Truck Breaks and Junkyard Adventures.

So the next part of our ongoing saga of fixing the damn truck breaks sometime in my lifetime involved bleeding the breaks. Did I say bleeding the breaks? I meant failure. First off this was like the first warm day we have had in weeks. However the first warm day in weeks does not mean that all the snow had melted so my first task was shoveling snow out from around the truck in the areas we might need to lay down on.

 

Yay.

Second task involved Scott filling up the master cylinder with break fluid and having me very gently pump the breaks so we could test that break hub thing that was a right bitch to get on. So I did that and then of course it leaked like a motherfucker and I had to stop and then Scott crawled under the damn truck and poked at it and then swore a whole bunch. Because of course the lines from the master cylinder would be the ones leaking. You know the lines that get break fluid to the breaks? Those lines? Yeah they were leaking. I realize to the uninitiated this is all gibberish so here have a picture.

 

So then we pull the line off and clean it up and try to put it back on. Which went about as well as you would expect. At one point both me and Scott were under the truck, facing different directions with him holding the line and me trying to thread the bolt on. Of course this didn't work at all ever and finally he tried to rebend the line and then knocked the other top line from the master cylinder off and then we swore a whole lot. Of course at this point I suggested just using JB weld to stick the damn bolts in PERMANENTLY and Scott was all like that just might work but we both kinda knew it wasn't going to work. There was only one option.

We were going to have to pull the damn break hub thing off again.

So Scott pulled the damn stupid motherfucking break hub thing off and in the cold clammy light of a winters day we could clearly see that the top holes, the ones we had been struggling with, were completely bare of threads. It was never going to work. No matter how hard we had fought and swore and cursed and begged the cold uncaring gods of auto repair, it was never going to work. We were going to have to find another break hub thing. Which of course is a part they no longer make anymore.

Which meant we were going to a junkyard.

So we grabbed our shit and some tools and I put medicated goop in the cats eyeballs and then we got in the car and drove. The first scrapyard we stopped at had a nice neat office and was staffed by a nice blond women who had clearly never left the eighties. There was a plastic sign on the counter saying not to place auto parts on it which kind of confused me because I was never really under the impression that junkyards were all that picky about there counters but whatever the fuck. So I just held the part up where she could see it like some sort of fucked up metal peace offering and we asked about it while the damn thing peed break fluid down my arm. So then she was all like, anything that old we just scrap and gave us the name of another place we could try and then we got back in the car and I spotted the greatest thing ever on the way out.

The greatest thing ever.

 Our next stop was an auto parts store where we learned that the part that I was calling the break hub thing and Scott was calling the break distributer was actually called the break proportioner.

Annnd also they didn't have one.

The last place we stopped at was a true to life scrapyard made entirely of mud. We pulled up to a gray dim looking metal building that was your typical half garage half office. Upon entering we were greeted by a vague older looking man. You know the kind of guy who gives you the impression there is no mental activity going on behind those eyes. “You got any cans?” He asked in a wheezy voice. I glance behind me at my 1999 canless Toyota Avalon. Which was the only vehicle in the parking lot. I looked around to make sure I hadn't been sucked into Cormac McCarthy's The Road.

Scott explained that we needed a part. The guy explained we would have to go back into the office. In the office we were greeted by a dark haired women sitting behind a desk talking to a older guy who apparently had nothing better to do then sit in a scrapyard office and talk up a receptionist. In the back another older looking women was washing down tables. For some bizarre reason the whole place smelled like cookies.

“You gonna help them customers!?” Shouted the lady from the back, still washing down shit.

So we explain what we need to the two people sitting at the desk who look like we are interruptions into their flirting/drug dealing and then they tell us to go out back and look for Gary. We go out back. Out back turned out to be a wasteland of muddy cars. Many of which had been crushed and flattened into huge pancake like stacks that rose up around the borders of the wasteland like a very ineffective fence. Mud and snow mixed together under the tires of huge car moving machinery. We stopped next to a green building that smelled like pure ethanol and watched the giant car magnet thing move car frames around like they were made of tinfoil.

Finally a guy driving a huge piece of machinery pulled up beside us and yelled something out the window I couldn't hear and then Scott held up the part like it was a magic talisman and they mined something about Chevy and then he yelled some directions over the engine and we were off. What followed next was the most surreal adventure ever. One isle over I could hear the giant car magnet dropping shit while we wound our way through cars that looked like they had been flung down from on high by an giant car magnet. The first truck we checked was completely on it's side, wheels and bed long gone. Even though it had the part, the break proportioner was too rusted and shot to use.

We picked our way out of there and into the nest row over. Which is when I discovered that the “snow” was merely a thin blanket of white over a foot deep hole and I had to do that thing where you jerk forward and then grab you own shoe to keep the earth from ripping it off.

I was pretty over the junkyard by that point. Of course the next truck's break proportioner was shot too. Defeated, unwilling to try another avenue and possibly lose a shoe for good this time we trudged back to the office. Once inside we explained that we didn't find one while the lady in the back shouted more advice about customer service. We smiled and backed out the door, back past the wandering can man and got into our car, still holding the greasy useless break proportioner.

We never did fine Gary.

So the Furnace Broke. Again.

So a few days ago I awoke to the special joy of it being the same temperature outside as it was inside. Which was cold. Because of course the fuel oil furnace had refused to turn on. Which was super great for my stress levels. I mean it's totally not like our 40 to 30 degree weather has me burning firewood that I had set aside for the dark cold depths of winter and also the wood stove cranks the inside temperature into the Sahara or anything.

I mean, it's not like we already paid someone to come out and fix it once.

Ha ha hah no. Fuck.

So I awoke to the super balls cold of 47 degrees and put on thermals and made a fire and then played an extra special round of what is wrong with the furnace this time. Of course when hitting the reset button failed to produce an furnace operating epiphany, we fell back on the old standby of poking it a few times and then went to find the list of things the old dude who had come to fix it said we might have to replace at some point.

Because we were now at “some point.”

Unfortunately because of our work schedules we could not make it to the store during the hours it was actually open because I only know of one store that even sells fuel oil furnace parts and it is a locally run store that isn't open on Sunday and past five. Which was also unfortunate because my body picked that night to become hellishly sick and I spent a good chunk of time huddled on the bathroom floor at 47 degrees.

Which was, if you are wondering, the exact opposite of fun.

It was also the exact opposite of fixing that furnace.

It also meant that I had to miss work. Which pissed me the shit off because unless I am actively dying to the point that Jesus is coming for me and I can see the light of heaven I usually go to work. Because money.

So after wandering around the ice cold motherfucking mobile home I decided to make a fire and crank the stove up to like eighty because my skin hurt too much for me to just put on a goddamn sweater and then I tried not to think about how cold it was going to get overnight because there was no way in hell I was going to get up at 2am and put more wood in the stove.

So I spent another freezing ass night where I realized that the dog is only capable of heating my torso even if I put him under the blankets with me and then my legs felt like stiff pieces of wire and like they were trying to get a divorce from my torso and then Scott came home and we went to buy more furnace parts.

Of course we were going to take pictures of the parts with our phones because planning and then we didn't because bad planning and in the end we just bought what the sales guy said would fit our stove based on our loose description of what we had.

It's how we roll.

Which was when we learned that a new CAD Cell Eye, you know the bit that regulates the fire and whatnot is like 8 bucks and a new door switch is like, 19 because the door switch is made out of unicorn horn or someshit. So we were just like whatever we need this to work and then we get home and of course it isn't the right CAD Cell thing because ha ha fuck you Holly and your shit dreams.

So now we are going out to buy the other CAD Cell Eye thingadoozer and then try to install it and then if that doesn't work I am building a blanket fort in my office and living in it with the dog until spring.

You know like a mature adult would do.

Okay.

I guess Scott can come too.

The Gravel Truck Got Stuck in Our Driveway AGAIN.

Sooooo guess how getting that second load of gravel turned out? Ha ha right. I know that many of you will not recall the FIRST time this happened, but lets just say it sucked ass and the driver had to call two separate people and get two separate pieces of equipment to pull him out and then he refused to take the driveway ever again.

And of course it was the same driver.

Because when you combine his shitty luck and my shitty luck terrible things happen.

Except this time we just pulled him out with the goddamned backhoe so he could totally pretend that he hadn't gotten stuck this time if he wanted to. Of course this was still happening back when the front bucket hoses were still shot so we had to move the gravel by hand for a bit like a peasant because, and I don't know if I have made this clear enough, we have to be able to get the septic guy down the road THIS YEAR or we are all fucked.

And I mean like, super duper fucked. Not just regular fucked.

Which was then that Scott revealed that he kinda thought this might happen because we hadn't packed the gravel down and I was all like you have to pack gravel down? And he was all like yes. And I was all like WHY DOES NO ONE TELL ME THESE THINGS!? And Scott was all like, large gravel was your idea and this is how you told me to fix this AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WE HAVE TO PACK IT DOWN!? And then I was all like, WE AREN'T COMBINING OUR POWERS WELL HERE!

And then I yelled WITH OUR POWERS COMBINED and thrust my hand into the sky just like motherfucking Capitan Planet and then Scott just looked at me like I was crazy and then I was all like, WITH THE POWER OF HEART and he just looked at me and I was like you never really had a childhood did you? And he was all like, lets just start shoveling gravel okay?

And then I vowed that one night after he went to bed I was going to sneak a Capitan Planet poster into his office.

Of course this would all be happening right after I did a monster job at work and my back was all like, really, you're kidding me with this? And I was all like, no. And then it shot shooting pains down one leg or the other until I was ready to kill it with fire because I am still pretending that I didn't injure any of the disks this spring even though it's getting really hard to lie to myself like that which is why I have been playing a lot of point and click adventure games in the evening.

Anyway.

After my back was all like, ha ha no I wasn't kidding and I had to sit down after every wheelbarrow load because exhaustion is a thing that can happen and it's a goddamned bitch we got the backhoe running and then we proceeded to kick some ass.

Moving gravel with the backhoe was like going at light speed after trying to get to the nearest star by paddling your arms. So we moved a crap ton of gravel around with the bucket, although it was kind of annoying because it kept shoving some of the gravel off the road so we had to rake it back on. Which was a motherfucking adventure. Remember how I told you that shoveling large gravel was a pain in the ass because trying to push your shovel into it was like hitting a wall made of large chunks of rock? Well the same thing happens when you rake it. So I would get the rake and try to pull the gravel towards me and it would roll maybe five pieces forward and then one of the hunks would wedge itself into the tines and I would have to beat the damn thing on the ground to knock it loose. While meanwhile Scott would have raked like ten feet of driveway and would be moving on to something else because he is the rake whisperer or someshit.

Large chunk gravel hates me, is what I am saying.

But in the end we got the gravel where it fucking needed to go and scraped the edges of the road, which are supposed to be LOWER then the road surface. And then we stood back to admire it and I resisted the urge to start singing the Captain Planet theme song.

 It's a driveway again! Kinda. Mostly.

So in the end nature couldn't keep us down. Though we still need to add another ditch and put in a cement grate to funnel water off the road so that we can stop the water from using our tire tracks as a stream. But at least we got back on track, even if I had to do it by repairing the track by hand with a wheelbarrow and swearing a whole lot.

Captain Planet would be so proud.

My Cat has Only One Functional Eyeball Now.

So todays vet visit went poorly. Both from the news that her left eye has shown no improvement and may have possibly already burst and I really don't want to think about that right now. So, long story short, they have may to take out that eye.

Those sounds you are hearing? That's me dry heaving.

I'm going to try not to think about that either. I am also not going to think about the fact that I have to repeat the treatment for another week.

Mostly because putting in the eye drops was a goddamned adventure. Trying to do it by myself was like trying to wrestle a small bear that had really powerful squinting muscles. Finally Scott came over and helped me. I would like to think this was altruism on his part, but likely he got tired of listening to me yelling about how this medication had cost me, like a hundred dollars.

Luckily we have developed a system where he holds her head and I administer the eye drops and Emoticon closes her third eyelid just to fuck with us.

Also it turns out that at the clinic they had only one vet working who was in surgery, so I spent a lot of time staring at the posters in the waiting room and trying not to think about how much this time was going to cost me. During all this, while I was trying not to look at the Hookworm poster because it was saying something like 'you and your pet could have this RIGHT NOW OMFG' when the vet tech popped in to grab Emoticon to do some blood work. She left the door ajar, and before I knew it one of the resident vet kitties slipped in. Walking around like she owned the place this new kitty investigated Emoticon's carrier and then set herself into a corner for a wash.

Which was when I noticed that this new kitty only had one eyeball.

Ha, ha, life you are a bitch sometimes.

Getting down to pet new kitty I saw she was wearing a name tag. Helen Keller.

Ha ha life, you are a super bitch sometimes.

About that point the vet returned carrying a terrified Emoticon in her arms and I was all like, “this cat just came in and-”

And she just smiled a little smile and said “looks like someone has a visitor” before she slipped out the door.

So then it was just me in a room with two half blind cats. So I covered Emoticon with a towel and petted her and watched Hellen Keller and another mystery cat play that paw under the door game and listened to a dog yowling that sounded just like Gollum.

Finally the vet came in, looking like he had been through the ringer and we had that conversation that Holly did not want to have. That there was really no improvement in the left eye at all and that it was possible that the cyst had already broken and at this point we needed to see how much discomfort she was in before deciding whether we should just take it out but hey lets give it another week and we'll see what happens.

Then we were just two tired adults staring at each other across a metal table who were having really shitty days, just for different reasons.

So then I put Emoticon in her crate and we went to go buy auto parts and I tried not to think about it very much. Except now I have to think about it because she has just crawled into my lap and won't stop purring and shifting around AND CAN'T YOU JUST STAY STILL FOR TWO SECONDS?

Ahem.

Anyway. So now I don't know if I should feel like a failure because I/we/the medical establishment failed to save her eye, or whether I should be happy we saved the other one, or whether this is all too soon and I need to give it more time and hopefully it will improve.

Emotions are like, fucking hard, man.

Also hard?

Typing with one hand because the other one is under a cat.

Things I have Learned About Myself: Back Injury Addition.

Over the course of having this injury I have learned several keys things.

One is that prescription strength topical muscle relaxant, the kind that comes in a cream that you rub on to your back, will make me stoned. Like, I can't read text because the words don't make sense to my eye balls stoned. Of course at the time I found myself wandering around the house going this doesn't make sense, why is this happening? This shit was topical.

I don't know exactly how much of the medication was on me, but I do know that the relief from the endless grinding pain and the sudden influx of localized medication was enough to drive me to spending a considerable amount of my day watching GIFs of cats falling into fish tanks or off desks, or dogs jumping into swimming pools. I was however very grateful that I had not attempted to put his shit on and then go to work.

Or course this was until the meds wore off. Then we came to lesson number two.

Lesson number two is what I would like to call my Bastardization of Murphy's Law. Murphy's Law -for those of you who somehow missed this- states: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. My version reads a little something like this:

Holly's Law: When a negative event occurs, another negative event will occur in correlation that will compound the original problem. Often the outcome will be greater (more negative) then the sum of it's original parts.

I realize that this should be impossible, or at least impossible from a physics stand point unless we finally find a better working alternative to string theory, but I assure you it's true.

Because while I was in throws of back injury fun time, which I would also like to point out is also sit carefully and no sleep for you time, the dog got sick.

And when I say 'sick' I mean 'have diarrhea all over everything forever.' Which meant of course that I was being woken out of a unsound sleep to the sound of the dog needed to go out, which was followed by the sound of the husband not reacting in time, which was followed by the sound of me sitting bolt upright in bed and my back screaming in pain as the dog pooped on the floor.

Or course all of this would happen when I was attempting to go to work during the day. Meaning that I would get home, asses the damage, clean it up, get the husband to take the dog who is deadly afraid of him outside, go to bed, and repeat from beginning at about two am to six am.

Which brings me back to the bit about the outcome being worse then the sum of it's parts.

Of course this folds all into lesson number three.

Which was that when you take all of life's normal irritations, and combine them with nagging lingering pain that I was not sure would ever go away at that point, I turned into a raving bitch. It took all of my giving a damn to go to work, so all of my giving a damn for anything else was just motherfucking gone.

Let me put it this way.

You know all those things that you think in the back of your mind, but never say?

I said them.

Okay, like in the back of your head still lives teenage you and that person is still a whiny, short sighted, know it all kid? You know the voice that is always like life is not fair, and wants the world to revolve around you, and dreams of being treated like royalty no matter what? But as you get older you learn to shut her ass up and be grateful for what you have because that is what life is about.

Yeah. Just imagine letting her run the show for a week.

Of course once I was on that runaway train there was no turning back. I rode that irrationally angry train all the way to the last stop- we-are-all-sick-of-your-shits-ville.

Hopefully now though I am on the bus to making-this-whole-thing-a-bad-memory-ington.

So lets just say I am on the road to recovery.

It sounds a lot better then saying how I lost my shit over a bagel this morning.

The Washing Machine has Died a Tragic Death.

This morning I got up, determined to have a productive and busy day. So me and my foolish optimism changed the sheets and put some blankets into the washer and put some pillows in the dryer with some dryer sheets so they would stop smelling like drool and hair and then went about my day.

Until that is, the washer started making that noise.

Now, when you are like me, and have a somewhat limited but pretty functional knowledge of how machines work, there is a sound. I cannot really describe this sound. It is, quite frankly the sound a motor makes when it is trying to turn but can't. It is the sound of death. A machine death rattle if you will. If you here this sound and ignore it, you will burn out the motor. Which in every day speak means that the motor is dead and is never ever coming back to life and you might as well bury it in the yard and get another one.

So when the washer began making that sound I am fairly sure that I must have teleported over to it and jerked the lid up. It looked like it was refusing to go into spin cycle. Great. Whoo hoo. I lowered the lid once, only to hear it make the sound again. Then I summoned Scott. He turned off the machine and pulled it forward. We looked at the back with flashlights. There appeared to be no way to get into the inside of it where the broken things were. Finally I had to tilt the whole machine up and hold it there while he poked around underneath.*Scott admitted nothing looked immediately broken. So I did what I always do when confronted with a problem.

I went to the Internet.

The Internet told me it was probably a bad direct drive coupling. I ordered a new drive coupler from Lowes. Then I had to deal with the problem of the blankets that were still sitting in the washer, in about six inches of water that was still in the machine.

First of all I couldn't just put them in the dryer because dryers aren't made to handle that kind of thing and two the blankets were still sopping dripping wet. I also learned that wet blankets are about fifty times heavier then dry blankets. I decided to throw both blankets out onto the deck railing and let god sort them out. Except that the way my tiny mobile home hallway works, I have to pass the back door, walk into the bedroom, turn around and then open the door, because that's just how that motherfucker swings.

Which meant that the blanket had plenty of time to pee on me.

And the hallway. And the carpet. And there were two blankets which meant I did this twice. Then of course I left them for a bit to run most of the water out. Which seemed like a good plan until I got back out there to transfer them to the clothes line and found that they had frozen into giant slabs of blanket.

I hung them on the clothes line anyway, feeling like an idiot for having to forcibly bend the tops down to clip them. If you are wondering why I didn't hang them up inside the answer is mobile home, there is nowhere in this particle board wonderland that could even think about supporting two wet as hell blankets, let alone being water proof enough to hang them above.

Which is pretty much how I wound up with icicles hanging from my blankets.

I finally caved and then brought them inside where I let them unthaw on top of the washer and then stuffed them in the dryer and prayed I didn't burn that out too. Once they had mostly dried I pulled them out and draped on my living room chairs so they could remind me of my failures.

Also at this point I realized that I didn't know if it was the three dryer sheets I had put in the dryer with the pillows were making the blankets smell and feel like that or whether the soap was never rinsed out of them.

It's like a guessing game where there are no right answers.

So if anyone needs me, I'll just be smelling my blankets and trying desperately not to think about the fact that my bath towel smells really weird and there's not a goddamn thing I can do about it.

Fuck.

*If there was ever a greater trust exercise...

So We Fixed the Stove.

So we fixed the stove. And by fixed I mean switched it out with the stove from the other mobile home. In the rain. Because rain is good for ovens.

We made a valiant effort to fix the old one. We looked online. We kept calling Mr. Repair guy even though he never did pick up his phone. We pulled the stove out and looked at the back of it. Have you ever had the experience where you are staring at the guts of something and you have no idea what you are looking at? Yeah, me too. I knew enough to identify the gas lines, but I had no idea what anything else was. There was a rectangle with wires coming out of it, and there was another rectangle, and the some panels. That was about it.

I still feel vaguely like I should have done something more. Like I let the stove down somehow. Like I should have fixed it because we are such a throw away culture and when something breaks we just go get a new one and now I am perpetuating the problem. I mean, just because the burners didn't work unless you lit them with a match, and you could never put them on low because they would just go out and then fill the kitchen with gas, and the knobs were too big so that if even thought about bumping one it would turn the gas on full bore, and just because it was so old you couldn't obtain parts for it, didn't mean that it was time to replace it, right? Right? RIGHT!?

Okay.

You know the problem is I read too much homesteading shit. If you are not sure what homesteading is, it's a group of people who think the great depression was a good idea. They reuse everything. If their water heater breaks they use garbage bags to make a solar shower in the lawn using the garden hose. I shit you not I read an article about how to grow this particular plant in order to make your own kitchen sponges/pot scrubbers. Last time I checked a four pack of sponges was, oh what, a dollar? Dollar twenty five, maybe? These people are insane.

And somewhere deep down I want to be one of them.

Which leads to the guilt. I am not one of them. I will never be one of them. When a tool breaks, I just go buy another tool instead of building one in my garage with my solar powered welder like I should be doing. I do not hoard empty plastic containers in the theory I can reuse them someday. I do not rise before dawn everyday to bake my own bread so it can be ready to eat at breakfast time after I have also fed and watered all the animals, done the laundry and cleaned the house.

If a homesteaders oven had broken they would have built a clay brick solar oven in the lawn and used it everyday and tore the old one apart to make simple ergonomic farm tools they use on their no power mother earth loving farm. But, really though, there is one big difference between me and them.

I have a motherfucking job.

My Kitchen Might Explode.

So my kitchen might explode because the stove has been leaking gas. And we had been ignoring it. Why? Why do I freak out when I leave battery chargers plugged in over night because the manual said that might cause fire and then pretend I don't notice a gas leak? I have no fucking idea. Presumably because I'm an idiot.

We finally broke down and admitted there was a problem when it took two hours to make dinner last night because the oven is only working on one side.

At this point we did what any self respecting couple would do. Argued about which specific part on the stove was broken. (Hint: it's not the part that would be easy to get to.) The other thing we discovered was that the part can only be bought at a dealership by a certified technician. Presumably because Whirlpool is a goddamned dick. Or maybe they don't want your average cheap ass moron to blow themselves up trying to fix their stoves. They would much rather the average cheap ass moron make a crater the size of a semi by trying to fabricate the part in their garage and installing it with drywall screws. Both scenarios end in death, but if you look closely, only one ends with it being Whirlpools fault.

So we called a repairman.

Oh, I'm sorry, I should say we tried to call a repairman. But he didn't pick up his phone. And their was no answering machine. And all the other repair places are rather far away.

I think we are going to die.

Now I don't have a working stove anymore and I am suddenly back at collage when I cooked all of my food using the microwave. Right. So apparently I am team microwave now.

Okay so maybe we were nursing that stove along anyway. Maybe it had an annoying habit of filling the room with gas because it was too easy to bump the knobs on the front to SUPER ON. And maybe you had to light the burners by hand because the whatever-the-fuck-part was broken. And maybe it was too old to have like, you know, a timer or anything on it. And maybe it's time to buy a new stove.

Motherfuckers.

Looks like it's baked potatoes from the microwave tonight! Aannndd every other night for now into the foreseeable future.

Fuck.

Me, A Backhoe, Some Mud and Some Poo

So last night it turns out that the dog must have eaten something bad for her, because she crazy pooped all over the bedroom floor. I did not not discover this until oh, about midnight. Because life is unfair like that. Then this morning I discovered that she had also risen at some point during the night to crazy diarrhea poop in my office. At that point I was pretty sure that life was giving me the finger. So, it was about noon before I staggered out of my poop smelling house to go do things with my day.

You know that point where you think you are getting a handle on things? Like maybe you have denailed some boards, and then maybe you have moved a load of rocks for your future house and felt like you were doing good despite setbacks?

That was about the point we got the backhoe stuck in the lawn.

Everything was going great. We used the front backhoe bucket to collect some big rocks, and then we attempted to drive them over to the wall* we were building. Which was across a field and also across the lawn. The last bit didn't go very well. You ever seen a full size backhoe just slide three feet and then become hopelessly mired in black watery muddy poo like earth? Because I have.

Scott yelled something I didn't hear at that moment, spun the tires again gently before getting out and coming to stand next to me. Curse words were uttered. Ideas were floated. Since waiting until late summer when the ground gets real dry was a less then stellar option, I suggested that we use the front bucket to pull it out of the hole because I had heard of it being done. On a forum. Once.

At least Scott thought that was a good plan.

Have you ever seen a backhoe dry heave? Because I have. I don't meant to imply that Scott wasn't operating it well, he was.** It's just that there is only one way to describe that set of motions.

Now you would think that just digging the front bucket into the earth and pulling the arm back in wouldn't be enough to drag the whole machine forward, but it totally is. The key is that the stabilizers weren't down. Once it became clear the the hoe was leaving the earth and clawing it's way into the parking pad we all went crazy. Scott pumped his fist in the air and I jumped up and down and high fived the dog but she was too excited and splashed mud all over my face but none of us cared because dignity is for people that don't have backhoes.

Then I thought everything was going to be alright and then my sandwich caught fire in the toaster oven and now my house mobile home smells like burning dog poop. Some times I hate my life.

Stupid motherfucking life.

* The dry stacked stone walls will become the house someday in case you were wondering.

** Scott is one of those rare people that is good at things he has never done before. This was only his third time driving a backhoe and he made it look like he had been driving one all his life.

Allegheny Power Hates Us.

I am fairly sure that Allegheny Power is spying on us. My theory is that they wait until we absolutely positively need power and then they shut it off. You probably think that sounds insane, but you should stop judging me like that. Besides after what happened a few days ago, I'm not so sure anymore.

We were going to collect rocks. Because I want to build my house out of rocks. This involves getting the rocks from the middle of the woods, swamp, field, bee nest, or brier patch where they happen to be and moving them to one central location. Now, in the past this has involved using the wheel barrow.

I need to take a moment to point out that the wheelbarrow hates me. Really Really hates me. It waits until I have a large load and I have to go down a hill, and then, without warning it would dig the front bar into the ground, which would accomplish two things.

     1. The wheelbarrow would keel over on it's side like a large whale filled with rocks thus spilling my hours  of goddamned labor all over the fucking lawn.

     2. Now according to physics, an object will remain in motion until a force, equal or greater, is applied to stop it. So my body was still moving, meaning that my shins would meet the metal back bar at a considerable  speed. Also, and unfortunately for me, this also meant that I would then need to use the rapidly descending back bar as a spring board to avoid the handles from sweeping me off my feet and smashing my face into a pile of rocks.*

So when Scott suggested we use the truck I enthusiastically seconded the motion. There was just one little problem. It wouldn't start. That's alright we said we'll just use the battery charger. We hooked up the battery charger and I went down to clean out the animal pens, because they just won't stop pooping.

Well I clean out the pens and spread the shit fertilizer on the garden. Then I gather the eggs and head inside to discover the power is out. Which means the truck hasn't been charging. I call the power company and then head outside to inform Scott that our ability to take a shower is just fucking gone, man. I was pretty sure I could here the wheelbarrow laughing at me as I went and got it out of the shed.

We did not move rocks with it however, and instead moved some dead leaves as mulch for the garden, but I could still feel it's smug sense of victory. Asshole wheelbarrow. 

Feeling like at least we had accomplished something we went back inside to discover the power was back on. But the Internet wasn't. The Internet would not work. Turns out the router had gone all crazy pants when the power went out.** Alright we said, we'll just find the disk and reconfigure it or whatever the hell it is that one does to make it work. (It should be pretty obvious that when I said 'we' I meant 'Scott.')

Except we couldn't find the disk. (And by 'we' I mean 'Scott')

We tore the house mobile home apart looking for that disk. Finally Scott announced that if he had put it somewhere he had put it into another dimension. We were just going to have to buy another router. It was the only way. So we bought another router and did the magic thing and it worked. Just like magic.

To recap, the power being out caused me to be subjected to the evil wheelbarrow and blew the Internet somehow so that we had to buy another router, and screwed me out of a day of rock collecting.

You win this round Allegheny Power. You win this round.


* Yes we checked the tire pressure. I still have no idea what causes this. Oh, wait yes I do, the wheel barrow hates me and everything I stand for.

** You know, I wonder if I had left the wheelbarrow near that window for any length of time.

Chirstmas And Other Assorted Fun Things.

So, I managed to get sick the week before Christmas. The sort of terrible energy draining sickness that left me laying on the bed face down for awhile. I should also point out that if Scott hadn't been wonderful and wrapped the presents that my family would have gotten their gifts wrapped in festive plastic bags.

Since I'm on antibiotics, I also have the nausea and loss of appetite that goes with that. I might be going out on a limb here, but I'm going to say it's probably the worst Christmas ever. Here's why.

1. BOTH of Scott's laptops were attacked by viruses. Both times all his programs were wiped clean off. Every. Single. One.  

2. Two days before Christmas my outdoor cat emoticon shows up with her face covered in blood and hole in her check that she got somehow. I have no idea how these things keep happening. No vets are open Christmas weekend.*

3. I have never had a migraine, until Friday, when I've had one everyday since then.

4. This is the first Christmas without my father.

5. Scott's medication is once again giving him problems.


 So all in all not one of my better Christmases. I like seeing my family and all, but I could really take or leave Christmas. I don't even have a tree. I'm not sure I even want a tree. Maybe I can just put Christmas lights on the upright base next year and call it even.


* Okay I know there is an emergency clinic in town but I'll be damned if I am paying emergency Christmas time money for a cat that can't go a whole week without injuring herself somehow.