slipwind

… is fixing you car with your own tools, in your own garage, with your own hands, for a fraction of the cost it would take to take it to a dealer.

On the other hand, probably the biggest let-down in the world is spending 2 1/2 hours on a Tuesday night replacing a supposedly bad windshield washer pump, only to have it still not work.

It’s the kinda thing that makes you want to cry… and I’m not sure if it’s because of the wasted night and the lost opportunity to feel that wonderful feeling of accomplishment… or if it’s because you now realize you will have to take it to a shop where they will most likely tell you it’s because of a faulty wiring harness which costs $5 to buy and $300 to install… Prolly a bit of both.

Dammit.

So my fish almost died yesterday; it was my fault.

Stephen is my pet beta (Siamese fighting) fish. He lives in a one gallon flat sided bowl, complete with green rocks–both dark and light green–and a leafy fake tree/plant thing. His bowl is situated in a nice corner of my desk at my office. He gets lots of coworker attention and all the food he could ever want (dried mosquito larvae…disgusting). It’s a good life; and my stupid foolish ignorance almost took it from him… That and the fact that he is almost certainly suicidal… or just really really stupid.

Being a new fish owner, I decided that after three weeks of living in the same water, it was about time I gave Stephen a slightly fresher environment to live in. To do this, I was required to provide a temporary residence. The Styrofoam cup I had sitting by my computer looked like it would do the trick nicely.

Stephen found himself in a cup. He seemed content there. The cleaning of the bowl was now ready to take place. Unfortunately, my desk did not come furnished with a sink, so it was off to the break room. Five minutes later, I walked back to my desk with a fresh bowl of water. Apparently I wasn’t quick enough.

In my absence Stephen decided that the Styrofoam cup wasn’t a suitable place to live and therefore he went exploring. He made it as far as the edge of my desk. I managed to control the initial panic that raced through me long enough to set the bowl down and place my flopping, flipping, sliding and slipping and altogether uncooperative fish back into his cup.

I watched him for a few minutes checking to see whether he still had his death wish. He now seemed to value life a little more, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I covered the cup with a piece of paper while I waited for the bowl to attain the proper balance. Twenty minutes and a couple drops of some stuff which supposedly makes the water livable, and Stephen was ready to move back in. He settled in and seemed to be quite at home.

A half hour of “work” later and I was ready to leave. Something didn’t look right. Stephen was lying on his side at the bottom of the bowl. I shook the bowl. Stephen startled up and swam around for a few seconds before settling on the bottom again. His entire body seemed to contract until he was curved into a fish-shaped-U laying on the rocks. He wasn’t moving. I shook the bowl again. He swam around again. This time, he swam to the bottom, immediately floated to the top and started rolling over on his back. Shook the bowl. He swam to the bottom, floated to the top. Shook. Swam down. Floated. Shook. Swam down. Keeled over. Gills not moving. Shook. No movement.

Stephen was dying. I just knew it. I couldn’t watch it. I left.

Later in the evening I was on my way home. I decided that I couldn’t bury–flush–my fish in the morning when everyone was around, so I swung by the office. It was a long slow walk to my desk. I paused at the corner to brace myself. I knew my pet fish would be a lifeless floating blob in the still water.

I turned on the light; there was nothing floating on the surface. Must have died on the bottom I thought. I was wrong. He swimming happily in the middle of the bowl. All the life in the world.

So my fish almost died last night. In fact, I was sure he died, but he didn’t. He was alive. And for some absurd reason this made me ridiculously happy

You know, I just had a really good weekend. It seems like that hasn’t happened in a long time (not that it hasn’t, but it just seems like it hasn’t). Friday night I hung out with EJ & MJ, minus their two dogs. We went out for dinner, told some stupid jokes, had some semi-serious conversations and rented a movie which turned out to be incredibly stupid… it was great.

Saturday turned out to be a great day weather-wise. You don’t understand how amazing that was. I had been waiting for a nice Saturday for almost a month–the crappy weekends were really starting to annoy me. But Saturday turned out nice, so I was able to fly my first cross-country to Willmar. Major accomplishment taken care of: check. So now I need to plan one for Alexandria, but because of the Holidays, that won’t happen until next Year… one step forward… and then no more steps for a while… ahh well.

Saturday night was awesome, Mayo and Cutshy and I went to Sophia’s for Jamie’s B-Day party, and then convinced the Holm’s to head downtown to the FineLine for Jason’s cousin’s band… can’t remember the name of it right now, but they were pretty good. It was fun to see Josh and Monie out on the town, which for understandable reasons hasn’t happened in quite a long time. Capped off the night by meeting Tammy and Lib-dig at the Drink for some late-night dancing… was a good end to a good day.

On Sunday, I had the privilege of going to the Vikings game (courtesy of Kara), which turned out to be one of the worst games ever, but oh well, it was still fun. Got home, watched some TV, and went to bed at 9:00… yeah, it was great.

So this week will suck. (I’m definitely not an optimist on a Monday morning.) Lots of shopping to do and one life-changing decision to make. Gotta love stress.

Have you ever walked into a situation, thinking you had a handle on things, all i’s dotted, t’s crossed and every potential argument addressed, accounted for and refuted… only to get totally, completely, unquestionably and very thoroughly owned? So completely worked over in fact, that even though you are still 95% sure you were correct going in, you come out feeling like the biggest ass in the world… left to realize hours later just how easily your spine was crushed and how quickly your resolve caved? And then comes the realization (or maybe rationalization… I’d prefer not to think it’s that, but nothing is ever certain) that it is highly probable that you were just wonderfully and incredibly skillfully manipulated… at least to some small extent. (and I say wonderfully because you just have to admire that amount of talent!)

Yeah, I tell you what, it’s definitely not fun… but a great learning experience nonetheless.

—-

Yeah, of course, a day or so later you realize you actually -are- the ass that you were made to think you were… but that you have very understandable and logical reasons for it and that for some reason or another, you just could not articulate them effectively at the time… ahh well.

Well it seems like my other blog-endowed friends deemed our recent night out as incredibly blog-worthy. I suppose it was. So I will give a shorter version. We hung out, talked about video games, porn and church, and how they all related. (This was before the beer). We went out to dinner, ordered two LARGE pizzas, and not 14 regular and one large as some suggested. We had a couple pitchers of beer, consumed with tiny little beer classes, which without fail were spilled all over the table at some point in the evening. One friend told an incredibly long and boring joke… which I still can’t figure out because we all knew the long and boring joke, but still insisted on him telling it. I blame the beer for that one. There was also the movie-extra/sun/camera bit, which while being only mildly-to-slightly hilarious, caused the kind of laughter that actually really really hurts. Although one of our group failed to see the hilarity. (Handles his beer much better than the rest of us). We then went home, watched bits of movies, half-fell asleep and all departed just short of 10:00… man I am getting old.