For those of you wondering where I've been for the majority of last week, well, read the title. I was on vacation. You know, that thing where you go to rest and look at scantily clad people and hope that sexy pants action will fall into your lap so that you can rhythmically rub yourself against a stranger and hope that terrible things will not come out of your body while you do?
No?
What the fuck are you doing with your life then Holmes?
Anyway, this vacation blew donkey dicks by the dozens. First my car decided to start throwing up the "low coolant" warning light even though I've got plenty of coolant. I've been able to diagnose this problem down to three locations: the Water Pump (which I've already replaced and have tested to make sure it works), the Radiator Cap, and the Thermostat. I wasn't able to take the car along with me up the Mountain but after talking with a couple of mechanics I'm friends with the likely culprit (since the water pump is working correctly and the oil isn't looking funky) is the Cap/Thermostat. I'm trying the Cap first since the seal looks like shit and hopefully that will take care of it. That said it could very well be the Thermostat which isn't the most difficult thing I've ever replaced on the car but is going to be a new one on me.
So that happened right after I wrote the Sunday Vacation announcement. On Tuesday my wife and I went down into the valley to take our son to the Zoo. This was the first time we had taken him to a major zoo so my wife was suuuuuuuuuppppppppeeeeeerrrrrrr hyped about the experience. I thought it was too early in the year to be going but it was the first pretty day of Spring so guess who was at the park. Anyway, all the cool African animals were put up still put up but the Asian monkeys more than made up for it as far as my son was concerned.
The trip back though, holy shit.
Okay, you all know how we've been hit by a couple of ice storms over here in January and February? Well the roads are completely fucked right now. We were driving back on the interstate, which is usually smooth as glass in our state, and it was like driving on some back woods, gravel road. East bound wasn't so bad, but West bound was terrible. The road was cracked everywhere and parts of it were dipping down so low that it felt like the ground underneath had been washed away. Oh, and the pot holes! Lord have mercy there were so many pot holes that my wife's blazer vibrated so badly that the check engine light kicked on with warnings about our antilock braking, gas tank, and emissions - all of which went away once we were on better roads and the car stopped shaking.
Then my Aunt died.
Earlier this year my Uncle D. passed. His health had been deteriorating for a while but when he passed it came after he had bounced back so many times that we were all really shocked by it. My brother and I were pretty devastated by it because he was a big part of both our lives. Well on Thursday his wife, my Aunt R., passed. Unlike my Uncle D. this was far more of a relief. She had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease - which is just the most terrible disease I've ever seen because it robs you of everything and leaves you a frightened, lonely shell of the person you once were. So when we heard that she had passed, for me at least, it was a feeling of relief. Relief that she wouldn't suffer with that terrible disease any longer and that she would be with my Uncle D. again.
Anyway this meant that Saturday I was a pallbearer again for the second time this year. The funeral was fast and the graveside service was too. They had us pick up tulips and asked that we plant them in her memory. I planted it in my Dad's flower bed along the front porch. Then we got a $300.00 gas bill that found my wife and the gas company representative going six rounds until the Rep won on a technicality and we're paying the fucking bill. Such things make the world go round I'm told.
So how was your week?
