Category: general

Saturday, while Sharaun was at a baby shower thrown in her honor (or is it Cohen’s honor?) by her girlfriends at church, I was at a funeral.  The contrast of our morning calendars was not lost on me.

Sharaun’s sister and her husband are in town this week, so writing has been slim.  Today was Doug, my brother-in-law’s, birthday.  I took the day off work (after a few unavoidable morning meetings).  We tried to make for the mountains, had designs on a picnic by the river at a little washout swimming spot we know.  Got up, got ready, packed up the car, packed in the people, and made the 40min trek up the hill.  After paying our $8 “day use” fee we drove down to the river.

Once there we found it completely swollen and rushing with fresh snowmelt; the little beach where we’d planned to sun and play and stage our afternoon was swallowed up by the water.  Dejected, we made the call to turn right back around and make the 40min drive in reverse (after getting our $8 back, however).  We ended up at a local lake, which worked just fine to scratch our hot dog grilling, swimming and sunning itch.  Stayed there for a few hours and packed it in.

Once we got home we all crashed for naps, drained of energy by the sunshine.  While napping, the cat was curled up near my feet.  This got me thinking: Some people take their cats to the vet.  We’ve had this cat now for thirteen years and we’ve never once taken her to the vet.  I figure, as long as she’s eating, drinking, doesn’t have fleas, and hitting the littler box – she’s fine.  A couple years ago her fur started thinning around her haunches, and I guess maybe a normal person or an animal nut would’ve seen this as cause for a trip to the animal doctor.  But she didn’t seem to miss the hair, and she is thirteen years old, after all.  Anyway I like my cats self-sufficient.  As it is I’m planning to be done with pets after this one’s gone to cat-afterlife; so the longer she takes care of herself the better.

Goodnight.

I have a guy who does my lawn; takes care of everything: mowing, the trees, the bushes, the weeds, fertilizing, the sprinklers, etc.

I didn’t always have a lawn service.  There was a time when I scoffed at the idea.  Later, I debated the idea.  Finally, I broke down.  Now, I consider a lawn service as one of those “first to go” kind of perk services.  Like the pest control service or dinners out on Fridays it’s something below the discretionary/non-discretionary line; one of the easy “cuts” that could be made if need be.

But man, I love my lawn service.  And you know what?  I know I pay too much for it. In fact, I have friends who pay 30% less for almost the same type of service.  Sure, my guy is licensed and legal – but how much does that really matter when it comes right down to it?  Is it worth 30%?  Not to me.  So… why do I, Mr. Cheap, continue to pay more than I know I have to?  You are going to laugh.

I pay my lawn guy more than some other lawn guy because… I like him.  I mean, he’s really nice.  He’s personal; he’s great with Keaton when she’s around; he loves the Lord (no, really, that alone matters to me); he asks about my family; I know his kids’ names.  So is it dumb to pay a guy 30% more than another guy because he said he’d “pray for you” when you told him you’d be out of town at your grandmother’s funeral?

I have a friend who always tells me I mix too much emotion into my financial decisions.  He’s right; I do.  I make financial choices with about 90% focus on the numbers, the bottom-line, and about 10% on “feel.”  He goads me about my rewards card choice, stating plainly that the card he has (which deposits cash-back into a brokerage account) is better on the numbers.  Again, he’s right.  But y’know, my card gives me 2mi on every dollar.  Yes, I’m locked into airline miles; yes, the “liquidity” of airline miles leaves something to be desired and isn’t as flexible and often ends up being a worse deal than just taking 2% cash and buying tickets directly.  I know all this.  But, for some strange psychological reason I like my rewards “locked-in” to miles.  It makes me feel like I’m earning trips back to Florida, or cheaper vacations.  I actually prefer the rewards to be limited in this way.  So yes, emotion plays a role in my financial thinking.

I guess it’s not that strange then that I’m OK paying a premium for a lawn guy I connect with.  The spreadsheet side of me says I’m dumb… but the thing in me that likes my lawn guy because he gives us a Christmas card says I’m right-on.

Have a good weekend.

Something is rotten in Denmark.  And, by Denmark I mean Sharaun’s trunk.

Yeah, that’s right – something has completely, totally, and unashamedly stunk-up the trunk of the Saturn.  On Saturday morning Sharaun told me that something smelled rotten in her car.  I heard this in the way that only husbands can “hear” wives – which is to say that I held a completely cogent conversation with her on the matter without really listening at all.  So when I got home later in the day and climbed out of my own vehicle and smelled a horrible smell in the garage, I dug deep and recalled that, at some point that day, I’d heard something about some kind of smell somewhere.  Processing, I recalled Sharaun’s comment and began sniffing around her car.  Her completely closed car, I might add.

Sniff, sniff, sniff… my senses brought me to the trunk where the funk smelled strongest.  I popped it and was awed.  The smell greeted me with all the reception of a brick wall; something in between dead animal and sour milk.  I stuck my head in and recoiled again before I could begin the hunt.  I pulled items out one-by-one, looking for an obvious piece of forgotten produce long-rotted from a week-gone grocery run or some poor decomposing rodent unlucky enough to get stuck.  But each time I removed an item and gave it the sniff test it passed.  Soon I had an empty trunk and no culprit.  I pulled up the bottom panel to peek underneath, nothing.  I sniffed the upholstery in search of perhaps something spilled, nothing.

So it put it all back in and left the trunk open overnight to air-out.  But man, that smell is still there… and it doesn’t seem to be dissipating at all.  Poor Sharaun bought one of those tropical air freshener things to hang in the cab, and it keeps the smell at bay to some degree… but it still ain’t right.

Goodnight.

<Exhale>

Lost a friend over the weekend.

Mind hasn’t been able to stick on much since.

I’ll miss seeing you every day Tony.

Read this previous post for context.

Saturday morning as I write.

Keaton is sitting next to me at the dining room table eating a bowl of Fruit Loops. I’m drinking coffee, black, third cup so far, and writing. The National‘s new record is on, loud. Sharaun’s taking her parents back to the airport for their return trip to Florida. Her dad came down with some bug the day before they had to leave, slept on the couch all day and didn’t eat a thing. Felt bad for him having to travel cross-country that way; I’ve been there before and traveling while you’re sick is the pits.

Saturdays go like this. Keaton has dance class at 10am so we get up and get ready and take her there and sometimes stay and watch. The remainder of the day is usually filled with discretionary stuff, as should be weekends. Today’s discretionary activity, as far as I’ve been made aware, involves an evening soirée at the house of some friends, in honor of another expecting mom who’s expecting about a month before we are. It’s a strange “colliding circle” of friends that runs just a bit outside our day-to-day clique. Maybe that’s why I love hanging out with them so much; we’re all a perfect-fit but maybe just too large to exist as one friend-unit. I mean, how can you invite twenty people over? You’d be taking over any restaurant. No, there’s some self-limiting pack aspect of tight friends. You get much above five or six couples/families and things will split into packs. Human nature maybe. We’re still just pods of cavemen and cavewomen, cliquing up in little family-units.

So anyway when we get a chance to collide with this group we do and we enjoy it, I especially.

Other than that I think today I’ll work on fixing my flat bike tire and fixing up the TV shelf work I did in the front room. I still need to put a second coat of paint over the drywall work I did. See, it’s a “floating” shelf; meaning it has no visible supports and appears to just “stick out” from the wall – defying physics. As the shelf itself is made from solid hardwood and will be holding all the A/V gear for the living room – the support system that allows it to float needs to be sturdy; capable of bearing the weight. But how to make a “floating” shelf strong like this?

Well, in my case I cut the drywall and fixed flanged pipe “nipples” onto the studs with lag screws. With the wall re-finished flush around them, you get four little threaded receptacles spaced along the studs. Into these you screw four lengths of 3/4″ steel pipe, and onto these pipes you hang and fix the shelf. Finally, with the shelf really being a hollow box, all the wiring between the TV and A/V gear goes behind the wall and inside the shelf and things look mysteriously clean and unattached. I’ll post pictures when it’s done, because I want to.

Goodnight.

Friday; I went back to work yesterday.  Got a lot done but found myself wishing I was able to take the whole week off.

Tonight we all walked down to the little family-owned Italian place across the road from us.  The place has been around forever, has a following and everything.  It was across town for years and only last year moved into its new location which is, near enough, close enough to hit with rocks.  By comparison, our mailbox is at the end of our block (one of those new-fangled community boxes like you’d see in an apartment complex), and if you walked over again that same distance you’d be at this place’s front door.  It really is that close.  That close and this is the first time we’ve been there since they moved into the neighborhood.  We wanted to take Sharaun’s folks somewhere nice for their anniversary, which was last week.

It’s a nice place, but not so highfalutin’ that you can’t wear jeans or order a cold beer.  Prices are high… but the food is fantastic.  While sitting there tonight I kept thinking about how I’ve always wanted a “place.”  Y’know, a local joint where I could be a “regular.”  Even though being a regular probably means spending money and gaining weight, there’s something about being ingrained into the local color that is all old fashioned and seems endearing to me.  I have this fantasy of having a favorite dish, maybe ordering it once a week with Sharaun, having a glass of wine, whatever.  Something fixed, something old-time, something diner-out-of-The-Honeymooners.  But I can’t afford it; and spaghetti costs next-to-nothing to make at home… so I’ll never do it.

Tonight Keaton prayed, “I hope the pipe stops leaking.”  I think that girl knows too much about current events.

Goodnight.