuck working a few extra hours.  Sufficient to say that I have the sort of job where you don’t leave until the next shift comes in.  Never, ever. (Once, thanks to a blizzard, I was stuck there for 3 and a half days)  So yesterday, I knew the next shift would be a wee bit late.  No problem.  It happens to all of us now and again, and you do favors for others, with hope that it gets returned.  So time stretches and I get another call that it’s gonna be another hour.  Now I’m starting to have a problem, because I have to pick up the boys from Day Care, which closes in less than an hour!!  Obviously, the Day Care staff will stay there with the boys, with one hand patting them on their heads, the other hand on a calculator, figuring up a big, fat bill for the OT.  Daughter also is rather “caught” at her job.  Called Pop at home, on his day off.  Quickly explained the situation, that the boys needed to be picked up ASAP.  Problem now being that he doesn’t have car seats.  So he has to come here to my workplace, trade out the vehicles, dash off with my car (and my car seats) and retrieve the fellas.

I watched, somewhat nervously, as he drove off with my “new” vehicle, I’ve only had it a few months.  Then my gaze shifts to his truck.  Oh, hell, that’s my ride home???  A  ‘99 Ford Ranger Pick-up.  POW/MIA stickers, Army Ranger insignia thingie where a front license plate would go.  And filth and junk like you never saw inside!!  It’s like he’s converted it into a rolling garbage truck.  I’m surprised that hordes of flies don’t follow him as it scoots down the road.  So much junk stuffed in the visors, that if you tried to use them, you’d be covered in trash.  Passenger seat is unusable for all the junk piled on it.  Seats will not go backwards, cause there’s so much junk stuffed behind them and they won’t pull forward because the mechanism is jammed by all the shit under the seats.  Junk littering the dashboard, tied from the mirrors.  The middle of the bench seat is also piled high with junk.  Much of it appears to be pretty solidly in place, so I’m guessing it’s been like this for years.  Which also means that, if it hasn’t been touched in years, it don’t need to be there at all.  The truck needs to be driven up to a cliff edge and pushed off.  And the rods are knocking.

AND THEN!!!!!    

I remember that it’s a damn stick shift!   Now, back in the day, I was most “fluent” in driving a standard transmission, and I was taught by an expert.  But the last 3 vehicles have been automatic, and it’s probably been maybe 7 or 8 years since I’ve driven Pop’s truck at all.  And then only a mile or two.  And actually, I don’t want to even reach down in the general direction of the gearshift cause God only knows what might be down there in the dark, maybe something that’ll reach up and bite me.  So I get my butt into the truck, notice that the seat sinks dramatically to the left, so you feel like you’re gonna fall out the door.  And I talk to the trunk.  “Listen hear, you dirty piece of metal.  I need to get home, and you’re gonna take me, and you’re not gonna give me any shit cause I’m just not in the mood.  Clutch, do you hear me?  No shit, no stalling, no hopping about.  Just go home with no problems, and you won’t see the junkyard by nightfall.”

I started it up, put it in reverse, let the clutch out, and went home.