3179 Best Laid Plans, blah blah

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Pardoning the bad is injuring the good.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Remember I said we nonprofessionals can be forgiven errors, but professionals must be held to a higher standard? This is from www.fox40.com/news a few days ago, about a herd of goats that got loose on a highway: "After nearly 20 hours of wandering, and wrecking havoc, around 60 nannies and billies are back under control."

Listen my children, and learn. "Havoc" is a state of chaos. It IS a wreck. So it doesn't make any sense to "wreck" havoc. The word the writer was looking for was "wreak". You wreak havoc. The two words are even pronounced differently. Another case of someone having heard and then used an expression without thinking about, let alone understanding, it.

--------------------------------

Tuesday I headed north to the old house with the newly patched up Fred. His pink leak was transmission fluid, seals now fixed. I filled some more garbage bags, and packed up more stuff to bring south. I was very tired by 8 pm, went to bed with some crossword puzzles, and was asleep within minutes.

I had brought some things for Wednesday's breakfast and mid-morning snack, but needed to go out for lunch, so when I went into the village, I stopped in at Piper's office. Piper wasn't there, but his daughter was, and she said he'd gone to the Italian restaurant for takeout for their lunch. She called him, and he said he'd bring back her sandwich, and then he'd go to lunch with me.

Fine. But.

It took him a half hour to return, and then there were "a few things to be done" before we could go to the diner, and my one hour allotted for lunch (including the drive) turned into two and a half. Or more. I wanted to leave to head back south by 5 pm, and didn't get back to the house to load the van until 3.

When I arrived back at the old house after lunch with Piper, The Hairless Hunk followed me up the driveway. I would have liked to talk more with him, but I really needed to load the van and get moving, so I'm afraid I gave him short shrift.

I got back to the new house about 7 pm last night, parked Fred and turned him off, and ... his tail lights stayed on. His lights stay on for a while when you turn him off, so I didn't notice at first, until I went out for a cigarette about an hour later and wondered what the red glow on the driveway behind him was.

I tried everything I could think of - turned headlights on and off, tried the emergency brake on an off, started him and tried turn signals and then turned him off, but the tail lights stayed on.

Ack! Battery! Death of!

I went into the house to get his book (still in the house from when I was looking up his pink fluids), and when I came back out, the lights were off.

I had a slew of things to do today, like take a load of fabric to the storage facility, pick up a 4' stepladder at Home Depot, deposit some checks, grocery shop, pick up a "raincheck" order at the CVS, and so on. Most of it didn't get done because I had to go to the dealership and get Fred's lights fixed. And yup, again they stayed on when I turned him off.

Turns out it was some of his handicap wiring had rubbed some regular wiring, and caused a short in the switch. $208.33 and a few hours later, the switch was replaced.

In the service department waiting room, I was reading a Time magazine, and another woman about my age was reading a book. A man came in, also about our age, sat between us, and made a cell phone call. A very LOUD chatty call. It was impossible to read. Hey, he's our age! He should know better! When he finished that call, and then dialed another, I slapped the magazine on my thigh, and the other woman slammed her book closed and slapped the cover, we glanced at each other, and glared at him. I said to her, very loudly, (I had to be loud to be heard over him), "Well, maybe we could read aloud." It didn't seem to faze him, but maybe, because he talked only a few more minutes before saying, "I'll call you later" and hanging up.

He has to be the most dense man ever, because even though I had gone back to my magazine and was engrossed, he then proceeded to "chat me up." He got one-word responses. He finally took the hint and moved to the sales area.

Too bad. He was actually kind of good looking.

I never did make it to the grocery store or the CVS. Ice cream for dinner!
.