Day in the Life of an Idiot

Least any of my friends and family think that I've been arrested protesting the RNC, alas, no. Though apparently some 700 people were. Did you watch McCain's speech last night? I was fascinated that the cameras spotted the guy in the back with the "Iraq Veterans Against the War" tee-shirt (at first I thought: "Is that you, Rick?") and then I swore I heard "End the War" being shouted over "U.S.A!" as the cameras picked up the other protester being pulled out of the building. I know that maybe reads as "bad press" for the good guys, but I thought it was pretty cool.

Anyway, back to why I've been off-line so much. We were first in LaCrosse for Labor Day (which I posted a bit about elsewhere). I got to have a real-time meet-up with ladylahatiel at the restaurant above the People's Co-op in LaCrosse, which was a lot of fun. The food was yummy, the company was great. We are Iron Fan!

And then we had some minor car trouble on the way home. We stopped in Winona for an extra boost of caffeine and some doughnuts for Shawn and Mason and when I came back to the car, I couldn't get the shifter to move out of park. (I have a Ford Taurus, automatic.) The wheel was not locked, and the car started up just fine. It was kind of baffling. Anyway, after a little quiet cursing (Mason was in the back seat kind of doing the Kindergarden Cop thing: "it's a tumor!" except in this case it was "the car is going to blow-up. We'll never get home!") I called Triple-A. They sent out an... angel, I guess. The guy looked normal enough, but he asked, "Given that we'd probably have to order a part, and it could take a day, do you want me to just manually shift your car into drive so you can get home to your own mechanic?" We told him we felt safe with that (although now Mason was extremely bummed because I'd up-sold him on the idea of spending the day exploring Winona.) The mechanic disconnect the shift cable, used a wrench to get us reversed, and then once I was pointed in the right direction, shifted us in to drive. We drove all the way home that way.

It was... awesome, actually. Other than the fact that Mason worked himself up into a tizzy (he was very tired from all the excitement at Grandma and Grandpa's) about not getting to hang out an extra day in Winona, we got home in good time and I was able to take the car right to our favorite mechanic: Sinclair Grand I.

Turns out the issue was a disconnected break light or something like that and it only cost us a hundred bucks (almost all of that being labor, of course.) Given our usual car woes, I feel pretty good about that. Of course, it meant that on Wednesday we had to take a taxi to Mason's Kindergarden parent-teacher conference (and a city bus home), but that actually was easy -- made even more pleasant by the cool, sunny weather.

Mason's new Kindergarden teacher is Ms. D, who seems enthusiastic and... young. But then everyone seems young to me these days. The only things that made Shawn and I go "hmmmm" were her giggly admission that she's not fond of recess in the winter (hello? Mason LOVES winter and when else is he going to get to go outside) and the fact that now that Mason is in "real" school (Pre-K kind of "dangles off the org chart" as it were) they'll have to retest his reading levels. It was funny, though, because Ms. D confided that a lot of the other teachers and staff said, "Oh, you have Mason in your class? He's a really good reader, you know." She said she nodded and said, "I do now!" But I kept thinking in the back of my mind when she told this story, "Oh, honey, you have no idea."

Of course, the entire time Mason sat in his assigned seat and read Garfield quietly to himself. Speaking of which the Paperback Exchange called last night to tell us that they got in some Scooby-Doo chapter books. We're off to check those out today. Mason decided after reading in the taxi, at class, and on the city bus that what he really wanted to do ALL day was read. So he did. He started with Garfields and then read his Scooby-Doo chapter books. seanmmurphy can attest he was still reading (while sitting outside, no less) well into the evening.

Yesterday... I don't really remember what I did yesterday other than cleaning the fish tanks (it was Thursday, after all,) and catching up on all the housework that got forgotten about with all the car excitement. Last night I finally got around to tackling the revision notes from Wyrdsmiths' meeting, and I got about half way through with them. The prequel is FINALLY starting to find its voice and take shape.

Anyway, Mason is ready to hit the bookstore and I just checked the hours for Paperback Exchange on-line. So we're off.

Hope you're all safe and not in jail.