Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Wednesday, November 4, 2009
Waning Moon
Neptune Retrograde
Uranus Retrograde
No idea the weather — it’s supposed to be nice.

Well, yesterday was. . .unusual.

On the emotional side, I was attacked by the Doubt Demons big time. We all go through times like this, where we doubt our choices, wonder if we’re good enough, whatever. You power through and hope you get out relatively unscathed on the other side. But it’s icky and uncomfortable and painful. And it really sucks to wake up to it and wrestle with it all day.

And, right now, I just have no time. Not to mention the fact that friends of mine are going through actual life challenges right now, and it’s entirely inappropriate for me to indulge in any of this Dark Night of the Soul crap.

On a practical side, the day was fine. I was at the dealer by 7:30 AM. A nasty “heart doctor” shoved his way to the front of the line because, of course, he’s so much more IMPORTANT than all the rest of us — bite me, asshole, it’s not like you’ve ever be saving MY life since I’m one of the uninsured, and, from your attitude towards the people who work here, who you think are so far below you, obviously you went into medicine for the Almighty Dollar and not because you have an interest in healing. adn you know what? I know where to rent a jacket and a stethoscope, too, so I am not impressed. After all it was Halloween last weekend, and I don’t really believe this guy WAS a doctor.

There was also a woman there with the cutest spaniel puppy ever who was just absolutely convinced we were all there to be his new best friends. Hilarious.

When I got to the desk, I told the guy I needed the regular checkup (I haven’t had a check-up in ages, but I’m meticulous about servicing the car), and gave him the list of things for him to check. He looked at me like I grew an extra head. I told him I might be overly cautious, but these particular things just didn’t feel right lately while I drove, plus I needed him to check the patch on the tire that was fixed a few weeks back, and one of my front tires is giving me agita.

Turns out I was right on every single count, except my worry about the battery. So a bunch of stuff has been fixed/adjusted and the other tire had a slow leak, too, and was patched, plus they replaced the first patch. Two punctured tires in my own parking lot within a month? When I haven’t had any sort of flat tire in over 20 years? My inner warning lights are screaming.

Meanwhile, this bitch comes in and starts screaming that she had no idea, when she bought her car that she ever had to come in and get it serviced. “I’m not a mechanic! Why didn’t someone tell me?”

Are you fucking KIDDING me? She didn’t KNOW she had to service the car every 5000 miles? What, she thought the Oil Elves and the Tire Fairies came and took care of it while she slept? This was no teenager or college kid, either. This was a supposedly professional woman. Not.

Oh, and by the way, they DO tell you about the regular servicing when you buy the car. Especially at that dealer. And they email you and send you reminder cards and all the rest.

The service guy comes out and starts talking to me about the different stuff they’re doing and how I was right on the money, and bitch interrupts with, “How could you possibly KNOW that? Your boyfriend must have told you what to say here.”

Those guys at the dealership knew me pretty well by now. Everyone took a step back. Even the puppy stepped back and sat down.

I made it very clear I was dismissing her: “My car and I are partners. I can feel it when something’s not right. Unlike YOU, I actually give a fuck and pay attention, and don’t believe the entire world revolves around me.” And I went back to my conversation.

So she gets on her cell phone and starts talking really loudly about me. I looked at her over my shoulder and said, “I am so not impressed because you so do not matter in my life.” She couldn’t believe it. She really had trouble wrapping her head around the fact that her opinions and tirades didn’t matter to someone else.

When I got in my car, one of the managers came out to apologize for her behavior, and I said, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll just kill off a character based on her in my next book.”

Even the Doubt Demons shut up for awhile during all that.

Drove home (the car felt so much better and buzzed along happily). Went to the post office, went to the bank, went to vote.

We still have those great old machines with the levers, so you really feel like you VOTED, like you did something and it matters. Love that. Anyway, I get in, shut the curtain — and there are two propositions on which to vote at the top. Now, none of the newspapers carried anything about them and we didn’t get voter guides or anything else. So I’d never seen either one before and therefore had no time to research. I read them, standing there in the booth, hoped I understood them correctly, and tried to use common sense to make my decision. I felt really uninformed, and I felt that those who should have informed us about these things dropped the ball.

Stopped at two local stores on the way home to pick up some yummy speciality food items. They’re both family owned and have been in town for 20+ years, so whenever I can give them some business, I try so to do. Their quality is excellent.

And really, what could be better for lunch than a tuna melt with real Swiss cheese on homemade French bread with real bacon crumbled into it?

After lunch, headed to White Plains. Stopped in for a quick meeting — all great. Back in the car. Headed to the shoe outlet – can never remember the name of it, but I can tell you how to get there. Found gray suede boots, but they both zipped and laced and took longer to get into and out of than some of the corsets in Shakespearean productions. So, uh, no. Another pair of black boots with which I fell in love didn’t come in my size. Deep, sad sigh. Home Goods didn’t have what I needed. I knew i needed something from Barnes & Noble, couldn’t remember what it was, and remembered about three hours later I needed a good, RECENT map for my DC trip.

Stopped at Trader Joe’s to stock up on cat food and my decadent Belgian dark chocolate crisps.

Drove to Hartsdale to Chef Central, a really great place for both professional and home cooks. I had a list of stuff that’s stacked up over the past months, and got almost everything: a large pan with six smaller, holiday-themed cake tins in it; an oven-safe glass dish so I can cook the meal for the day before Thanksgiving (I’m cooking for the family members who are setting up the dinner for all 50 of us) — I can use this dish for a ton of stuff, but I needed it specifically for Thanksgiving; a bear-shaped cookie cutter (okay, so I didn’t need it, but it was cute); a small whisk to compliment my larger whisks; a flour sifter because I broke the one my family’s had since 1965 — it finally gave up its nuts and bolts and went to the big scrap metal heap in the sky; some Stonewall Kitchen sauces I’d run out of (they carry Stonewall Kitchen products, my favorite). They didn’t have the espresso pot to replace the one I broke from my machine, but they gave me the number of the place that will “just send you a new one.” I’m assuming I have to pay for it, which is fine, but still . . .in the interim, I bought a set of cute glass espresso shot cups that I can use.

I cooked a pork roast for supper — I’d gotten a large hunk of meat and cut it into three roasts, one of which will be used on Christmas Eve. The meat’s not as good a quality as I hoped, so I’ll come up with a good marinade and marinade it for at least 24 hours before I cook the next one.

I managed to tweak my lower back somehow, and couldn’t sit for meditation group, so I had to miss it yet again.

Didn’t feel well, so didn’t go to Election Night party. As of the time I wrote and scheduled this to post, I have no idea who won in my town — the election that’s important to me.

Packed my bag. I’m headed back to Saratoga and Lenox today, because I didn’t get everything done last time. Should be fun with a torqued back, but, really, it is always fun. Hopefully, my mood will improve.

Tomorrow, I’m staying in bed all day and finishing the assignment for Confidential Job #1. This one is a struggle — I dislike the material.

Devon