The Universe conspires to free me of my money...

My car feels so much better now.... nearly $700.00 better. However, with all that had to be done to it, I still feel like I got off lightly. The whole haunted car thing was caused by a bad battery, a broken post, and a loose connection. Somehow, the three things together made my car behave most strangely. For my trouble, I also have a new set of tires, a tuned up engine, new oil, and a host of other wonderful car-spa treatments. Beelzebub is feeling quite fine now. Perhaps I'll call him "Bub" for short.

One problem down - but after a shower today, I can't get the faucet to turn all the way off. Again. I dug up my plumber paperwork and do you know that to "totally" fix this, they want a thousand dollars????? Yipes. Darling Man is ready to rip all that stuff out and fix it himself - including new tile. I shall stand by with grouting tools and wrenches and wipe his brow when he needs it.
This is what it looks like when I turn off the faucet. Even cranking down hard on both sides.



Please note the water coming out of that faucet is HOT. That means that no only am I paying for a lot of extra water that I'm not using, but I'm also paying to heat the stuff up!



Hello? In what world do plumbers call this FIXED?


I was so irritated by this that I put down the stopper because I was curious as to how much water was going down the drain.

I left it for an hour, and when I came back, this is what it looked like. Enough water for a small child's bath. Imagine what 24 hours each and every day would look like! Imagine how much that is costing me!

And the bathroom on the other side of the wall has the same problem (they "fixed" them both at the same time).

I'm going to write a letter to the owner of the company and demand either a refund or some satisfaction. This is absolutely ridiculous.

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On a happier note, Darling Man rescued a baby squirrel yesterday. He was really tiny. We think he may have fallen out of his nest and landed on the sidewalk. He avoided putting weight on his front left leg. We kept him until ZBoy could come home from school, then we all took him to the St. Francis intake vet. Z named him "Tiny Tim" - but we don't really know if it's a girl or a boy. But he/she did the cutest little purr. It was hard to give him up, but baby squirrels require a lot more than we're able to do - and it's probably not good to have one if you also have four cats and a dog.

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Darling Man and I went to the school for a conference with ZBoy's teacher this morning. He's doing well, but having trouble listening/focusing on what is going on in class. He's rather talk or draw or daydream. He's plenty smart, but organizing his binder, desk and thoughts is apparently a challenge. We'll all work on helping him with this together.

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I went back to the school to have lunch with ZBoy. They had spagetti, broccoli, applesauce and a roll today. I have ALWAYS been a sucker for school spagetti. They don't serve it with those gigantic cinnamon rolls anymore (bummer) but it's probably healthier now anyway.

I was waiting for his class to arrive and finally, some kids came around the corner. I figured that they must be older kids because some of the girls had breasts (in elementary school!), but NO! That was ZBoy's third grade class coming down the hall! OMG - things happen a lot faster nowadays than they did when I was that age! Could it be hormones and antibiotics in the meat and milk we give these kids? I mean when I was in 6th grade there were plenty of titters about the "early developers" during gym class but we were 12 years old. These kids are 8. I guess I'm glad I have a boy!

Lunch was good. We sat at a table with only three other kids. Unfortunately, the one right across from me talked non-stop from the moment we sat down, at the top of his lungs, about scary movies with blood and stuff. He said he watched them with his dad. What is dad thinking? Poor kid. Gets so scared he doesn't want to get up in the dark and winds up wetting the bed. Confessions during lunch....

There's a new gizmo in the lunchroom. It's a sound-sensitive traffic light. When things start getting too loud, the light goes to yellow. When it IS too loud, it goes to red and a buzzer/bell sound goes off. Dead silence reigns for about 5 seconds and then it starts all over again. The other part of ZBoy's class was sitting at a table right in front of it and they started talking and clapping their hands to see when it would change from green to yellow to red. I would not be lying if I told you they got in trouble. I haven't seen a frowny face on a teacher like that in a long, long time. At least it wasn't directed at MY table!

So - my day. Busy and expensive. But pretty good all the same.