This Happened

[Stan]

[Phoebe]

Two of my kids do their own laundry, but one of them puts my bras in the dryer and stuffs my husband's work clothes down in the bottom of narrow hampers when they are just fresh from the dryer; the other kid throws a mixture of dirty and clean clothes on the floor of the laundry room and drags blankets all over the house. So at this point we're just going back to me doing it all and everybody staying well out of my way. They all have to put away their clean clothes and you would think it was tantamount to asking them to walk on the ceiling. my husband has a huge pile of clothes neatly stacked on top of a box in our bedroom because I am too short to reach the shelf and he dreams that I'm going to fetch a stool or something and put them on his high shelves. Does he lack arms? Maybe: it only takes thumbs to play Zelda.

[Eliahad]

[Phoebe]

Twas a mistake to feed the dog cheese. And no I'm not going to stand here with the door open while you weigh the pros of pooping against the cons of ice on the paws.

[Phoebe]

If your wife has a bad or poorly-behaved dad, then it might be good if she says you are his opposite; if your wife has an angelically good dad, then when she says you are being the opposite of him, that's likely not good. Example: do not make the wife and kids walk out to your car across a sheet of ice when you could just as easily leave the car warming in the garage; the job of the man in this situation is to make it easier and safer for people to locomote in bad weather! Especially important if wife shoveled the driveway. I realize we join a new team for life but the former team has some good habits for Winning. Also, if you choose to hide M&Ms in your drawer and someone else does your laundry and thus needs to look in there and see if you have adequate socks, you should not complain that they moved your M&Ms, nor should that ever be the first thing they hear from you in the morning. Thank you. Peace in the valley will be restored later, because others will be handling all domestic duties for the next three days. Good luck! And warning that your oldest child is an incorrigible who will attempt to eat a cup of ice cream as breakfast.

[Tahlvin]

We have two motor vehicles. There's me, my wife, and our teenage son who has a permit but not a license yet. I work from home, and when we do go out of the house, we almost always take the one vehicle. So when I went to drive the other vehicle last night, we found a problem: it hadn't been driven in so long that the battery completely died. That meant the keyless entry would not work. There's no manually keyed lock on the passenger door, and the keyed lock on the driver's side door appears to be broken. I even looked in the trunk, and there's no way to easily get from the the trunk into the backseat, as there isn't any sort of quick-release that allows the seat backs to fold down. As a result, the vehicle is now just a very large brick in our driveway: we cannot even open it to pop the hood and charge the battery.

I'm hoping to find a locksmith or mechanic that will be able to open the door the old fashioned way with a shim of some sort. And once we get it opened and get the battery charged, I'm going to make sure to take it out for at least a little drive a couple times a week, to make sure the battery stays charged. And we'll also be looking to replace that vehicle with something more reliable for the teenager to drive once he gets his license.

[Tahlvin]

Update: A tech from the auto shop that we frequently use was kind enough to swing by the house with his auto-B&E kit. With the help of a blood pressure cuff and long, well-shaped metal rod, he was able to reach in an pull the door handle on the inside, which unlocked and opened the door. The vehicle battery is now hooked up to a charger. And I will be setting a reminder to myself to take it out for a drive a few times a week, just to keep the battery charged moving forward.

[DMDarcs]

[Phoebe]

My friend's husband is upset for what seem like very good reasons, because his work is very stressful, but this isn't a great situation for her, with grumpy husband who isn't happy in general and is unhappy with pretty much everything she and the kids do, like he'd be happier and less stressed without them around. She wants to be supportive especially when he's struggling with things beyond his control, but she is having difficulty doing that because maybe just coincidentally, one reason the husband might be having an unusually bad week is that some chica at his work who used to flirt with him adoringly just quit and took a different job. Like, on the one hand, the guy is going through stuff and needs support, but on the other hand, he's just mad at everything and maybe he shouldn't give a darn if some young acolyte stops working at the place, right? Maybe that's coincidental, maybe not. I am, it goes without saying, utterly useless at offering advice on any of it, but I feel like if I were a decent friend I would be able to make some sense of things and be helpful. Maybe just listening is enough; hope so!

[akiva]

Feeling defeated all week.

[akiva]

In the ER with the wife. She’s been having serious anemia problems lately, and her pulse is really high. So the on-call doctor said to go in order to rule out a blood clot.

[Stan]

[Tahlvin]

Good luck! Hope everything works out well!

[akiva]

Thanks. So far just lots of waiting.

[akiva]

We got home a couple of hours ago. She's still got anemia, but they ruled out blood clots.

Crappy way to spend the day.

[Tahlvin]

Hope she feels better soon. Spending hours at the ER and feeling like you didn't much of anywhere sucks.

[Phoebe]

Glad to hear no clots! I'm sorry she had to through all that.

[akiva]

I came down with a cold over the weekend. I feel miserable. Then today I threw up at work. But I can't take time off 'cause I don't have much sick leave left. I hope I don't infect any one.

[akiva]

[Tahlvin]

Hope you feel better soon, akiva!

Watch out for kids and expensive music instruments. We bought our soon a nice French horn in September, and he's getting wonderful use out of it in multiple bands (high school band, solo and ensemble, an area honors band, a small symphony orchestra, and he'll be playing in the pit for the high school musical). Unfortunately, yesterday evening he was going to an assessment for his brass ensemble and a door closed faster than he anticipated and bent the horn's bell. Thankfully, the place we bought it does instrument repairs, including offering a next-day option for an additional fee, so we can get it repaired in time for him to keep doing his stuff, and he'll just have to borrow one of the school's French horns for a day or two this week. And it actually isn't going to be as expensive to repair as I thought, even with the next-day option.

And then I find out just a bit ago that my dad is being admitted to the hospital with a blood clot in his lung, and they're starting him on blood thinner. Hopefully they caught it in time. It had to have been pretty bad for that man to go to a hospital.