Environmentally Unconscious.

While talking to my Lovely Fiancée™ last night, the two of us both got into a fairly snarky mood.  It happens; we have that whole artist mentality going for us, where neither of us can admit we're wrong... so it makes for a nice healthy bit of usually good-natured friction here and there.  (Yeah, once in a great while, we'll pick at a scab a bit too much and cause a small micronuclear explosion... but it's never yet been anything that love, understanding and hazmat suits can't overcome.)

At any rate, we were sniping at one another from under the cover of thick sarcasm last night-- this is no small exaggeration, either... many of our conversations spread out the sarcasm the way an inattentive McDonald's cook dollops on the Big Mac special sauce.  I forget how the idea came up, but we were talking about her family using those reusable metallic water bottles, because it's unsafe to reuse plastic ones-- I should probably point out I washed, refilled and reused the same 1 liter Mountain Dew bottles for the better part of a year, and that probably explains a lot about my lack of mental focus-- and she mentioned that one of the models kept water cold for something like a day.  I was intrigued.  And I looked at the price of it and was flabbergasted.  It cost more than most pairs of shoes I buy.

"Why not just get a Thermos?"  I asked.

She replied that it wasn't really the same thing, and she preferred having cold water over the course of the day without putting the water back in the fridge, where sometimes the kids grabbed them, so just keeping the plastic bottles was out of the question.  She needed something that would stay cold out of the fridge for long periods and that the kids could be responsible for.

"So why not just get Styrofoam cups?"  I asked.  "You can mark them with your names.  And for the price of that thing, you could probably get a year's worth."

At this point my Lovely Fiancée™ said something that resonated with me.  Well, first she called me obstinate, incorrigible and a few other adjectives I probably shouldn't relate here.  Then she said something that resonated with me.  I should note that this is probably paraphrased, because it is currently seven in the morning and I have yet to ingest any worthwhile drugs:

"Sometimes I think you are so intent on being anti-Green that you're willing to cut off your nose to spite your face."

At the time, I huffed and scoffed and shook a fistful of righteous indignation at the whole idea.  But as more time went on, I came to the conclusion that there was more than just a nugget of truth to that.  Her son-- my soon to be stepson-- is very environmentally conscious.  I am more like environmentally comatose.

Now, I am not always rabid anti-environmentalist or anything like that.  Our new house is Energy Star efficient, and we're using CFL bulbs and energy-efficient appliances, and drinking purified water in bottles with just enough plastic to make it like drinking water out of a stiff zip-lock bag.  So I'm not all about filling Mother Earth with nuclear waste, non-biodegradable plastics and Styrofoam landfills, but I think that there is sometimes way too much of a press put on by people to be green. 

A lot of the things on the Green Initiative agenda are, in fact, very noble, well-founded and helpful at first glance.  Take recycling.  On the surface, it sounds wonderful.  And it is, if you have the time, dilligence, extra space and money to do so.  So, in effect, if you are rich enough to be able to afford the space to keep a bin for your aluminum cans, a bin for your clear plastics, a bin for your non-clear plastics, a bin for your paper products, a bin for your corrugated cardboard products,-- and yes, I work somewhere that recycles, so I know they will not accept those last two mixed, as silly as it sounds-- a bin for your organics, a Sharps container for your recyclable syringe needles (we'll assume that, like me, you only keep those for medicinal or experimental purposes), and a trash can for whatever is leftover.  And have the time and the lack of things to do to spend your time sorting your trash. 

And on top of that make your kids do so... because, after all, they are the ones who are most benefiting from it.  And probably like most kids, my stepson-to-be is probably going to be all about being environmentally friendly until it gets to the point that he has to actually do work.  Like when he has to lug six separate bins to the curb instead of the one trash bin.  Then somewhere, I'm sure, my Lovely Fiancee™ and I will be informed about scientific studies that say that recycling really doesn't help all that much, and may, in fact, be harming the ecosystem of the Southeast Asian Archback Tern or something.

I also have a serious problem with every online biller sitting there and spouting off about how I could be more green and environmentally conscious by receiving all my billing statements via e-mail.  I get this from my phone company, my bank, my credit card sites, my insurance companies, my utilities, and at least four of the porn sites I hit on a regular basis.  And they ask me every time I go to pay.  Like the past thirteen months have meant nothing, and this time around, I've had some sort of Saul-of-Tarsis-sees-the-light-and-becomes-St.-Paul conversion after a lifetime of abusing trees.  Even though in my preferences at all these sites, it says, "Yes, I want a paper copy of my bill."  Even though I have repeatedly told customer service agents that most spam filters are notoriously inept at low levels and at high levels will find a way to 'learn' that a bill reminder is spam and delete it-- and oh, by the way, I'm sure your collection agency and their repo man Enzo will give me a pass on that one.  Even though I'm sure that all the Green Agenda by all these big-name businesses-- which have now suddenly gained a Green conscience and are spearheading "Save the Earth" measures-- has absolutely nothing at all to do with the fact that they are shaving thousands, if not millions, off their budget calculations... meaning that their CEO's can now worry just a little less as they hit that seventh hole on the Palm Springs resort they're golfing at this week.

Yes, even though, I am subjected to that same smiling "Don't you want to be environmentally friendly and only get a bill via e-mail" reminder every fucking month.  And it's led me to respond in this way:

"No.  I don't want to be environmentally friendly.  I want to be environmentally hostile because you insist on asking me this every time I'm here, regardless of my answer last time.  Yes, I want a paper statement.  You know what?  I want a paper statement made out of wood pulp from a seven-hundred year old Sequoia!  Wait, you know, fuck that!  I want my statement on parchment-- parchment made from the flayed and tanned skin of an endangered Long-Haired Spider Monkey, and written with an ink made from a mixture of Humpback Whale oil and West Indian Manatee blood!  And I want an old-fashioned fucking stamp put on it, too!  The ones with the lead base in the gumming!  None of that pre-stuck or pre-printed crap!  And yeah, put the whole thing in a Styrofoam envelope, too, you buncha malcontent fucks."

Ahem.  I have been told that given the right set of circumstances, I can get road rage without even driving.

And I do cheerfullly admit that I am the sort of person who naturally bristles and bucks back at being told I need to do something, like some dull-wit or child or slow pet.  So when I hear stuff like, "you need to recycle," or "you need to be more concerned about the environment," my first gut, kneejerk reaction is to come back with "Bullshit.  You need to come up with a system of sorting trash and removing recycleables at the trash facility, and then pay top dollar to create jobs to do so, because then you could help kill two birds with one stone."

Metaphorically.

Cause, I mean, you start insinuating about killing animals to some people, and they'll lose their fucking mind.

(And again, the author feels that he should point out that he loves his Lovely Fiancee™ like nothing else on Earth, and any 'spats' you see here have been very much embellished for humorous effect... and he thanks her for being such a good sport.  He would also like to point out that this post has been made using environmentally-safe fonts on an energy-efficient monitor, and some of the jokes have been recycled.) 

Decoration of Independence

Let's get this out in the open right now.  I love my Lovely Fiancée ™ like nothing else I've ever known.  I love her unequivocally, without reservation, without any sort of foreseeable end.  I have never been this sure about wanting to marry someone... and that includes any and all TV crushes I may have had during those awkward years of puberty, when-- possibly like most other guys on their first brush with percolating hormones-- I was known to fall hard for a good medium-range camera shot of cleavage or a hot step-aerobic instructor's bare midriff.  With my Lovely Fiancée ™, I can honestly say I have never been with a woman who makes me feel so happy, so content, and moreover, so able to feel comfortable just being me... quirks and flaws and warts and all.  (And I'm sure she's happy to hear about the quirks and flaws and warts, too, especially since I have taken such exquisitely careful pains to hide them during our dating life.)

Understand that we have very similar attitudes, very similar tastes, and very similar artistic natures.  So there is an awful lot of subjects that we see perfectly eye-to-eye, and a small boatload of others that we share fairly compatible views on; if we're not on the same page, we're at least in the same chapter.  But in the long run, it will be those topics which we disagree upon that will be sure to keep this marriage interesting.

And when I say interesting, I mean the definition that has roughly the same meaning as volatile. Or incendiary.  Or mildly atomic bomb-ish.

You already know about the whole sordid cat thing.  To her, a cat is a compatriot... a family member... a stalwart friend who just happens to not have opposable thumbs.  To me, a cat is a potentially disease-and-allergen-riddled vermin that has absolutely no redeeming value unless you have rodents in your house... it provides no protection, it scares no potential burglars/muggers/murderers, it carves up furniture we can't afford to replace, it stinks to high hell, it does not differentiate between places it is supposed to go and places that are off limits. It's a very slight difference of opinion.  Yesterday, she was cooing about the fact that a feral cat in her neighborhood had kittens on her porch because it felt safe there.  While she was doing this and going on about it, my thoughts wandered more or less to these subjects:  1.) Potentially, they could have Rabies.  2.) Potentially, they also have fleas.  3.) It would be very ironic to drop them into a pond with carnivorous fish in it, and  4.) Oh, sweet mother of fuck, don't let the little bastards fucking imprint on her and force her to give me the "But they can't live without me, and the kids just love them, so I can't just leave them there alone" bit later.

(Believe it or not, that is actually pretty unfair of me.  I'm sure that my Lovely Fiancée ™, knowing how apoplectic the thought of even one cat is making me, is almost certainly not giving any sort of thought to bringing in others.  And yet, there is always that niggling little bit in the back of my head that always adds, yes, because cat-lovers are so well-known for their entirely rational and logical thought processes-- especially when it comes to kittens-- aren't they?)

So we knew all things feline was going to be a big stumbling block to the Utterly Perfect Saccharine Marriage.

What we didn't know was that window treatments were going to be another one.

Part of the problem, of course, is that we're both artists.  And as such, we consistently exercise our God-given artistic right to assume that we are never wrong.  This is sometimes also referred to as Artistic License-- which more or less says that reality is actually fluid and varies from artist to artist, and in fact the cold hard facts of reality have absolutely no place in artistic vision unless the artist says it does.  Artistic License in small dollops is a good thing.  But like so many things, it can be downright dangerous when it goes uncontrolled.  Artistic License can allow an artist to paint a vague shape and say it's a dog when in fact it looks like a smoldering heap of unwashed socks and elephant shit.  Artistic License can lead someone into honestly believing the bible told them to create a Jesus Theme Park complete with the Crucifixion Log Ride and the Loaves and Fishes Gift Shoppe.  Artistic License can delude people into believing that Facebook games ending in -Ville are actually constructive uses of time.  Artistic License means Lady Gaga wins.  Artistic License leads to well-intentioned but ultimately disastrous Artistic Visions... like when someone decides that they should get their new car in purple and puke orange to make it stand out.

And sadly, My Lovely Fiancée ™ and I are exhibit A in the case of Bad Shit That Happens When Those Carefully-Cultivated, Seemingly-Artistic Visions Collide. 

It started innocuously enough, when we were searching through web pages for designs for our windows.  For most of the windows in the house, we'd come to the decision that mini-blinds would suffice, because A) mini-blinds are cheap, and B) we are about tapped out of our money.  However, there were a couple windows, like the front room picture windows, where we both felt something more was called for and were willing to spend a bit more on.  So independently, we looked at a few options. I took a more classical route: I preferred the functionality and understated style of Roman shades.  So I fired off some links for her to check out, and told her excitedly how we could even get motorized ones that would raise by remote.

Her response to those over the phone was simple and to the point: "Really?"

And it wasn't a response to my enthusiasm, like "Really?  We can do that?  Oh, honey, how wonderful!"  No, it was one of those Really? tones that only women can make, the sort that generally precede something like, you seriously want to put your genitalia in the vacuum hose?, or, you honestly think a shirt that says 'Hooter Inspector' is an appropriate gift for a five year-old?  The kind of tone that makes you immediately feel small, uncultured, and on a mental par with the smarter breeds of flowering shrubs.

"Well, yeah."  I said, unperturbed.  "You don't like it?"

"No, I don't think I do."

"Why not?"  I pressed.  Because, as a guy, I am used to having a reason why I don't like something, even when it comes to style, you know... the color sucks, or the flow of the whole thing is wrong, or it's too expensive, or it just doesn't go with a damn thing we own.

There was a long silence.  A long and possibly pointed silence.  "I really just... don't... like it," she said, with an odd sound to her voice... most likely because she was swallowing words like "Loathe", "Repugnant," "Hideous", and "Vomitous."

"So what do you have in mind?"  I asked.

She sent me a link, which I dutifully followed.

There was an equally long and poignant silence as I took it in.

"Did the link work?"  She finally asked.

"Uhm.  Yesssssss," I said.

"Aren't they nice?"  She asked.

I looked again.  "Uhm.  Is that a fucking scarf over the top of the whole thing?"

"Yes," she said, probably able to tell that I was not as impressed as I was supposed to be.  "They call it a scarf valence."

"It's well named... it looks like it belongs over some rich old woman's neck.  It's freaking gauzy, too."

"That's the way it's supposed to be.  It suffuses light."  She said.

"Aren't drapes supposed to block out light instead of just filtering it?"  I asked.  "I mean, I could just put up toilet paper if we wanted to only kinda block out light."

An exasperated noise-- one that I am slowly becoming familiar with-- came from the other end.

And things pretty well spiraled down the toilet from there.  It was a case of Classic vs. Nouveau, which is something like Mac vs PC for people with an over-aggrandized sense of their own interior decorating worth.   I think I called one of her choices snotty and over-embellished, and she said that one of my choices looked like it belonged in a nursing home.  I told her that a more classic style emphasized the Roman look of our doorway, and she said that the design of the house demanded something that didn't scream 50 years old.  If we'd been in the same room, the eye-daggers might have been flying every which way.

Finally I took a deep, irritated breath.

"So.  Mini-blinds?"  I grated.

"Fine."  She growled.

"Cheap."  I grunted.

"White."  She snarled.

"Perfect."  I rumbled.

So I put up a pair of nice white mini-blinds in the living room and we have managed to survive phone calls since then without incident.  And we have a very nice house that is waiting to get a full drapery treatment until we can go out together and actually see if there is any sort of window treatment we can both enjoy without getting nauseous every time we enter a room and see it.

And until then, we are living happily ever after.  At least until we start having to pick out towels.

(The author would like to point out that the argument above has been embellished and dramatized in some portions for the sake of effect. In reality, Mark and Jessi are not nearly so coarse or filled with invective, and would never say most of these terribly hateful things to one another. Thank you.

...Okay, except the cat thing. That's 100% legit.)

Homeownerd

You'll have to excuse me, because I had to hold off on several posts.  The main reason why was because I have been busy as effall, and my brain hasn't managed to stop staying in Harried Mode on the days that I actually get a chance to rest.  Which is to say, hardly ever. 

But on top of that, one one particular day last week, had I blogged, I'm sure there would have be this regrettably fanboi feel to the whole post.  Like at any second I was gonna break out in schoolgirl squeals or start screeching like a 60's teenager watching the Beatles on the airport tarmac-- or a prepubescent and her mom at a Flavor of the Week Pop concert.

Because on that day, I closed on our brand new house.

Cue the applause. 

Over the course of the last few months, our house has gone from being a bare patch of dirt to a house atop a bare patch of dirt.  (To be fair, it would have been a house atop a wonderfully green front lawn if Indiana had decided not to have the most retardedly precipitous weather since Noah.  Our front yard currently contains a retention pond that is nowhere on the subdivision map thanks to the rain.)  It was amazing, seeing the little bits and pieces begin to build up-- the foundation, a few pipes, a sudden jarring jump into particle-board paneling over the skeleton wood frame, the Tyvek, the windows, the roof and shingles and siding-- and thinking to myself, this is truly the American Dream-- to have my wallet scream in hideous uncontrolled agony as it realizes that I will be paying for this three months of labor for the rest of my life.

I was a busybody during the construction phase, I freely admit.  I stopped by the house almost daily, just to check in on the progress, to watch the wiring, the plumbing, the insulation and drywall go up, to see the rooms take shape.  And especially to get to know the building crew.  I'd read that a very important step that I could take toward assuring that my new house would be of good quality was to build a good working relationship with the construction crew.  So I bought them coffee and doughnuts, and chips and pop, and although the language barrier tended to inhibit conversation, I thanked them effusively for the fine work they were doing.  They, in turn, sort of made me their mascot: they greeted me often with a wave, smiling and saying El Green Go Es Tupido, which I believe is "Our new home is the tops," or words to that effect. 

I was nervous throughout the whole process, but never more so than when we started going through the walkthroughs with the project manager.  I have never owned a house, and there are an awful lot of technical things to keep track of, from the simple "This is how to make sure you don't end up with a downstairs full of water" to "This is how to keep your energy efficient heater from consuming your attic."  This was all a first for me: I'd never had dilligently paid close attention to home maintenance before, and as has been noted before, when it comes to some systems-- like automotive ones-- I have all the mechanical aptitude of a crustacean.  So I filmed both walkthroughs, took notes, and in each case brought someone much more conversant with the happenings in a new house than I.  And then I used them.  Constantly.  Swear to God, my friend Bob finally ended up writing cue cards that said things like "Nod Knowledgeably" and "Chuckle As Though That Makes Sense to You" and flashed them at me whenever I gave him a panicked look.

Our project manager was fortunately a very wonderful person.  He never spoke down to me, never acted as though I was a complete tool because I didn't know what a flowtrap or a GFI outlet was, never once listened to my questions and gave me the "Are You Fucking Kidding Me?" expression that I'm sure my Lovely Fiancee™ is practicing feverishly as she prepares for daily life with me.  He was an utter godsend. 

In fact, the whole team at Ryan Homes/NVR Mortgage was unbelievably nice, which made me breathe easier, because like every major national business, they have their detractors on the 'net.  This is not altogether surprising, because whenever people have gotten what they feel to be a raw deal and complain loudly and vociferously, and someone agrees with them, it suddenly begins to whip up with hurricane force.  Someone's uncle's cousin found a mosquito larvae in a can of Mason's Freshest Kidney Beans, and a couple other people had less-than-stellar meals with Mason's canned foods locally, and that suddenly equates to a firestorm of "Everyone that has anything to do with Mason Foods are lowlifes and thugs" internet riots... which are like real riots, only by much more pitiable people.  Google it, Ryan Homes and NVR Mortgage have their fair share of horror stories... kind of like every home builder that we could reasonably expect to afford and half of the ones we couldn't.

Even though I subconsciously knew that, however, it didn't stop me from having my stomach tie itself into pretzel-dough knots, because I haven't gotten to be the cynical, glass-is-half-empty, worst-case-scenario pessimistic bastard I am by expecting everything to work out with sunshine and roses in the end.  I envisioned everything possible going wrong, and all throughout the process, my Lovely Fiancee™ got to hear everything that was causing me to think our house dreams were doomed, because I felt that with only two kids and an imminent pack up and move to a new state, she didn't have enough to cause her acid reflux to start eating away the lining of her stomach. 

And yet.

Doom.

Just.

Didn't.

Happen.

I was sure that my credit report would pull up some forgotten charge that hit a credit bureau ten years ago, possibly even a damning one involving something vaguely pornographic.  And then I'd have to stand in front of a bunch of women in business suits and explain why I had an outstanding overdue line of credit at Harvey's House of Hedonism and keep a straight face besides.  That wasn't the case at all.  Nope.  Nothing.  My credit was actually fairly good.  Nothing spectacular, but good enough that they only had to make a couple suggestions to ensure that I would get the loan.

I was sure that during the actual 'picking things out' process I would forget something utterly indispensible, like we'd skip over the roof or something, and I would only learn about it later, when I asked why it was raining on our new carpet and they waved a paper in my face like Satan with a soul-contract, saying I'd signed without asking for it.  But nothing like that happened, either.  There were things I completely forgot, like the fact we would get snow-- and would therefore need a covering for our front stoop-- but I was able to add those on after the initial consultation.  There were things that I never added on, that we have figured we'll find away to work around and fix with tax checks after a couple years, like a fence to keep the small armada of animals (which we seem curiously insistent on someday owning, despite the fact the male half of we has consistently said no, no, no, fuckoff, no when asked) from running off to freedom. But nothing horrible has yet come of this.

I was sure that getting Homeowners Insurance would be an agonizing process, filled with me getting the phone equivalent of walking into a By-Commission Furniture Store, where you have just enough opportunity to look at your first ottoman before fifteen sales reps gangtackle you in an effort to get their card to you first.  But again, it was very painless.  I was offered a few good deals to start out, and then an agent from a reputable company offered us a deal that we would have to be certifiably insane or clinically brain-dead to turn down, and it didn't require either of us to change our car insurance dealers.  No worries there.

And finally, as closing approached closer and closer, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop.  I waited for some sort of sudden jackup of our price, or a sudden last-minute bunch of  "we need all these forms that you didn't give us" or a call that explained that something had come up and we would have to twist in the wind for another couple weeks, or cancel another credit card, or get notes from our parents, or donate three quarts of plasma before we could finish up.  What happened was I went to a place on the northside, filled out paperwork for about 35 minutes, and was handed a set of keys with a smile.  That was it.  In fact, I looked at the Loan Officer, looked at the keys, and said, "That's it?"  It was over so quickly that I had no idea what to do after that.  I spent five minutes unsure whether I was actually allowed to stand up.  Part of me wondered if she would suddenly yank the keys out of my hand and say "Gotcha!" like a fifth-grade prankster, or if she would snicker as I left, knowing that she had given me keys that wouldn't work.

But that didn't happen, either.  I made my way to the house that My Lovely Fiancee™ and I will be living in for the next few years, growing old together, raising a family, and no doubt having nonstop fights over the cat in, and I unlocked the door.

And all of a sudden, I have a new chapter to my life.

 Just like that.

Domesticality

So.

I just got back home from a week-long vacation visiting my Lovely Fiancee™, which included all kinds of fun activities, like spending the day at the Tampa Ren Faire, visiting the Florida Aquarium and Lettuce Lake, and Driving Her Car More Than It Has Been Driven in the Last Two Years Combined While Running Ourselves All Over Hell and Creation at Breakneck Speeds.  By the time Tuesday rolled around, we both needed vacations from our vacations.

All right.  That's a little on the facetious side.  (I'm sure I hear jaws dropping collectively at that admission, because god knows that I am never facetious here.)  The truth is that we both very much enjoyed ourselves, and we got a lot of important work done.  We picked out some paint swatches for the upstairs bedrooms in our new house, had our engagement pictures taken, pored over and selected our wedding rings, and picked out some nice wall decor for the house.  In the spare time we had, I watched mortgage rates with bated breath.  All of this made me realize that I am ever-so-slowly losing my rough-and-tumble, angry-young-man razor edge, and becoming one of those fat, balding, more-or-less contented husband types.  I.e.:

- Someone who watches enough news to constantly be complaining about the state of the economy, and what the (insert political party, secret societal sect, or system of government of your choice here) is or is not doing about it. 

- Someone who has a midlife crisis when he says the name of his all-time favorite band and his step-son or -daughter looks guilelessly at him and asks "Who?"

- Someone who complains about how the youth of today know nothing, appreciate nothing, and need to get their collective heads on straight, because, dammit, we walked two miles to school in driving snow, uphill both ways, and we liked it.

- Someone who wakes up with achy joints and a creaky back and can almost immediately tell if the weather caused them without looking outside.

- Someone who spends the large part of his day in his armchair, including the four or so hours after work when he falls asleep there.

- Someone who actually has to think when asked which he values more, a good bowel movement or good sex.

- Someone who actually gives a fuck what happened on Dancing With The Stars last night.

Yes, boys and girls, I am slowly but surely becoming old.  And domestic.  Well, more domestic than I currently am.  I mean, hell, I cooked dinner a couple days for my Lovely Fiancee™ and the kids, and the world didn't come to a screeching halt or anything.  And yes, before you ask, it was good.  Damned good.  And largely not prepackaged, too!

At any rate, this newfound bit of domestic complacency concerns me.  I'm not quite ready to give up being the angry bastard I've grown up to become, and this latent bit of frumpy contentedness makes me think that I'm overdue for a good rantfest.  All I need is a reason.  And that's never been a problem before.

Or at least, it wasn't, before my memory started filling with things like APRs and complementary trim selections.

Damn.

Valentinery

So it's Valentine's Day today.

Yes, it's the day for chocolate, hearts, roses, and enough saccharine-filled love to make the Romance Classics Channel turn its head and politely vomit into the potted plant by the door.  It's the day that Hallmark, Whitman and FTD execs furiously yank themselves over, hoping to ejaculate a liquid jackpot of sales.  Uhm... on a side note, I guess I should point out that last sentence is all about completely metaphorical masturbation, but I'm perfectly fine with the mental imagery if you are. 

The flower, candy and card companies might not have created Valentine's Day, but they have turned into their primary commercial marketing orgy, right ahead of some of the other holidays they've created to try to reel in everyone's hard-earned cash.  And you know what holidays I mean.  The ones that especially target people with a surfeit of money and a guilt complex to buy for anyone and everyone for fear of missing someone.  The ones that are called Hallmark Holidays for a reason.

Like "Secretary's-- excuse me, Administrative Professional's-- Day."

"Sweetest Day."

"Grandparents' Day."

And my personal favorite, "Christmas." 

Now, my thoughts on the Valentine's Day holiday have always been pretty iffy, as you might guess from the above paragraphs, but for the sake of argument, let me reiterate them. 

I am not anti-Valentine's Day. 

That statement alone should come as a surprise to everyone, and not just because it's a grammatically hideous double-negative and obviously proves I'm a hack writer.  I don't think Valentine's Day should be slapped down as some no-count cynical corporate heartstring-tugger holiday, the way Emo Nation apparently does.  After all, compared to Sweetest Day, Valentine's Day has a long and storied and totally fucking uncontrived history.  And as my Lovely Fiancee™ can hopefully attest, I am still to some degree a romantic at heart, even if it tends to work a lot better in my mind than in practice.  I really see nothing wrong with setting aside a day to celebrate romantic love, in the same way that Greeks used to sacrifice bulls to appease-- and call blessings from-- Aphrodite.  It's a wonderfully pagan thing to do.

Now, yes, I much prefer citrus to chocolate, prefer my flowers in-ground rather than in-bouquet, and-- from a strictly decorating point of view-- have absolutely no use for reds, pinks or hearts.  And I really do utterly hate the way Hallmark, 1-800-Flowers, Vermont Teddy Bears, Helzberg Diamonds and Victoria's Secret have turned the holiday into a huge commercial industry.  I hate that they push Valentine's Day like it's some glorious slice of Americana and that you're a pinko commie if you don't buy your significant other something or several somethings, preferably from their stores.  But to be fair, every business that hinges on sales does that with every holiday.  The only people besides postal workers and government employees who celebrate Presidents Day are furniture stores, who try to lure people in with their Lincoln-look-alikes.  I can't really damn Valentine's Day simply because of its crassly capitalistic nature.

Oh, but I do despise one other thing about Valentine's Day. 

At its very heart (ha ha!  Another pun!), Valentine's Day is a holiday for the Haves to rub it in the noses of the Have-Nots.  And that sucks big donkey.

This is the day where if you're in love and that love is returned, you are most likely declaring it with the strident, rich tone of a symphony.  You're striving to make the day perfect, and not at all caring what unattached pond scum may be hearing you natter on about how wonderful the day is, how much you've spent, how wonderful everything is because you're in love.  And when you're in love, of course, everything is right in the world.  And that blinding ignorance is why you also probably don't realize that those sullenly unattached people are very likely plotting your demise. 

I can say this now with the bitterness of experience, having been a Have-Not for most of my adult life.  And at that point in time, especially during my more selfish young adulthood, I hated Valentine's Day.  Absolutely hated it.  Hated it like a Goth hates sunlight.  Hated it like a vegan member of PETA hates my dinner plate. 

I was Joe Fuckavalentine, the same sardonic, acrimonious type I am now, only younger, unattached, and pretty pissed off about it.  I was the guy who got the Let's Just Be Friends line trotted out by anyone I had a remote desire to ask on a date.  I was the proverbial Nice Guy Finishing Last, right behind the stereotypical gangster wannabe and the third-string varsity linebacker.  I was proof positive that the old canard about women appreciating brain and personality more was complete and total bullshit.  I was one of those types that received a valentine every year for one of precisely three reasons:

1.)  Because everyone in class received one, and for all my strangeness, I was actually still a member of the class

2.)  Because I was the only kid under 20 at home, and Mom wanted to instill in me an appreciation in the wonders of love, just on the off chance I might actually opt to leave my room to find a woman and help prove to her I wasn't ascetic, psychopathic or gay.

3.)  Because the local pharmacy had a 2-for-1 sale on chocolate while my sisters was there, and they thought it might look crass to hoard it all to themselves.

I've been there.  I know what it is to hate Valentine's Day.  I know, even now, what a hideous waste of money it is, and I know what an over-commercialized hype machine from the greeting card companies it has become. 

And yet: I can't bring myself to totally hate what it represents.

What I do hate about Valentine's Day is the idea we have to be keyed into a holiday for what it represents.  What I hate is that we apparently need the greeting card manufacturers, the chocolate cookeries, the stuffed bear seamstresses, the floral arrangement artists and the jewelers to wave a "Remember Me" day under our nose to remind us to show someone we love that we appreciate them.  What I hate is that everyone has become tied up in the notion that showing love involves only those things that appear on a credit card bill.

And on that note, I call bullshit.  You don't need a holiday for that.  You can appreciate the people you love, every day, without reservation.  You can show them how much they mean to you without putting them into a chocolate coma.  You can show them how much they mean to you without bundling up a bunch of roses of the proper variety and color according to some stupid chart somewhere.

And you can just fucking tell them how much they mean to you.  Any day.  Every day.

Not just February 14th.

And on those same lines, a quick note to my Lovely Fiancee™: Today is very special to me, not just because it means there are exactly 240 days until you become my Lovely Wife®, but because of the fact that you're a part of it.  Every day we've been together up to now has been very special to me because you've been a part of it, and every day from now forward will be very special because you will be a part of it.  I will never be able to adequately express what you mean to me, so I hope on some level you already know.

 -MH

Bits

Just some random ideas, notes and other such things that have occupied my head over the course of the last few weeks:

* * *

Between the rest of the earnest payment and estimated closing on our house, and the money owed for a truck to bring my Lovely Fiancee™ up here, I just spent close to $6000 this weekend.  

While that might not seem like a whole lot of money to some people (and let's be honest; if that doesn't sound like a whole lot of money to you, there is every possibility that I hate you just on general principle alone), and that cost might sound like a very standard amount to your average prospective home-buyer and mover, this is somewhere near a ludicrous amount of money to me.  I have never-- ever-- ponied up that sort of cabbage, let alone over a two-day span.  Hell, if I added up all my bills, it would probably take me a solid five months to come up to $6000.  When I bought Reno, new off the showroom floor, I only wrote a check for two thousand dollars, and even then it felt like having a sadistic dentist extracting a few teeth from me.

Without the benefit of good loopy drugs.

Using a pair of vise grips and auto-repair pliers.

And keeping me from fidgeting by attaching electrical clamps to my genitalia.

Really.

And what's the worst thing about it?  The fact that the four-thousand-plus-extras of the money on the house barely even scratches the surface.  In the grand scheme of things, I have officially dribbled a teaspoon of water into the rain barrel of what we will owe.  I haven't even managed to pay enough to fully constitute 5% on our house cost.  And since I got the money in the first place from my 401K, I have not only managed to barely ripple the water of our final house tally, but I've also managed to push back my retirement age to somewhere around 84.  Conservatively.    

Which coincides pretty nicely, actually, with when the house will finally be paid off.

Oh, and with all of that said, the thing that pissed me off most was having to spend $48 on windshield wipers for Reno because the store was out of the silver and gold series in Reno's size, leaving me with no choice but to buy the Platinum ones.  $48 for wipers?  Really?  Seriously?  Do they compose f**king sonnets while they're wiping bird shit off my windows?  Do they sing the chorale from Handel's Messiah while they're clearing road salt?

* * *

We got information today at work about the possibilities that while in at work tomorrow, the weather may get really nasty.  Like, a foot of snow or an inch of ice (unilaterally, we would prefer snow, so in keeping with the idea that God Hates Me, we will doubtlessly get ice). In a not-quite-worst case scenario, we will lose power at our house.  Possibly for days.

In the worst case scenario, we will not lose power at work-- our work is in the medical field... so our building has been built to withstand oddities like Rain, Snow and the Wrath of a Wintry God Gone Berserk.  But there is always the possibility that the bad crap happens while we're here... which means, in such a case, a travel advisory could then blankets the county and we could end up stuck there at work. Warm (which is a plus) but without food, beds, or the ability to shower.

In other words, inside of two days we could become like the contestants in Survivor: Norway.

We could have to eat one another to survive.  Yes, I know there's a gas station a couple blocks away, but if we're under an emergency, who will let us in to raid the chip aisle?  Hell, who will be there to put the hot dogs on the rollers to heat them?

That alone should warn you how desperate this could become.  I could be stuck at here, at work, with only parental-guidance-blocked internet, and no heated meat entrees outside of the mystery stuff in the vending machines?  

Oh, hell with that.  I may just call in sick out of a sense of self-preservation.

* * *

Loggerheads

So I'm talking to my Lovely Fiancee™ some nights ago over the phone, and somehow the subject comes up that the kitten (our Pet-to-Be) sometimes doesn't listen when she tells it not to bite or go somewhere or do something.  Like apparently, it very sweetly and very cutely leaps onto the power supply for her computer and shuts it off without a proper shutdown sequence.  Or it endearingly rips gashes in her bare legs.  Or it makes her go Awwww as it goes into heat and yowls incessantly, parades around with its ass in the air looking for something to make it have more kittens, and forces my Lovely Fiancee™ to frantically explain to her young daughter why their male cat is not allowed in without using any animal terminology like sex-starved slut, or gaping slick orifice of cat-hell.  Or to put it in a much more urbane way of phrasing, "she is sometimes a little shit."

I could have told her this long ago, seeing that the creature in question is a kitten. I could have also gloated that the only times I worry about the fish not listening is when I'm trying to take pictures of them, and then, it's most often more of a laughing manner than a genuine "What the fuck is wrong with you!" manner.  I could have also said, "Awwwh," because this is the sound I gather most cat-lovers like to hear.  Usually followed by a cutesy variant tone of the kitty-cat's name, or "Schmookums" or something equally inane and offensive to English-speakers everywhere.  "Him's a widdwe pwetty-puss, isun't him?"

I, however, knew I was treading dangerous ground here, as I constantly am whenever we talk about the cat.  My Lovely Fiancee™ is more than just an animal lover. She is a hardcore, third generation-- possibly more-- animal lover, and is instilling that same love in her children.  She moreover loves lost-cause animals-- runts the mother has tossed aside; wounded strays who look utterly pathetic; guys who play role-playing games and haven't dated for years.  I fear that soon, between the three of them, I will be on a first-name basis with every attendant at the Indianapolis Zoo.  Most women cry during chick-flicks; my Lovely Fiancee™ cries at shows on Animal Planet.

I knew all this, and yet, I responded with one of my usual wonderfully well-thought out replies: "The cat does realize that it's not going to have complete run of the house when we move in, right?"

Numerous married men are very likely now grabbing their nutsacks in empathy.

There are a lot of things that you simply aren't allowed to do to have a long, happy marriage, and you can probably guess a few of them, such as "don't say someone else's name during sex", or "don't sit there and laugh when it turns out she's wrong."  However, when your significant other is a cat-lover (hell, any animal-lover), a whole new set of land-mines arises, around which you'd damned well better tread carefully, no matter what you think.  When discussing said animal, you are in no way expected to insinuate that A) she doesn't have control over the animal situation, B) the animal in question might be problematic, or C) that you would not be disappointed beyond measure if the animal in question accidentally fell into a wood chipper.  Any of these are akin to saying something like, "dinner was pretty good, honey, but next time you ought to try to this dish my ex-girlfriend was really good at..."  You can literally watch the air get cold enough to see your breath from one moment to the next. 

I was fortunate in that it snowed a couple nights ago, so I was better prepared for the frostiness.  But it's still like a Japanese horror movie-- it puts chills up your spine for reasons you don't really understand.

"What is that supposed to mean?"  She said.  I could have almost sworn it was a hiss.  I'm genuinely hoping it was bad cell service.

After stumbling through an apologetic reply that amounted to recanting everything, I did what every man who deeply loves his fiancee would do... I showed all the backbone of a jellyfish and tried to look for a good, legitimate compromise that would at least leave me a slight, small sliver of masculinity.  And in the meantime, while doing so, I have begun making plans for what brand of hard liquor I will bequeath the rest of my life to.  As I told my Lovely Fiancee™ earlier, there is no doubt in my mind that if we ever look at separation and divorce, that little ball of meowing fluff-- or the five to ten that are sure to come after it, because cat people can't be fucking content with one-- will almost certainly be the root cause.

So, yes, the compromise.  The problem was one I figured the internet could take care of:  I needed something to keep the pet-to-be from getting onto the counters and the furniture in the new house.  I needed a way to keep this dirty beast from turning our expensive new house into the Chateau de Felinus Fuckoff (the sort of place even non-cat lovers can immediately enter and say, oh, I see by the way your house is set up that either you own a cat or have a new child with acrobatic-contortionist DNA).  I need this cat to be a ground pet, and I need it not to sharpen its claws on our new furniture... apparently that should be preferably without de-clawing, because most cat-lovers and bleeding hearts will tell you (with a venom not unlike a Vegan card-carrying member of PETA) that de-clawing a poor widdle kitty is an inhumane torture not unlike tearing your finger down to the first knuckle.  And, no, you cannot respond thoughtfully with "No, inhumane is what I will be the first time I catch the little fucker ripping up our $500 couch or pissing on our $800 carpet because, and I quote, 'that's just what they do'," no matter how much you want to, or how much you fucking mean it.  So I looked it up, and these are the sorts of answers I found for the inquiry at various websites, help-sources and stores:

1) Citrus 
Apparently nothing says, Begone, foul thing, like oranges or grapefruit or lemons.  Also apparently, cats despise the smell of citrus, so you can spritz a lemon-water mist around places that you don't want the poor kitty to go, and it will get the hint.  Supposedly.  Admittedly, it sounds way too good to be true-- srsly?  I can keep them away from my computer by spritzing around it with lemon?  For reals?--  and it does have a far less effective rate than some of the other styles, but the big thing is that you have to keep doing it.  As in Constantly. Like, every week.  Or more.  So at some point, you have to ask yourself, do I really want to sit on a grapefruit-scented couch to go along with our orange-scented kitchen, lemony-fresh computer area, and cat-shit smelling garage?  Do I want to constantly live in a place that smells like the fucking fruit du jour?  If the words fuck, no came to mind, you would be on the right track. 

2) Cat-Away Sprays
This sort of solution sounds too good to be true!  I can spray something with this, and the special chemical pheromone mixture in it will keep the cat from spraying or clawing whatever I hose down, by making the cat feel comfortable in his surroundings!  Unless he's not, because, as the bottle notes:

"There are several reasons why a cat may urinate in your house -- medical problems, old age, the litter box is full, the cat doesn't like the litter you're using, or the box has been moved to a location the cat objects to.. the cat just feels like pissing you or your husband-- because we know no man is going to buy this except out of a sense of total fucking desperation-- off. (okay, I did sort of add that last one.) 

Urine marking is normally found on vertical surfaces, approximately 8 inches above the floor... Only a small amount of urine is discharged in a spraying effect. Male and female cats may mark -- even neutered and spayed cats.

Oh, fucking wonderful.  Now I have to also worry about the cat spreading urine on my walls (but only a small amount!  Only a little bit!  Don't worry!  Just like how you don't worry if slightly daft Uncle Walter shits himself in your kitchen, because at least A) it's mostly in his pants and B) he can't help himself)!

Oh, and on top of that, this stuff does not keep the cat from leaping on our countertops or anything above or beyond possibly spraying.  And again, we would have to use this stuff constantly.  At least for 30 days.  And lest we forget, some of these sprays cost upwards of $20 per 150 milliliters.  At that price, why don't we just walk around with Old West gunbelts on and keep spritz bottles of water in them, pulling them out to spritz away when we happen to catch the cat after it finishes with scraping dirty dust-ridden clay over its own shit and decides that means it's time to jump onto the food prep table?  That would mean the times that one or the other of us aren't at work, or that we're not busy, or we want to be in the kitchen, or... well, shit, that sort of puts that idea out to pasture, doesn't it?

3) Scat Mats
Apparently, enough people have had issues with dogs and cats getting onto the furniture that someone decided the best way to handle it was to introduce static electricity into the equation.  Now, admittedly, this was an idea I could more get behind.  You unroll this mat, place it on a 'problem area' where you don't want the thing to leap up onto, and plug it in.  Voila, instant mild instructional shock when it jumps up there.  The beautiful part of this was watching the promotional video, which actually seemed to show the cat leaping up and then leaping off as though its nuts had caught fire.  It was a thing of beauty.

Now the problems with this scenario?  Aside from the fact that I'm pretty certain that those same types who think de-clawing is terrible-oh-noes-inhumane probably think this is equally terrible-oh-noes-inhumane (in fact, they most likely think every deterrent is inhumane, and that the only steps that should be taken are to sit aside and let the cat literally walk all over you and anything within the house) there is the fact that just because you light up one counter with electricity doesn't mean another is safe.  Or the couch.  Or the upstairs.  Or the entertainment center.  Or you get the picture.  At fiftyish dollars apiece, we can get enough of these to handle the areas of the house the cat shouldn't be... if, say, we eschew buying a laundry dryer or a refrigerator.  But what the hey... we're not all that fond of drying clothes.

Along these same lines are the lesser expensive means that offer the same "The cat doesn't like it here" efforts, like double stick tape and aluminum foil.  And because God knows how cool it would be to consistently set my hands down on double-stick tape while I'm making dinner, or have to uncover the couches from their foil because company's coming over, I will not go into detail on my thoughts on them.

4) Sonic Things
Again, seemingly the perfect marriage, sonics and cat deterrent, this is another thing that sounds (Haa! Pun! Get it?) much better on the surface than it apparently is in practice.  The Sofa Scram mat, which is a little like the Scat Mat, but half the price, emits a sound not unlike a smoke detector.  Which is all we fucking need at 3 o'clock in the morning.

Sound:  BEEP.  BEEP.  BEEP.

Lovely Fiancee™: Mnnh.  What is that?
Me: It's the Scram Mat.  The fucking cat's on the furniture again.

Out Of Control Fire: *Laughs Maniacally and Consumes Downstairs*

The other one is ultrasonic, which might work.  But the price is higher.  Oh, this is me being surprised at that.

5) Claw Caps
This is one of the ideas put forward by my Lovely Fiancee™ as an alternative to the declawing issue.  And it seems to work.  For the scratching thing, at least.  Which is great!  Except I have been told they need to be changed out about every three to six months, and that this is a two person job.  And that I have been volunteered to help out to ensure the cat doesn't scratch my Lovely Fiancee™ into an indefinable bloody mess.

This also thrills me to no end.

And apparently there is no Counter Caps or Couch Caps to keep the cat from jumping onto either.  I did suggest weighted chains, but that idea has so far met with resistance.

6) Small Battery-Operated Guillotines Located At Tactical Areas Throughout The House
No, this will totally not work at all.  But I would admit that I would be a lot more inclined to be happy with this solution, if just for the designs alone. 

7)  Good Fucking Luck
Nothing you do, no matter how physically ingenious or chemically glorious, will stop the cat from scratching your sofa, leaping up onto the food-prep table with its shit-ridden paws, or doing whatever it feels like-- up to and including finding your PIN and taking money out of your bank account, when you're not there.  You can use a squirt bottle, a shook-up can of pennies, or a small flamethrower, and it will be effective.  But only while you're there.  Once you leave the room, the cat will do the feline equivalent of flipping you the bird and do it anyway.  Or if it doesn't, it will plot against you... like waiting until you're sleeping on the couch in your thin lounge pants to leap up and claw at your genitalia.

So out of these ideas, the more I look at each one, and the more I know my own luck, the more I'm thinking that we'll probably have a solution more like: 

8) I Quietly Bow to the Mandate of my Unfortunately-Cat-Crazy Lovely Fiancee™; I Do Absolutely Nothing About Said Creature, Deal with Cat Funk and Hair in my Food and Everywhere Else in Our New House,  and Begin Married Life by Having Myself Emasculated So As Not To Cause Civil Unrest.

Yeah, that about covers it.

Bli$$

So the wedding date has been officially set for about two weeks now, and I’m starting to think seriously about calling it off.

Let me try to keep people from becoming apoplectic by saying I in no way mean the marriage itself.  Oh, hell, no.  I’m all good with the being married thing.  I don’t think a lot of people realize what an unbelievably lucky bastard I am finding someone who shares a great deal of my likes, overlooks a lot of my faults and quirks, and seems-- oddly enough-- to find me enjoyable enough to be around that she wants to keep doing it.  Finding her was almost certainly the best thing that’s ever happened to me, quite possibly even better than finding ephedrine, and I have no intention of fucking that up.  No way in screw.  And I should point out that I’m not just saying that because my Lovely Fiancee™ reads this blog… although, if it wins me brownie points with her I won’t turn them down.  (As a male, I need to build up my reserve of those as quickly as possible, because I will spend the rest of my life calling them in when I inevitably do something stupid, drunk, pigheaded, or a combination of all three.)

What I’m talking about is the wedding.  As in the ceremony, and the reception that comes with it.  Look, no one wants a dashing, romantic, bigger-than-life wedding for his wife-to-be more than me.  No one wants the big, lavish, decadent Renaissance/Medeival themed celebration for their wedding more than I do.  Or to be correct in my verb tense, no one did, until the realities of things came into it… realities like, say, the ratio of “How Much Money We Have” to “What Anything Costs”.   To put it mathematically,  A ![] <  B   (or in other words, How Much Money We Have is ridiculous fuckloads less than What Anything Costs).

This sort of thinking first reared its head when we were looking for a photographer.  My understanding was that a photographer was someone who shot pictures.  In other words, like you or me, only with much more expensive cameras and equipment, a well-trained eye and a helluva lot more practice. 

And then I saw what they charge, and I realized that some photographers are artists.  Because no one else but an artist would have such a fantastical vision that I would be willing to pay $2300—on the low-range side—for someone to shoot pictures of me and my Lovely Fiancée™ on the day she becomes my Lovely Wife®.  (Quick moment of true story: We are very fortunate in that my niece referred us to a pair of photographers whose work is extremely good, and whose price was not only fair but did not make my insides crumple like a wadded-up toilet paper ball when I heard it.  So let me clarify, not every photog has a price package like that.)

That said, here’s the thing.  I’m an artist, and if I charged someone $2300 dollars for 20 pieces I made totally from scratch starting with a blank piece of paper, I would expect someone to punch me right in the nads.  It's not that I think photography is terribly easy-- quite the opposite-- or that I think it has any less artistic merit than drawing with pencil on paper… it just seems really freaking expensive to pay more than the down payment I made for my car when we’re already covering the event itself, event setting, costuming, makeup, and in most cases, booze. 

So that sort of explains my response to this sort of price quote, namely: “For that price, do we get his and hers oral sex?”

The part that galls me is that I have been told that this is actually very competitive pricing.  (My response to that was, competitive with what, heart surgery?) 

As an aside, I have made my thoughts known on other sites about artists and prices.  Being an artist myself, I would find myself very hard pressed to charge anyone more than $75 for any piece I made.  And I realize that strikes a bad chord with people... I've heard the rejoinders siding with artists charging arms and legs before: “But that’s their only means of income,” or “but they have to cover the price of equipment” or “but they do such high quality work!”  To which I say, Tom Clancy worked an insurance job while writing his first three books, and McDonald’s hires daily; if what you do doesn't make enough to cover the bills and you need the supplemental income, then you really need to do the math.  (Besides, you’re an artist!  Who cares if you demean yourself?  Demeaning yourself in the name of-- for the sake of-- art... dammit, isn't that what’s expected of us artists?!?)

Here’s my thinking.  I work a somewhat menial job that requires me to remain a little active; causes me at least a slight bit of stress; and in which I have to deal sometimes with inane questions, people who do stupid things, and a lot of laziness and politics-- same as just about anyone else who works anywhere in blue-collar/low white-collar places.  And like many other people, my job is not what I’d prefer to be doing, even if I like it.  At said job, I net somewhere in the area of $90 a day… maybe as much as $150 when I’m pulling overtime.

So maybe you can understand why my blood pressure spikes like the jab of a syringe full of adrenaline to my chest when I see that someone is suggesting that them shooting pictures for somewhere from five to eight hours is a competitive rate… and that competitive rate just happens to be the equivalent of me working my job for a month.

And you know, I could even understand-- and maybe even get behind that-- if the photographer were the only expense.  But according to the numerous checklists I’ve looked over, the photographer is barely the tip of the Titanic-Killing-Iceberg that is the modern wedding and reception.  In fact, the photographer is the stuff that falls on the deck and is just enough to chill the drinks.  The average—yes, average­—cost of a traditional American wedding is $22,000.   

Twenty.  Two.  Thousand.  Dollars.

It hurts to fucking say it, let alone consider paying it.  Hell, I  paid $22,000 for my car only when you added in the insane annual high-risk percentage rate and the fact I’d be paying on it for six solid years.   That’s 1/6 of the price of my not-yet-built house!  Holy scrod, it’s no wonder everyone opts for common-law marriages anymore!   Or a JoP or Vegas deal... License, check; blood test, check; bam!  Thank you, have a nice day-- it's the Home Depot of instant gratification wedded bliss, and it's cheap!

Fortunately, my Lovely Fiancée™ realizes what a cash-strapped bastard I am, and as such has mostly gone along with me on certain ‘budget cuts’ that I have suggested for our wedding, including making the reception a pitch-in, holding the wedding at a retreat center (it’s a pretty retreat center, though!), and having our wedding and reception music on an mp3 player and speaker system rather than hiring a DJ or band.  Alone, that’s cut us down about $4500, which can instead go to the sort of trivial things that we might otherwise have to eschew; things that make a house truly a home-- like, say, food or heat… or walls. 

She’s holding firm on some areas, however, and because this is her special day as well, I guess I can’t begrudge her those things.  So I can probably get by without finding old wedding napkins, crossing out the names and writing in ours.  We don’t necessarily have to see what wedding cakes go unclaimed at the bakery and haggle for a reduced cost.  We can decorate the tables without re-using last year’s Halloween decorations.  

But I think we’re still going to look carefully at some of my ideas.  I mean, who needs rice when they can toss pouches of freshly shredded credit card applications?

FOOTNOTE: Lovely Wife® is a registered trademark of Anonymous Moron Enterprises, and is only used for purposes of demonstration.

Resolute

So everyone lately has been asking me what my New Year's Resolutions were.  I've always hated the idea of New year's Resolutions... not just because of the assertion in them that I'm not perfect (which we know not to be the case), but because the word resolution has such a grim, thickly final sound to it.  And by all rights, it should sound very final.  That's appropriate for a true resolution, after all.  The word resolution has its base in resolve.  One is resolved-- determined, staunchly firm in purpose, resolute-- to do something to make themselves a better person over the coming year. 

The problem is that no one takes their New Year's Resolutions that seriously.  No one ever plans for them, or takes steps to ensure that they accomplish them.   Hell, the only reason anyone even makes resolutions is because it's traditional, or because their friends are doing it and it's something to talk about over mocha lattes and finger food at the local coffee pub.  That's not a resolution.  On Facebook, we would be called a meme, and 90% of your acquaintances would ignore it if you posted it.  (And most likely, out of the other 10%, at least half of them agree to everything you say, anyway.)   Every year, I hear someone chuckle about how they're going to lose weight this year, or exercise more, or do something more often, or insert your clever riposte here... and you can look at them and tell that by February, they're going to forget they even said it.   That's not a resolution... that's a conversational gambit.

A resolution should have the weight of a set of proper bull's nards.   Resolutions were what were made in Parliament to remove absolute monarchy from England.  Resolutions were what were made in the Continental Congress to disengage from being British subjects.  Almost no one in the modern age, especially with the attention-deficit-issues and instant gratification mindset of Joe Internet User, is qualified to make a true resolution.  

So I no longer make resolutions, per se.  I do, however, tend to make myself a nice list of goals that I call Hopeta's.   I make a large list of goals I'd really like to accomplish over the coming year-- this can include things I'd like to buy for myself, places I'd like to go, things I'd like to do, betterment of myself that I'd like to make, or anything of the like.  The list is intentionally big... and every year, I hope to (thus the name) hit about 50% of those goals.  My thought process is that anything more than 50% is a pretty damned good year, and it keeps me from the all-or-nothing mindset of having a single 'resolution'.

So without further ado, here is a few of my 2011 Hopeta's.

In 2011, I Hope To spend at least thirty minutes a day (preferably an hour), five days a week, occupied in some form of activity that can at least functionally be called exercise.   This does not include walking around at work or standing up to cook dinner.  As an aside, it would most likely make a huge difference in a lot of people's lives if they followed the suggestions for the NFL's Play 60 for kids.   One hour of honest-to-goodness healthy activity per day-- running,  walking, biking; doing anything besides just sitting around-- would be a good goal for anyone.

In 2011, I Hope To have our house built and not be crushed under the weight of a monthly mortgage.  (As another aside, thaaaaank you, economy, for deciding to f***ing make the housing market rebound four f***ing months before I'm eligible to lock in an interest rate.  So now, instead of a 4.25%, I get to hope like f*** that we can still manage to swing a 5% in April.  Or in other words, I get to hope like f*** that we only pay $50 a month more on our mortgage payment.  You know, $50 that we might have been able to use on... I dunno.... food, or utilities, or bailing me out of jail when I get arrested for vagrancy while holding up a "Need Money Please Help God Bless" sign at the highway off-ramp.)

In 2011, I Hope To move my Lovely Fiancee™ up from Florida to our new home in wonderful Indianapolis, Indiana, and do my best to make her forget that winters here are the primary reason why people generally choose to move to Florida in the first place.

In 2011, I Hope To learn that fatherhood-- at least step-fatherhood-- means a lot more than just saying, "Sweet Mother of God, DON'T--!!" and "What did your mother say?"  I'm sure it does.  I am just looking forward with both excitement and terror to learn what exactly it entails.

In 2011, I Hope To get  my gaming company-- the same one I've been trying to get started on and off for the past three years-- off the ground, if for no other reason than to justify the amount of money I will be paying next year to keep its website running.

In 2011, I Hope To be a lot more creative than I did last year.  I would love to add to that, but nothing is coming to mind over it.  That is probably A Bad Sign.

In 2011, I Hope To be less judgemental than I was last year.  You know, like when it throws me into a frothing rage because someone did something so absolutely, incontrovertibly Stupid, Self-Serving, Inept, Unthinking, Egocentric, Dimwitted, or Lazy and I call them Moronic/Insolent/Pea-brained/C****ucking/Assheaded/Reprobate/Retard/Choadsmoking/Irredeemable/Imbecilic/Douchebags/Dumbasses/Sh**-for-Brains/Any number of other insults.  Instead, I will take a few moments, count to ten, and try to see everything from their point of view.  And only then, if I cannot find a way to justify it, will I go into a frothing rage and let the profanities fly.

And finally, In 2011, I Hope To survive through to 2012.  That would be an important thing.  Cause God knows, I can't wait to do another one of these 'Resolution' blogs next year.

Oh, yeah.  And I Hopeta about that marrying thing, too.  Cause, dammit, I know what's good for me. XD

Giftwarped

It seems like this time of year is always hectic to the point of distraction.  There's always the last-minute gift-buying, the wrapping and decorating, the endless family celebrations, the prepwork for Christmas dinner, the bit where I become an overglorified chauffeur, and all those other memorable Christmas traditions that I might be forgetting in the glorious haze of the season.  Usually those things are enough to keep me in a wonderful frothy-mouthed furor over the week or so before Christmas, so when I lucked into the opportunity to take the week before Christmas off work, I was stoked.  The good news was that taking that week off allowed me to not-quite froth at the usual amount of Christmas cheer.  The bad was that I had five days  where it was in effect hopeless for me to try to get a whole lot of writing or other creativity done.  That's sort of sad in its own way, because one of the best Christmas gifts I could have ever gotten myself would have been to sit down and churn out a good thirty pages of prose. 

As sort of a related theme, I do buy Christmas presents for myself, mostly because I am the only one who apparently really knows what I want.  I am always thankful for everything I get, and my family is generally more thoughtful and touching when it comes to gift-giving than almost anyone I know.  But every year I am henpecked by my mother into putting a list together of the things that I want for Christmas, and every year, I rack my brain from September to Early November thinking of things to write, and finally fail dismally and fall back on the old standards, clothes and DVD's.  Worse than that, they're usually items that A) I don't want enough to actually go out and get it for myself before Christmas, and preferably ones that B) are not too terribly technical in detail. 

I love my family dearly and desperately, but there is no way on God's Green Earth I would give free rein for every member of my family to buy me electronic gear for Christmas.  No effin' way.  See, there is a pretty frightening anti-technical bias in some portions of my family, and sure enough, they would be the ones who decide, "Oooo, he wants this sort of thing.  Family Dollar Electronics Counter, ho!"

That's mean, I realize.  And I know members of my family who would do just fine, if they were buying for me, but damned if I want to take the chance.  We all know people that just have no affinity for electronics... hell, I've had to install software and troubleshoot hardware, TV's, VCR's, digital cameras, mp3 players, CD players, stereo systems and light bulbs for some people before.  And my mother, who is niceness and sugary sweetness personified, actively hates the onslaught of technology.  I'm half-sure that she is terrified her DVD player is going to leap off the entertainment center and devour her.

If I told her that all I wanted an ATI Radeon video card with a gig of onboard memory and a TV-out for Christmas, she would very likely look at me with that sort of desperate "Oh God, please help me" look that cats get when you hold them over a sausage grinder and tell them to justify their existences or perish.  (Or, I guess, to put it another way, the sort of look I get on my face when my Lovely Fiancee™ asks me what she just said ten seconds ago, usually during the fourth quarter of a football game.) And really, that's okay.  Not everyone cares to know technical things like, say, what SD Card, or USB Hub, or Two-Disc Special Edition in Widescreen Format means.

I don't often like leaving my electronic decisions to other people, anyway.  A lot of that stems from the fact that-- given any choice in the matter-- people invariably do no research and will just buy either the biggest name or the cheapest alternative.  If you ask for an mp3 player, you will either get one of the Apple (our motto: Quality Comes At Only 4.75 Times Market Price) iPays or some knockoff brand that no one-- quite possibly including its creators-- has ever heard of.  You know the ones... the ones that look vaguely similar to a name brand, but have a brand name like Tanguay or Sansonic.  The ones with no software of their own and an instruction booklet in eight languages, one of which is More Or Less English.  The ones that you sometimes have to hold at an obscene angle to get it to work properly. 

Guess which ones I have more experience with.

And although I will be a lot more content to trust my Lovely Fiancee™ with that sort of thing-- after all, she is partially Lovely because she comprehends technical stuff  (Quick aside... she gave me just two gifts this year: a homemade plush retarded basilisk and a light-up 20-sided die.  Say it with me, now:  Best.  Fiancée.  Evar.)-- I really have no problem with buying my own electronics and technical things my own self.  So that means I usually end up putting the same things on those Christmas Lists-- DVD's and CD's that I haven't gotten around to buying, housewares in which brand name doesn't mean a whole lot, and clothes.

Sometimes I will couch one more thing in my list just to see if people are paying attention when they read it.  One year I asked for A Movie In Which Liam Neeson says "Motherfucker."  Other requests, from years past:

• 55 More Cubic Feet of Space in my Bedroom. 
• Amiable Companionship (Preferably Non-Inflatable)
• World Peace Everywhere Except Tanzania and Nepal
• A Getaway Car, Gassed Up and Running Outside
• Injectable Happiness

The unofficial running story is that Santa Claus had a brain hemorrhage and died after reading one of my requests... and the excuse I plan to give my own children when their gifts suck.

Viral

Well, this whole write-daily-thing failed pretty fucking spectacularly, didn't it?

No blogs the last few days, as I have spent my waking time both busy as hell and convalescing from what I can only assume is one of the most terrible cases of the 24-hour stomach virus ever recorded.  Srsly.  It started as a normal enough day--  I got up, showered, prepped myself to go to work, drove the half-hour or so to clock in, sat down at my desk-- and then, quite before I knew what was happening, I was bent over a toilet and blowing chow like a college binge drinker after the big frat party.

There is nothing that will ruin your day faster than a hardcore, bona-fide evil stomach evacuation.  And this wasn't your normal "Oh, I feel a touch ill" brands of dainty bad-taste-in-the-mouth vomit either... this was full-bore projectile horking that had the blow pressure of a freaking fire hose.  I wish I could say it was over in the 24 hours one would think should be allotted to a 24-hour virus, but oh no, it doesn't completely feel like it... I still have this constant pressure in my stomach that makes it feel like every time I sit down I will either puke with the pressure and force of a jet exhaust, or belch the Anvil Chorus and literally raise the dead with the sheer volume.  It frightens and annoys me.  See, this bunch of chundering was physically painful-- it literally caused my upper body to buck, like some sort of vomit bronco.  I still have pains in my back and sides from where I apparently strained muscles in my sides while communing with spirits in the toilet drain.

Yes.  That is impressive.  Try telling your significant other that you strained a muscle blowing chow, by the way. See what sympathy you get.  My guess is none.  My Lovely Fiancee™ was more amused by my muscle strains than anything. 

And yes, I just spent three paragraphs talking about regurgitation.  There's probably some sort of allegory to my ability to write in there somewhere, but I'm choosing to take the high road and not bring it up.

So at any rate, I spent the first couple days on a more or less liquid diet and got really used to drinking Gatorade and Powerade and chicken broth, and discovered two things:

1) Lemon-lime Powerade: I served with Lemon-Lime Gatorade; I knew Lemon-Lime Gatorade; Lemon-Lime Gatorade was a friend of mine.  You are no Lemon-Lime Gatorade.  Although your cousin Orange isn't terribly bad.

2) One sure way to kill me slowly and painfully is to ensure I cannot eat solid foods. I died a hundred times thinking about how hungry I was and how much I wanted a pizza but any thoughts of pizza made my stomach do one of those flip-flop "made you think I was gonna hurl" motions. And then I had to sate myself with a cup of chicken broth... which is a little like having a taste for steak and having to make do with a slightly underdone microwave burrito.  It's not that the chicken broth is bad.  It's just not fulfilling.

The multicolored rehashes of last night's dinners and weird pressure in my stomach aside, that's probably the worst part of it... not having the ability to eat and/or drink what I want.  And that, most especially, includes caffeine.

Caffeine withdrawal is the worst feeling in the world.  Okay, second worst feeling in the world, right behind Singing Yack Songs With the Tidy-Bowl Choir at Firehose Pressure.  But it's right up there.  Imagine doing everything with a headache that blurs your vision, and being forced to speak in one-syllable words, even when there are no one-syllable words for what you need to express.  Imagine a bull elephant sitting on a barstool on top of your head, and then holding up a hundred dollar bill to get a lapdance... from a blue whale.  Imagine your brain processes losing what makes them hyperreal and instead becoming slow, sluggish little cretinous things that decide unilaterally to take a break from doing constructive work and instead gather around watching sitcoms on the couch while they spray cheeze whiz from the can directly into their mouths.  Imagine that, and you have an idea what it's like to suffer from caffeine withdrawal.

I fear for the day that the doctor tells me, "We're going to have to cut down your caffeine intake."

I fear worse for when he just stares negatively at me after I respond, "...because we've found a legal way to put me on speed, right?"

I realize that it has now become vogue for people to say that they try to stay away from caffeine, or that their lives are healthier because they no drink Caffeine-Free Diet Mountain Dew.  And they can certainly feel free to do that. (Although my personal take is that if you're taking the caffeine and sugar out of Mountain Dew, shouldn't you just drink a sixteen ounce can of non-alcoholic beer and be done with it?  No one drinks Mountain Dew for taste, anymore than people drink beer for its thirst-quenching ability or Goldschlager for the cinnamon-fresh breath it leaves them.)  Caffeine, people say, is a terrible detriment to people.  It makes them jumpy.  It makes them irritable.  It can cause arrhythmia.  It's a horrible substance.

And I'm in total agreement in some cases.  I have seen some people-- some children, especially-- that need to be drinking caffeinated beverages about as much as I need to have a bad case of the shakes and an open-blade razor.  And much like you, I immediately want to jam a syringe full of horse tranquilizers into their carotid artery when I see them doing it. There is a single important, fundamental difference between the way those people act on caffeine and the way I do: I don't annoy me.

Except maybe when I get sick.  But that sort of goes without saying.

Seasons

I woke up yesterday morning to "flurries".

A quick note to all budding meteorologists, weatherpersons, and aspiring pseudo-scientists: "Flurries" do not impair vision.  Nor do they remain on the ground when common sense says that the ground is too warm for accumulation.  This would be what we call "snow."  It is a bona-fide sign that despite our best efforts, we're going to have to endure another winter in Indiana. Sigh.

I have this love-hate relationship with winter this year.

On the one hand, winter means that time's a-movin' on, and the more time a-moves, the closer I get to bringing my Lovely Fiancee™ up from the steamy swamps of Florida to the heartland of America and into our new home.  Our new home, I might add, that will be built as winter makes its way into spring.  That's always something to look forward to.  Then there's the bowl season and NFL playoffs in winter.  The happiness of Christmas is in winter.  The joy of a New Year is in winter.  The wonder of Groundhog Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and the Feast of the Epiphany are in winter... come on, who doesn't enjoy a good Epiphany party?

On the other hand, my kneejerk reaction is to say fuck you, winter, fuck you, cold, fuck you, High of 27 degrees days,because winter is the cold-ass, snowy, icy, bitterly frigid donkey-prick of seasons.  Everything that is relatively easy and carefree in any other season becomes an absolute pain-in-the-butt chore in winter.  Getting outside to pump gas in winter blows.  Using more gas because you have to spend fifteen minutes warming up the car blows.  Being forced to warm up your car because the ice on your windshield is too thick to see through blows.  Waiting for buses in winter blows.  Shoveling snow from your walk blows.  Salt discoloration on car paint blows.  Being forced to jack up all your utility bills to stay warm blows.  Tracked-in snow on new carpet blows.  Driving on snow blows.  Driving on snow behind Indiana drivers who forget from year to year how to drive on snow blows.  Ice blows.  Even in most drinks.

Okay, to be both fair and honest, there's a lot more hate than love to this year's relationship.

My usual views on Hoosier winters are pretty much the matter of public record.  I was born in a winter, and that was more or less the highlight-- they've progressively taken nosedives from there.  This reached a nice bloody head a couple of years back, when a chance wintertime meeting with a semi-trailer resulted in the untimely death of my Ford Escort (An aside: I loved that car, not just because it was paid off, but enough that I named it "Escort"... just because I am that creative with my names for cars.  To wit, my Suzuki Reno is named "Reno", my Pontiac Sunfire was named "Sunfire", and my Dodge Aries K car was named "K".  I also once owned a very used Chevy Caprice that I named "Deathtrap" which quite by coincidence caught fire on the highway, and a 1980 Ford Country Squire Station Wagon which could not be contained by one true name... and about which hazy legends and frightening rumors still abound.  But I digress, for now.)

So yes, I'm inclined to side with my kneejerk side here, that the only good thing to come out of winter is a fuller appreciation of how much more summer could suck.  Once fall has had its share of us and saunters off for a year, and the skies turn grey, nasty, cold, and ready to spit down frozen bullets of sleet, I generally enter total fuckall mode.  This sort of weather is going to be very fun for my Lovely Fiancee™, and my family-to-be, all of whom thus far has yet to even see real snow (i.e., anything that registers more than a light dusting on the grass).   I imagine that will have a lot of excitement for the first couple minutes: 

Minute 1:  "Oh, look, honey, it's snowing!  It's those really big flakes, too, like they show on the Christmas cards!  And it's happening in October, too!  I never thought that Al Gore was right and that we were going to experience a radical change of seasons, but it's sort of cool that we'll have to make the kids wear coats beneath their Halloween costumes!"

Minute 3:  "It is so pretty out there, everything looks so peaceful!  I'm going to put on my coat and go out there with the kids and just enjoy the moment!"

Minute 3.25:  "Holy fuck Jesus, what is it, ten fucking degrees out there?  Fuck, give me a loaded coffee or something to warm up!  It's pretty, but screw that, I'll watch it from the window."

Minute 25: "Uhm.  It's still falling pretty heavy.  Does it ever stop?  I mean, we can't even see the driveway now."

Minute 45: "Wow.  I can see why you hate that stuff.  I just saw the neighbor skid into a tree three yards over."

Minute 75: "It's still not stopping.  We're going to die, aren't we?  Like the Donner Party, only much worse because we're inside a house and look more pathetic that way."

Hour 3: "What do you mean, only four inches?  We could get more?"

I do feel a little twinge of guilt for pulling my Lovely Fiancee™ and the kids away from their tropical paradise of a home.  But I'm sure that they'll get used to snow-covered evergreens and frozen retention ponds instead of palm trees and balmy sea breezes, and I fully expect that eventually, they will come to look forward to cold weather.  Someday, I am hopeful that we all will enjoy winters in Indiana the same way that I do.

Which is to say, from far away.  Say, the Bahamas.

Automotivation

So, you might have noticed that I wasn't here yesterday.

Okay, so actually, you probably didn't, but I like to pretend that I provide something to a select few people-- be it a little bit of escapism, a momentary enjoyable read, a measuring bar to point at and say if I ever get that low you should put me out of my misery, whatever--  so humor me.  

On my way home from work Friday, as I was getting on the highway, my car's brake and battery lights both came on.  As a car driver, there is nothing quite as stomach-churning and sickening as red lights on the dashboard just as you are accelerating to a speed that places you right alongside an 18-wheeler, especially when you're a solid 30 miles from home.  I checked my emergency brake and made sure I had no other battery-related things running, like the dome lights or cigarette lighter, or little vagabond kids screwing with the automatic windows, but everything checked out clean.  Fortunately, a few moments before I was about to go into full-on Why me, Why now, Why the Fuck mode, the two lights went out.  Fearing the worst, I cautiously went a very proper (and very unlike me) 55 miles an hour the whole way home.  The lights never again came on.  Admittedly, I sort of put it out of my head.

I had to make a run to my friends' house that night, and upon starting Reno (that's the name of my car, for those who are unaware) in the driveway, the red dash lights came on again.  And right about the time I caught my breath and was about to say "I wonder what the hell is up", they went out again.

By that time, it was patently obvious in my head that my car was fucking with me.   Haaaaa!  Made you go a legit speed limit, fucker!  This is for not taking me to the car wash after that flock of birds treated me like a four-wheeled toilet.  Oh, and that $2.31 a gallon swill you put in my tank... let me tell you, there are such things as standards of good taste, and you skirt them every off-pay day, you bastard! 

So I make an appointment with my dealership to take Reno in on Monday.  Let me be really clear and frank about a couple things here.  First, the people I've worked with when I've had to bring Reno to the dealership for repairs or maintenance are some of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet.  That said, there are two places I utterly, without reservation, hate to go: hospitals and auto repair shops.  Hospitals are for more obvious reasons, naturally.  

But auto repair shops know me on sight.  I'm the guy with the seemingly invisible tattoo on my forehead that says, "Potential Pillage Victim."  I'm not a complete prat; I do know a little about cars, other than the fact that I have to get in one to go somewhere.  I know-- in theory-- where all the fluids go; I know how to change tires and wiper blades and filters; I know that I should have certain types of maintenance every few months; I know that these certain types of maintenance always cost 20-50% more than they're ever advertised at, because exchanges like this always take place:

Repairman: So we've drained your oil; what are we going to fill you with?  Same stuff we did before, 5W30?
Me: (Trying to appear confident) Yes, definitely.
Repairman: Synthetic blend?
Me: (Smiling)  Of course.
Repairman: I notice you haven't changed your air filter; it's looking a little dirty.  Want us to take care of that?
Me: (Nervously)  Uhm.
Repairman:  It's no worries.  Your car probably doesn't need it to keep up with all the other cars in its model class.  It'll just lag a little bit behind.  Like the special-ed student with a helmet.  MPG will drop like a rock, but that's okay.  You probably just drive down the block and back, right?
Me: (More nervously)  No, I drive across town to work.  Crap.  Uhm, I guess, if it's not too expensive.
Repairman:  Nah, it's the cheapest repair we do.  Expensive, though?  If you don't change the shot PDG bearing we found; if it's not changed, the whole transmission could go... that would be expensive.  Wouldn't want that, would you?
Me: (Completely blank stare)  I... I...
Repairman: Of course you wouldn't.  I also see your framistat gasket housing is not properly sealed.
Me: (Helplessly)  Is... is that important?
Repairman: (Gives the over-the-glasses "Are You Kidding Me?" look, sort of like my Lovely Fiancee™ when I ask if we really need to keep the cat.)
Me:  O-okay, fine.
Repairman: Excellent, sir.  Rough estimate is $1700, and we should be done with you in about four hours; in the meantime, you can feel free to enjoy our waiting room, where we have some free turgid coffee, and you can watch some brain-cell deadening daytime network TV and fold yourself into a fetal position while you wait.

I am exceedingly fortunate for my Lovely Fiancee™, who knows more than her fair share about cars.  I wish she were here now.   She might have been able to tell me exactly why I stayed five and a half hours at the dealership after they couldn't reproduce the problem and paid $250 for preventative maintenance that we both agreed would likely do nothing about the lights coming on.  No, my repairpeople couldn't duplicate the issue, and couldn't find any reason why it was happening (if in fact I wasn't hallucinating it.  Twice.  While not being on drugs at the time).  The alternator was fine.  The battery was fine.  The electrical system was fine.  The computer wouldn't tell what the issue was.   And in the meantime, while they tried to diagnose the issue, I sat through Good Morning America, Live with Regis and Kelly, The View, the Noon News, part of All My Children and at least one other show that I think my subconscious has mercifully purged from my memory, because there was no remote to change the channel.  Preferably to off.   (Especially The View.  You could make a convincing drinking game by taking a shot every time someone on that show says something that you honestly believe they need to be backhanded for.)

And while the dealership couldn't figure the battery and brake lights issue, they did discover my brake pads were worn to almost nothing... y'know, just to make sure I didn't leave there with a full wallet or anything.  I guess that it was probably be nice to find that out from them, rather than learning about it shortly before ramming full speed into a school bus full of children.  So there is that.  But I still get the feeling that those dashboard lights were just a cry for help.  Maybe Reno's just depressed, and if so, I in effect just paid his therapy bill by buying him something nice to wear.

Next time, though, I'm gonna see if a nice pine-scented air-freshener will do the trick.  With the money I make, only one of us can afford to be medicated.