I didn’t mean to leave y’all hanging, it was just that January and May were tough enough to live through, but then writing about them? And it’s not like summer got any easier. So I sort of… I’d sit down to write and then just stare at the computer and pick up my phone and play stupid match games instead until eventually my screensaver would catch my eye out of the corner of my eye and I’d remember I was at the computer for a reason.
Here’s part one, and here’s part two, if you missed them. Let’s see how far into the summer I can get in one post…
June
June continued the theme of the year so far, with murdering rats and having doctor’s appointments. By June 4th I was up to 41 rats, and I think after that I stopped counting. After that, though, they also stopped happening quite as often because I’d (a) gotten the parents and (b) gotten rid of the yarn and fiber they were using as bedding. And I kept cleaning and making the place smell Not Like Rats. Did you know that male rat urine, when they’re canvassing for sexy times, smells sort of like maple sugar? It put me off maple sugar oatmeal, let me tell you. I used to eat that for breakfast three or four times a week, and …. not after about May.
A couple of big things happened in June… maybe this is why I’ve been putting off writing about all of this.
One is that my main kiln, Big Geek, started shooting off sparks one morning and I had to turn it off at the breaker to get it to stop. I was terrified I was going to have to buy another large kiln because there’s only two people in Florida who even remotely come this way. One works North Florida/Southern Georgia, and the other one works Central Florida. I was at the most Southern range of one and the most Northern range of the other, and honestly neither sounded like they were interested in coming to Keystone. And if they could, it might be weeks, if not months – other things had to line up work-wise for them to stop by my place on the way to somewhere else. And prices in kilns had skyrocketed (thanks, tariffs!) and were primarily now made-to-order with a waiting list… meaning it would be months before I could get a new one. Fortunately, the one who works North Florida had a surprise opening in his schedule, and he came down and rewired Big Geek and changed out the relays. And, get this – he also stayed longer the second day he was here and taught me how to use Tim’s compound miter saw, nail gun, how to use and care for the compressor, and a couple of other things. He was a real gift.
The other thing is that I broke down and took my car into the dealership, which I did not want to do because I don’t trust dealerships, I’ve never had a good experience at one, but I had to figure out what the fuck was happening with the lights on my dashboard. Put a pin in that for a second here.
Like most people, I have Facebook friends that I don’t know in real life, but they’re friends of friends and I’ve vetted that they’re real people and asked my friends about them before accepting their friend requests to make sure they’re not insane psychopaths. Well… and I’m sure she’ll comment here even if I don’t use her name, because I know she reads my blog… I had a FB friend who 100% has it in for the mechanic that I usually take my car to and she MADE IT KNOWN that I was doing the wrong thing if I kept going to them. I knew from a previous interaction that she didn’t like them but I let it slide because not every place is for every person. But my god she just would not drop it for about two weeks and to be honest? It put me off posting on Facebook when I lost my cool and told her she was fucking exhausting. When I say “I’m done talking about this with you” and you continue to needle me, dropping what you think are gotcha zingers, that’s a fast way of getting me to block you. Maybe it’s on me for not announcing it was a boundary – “if you keep bringing this up I will block you” – but you know what? There are only so many hours in the day and this year was really taking it out of me. Between this, and a post on coffee pots that also went off the fucking rails, I was just done like dinner.
What this did start was two things; I started making a “previously on this day” post every day, with a picture from five years ago, ten, fifteen, and twenty. I figured I could post that every day instead of talking about something that would lead to arguments, and, me not spending as much time on Facebook, which meant that I wasn’t chatting with a lot of friends that I only have on Facebook… so it did make the rest of my summer a little lonely.
But, back to going to the dealership!
I knew they wouldn’t be able to recreate the problem, because it happened so randomly. I went in with pictures and videos and told the person checking me in that I wanted to talk to whoever was going to look at it before they looked at it because they weren’t going to be able to recreate the problem and I had proof they could look at.
One hour. Two. Three. FOUR HOURS LATER he finally comes out, says he couldn’t recreate the problem, so there wasn’t anything he could do. THAT was when he deigned to look at my video, and then he knew exactly what the problem was. Here’s what I said on Facebook about it
So. The tech has seen this before on Ravs and Corollas, and he’s 99% sure it’s the steering wheel sensor BUT HE DOESN’T WANT TO REPLACE IT BECAUSE IT’S A COUPLE HUNDRED DOLLARS AND SINCE HE CAN’T RECREATE THE PROBLEM HE DOESN’T WANT TO PUT IN AN EXPENSIVE PART WITHOUT KNOWING FOR SURE THAT’S WHAT IT IS.
But hey, although it wasn’t happening this morning and he can’t recreate it, I should feel free to stop by next time it’s happening and maybe they can fit me in.
Because things that happen randomly are always so convenient for me being in town and having nothing to do for hours.
I do not have words for how furious I am. Flames. Flames on the sides of my face.
Needless to say I took what he said to my mechanic, who was like “well, weird, but we’ll try it if you want” and they did, and I’ve had no problems with the car since.
While I was at my mechanic that day, I bought tickets for my friend Crystal and I to go see the Indigo Girls two days after my birthday. It was stressful buying them because they were more expensive than I expected and I didn’t want to shell out money like that on Crystal’s behalf and she was at work and I didn’t know if she’d be able to text about it, but she was, and we waffled for a while, and I kept getting kicked off the website and then had to get in line again and did I mention it was stressful? That concert would have been last week, but it got cancelled because of the death of their tour bus driver. Which I understand and my heart goes out to his family and damn, the Girls have just had a rough tour for other reasons, but… damn. That really was the icing on the cake of that one.
1300 words and that was just talking about June? Do I even want to get into July, where three friends died in the space of about ten days? No. No, I do not. I want to turn the computer off and go play PS5 for a little while and go to sleep.
This year has been such a headache, y’all.
Stay tuned for July…. I’ll try not to make it two months before I post about it.