Operation Pink Herring

Survey

If you were to receive, say, a wedding invitation… and on the RSVP card one of the entrée choices was “Chicken Jean Marie”, would you know what that was?

 

You see, I have this friend.   And she knows, since she has the caterer's entire menu memorized, that Chicken Jean Marie indicates a "tender breast of chicken sauteed with a garlic, tomato and age parmesan millege finished with extra virgin olive oil and fresh basil, tossed with penne pasta."  Unfortunately, that's a little much to fit on a three by five response card.   

 

So, tell me, internet: if you saw Chicken Jean Marie on a menu, would you know what that was?   My friend's better judgement says "no", but then again... my friend doesn't know what a "millege" is. 

The beginning of the end

I've owned three cars in my life.  The first was a 1988 baby blue Jetta that I loved with all my heart.  It was covered in butterfly decals and Dave Matthews Band stickers.  I love it for the freedom it represented to a 17-year-old trapped in suburban/rural area with no public transportation and I loved it because it was me.  It was absolutely perfect.... until I got rear-ended by a truck on my way to school one morning.  We only had a few short months together, me and that car.  I still remember, with gut-wrenching clarity, watching her being pulled up onto the tow truck that would take her to her final resting place.   God, I loved that Jetta.   

I suffered no delusions that the Jetta could be fixed, so I set my mechanic father immediately upon the task of finding me a new chariot.  He quickly found me a bright red, boxy 1989 VW Fox.  It wasn't my baby blue Jetta, but it was still beautiful.  Still me.  And best of all, it cost less than the insurance settlement I received for my poor, crushed Jetta.  I spent three days practicing stalling it out with my dad before we made our first venture to school, lurching and sputtering all the way.  But we made it, that Fox and me.  I came to love that car like a pet, quirks and all.  There was always some blinker or light out.  Sometimes it wouldn't start, but it always performed perfectly the minute my dad would arrive to rescue me.  I drove that car hundreds of miles with absolutely no oil in it (no one told me you needed to put oil in a car!), and it still lasted me from my senior year of high school right through my junior year of college.  I sold it when I went abroad to Spain because I could no longer justify paying the New Jersey insurance premiums on a car I was only using during school breaks.  For years afterwards, my mom would spot it from time to time, being driven around the neighboring towns by its new owner.  She left all my stickers on the back.  I think they were happy together, that girl and my car.

I was car-less for my last year and a half of college, until finally I couldn't stand having to ride the erratically scheduled University shuttle to the grocery store anymore.  Once again, I tasked my father to find me a new car.  I authorized him to use my full life savings at the time, about $5,000.  It was more money than I'd spent on the previous two cars combined.  I told him I wanted another Volkswagen, preferably blue or red. Maybe another Jetta, or a cute Corrado an old Rabbit.  But most importantly, I wanted something that was me. 

I went home for a weekend in March to meet my new car.  My mom had told me I'd be pleasantly surprised; although it was already five years old and had 100,000 miles on it, it looked almost new.  It was a huge upgrade from my first Jetta and my Fox.  It was beautiful, my new black 1998 Jetta.  I loved it from first sight.

There's something about being a Volkswagen owner.  We like to joke that my car has a gremlin living inside the engine; he feeds on money and oil and chews up wires and lets the air out of tires.  But for all the quirky problems my car has, it's always worked.  Blinkers and brake lights go out, the airbag warning light is permanently illuminated.  One of the tires leaks air (although the shop has tested it and found no leaks), the am radio has never worked.  The only truly unbearable inconvenience is that the air conditioning doesn't work, and that can only be blamed on me... and the taxi that stopped short in front of me in the rain, forcing me to rear-end gently tap him and crack my radiator.  My dad told me right off the bat that it was fixable, if I felt like shelling out $1000 for a new radiator.  No way, I said immediately, no way I was putting $1000 into a car that only cost $5,000 to start with.  I've regretted that decision every summer, but I can't blame the car. 

Over the past year, the car has started to slide downhill.  First, it was the parking brake, which froze into the "on" position whenever it was cold out.  Then it was the battery.  Then the starter, which my dad nearly managed to fix for me until he realized he didn't have the tool to remove the steering column on the newer VWs.  For a few weeks, until I got around to taking the car to the shop, I used a flathead screwdriver to turn the starter, which hung from the steering column by a wire.  I still keep that green-handled screwdriver in my car.  It's just where it belongs. 

Then the battery died inexplicably.  Later, the radio connection fritzed out and drained the battery, requiring a jump start.  Then the radio stopped working altogether.  My dad fixed that by disconnecting and re-connecting the battery. 

I took my car in for its first ever preventative maintenance last week because I just knew something was wrong.  I know next to nothing about cars and how they work, but I know my car.  I know it like I know a pet, and something was just off.  For $300, the shop tested everything, replaced the air filter and the spark plugs and the oil, and I hoped that would be enough.  But when I pulled over next to the car wash on Friday to clean out the interior, I wasn't shocked when the car refused to start back up.  I knew it, I knew something was wrong.   It was almost a relief to have it the inevitable breakdown over with.  There's never exactly a convenient time to have your car break down, but this could have been far worse.  I wasn't in a rush, I was pulled off the road.  It wasn't pouring rain, I didn't have a trunk full of perishable groceries.   I had a book with me.  I knew this was coming.

I turned the key again, and then a third time.  Nothing.  I waited ten minutes and tried the ignition again.  Nothing.   I could have moaned about Murphy's law, since this happened the one week of the year when Joel is out of town, and the same week that my dad was on vacation.  But this is why I pay AAA $65 a year.  They came out and tried to jump the car.  The portable jump kit had no effect, and neither did a direct jump from the battery of AAA's Ford F350.  It must be the battery and something else, the AAA guy said, and I just nodded along as he called the tow truck, muttering about how he's never seen anything like this before.  I have, I thought.  I've seen this.  I knew this was coming.

Watching my car being pulled up onto the tow bed was still gut-wrenching.  I wanted to pat the old girl and tell her everything was going to be OK.  But three hours and another $350 later, we had a new starter installed and my car was back in business.  If this lasts me another year I'll be happy, I thought.   That's all I need: one more year. 

This morning the driver's door wouldn't unlock.  I pulled and I budged, but it would just not open.  I finally climbed over from the passenger side, hoping it would unstick itself by the time I got to the vet's office (to drop off what I suspect to be a roundworm, found on the carpet in a pile of cat-barf, OH MY GOD WHY IS THIS HAPPENING AGAIN), but no dice.  I think my poor car is trying to tell me something; I think she's trying to say it's time to let her go.  She's had a good run, this car, and I know that after 150,000 miles and 11 years I can't really be surprised that she's nearing the end of her days.  But I don't want a new car.  I like this one.   Just the way she is.

Sargeant Pepper

At a quarter past six on Saturday morning I dropped Joel off at the steps to the Athletic Center and he boarded a coach bus bound for South Carolina, leaving me as a bachelorette for a full week.  He's been doing this every spring since we first started dating, and it's a week I've come to both look forward to and dread in equal measure.  We are pretty good about spending time apart, I usually enjoy having entire days to myself: days where I can go to yoga and sit around in my sweaty clothes all afternoon, watching whatever I want on TV with the volume up to supersonic levels.  But I was caught unpleasantly off-guard the first few times he went away for entire weekends; caught by a crushing sense of loneliness that I really had no excuse to feel.   I've learned over the years that the key is to make plans, and lots of them -- even if it's just running the same errands I run every week, having a schedule in place makes all the difference.  But sometimes, despite my best precautions, I find myself feeling distraught and abandoned by Sunday night.  

Happily, I made it through this past weekend without once feeling like the sobbing little lady left behind at home.  It seems I've finally gotten the hang of this week-alone thing, and it's about damned time, right?  And ironically enough, this is the last spring break I'll spend on my own since Joel's team has been cut from the University's budget thanks to the tanking economy.  So... good thing I've got that figured out.

Anyway, now my biggest dilemma is that I am DYING to watch the last three episodes of Battlestar Gallactica sitting in my Tivo... but I can't because I need to wait until Joel gets home.  Not because I'm nice, but because I need someone around to answer all my dumb questions so I'll have at least a 50/50 chance of knowing what the hell is going on.  In my defense, I didn't watch the show until last year so I never got some of the foundational background.  In, uh, not my defense, I have a lot of questions about shows that I've every single episode of, so... yeah.  Don't ever go to the movies with me, is what I'm saying.  And don't ANYONE say anything about the last three episodes of BSG or I'll have to kill you.  That goes for the entire internet.  I already had Harry Potter ruined for me by THIS stupid video, [DON'T WATCH IT IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THROUGH BOOK 6, SERIOUSLY] and I really just can't take another blow like that.  I'm fragile right now.  Twilight is over, Kristen Stewart is giving interviews that make it look like she's even more braindead than I already suspected, and my brother is taking so goddamn long to finish Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows that I'm left discussing it with myself on Twitter.   Seriously, K: if I hear that you've been sleeping this week, I'm going to be very disappointed.

***************

In completely unrelated news, I fear that my car might be heaving its last exhaust-laden breaths.  I've been thinking that it's been a bit noisy lately, and last night the brakes really didn't seem to be braking all that well.  I was just resolving to take it in to be looked at - it's due for an oil change anyway - when my radio crapped out.  Again.  Maybe it will be as simple as disconnecting and re-connecting the battery (that's how we fixed the radio last time).  Maybe this is nothing, maybe it's just another attack of Volkswagen Gremlin-itis... but I just have a feeling that this is the beginning of the end.  I hope I'm wrong, I'd love to drag another few thousand miles out of this old girl.

***************

And to end on happy note: ladies and gentlemen, we officially have a minister to perform our wedding ceremony.  Can I get a hallelujah?  We ended up going with the first guy we met with - the one that was perfect except for the fact that he had another wedding an hour and a half after ours - and I'm really happy with the decision.  He's the right fit for the style of wedding we want and we both felt really comfortable with him... the only issue was our fear that the two ceremonies were just too close together, timewise.  But after we met with another wedding dude who regaled us with a tale of the time he performed FOUR weddings on the same day, we realized that booking with someone else didn't guarantee us exclusive rights to that date and there was a good possibility that another officiant might not even tell us if they were rushing off to another ceremony an hour after ours.  I emailed Dude #1 and told him the situation - that we really felt he was the best fit and were just concerned about the timing - and he assured us that he would not book two ceremonies if he were'nt completely sure he could give both the same level of service.  I mailed a check that same day and put a huge happy checkmark on my spreadsheet.  YAY.  And also: PHEW. 

 

Grumble, Part 3... and let's all hope there's no part 4

At the risk of turning this into an all-bitching, all the time blog... let me just tell you about my doctor's appointment yesterday.  

I went to an orthopedic surgeon last month to have my knee checked out, because it was still feeling awfully sore and ache-y, six weeks after The Accident.   It didn't hurt per se, but it felt really sore when I did certain things, like "yoga" and "sitting cross-legged," and if there's one thing I learned from years and years of competitive running, it's that you don't mess with your knees.   So, the lawyer that I have obtained to deal with the paperwork nightmare that is a personal injury claim set me up with an appointment to see an orthopedic surgeon that they work with.  Now, I've seen more orthopedic surgeons than I care to remember (see: years of competitive running), and I have yet to find one that I didn't want to kick in the teeth with the various malfunctioning parts of my body, so I was fine with going to whoever the lawyer recommended... especially because this meant they arranged the appointment for me and the bill went directly tot he lawyer's office (see: paying a lawyer to deal with my hassles for me).   I went to the initial appointment and the doctor said he thought that what I had was a cartilage bruise, which would eventually heal on its own.  Just to be sure, he sent me home with some prescription-strength NSAIDs and orders to obtain an MRI and return in a few weeks.   Fine and dandy.  I think that, including the time I spent filling out the load of insurance paperwork, the entire visit probably took 40 minutes.

Now, this is embarrassing because I used to live in the general neighborhood of this doctor's office, but I sort of got lost on my way to the follow-up appointment yesterday.  The short story is that office is on a street that's one way running south, and I was coming up a street that's one way running north, and I thought I turned the right way to loop around past the office but I didn't.  The longer story involves a panic attack as I tried to drive slowly down the (wrong) street, looking for the office's street number, driving about a mile in the wrong direction, a lot of cursing, and a long history of not being able to navigate my way out of a paper bag.  When I finally got my bearing, I decided to just park the damn car and walk the two blocks to the office because I was really, really getting tired of wasting my entire afternoon off from work driving around one-way streets.  Besides, I rationalized, there were all these signs up the last time about parking in this lot instead of that lot and how anyone who parked in that lot would be towed immediately, and you know what I really don't need?  To have my car towed.  Right, so I'll just park here behind this moving truck and would you look at that, the last person overpaid the meter and I still have an hour and forty-five minutes of time left.  And... I guess I'll put the club on my steering wheel and take the radio face-plate off because wow, this area is a little more ghetto than I remembered. 

Since I was running late by this point, I took a shortcut through an alley.  This was, to say the least, not smart, but by this point I am sure that no is surprised.  What's important is that I made it to the doctor's office with ten minutes to spare during his open clinic hours.

And then I waited.  And waited.  And waited some more.  People, I sat in that horrid waiting room for nearly an hour and a half.  To make matters worse, not only had I forgotten my book at home, but I was also the only person in the room who wasn't 1) faking a worker's comp claim, 2) suing Walmart, or 3) both.  I was also the only person who noticed that one of the many screaming children in the "play area" had taken to throwing around duplo blocks, one of which hit me squarely in the back of the head as I was flipping through a year-old Time magazine article about the Dalia Lama.   And the only person who was perturbed by the fact that there was not a scrap of toilet paper to be found in the single bathroom stall in the waiting area.  Also: the only one without an iphone.  Right.

After I'd given up all hope of getting anything done for the rest of the afternoon, I was finally granted my thirty seconds of doctor face-time.  Happily, I do not have any torn ligaments.  So... that's good. 

I walked back to my car in a petulant mood, thinking of all the enjoyable things I could have done with that last two hours of my life when I realized that I'd indeed been gone for two hours. As in, fifteen minutes more than my parking meter allowed.  Oh, shit, I thought.  PLEASE let me have a parking ticket.  Please let me have gotten a ticket in the fifteen minutes I was over the limit, so I can put it in an envelope and mail it to the lawyer's office with a note that says "PLEASE ADD THIS ONE (1) PARKING TICKET, ALONG WITH TWO (2) HOURS OF MY LIFE TO THE SETTLEMENT.  AND ALSO ONE (1) DUPLO-SHAPED BRUISE ON THE BACK OF MY HEAD."

I walked closer and closer, with a sinking feeling in my stomach as I noticed that there were now far fewer cars parked on the street.  Oh, shit, I thought (again).  Was this a no parking between 4 and 6pm zone?  I didn't even think to look since I thought I'd be out of there by 3pm at the latest, but yup, even the moving van I parked behind is gone. 

And then I noticed that my car was gone too.  And for one heart-sinking minute, I thought I'd been towed. 

But then I found my car behind a white van that had just done a terrible parking job.

I got in and drove away. The end.  

Good story, right? 

Grumble, continued

I took your advice, internet, and hightailed it out of work on Friday with every intention of Letting It Go and starting fresh on Monday.  The universe, however, had other plans.

See, I was supposed to be off on Monday for a totally legitimate sick day, replete with three (3) doctor appointments.   But part of the general dreadfulness that sparked Friday's grumble-fest was the calling of an Emergency Meeting for 9am Monday morning, my attendance required.  I moved my three (3) appointments with surprising little trouble and was actually able to reschedule them all for Tuesday.  I grumbled accordingly at the (admittedly minor) inconvenience and tried to let it go.

And then Mother Nature decided to send some snow our way and the entire mid-Atlantic threw itself into the usual tizzy over 8-10 inches of predicted doom.  It seemed we were perfectly positioned for a late-season snow day, a fact that would normally have me dancing around the house with a glass of wine in one hand and a Harry Potter book in the other.   But since there was an Emergency Meeting scheduled for 9am on Monday, I just grumbled louder and louder.  It looked like instead of spending the snow day in my pajamas watching Law and Order reruns, I'd be staring off the day with an Emergency 9am Conference Call.   I tried to console myself with the fact that participating in a Snow Day Emergency Conference Call was better than wasting my totally legitimate sick day on a day that workplace was totally closed due to snow.  And with 6-10 inches of snow predicted, we were certain to be closed.

So I woke up extra-early on Monday, prepared to dial-in for Emergency 9am Conference Call, and was met with an unpleasant turn of events: workplace was open!  Even though every other school and business in the state was closed, and legitimately so!   We've had snow days for the mere possibilityof snow before, and here we are with actual SNOW on the actual GROUND and we're all going to work?  GAH.  Off I trudged to work in the most ragingly horrible mood in recent memory.  After I'd made it two blocks, Joel called me to say I'd taken his keys.  I stomped back home, seething at my own incompetence and the general unfairness off it alllll, because now I was going to be late to work.  I mean, I'm always late to work, but this time I was up a full hour early!  There is no reason to be late when you're up at 7am!  WAAAAAH.

And then I got to work I learned that Emergency 9am Meeting was postponed.  Until Tuesday.  You know, the day I'd moved my three (3) appointments to. 

I rescheduled them.  Again.  And then I went to the gym to burn off some steam, only to find that I'd forgotten both a sports bra and my water bottle. 

Back at home, I consoled myself with the fact that the work day was now behind me and settled in for a nice evening of television-viewing.   And then the cable went out during new episodes of Heroes AND 24.  And ohmyfreakinggod, I KNOW that i's just TV and it's not important and in the grand scheme of things BLAH BLAH BLAH, but it was just the last straw, you know?   So we went to bed at 9:30pm, eager to bring the horrid day to an end at last because really, what next?  The house burns down?  I find out that Harry Potter actually dies during Book Six, and that Book Seven is all a hoax?  WHAT ELSE, UNIVERSE? 

 I woke up this morning to find Joel still in bed.  "What's wrong?", I asked.

Oh, he'd just been up all night with food poisoning.  From the steak I cooked for dinner. 

As I trudged to work in the 17-degree weather this morning, I came upon a messy accident in which two cars had not only managed to total each other, but also had hit a parked car so hard that it smashed into the car in front of it.  Which in turn smashed into the car in front of it.   Well,I thought.  At least my car didn't get totaled, right? 

But now that I think about it, I haven't actually seen my car since Sunday night's grocery run, when I had to park it three blocks away from the house because everyone was already hunkered down for the Snow Apocalypse.  So... maybe I shouldn't count my chickens quite yet, so to speak.  And by "chickens" I mean "1998 Jettas that I don't have collision or comprehensive insurance on".  

What I'm trying to say here, internet, is I had a really bad day.  Again.  And somehow, I'm pretty sure this is all Punxsutawney Phil's fault.