It's Awful Weird in Here

 No, really, they're getting to me. It's particularly bad this time and I'm not sure why.

The Street Improvement Fleet is out, days after I was assured they were done.

The particular event causing the problem is the one where the entire high school marching band is given large hammers and larger piece of metal and they stand there, banging on it, while the driller trucks jam along. The weird part(?) is that although I could probably sleep through it, it's killing what precious little concentration I have for work.

My entire department seems to have taken the day off for National Worm Day and once again, I never got the memo. I don't get the memo a lot. I think I'm either missing from the list or someone filters the good stuff out of my email before I get it.

The work lately has tripled. Because I'm the only one in, the math says my workload has increased 127 times. I didn't do well in math either. Each little piece of work comes with 12 pages of paperwork, making my load increase 4193%.  All this math makes my head hurt. It also makes me wonder what my coworkers are doing on National Worm Day. I'm sure some of them have been preparing all month. They seem to really go all out for their worms. It's a good thing most of us work from home. If we all worked in the office, National Tarantula Day would be hysterical. 

Your love is like  a house without chocolate

• Ah, Microsoft, you've done it again. Thirty minutes to update. Switched my mouse buttons - but mixed up left and right. Outlook only opens full screen, no matter how many times I set it to my preferences.
• Windows: it's not an operating system, it's a virus

So What's Up with the Car? 

The collision shop hasn't called.

Did you get a rental? 

The Rental Gods took pity on us. The place that rhymes with Renterprise came through for us, procuring a really nice car for the original price.

Keeping in mind that I'm thrilled to have a car that I can play tunes via Bluetooth, the rental was like a space ship's control panel. There was a huge display that warned us not to be distracted by it. As it wasn't a touchscreen, I wasn't too distracted. It was keen to show me the radio station, its genre, and what song was playing. Since local radio scrapes the bottom of the poop barrel, it held little fascination. I wondered if it showed anything interesting, like movies while driving, or pr0n, but didn't get a lot of time with it.

The air conditioner did its best impression of the Tsunami that hit Japan and I lacked the degree necessary to change the degrees. Mrs. lefty likes when the air conditioner blows her lips back and her tongue flaps around in the breeze. Oddly enough, the dog does too.

After finally getting a car with a dongle(?) that allows the car to start when it's in my pocket, it was weird to have to put it in the ignition, like a regular old key. The most fun of driving it home was shifting. The outside of the car said "3 Wheel Drive 5 Speed Automatic Transmission," so I knew I was in for a treat. I banged my hand right into my Snapple, looking for the shifter. That's because it wasn't there. It had somehow migrated back to the column. But this particular spaceship had some sort of electronic transmission because you moved the small lever and watched the gear change on the display. This meant every time I tried to run the wipers, I shifted into reverse, which is a bit of a surprise at 60mph (97 euros).

I asked Mrs. lefty if she wanted to know anything about the car and got poo-pooed. "I raced cars and bikes. I think I've got this."  Ok, you've got this. Ten minutes after she left, she came through the front door and asked how to drive the damn thing. She hadn't figured out how to shift it. So the guy who didn't race cars or bikes or much of anything else besides couches, had to tell her how to do it. It's moments like this that make marriage worthwhile. I'm always right, but never tire of hearing it.

The seats were incredible on their own. It was scary after they started asking me if I needed more lumbar support and was I close enough. I told it to save my preferences under codename lefty. It laser-measured so the wheel and mirrors automatically adjusted themselves. It wanted to know if I was up to driving, as I looked a little depressed (Dave). I fooled the system by telling it I was just overwhelmed by all the choices to operate the car. I'm surprised it let Mrs. lefty drive at all, if it was checking mental health. Think about it... a mental health car sensor that comes across a bipolar with multiple personalities... "How many of you will be driving? Don't tap your foot on the pedal so fast. I cannot adjust the seat for each one of you." At last check, the car wasn't in the driveway, so I guess it let her take off.

It was a... SUV? Station wagon, sorta. Regardless of which, cars aren't built to carry things anymore. No matter how large, they're still short of room. Plus Mrs. lefty travels light, with 17 jumbo cases and 27 hanging garments, for a weekend away. By the time she was done packing, by which I mean I was done packing, the dog was wondering where she'd sit. 

It will be interesting to get her impressions of the car after her trip (Mrs. lefty, not the dog). I hope she doesn't fall in love with it, because it's probably about $100,000 more than our new one. She'll have to get her own corner to pay for it. And I get my 1957 left handed Stratocaster first.

• Study finds crayfish treated with antidepressants become more outgoing, adventurous
• side effects include not being able to get their claw up...

Definition of scum?

The subhuman in Lowes that stole Mrs. lefty's cane.

Today I identify as someone who is going to ram a cane so far up someone's ass that even surgery will not remove it

• apparently I have sprouted a gray eyelash. One.
• I can't find it, but I always see a reflection off it.
• it's driving me so crazy - I may stab my eye to stop it

Didja ever have someone call you for directions?

When they're lost.

And you have no idea where those roads are.

And no one seems capable of typing "google maps" into a browser.

And the people in the car are talking across each other.

And family calls them to give them weird directions.

And a nice person gives them correct directions.

And you hang up.

And they call you back, to give you a running description of what turns they're making to get back to the main road.

And they ask you if they're supposed to make a right or left at the 7-11?

Me either.

• It occurs that, if left alone, I'd just sit, with my laptop, reading and churning out blog entries, until I eventually wound up as a pile of dust on the couch. I guess my question would be if the couch still sat in the house, or if it wound up on a heap somewhere. At that point, I suspect I wouldn't care.

• Second FBI Agent in Two Months Arrested for Raping, Molesting Children
• where do they find the time, after setting up crimes so they can bust them?

I woke up with the chickens, at 1:00(pm) and surveyed the house. There's a lot to be done, so my immediate instinct was to go back to sleep. It's probably 90-something outside, so that rules out mowing  Let's face it - anything rules out mowing.

There's a huge box in the living room. This isn't really a surprise, as Fedex has a daily stop at the house. This one isn't quite as large as the monolith in 2001 A Space Odyssey, but I'm content to leave it there until it becomes part of the landscape. Unfortunately, a certain spousal unit will not let it sit there, so I guess it's my job to do something about it. I thought I already did something about it by moving it into the house, after the very amused driver left it outside on half the plants Mrs. lefty just put in. The box weighs about as much as a Toyota, so I'm not going to be swinging it around the room. I desperately need a hobby. Not sure why swinging heavy boxes about the place would be a good hobby, or that I'd even swing things around the house in the first place. They always tell me I should get out more, but have yet to provide a good enough justification for their claim.

I'm guessing the box is a specialized recliner, as there's a picture of a recliner and the word RECLINER on it. I didn't get this far without a healthy intellect.

Before I go further, every now and then when a large box shows up, I ask about it. I feel entitled to question it every 12 boxes or so. Wife explains that once a year, she buys a House Gift. The funny thing about this is that I'm never consulted about this alleged House Gift, and it never seems to have anything to do with me, or anything I can use. I am going to put my foot down next year and buy the house a left handed vintage guitar. The house has gone about 50 years without one, and I think you'll agree that it's time. 

Now we don't actually need a recliner, hence my confusion. Checking the fine print on the box, it has some sort of assistive technology, meaning it helps you stand up after you're done sitting. Mrs. lefty could really use something like this, as fibromyalgia and other ailments are taking their toll on her. 

So I have an idea.

If 120 volts gently helps her get up, imagine what 220 volts will do! I've always wanted to see an Ejector Seat, haven't you? I'm going to put one in the car, but I have to find out if we're getting our car back from the shop or we have to get another one. So far I figure I need a moon roof, so I have my trusty can opener ready. No sense ejecting someone when there's a roof there. The only issue I see is that I have to make sure I'm driving when it's activated. That could cause major difficulty and I don't want to have to explain it to the police.

The seat will theoretically sit next to my tiny little living room amplifier, so I'll have to make sure I point it her way. They payoff for me, aside from it ejecting her through the house's roof, is that it will put her next to the tv. This will cut down the earth-shaking volume she prefers. When a phone rings on tv, I immediately reach for my phone, get it? It's really bad when someone screams... this is why she's not allowed to watch horror films. I was going to run the tv through headphones, but haven't figured that out yet, plus we don't know of any phones that will put out enough volume for her. She can also trip over wireless headphones, a fact that's slowing down the effort. She's particularly bad on flat surfaces, which is why our carpet is made of rubber and all furniture has bumpers. I trip too, but it doesn't have quite the comic potential of hers.

I plan to have this recliner in place before she returns from visiting some relatives. It will be a pleasant surprise, and will hopefully cover for not mowing the lawn. As it's a smallish box, I guess it will have to be assembled. That should be fun. At least it's not from Ikea.

Mrs. lefty's absence is made twice as bad as she takes the dog with her. So I walk around the house, talking to the dog who isn't there. Maybe I can borrow a dog next time. Mrs. lefty tells me that if I talk to the dog who isn't here and the dog talks back, it's a bad thing and I should call the doctors.

I figure this would be a good time to do those things I can't do while Wife is home, then realize I can do whatever I want, with the possible exception of sleeping with Linda Fiorentino. When I think about it, I will actually do less, because I won't be doing things just to piss her off. This takes up a lot of my time. A previous girlfriend said my parents were so generous with gifts because they were thankful she took me off their hands.

Three Hours Later...  

It's here. Well, it was here, but it's put together and sitting in its place. It's chocolate colored, which damn near almost matches the other chair, but not really. I guess the color swatches didn't arrive in time. 

Before you pick on me for getting furniture that comes in a box and has to be assembled.... ummm... I didn't do it - SHE did. Nyah nyah. So I'm white trash... it ain't duh foist time youz called me dat.

Perhaps I get points for the fact it only came in two pieces. The problem, now that I look at it, is that when sitting, her chair is a few inches taller than my chair, which will cause a problem. For me, of course. My phone was bigger than hers until she got a new one. At least I still had more megapixels. Phew.

When you move old furniture to make room, you vacuum, because there's no telling what you'll find under there.... dust, fish, scraps of paper, a Wankel rotary engine, and the cast of Hamilton. This was the good vacuum, so it got everything up, except for a few of the musicians for Hamilton. I could use a drummer anyway.

Like any man, I ignored the instructions and proceeded right to assembly. Well, I didn't so much ignore them as not see them. They hide them inside the stuffing of one of the armrests and it's your job to figure out which. I told myself to proceed slowly, and that the red plugs probably plugged into the red jacks. Same with the white ones. Naturally there was one left. There is a flap on the rear to cover up all the workings and it wouldn't stay put, so I had to use my forehead to keep it in place, while I pushed the chair up on its front legs so I could see what I was doing and find the errant red plug. Eventually I located it, hidden way up in the front of the chair, while I was, strangely enough, way back in the back of the chair. When I eventually found the instructions, one of the Frequently Asked Questions was "Where are all the wires?"  Well, if that's a FAQ, you've obviously screwed up on your manufacturing or quality control. Or quality control was busy making sure there were two pieces in the box before it went out.

So it's all together (I hope). Speaking of being impressed with little things, it has a usb port on the side. I'm going to guess it's there to power a device. The other option is that this is an Internet of Things device, which will count the number of times Wife sits on it and relay that information to the Big Server in the Cloud. This is why I'm into safety and privacy - to prevent this kind of egregious invasion into our butts.

I must tell you that, after it was done, the strangest thing happened: there was water on my forehead, dripping down my body. I called a friend with nursing experience and she told me there was no need to worry, this was perfectly normal, and called 'sweat.' This didn't sit well with me and it's obviously not perfectly normal, as I had to call her to find out what it was. I don't like it. I plan to do whatever is necessary to avoid it in the future. It took a lot of lemon Snapple and our industrial warehouse fan, pointed exclusively at me, to get things down to a few drops. I'm a knowledge worker, dammit! If you are a fan of M*A*S*H, remember Charles saying, "A Winchester does not sweat; a Winchester perspires."

I'm holding the first seating for Mrs. lefty's return. I suppose I should plug it in too, in order to get the Ejection Seat feature working. To save roofing tiles, I'm going to have it eject forward, so she flies into the dining room table - it's very well built, obviously not by me.