The Manic Mechanic

A new usericon in response to the latest brouhaha making the rounds.

Also, it's snowing it's ass off here. Either I did not watch the weather reports lately, or this came up totally unexpected. I had to bail on some car work I was doing, Jeff and I attempted to get to the couple stores we had planned on, but after watching people wipe out in the traffic circles, crashes on I-95 everywhere and people shooting around like idiots while cellphoning, we turned around and went back home, stopping at the grocery store on the way. The Bloom store, normally fairly barren, was packed, though it did not seem to be the usual milk/bread/terlet paper panic items in people's carts. Judging by the road conditions, this snow took even the highway department by surprise.

At least the snow waited till Jeff and I completed all of our moving chores.

Saturday we headed up to PA to clean up the apartment, I filled in the holes in the drywall where pictures, curtain rods, and whatnot were mounted, I replaced a section of veneer that the dog had chewed off the kitchen cabinets and touched up paint here and there. The place looks at least as good as when Jeff moved in, so he best get his deposit back. Kodi got his hair done while we worked and is looking good now. We came back and did more moving and shuffling of furniture and whatnot, and now the place is looking a bit less than a warehouse and more like a home. We should have a pretty serious yard sale this spring, and I got a a huge amount of obsolete, broken and worthless electronic crap, computers and other cruft to toss. The house and garage get new roofs this spring, and I hope to put the mega-addition (with lift!) onto the garage as well as a separate building for the tractors/tillers/yard and garden stuff. Time to get busy, get organized, and get out for vacations too.

There's a lot of living to get on with.

Spent the weekend getting Jeff at least partially moved in. Saturday morning me, Jeff and four friends (including rockybear02) worked at loading up our two trucks. I managed to cram quite a bit into the big red Dodge (which needs a new headlight thanks to some errant road debris (paging danthered...)). After breakfast at Golden Corral (moooooo!), we headed here and unloaded (much easier, no stairs) with help from my bud John. The rest of the day and a good bit of today was spent organizing, integrating our stuff, finding room for things, etc. Some work in the yard before the rain started rounded out the weekend's work.

Jeff was worried about having to move in the wintertime. It was t-shirt and shorts weather on Saturday. It may be wintertime, but winter has been largely AWOL around these parts. It's unsettling, but convenient. Next weekend will be phase two of the move, and will mark the end of Jeff's residence in PA. This week he finishes up his employment in PA. About the move and our future I could not be happier.

But still I am a tangled mess of emotions.

This weekend also marked the start of dealing with Mom's belongings. Anyone who has seen Brokeback Mountain knows how an article of clothing from a lost loved one can bring on the memories and emotions. When there are closets full, it's sometimes too much to bear. In the coming months I have to steel myself for these sorts of occurrances, and hopefully make some good come from it all. I've been putting it off, but time has come. I just hope I can manage.

2007, I hope you are good to me.

(P.S., for all who left such wonderful and encouraging notes in my last two entries, I thank you. I am still seething at Verizon for their actions, and at the same time feeling almost like Mom died again, just a little bit more. While I have lots of pictures, I have very little video or audio. Losing those last messages which were filled with loving words meant to sooth my concerns at the time was shocking. I wish I knew what I could do, other than railing at the automatons at that stupid company. I was at least able to take some comfort in the kindness of friends. Thanks again.)