My car, a Suzuki Swift that I've had for ten years or so, has been relegated to third car status with the arrival of a Nissan (a Nissan! I ask you; who would retire a Suzuki for a Nissan?).
We've decided not to get rid of her completely; she's terribly reliable, in fairly good shape for a car that's never been serviced, economical, pretty in a girly kind of way, and easy to find parts for and fix - with the help of my one time, long, long ago, mechanic father.
No, instead of selling or scrapping her, we've decided to suspend her registration and buy a special cover for her to live under in the back yard. After all, we have the unreliable, about to keel over and die Mazda for me to use. The only advantage it has over Suzie is that it has a heater that works. And a radio.
For some reason we've decided that it's better for me to use that car as my runabout until it finally karks it instead of getting rid of it now and seeing how much longer Suzie can last until she finally passes. It's a very sad time for me.
Not tragic, goodness no, she's only a car; but she's a car that's been through a lot with me; breakups, make ups, births, deaths, marriages, length of country migrations, mercy dashes - she's always been there.
There are a lot of memories tied up in that car, memories that I feel won't be as poignant without her. S'pose I should be happy that hubby appreciates that and hasn't just demanded I get rid of her.
After all, it was I who brought the Nissan.

After weeks of annoying, frustrating, rage inducing calls from Smart Getaways, and to just about every body I could find that's meant to deal with telemarketing harassment, I've finally given up and decided to waste their time as much as they've been wasting mine. Now when I pick up the phone and hear the tell tale sounds of an international call, I pour myself a glass of wine, find myself a comfy chair, and keep them on the phone as long as I possibly can questioning them about their offers, asking about their destinations, and generally sounding as convinced, but unsure as I possibly can before politely declining their offer and hanging up. So far this ploy is not working; I'm still getting what sound like cold calls from varying operators, but at least I'm not shaking by the end of them. The other night I even asked the operator if he could call back in an hour as I was in the middle of cooking dinner. Sadly he didn't, which considering the first ever call I'd received from the company and the way the operator almost begged me to listen to him, was disappointing.

I feel mean doing it; I mean, the operators are just trying to make a living. But I've tried polite, I've tried firm, and I've tried rude, and they just keep calling. My seven year old son has even got in to the game. When he answers the phone and someone from Smart Getaways asks to talk to Mr or Mrs ****, he'll start playing dumb, or put the phone down and run around the house giggling for five minutes, after which there's never anyone on the other end of the line. Hubby just hangs up. He says that's what I should do, but I've tried that; they kept calling.

Next week I'll probably be angry again, but since they're an Australian based company and I've been told there's not much anyone can do about the calls, I'll just have to ride it out. It's either that or spend sixty odd dollars to change my phone number, and there is no way that company is going to induce me to spend a cent - even if it's not on them.

and I need to talk (rant).

Hubby is sick. Man sick (again), which could mean anything from a cold to swine flu. Whatever it is, it does mean he's all feeble, and needs to be looked after, and can't do all sorts of stuff (ye Gads, If only I had that sort of luxury).

He was sooo sick he had to come home from work two hours early today.
I wasn't at home; I was at work helping the boss price the new menu in a realistic manner (which means totally disregarding the "rule" about multiplying the cost of a dish by anywhere between three and four-and then adding tax; and asking her if she would ever, ever, pay $15 for a bowl of potato wedges). Hubby was all like, "Where were you? You weren't home; the car was gone; are you having an affair?"

What?!?

I hope that was just the sickness talking, because if he expects me to stay around home all day when I'm not working then we have really got some serious problems.

Worst thing is, I've been justifying his accusation in my head all evening. Work is only across the road. - Question: why would I take my car? (answer: I had to go out for a few things and stopped at work on the way home).
Question: Why do I spend so much of my free time at work doing stuff I'm not paid for doing? (answer: I AM BORED!).
Question: why don't you stop doing all that stuff for free and make them pay you? (answer: there's a friggin' recession going on if you hadn't noticed matey, and I like my job. I like the convenience of it; I like the people I work with; I like the people I work for. I work part time and I'm paid bloommin' well. I want the place to succeed so that once we're through this tough time, they will offer me more money because they know I am dedicated to the place, and I am valuable to them (I've only recently - like in the past week - been able to say that to my employers; apparently they already knew. Nice)).

I think hubby hasn't been listening to what I say about work; can't blame him for that one, I don't listen to a lot of what he says about his work either. But I've never accused him of having an affair because I haven't listened to what he's said; and I want to swear lots over the fact that he suggested I was - even if it was a feeble and totally fall flat on its face joke; which it didn't seem like at the time.

I know; I'm more disjointed then usual with this one. But I'm angry. Thinking about deleting this already.
But writing it down is kind of cathartic - like going out to where the river and sea meet and screaming 'til making yourself heard over the crashing of water becomes joy, and you forget that the reason you're doing it is because you're hurting.

I really want to be doing that right now; but I can't 'cos hubby's sick and boy is only seven.
Can't even work out my bedtime feel good mantra tonight, and that's something I've been good at for years.

Obviously I need to stay up later.

Went to visit the mother-in-law over the weekend and when we got home from that little trip there was a message waiting for me on the phone. Somehow I'd managed to drop my wallet outside of the mother-in-laws house and some nice woman found it. Not only did she find it, but she searched through the telephone book to find me and call me to say that she had found it, which isn't an easy task since we live outside of the free calling area of the city and she would have had to look not only in the city listings, but also through the regional area listings in the Christchurch phone book. On top of that I have ID under two different names in my wallet - my married name and my maiden name, and our phone number is still listed under my maiden name.

Honestly, I don't know if I would have gone to that much effort; we've had wallets left behind at work and if there isn't an obvious contact number in the wallet and the owner doesn't call back for it within twenty fours hours we just hand it in to the police. So it was lovely today to make the trip into Christchurch again to pick up my wallet and meet the good samaritan who did make the effort. Despite her protestations that she'd only done what anyone would do, I'm not so sure. After her refusal of a monetary reward, I went down to the mall and brought her a bouquet of flowers, a box of chocolates and a twenty dollar voucher for a cafe franchise. She'd brightened my day, the very least I could do was try to brighten hers a little.

For days I had a song my hubby likes stuck in my head, and it was driving me crazy!
Then my boss showed me this. Going on a week now, and I still fall asleep to this "tune".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx1XIm6q4r4

With 65,000,000+ views some of you have probably already experienced it, but for those of you that haven't....

Sorry