The Fort Mudge Memorial Dump

Last November I got into a minor accident in a Zipcar. Tomorrow I'm getting a Zipcar for the first time since then, and I'm nervous enough about it that I actually called Zipcar to find out if I was on a List of some sort and Zipcars were now going to cost a zillion dollars. They are not, and the lady on the phone was nice enough not to laugh at me for asking.

Now all I have to do is prove to myself that just because I had a small accident once, that doesn't mean I'm going to do it again every time I'm in control of a car. For one thing, I will not be trying to return the car to a parking lot on a one-way street, one end of which is closed off for utility work. That's what went wrong last time; I failed to look where I was actually going in favor of looking where I thought I was supposed to be going. I will not be doing that this time. Nothing is going to go wrong this time. Because I said so, that's why.

After months of waffling about it, I finally ordered a new living room rug yesterday. It's been time for that for about two years now, but I couldn't bring myself to spend huge(ish) amounts of money on a new rug and I couldn't really find one I liked for less than huge(ish) amounts of money. Enter overstock.com, which knocked the prices down to a level I was more comfortable with and had some rugs I thought I might actually like. (It's hard to tell whether the 1" x 2" picture on the computer screen will still be something I'll like when scaled up to an 8' x 10' rug.) If it turns out I don't like it as a living room rug, I'll put it in my office and use the office rug in the living room for a while, until I can persuade myself to spend money on another new rug. And I hope I got the timing right and the rug will be delivered while I'm between jobs.

I actually had to put blankets on the bed last night. I think the last time that happened was sometime in early June. Now if it would kindly quit alternating pouring rain with being so humid that it might as well be pouring rain, the weather might be getting somewhere.

I'm not sure how much more of this week I could stand, if there were any more of it. Fortunately there isn't.

On top of the fenderbender, on Wednesday night I had to call 911 for a guy at the 66 bus stop. He was so high on something that he couldn't distinguish staggering around in the street (and bouncing off the side of a car) from staggering around on the sidewalk (and bouncing off a store window), and that was after he finished throwing up extensively. I decided he needed some help, whether he wanted it or not. He didn't want any help, but two paramedics and two cops finally did get him into an ambulance, so I hope he got some help anyway.

Yesterday I was absolutely shocked when I got home and nothing unsettling or surreal had happened yet. Zipcar decided I don't owe them any money because I didn't damage their car enough to need repair, and reinstated my account. The other guy's insurance company has six months to decide if I owe them any money. That seems like a long time to me, but I'm not going to spend all my spare time until May worrying about it. Mind you, I'm not driving home for Thanksgiving either.

Now that I don't owe anybody $750 before Thanksgiving, I'm back to paying to sing in the studio recital. This is an informal one where the students just sing for each other, as opposed to a formal one where everybody's relatives show up. (Which reminds me, I should get my suit dry-cleaned.) After having sung solo in public in front of everybody's relatives last April, I should be able to sing in front of my fellow students. I just wish I hadn't come back around to German art songs again, since that's what I did last time.

This weekend: fairly massive grocery shopping, and (at least tomorrow) massive avoidance of Harvard Square and environs. The Harvard-Yale game is at Harvard this year, so the entire area is going to be a serious pain in the neck to deal with. At least I knew about that before I got embroiled in it, unlike the Allston-Brighton Day parade every blasted year...

Interesting, continued from yesterday:

I've discovered that I have another completely useless superpower. If I'm driving somewhere and there's a wrong lane to be in, I'll be in it. Boston wasn't designed for being forgiving of being in the wrong lane, so in the process of driving from Brighton to East Cambridge (six miles, according to Google), I went to Harvard, Watertown, Fenway, the Boston Common and Charles Circle, among other places. (Going to Harvard wasn't really a wrong-lane problem as much as it was a turned-the-wrong-way-onto-Memorial-Drive problem. But then I couldn't turn around until Watertown, and then I couldn't get back to Memorial Drive going the right way, and then when I finally did get back to it, I was in the wrong lane and ended up going downtown instead of to East Cambridge, and when I got back to Storrow Drive I was in the wrong lane and ended up going to Fenway, and...)

So anyway, it took me about an hour to get from point A to point B. But I did get there eventually, and the end result (two hours later) was that I've got a new-to-me GIGANTIC flat screen television and a new-to-me HDMI-capable DVD player (which I don't really need, but which was thrown in with the TV), and I think I know how to get them all to do the appropriate things.

Also good: in my wanderings about East Cambridge when I finally got there, I found the rug store I hadn't found yesterday. Now that I know where it is, I can go there next weekend (on the T, thank you very much) to look at rugs in person. I've decided that looking at them online isn't working. I can't tell if a teeny little picture on a screen would still be something I liked as an 8' x 11' rug. Besides, I'm not sure exactly what I want; I just know I haven't seen it yet.

How is tomorrow allowed to be Monday already?

On Saturday I did in fact drive to Maine and back. Having gotten all the nervous tics out of the way by forgetting my sunglasses and going back for them, and then forgetting the directions and having to go back again for those, I proceeded to get in the car (a Nissan Altima, with less oomph than it should have had) and drive off down Comm Ave. The idea was to avoid 93 by getting on 95 in Waltham. Didn't work that way, though; I got to somewhere in West Newton and Comm Ave suddenly looked like it was closed. So I ended up taking the Pike to 93 to 95. Fortunately 93 wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, bridge replacements notwithstanding. I think I'm over my irrational fear of driving, since I ended up doing all the things I didn't want to do and wasn't overly bothered by them.

Once I got to Maine, I met up with the Nashua contingent and spent a fairish amount of money on Calphalon pans and Smartwool socks and more peanut butter truffles than a sane person needs. Then I followed the Nashua contingent back to Nashua, and we ordered takeout Large Slabs of Dead Cow, and I drove back to Boston after dinner. (Route 3 to 95 to 93, and Storrow Drive to Kenmore.) Dropped the car off, got on the T and got home at about 10:00. The only thing I didn't do is top off the gas tank; I thought of it somewhere at the start of the Nashua to Burlington stretch, but didn't feel like getting off the highway when I hadn't hardly been on it yet. Oh well, so they charge me for half a tank of gas and the rental.

Yesterday, which was my actual birthday, I went grocery shopping in the morning and then came home and did a whole lot of not much. I did finish page 8 of the embroidery pattern, because I want to be halfway through page 10 by the end of the month. Half of page 9 is black, so it should go fairly fast. And I made some more kale and quinoa and lemon stuff for lunch this week. And provided companionship for the Hairy Beasts. All of which was fine, because I feel like I did enough on Saturday to make up for doing Not Much yesterday.

Today I'm wading through work-related stuff, and tomorrow is the last Longer Service meeting. After that I'm done with meetings until late September, and that is a lovely thought.

I didn't have a driver's license until four years ago. Partly I hadn't needed one until then, and partly I'm scared of driving. I can do it, I have done it, I'm not terrible at it; but I don't particularly enjoy it.

I don't know why, but somewhere between learning to drive (the first time, when I was 17) and actually getting the license, I picked up a fear of causing a car accident. It takes me about half an hour to get over it. After that, when I haven't killed anybody, I relax. Unfortunately getting myself to relax when I'm driving really does take that long, so I hated pretty much every minute of the four ten-minute drives between home and the vet's office yesterday.

I know that the cure for this is to drive more, because for crying out loud, if the average 17-year-old can do this, so can I. That's how I passed my driver's test; I finally realized that the inspector's routine was designed to make 17-year-olds nervous, and I was 30 at the time, and therefore didn't have to fall for it. (It also helped that I had graduated from Kent State the month before, so I was feeling somewhat more invincible than usual.) But I'm not sure whether I need to just plain old Drive More, or whether I need some kind of lessons.

Next time I have a day off, I'm taking the day off. Yesterday was nice, but it wasn't hardly restful at all.
( In which our heroine gets lost, unlost, fogbound and disconnected )

I'm not compos mentis enough to do much of anything today, which is of course why I'm spending the day writing letters that Must Be Flawless before they get sent.

So now, 12 years later than most people, I have a driver's license.

Consider yourselves warned.

It seems I'm taking the driving test at 11:15 next Tuesday morning.

My parents think my not wanting to live with roommates I've never met is a perfectly legitimate factor in apartment hunting.

I drove on the freeway for an hour without panicking about it. (The last time I drove on the freeway, it was in CT, I was 17, and I had to go across all four lanes of the Gold Star Bridge in New London in a hurry to get to an exit. Not fun.)

Olive oil and lemon juice and garlic and rosemary and salt and pepper makes a very good marinade for pork chops. It would probably be good with chicken too. (This is not a surprise.)

It is now time for lunch, followed by a trip to the post office, possibly followed by laundry (although that can wait until Saturday if it has to).