Oddz ‘n Endz

A Bad Start

Dagmar and I have two cars. One works, so Dagmar uses it to get back and forth to work. The other… well… The other car is the car that stays home in case I absolutely NEED to get somewhere. It’s an old beat-up Ford of some kind. Heater doesn’t work, it often stalls in traffic, it shakes a lot, no rear-view mirror, brake lights work on odd days… But it’s the only transportation I have in the winter. (During the summer I ride my bicycle or take the motorcycle.)

Anyway, it’s buried under a pile of snow thanks to the snowplow driver who, well, who did his job and cleared the street after the storm the other day. I went out to try to start the car to move yesterday, only to find that my front driver’s side tire was flat. Just like the neighbor’s front driver’s side tire, and the other neighbor’s front driver’s side tire… AND someone had run into my car as it was parked in front of my house, leaving a dent just big enough that I can’t get the driver’s side door open.

So there the car sits until I have the time/energy to deal with it.

That smarts.

Stupid dog.

The last couple days have been an icy mess. It rained for about an hour Monday, then the temperature dropped a bit and it froze into a nice sheet of ice. Then it snowed on top of it. You know how it is. It makes walking the dog an adventure.

She’s pulled me down three times in the last two days.

Here I’m walking along all bundled up and happy when the dog sees a squirrel or a shadow or something sparkly in the snow and bolts, which results in a bundled up hippie pirouetting around in little circles, arms windmilling frantically…

Stupid dog.

And it hurts, falling on your keester. Even though I’ve been wearing two or three layers of everything for weeks now (you know you live in Iowa when you wear your wife’s underwear — not because it’s fun, but because YOUR longjohns are in the wash), but it still hurts when tuckus meets concrete.

Class Warfare in Sioux City

A couple houses in the Northside got tagged with graffiti the other day. It was on the news. The building down the street here on the Westside gets tagged nearly weekly, the bike paths a block away are constantly tagged, the building across the street gets it about twice a year, many of the traffic signs in my neighborhood are spay-painted over, and no one says a thing. But when the rich people get vandalized, THEN it’s in the news and the police are all scampering about…

Here’s my neighborhood:

Sure be nice if the city would pay more attention to our part of town. Dagmar carries a cattle prod with her when she walks the dog. Shouldn’t be that way — we’re in Iowa for cripe’s sake.

Yet more woes…

My Mac has locked up on me twice this morning and shut down on me once. I really, really need more RAM. It’s hard to work when the computer’s not cooperating. (Macs are wonderful machines, but I bought it to do web design and photography work. It handled that perfectly well. But now I’m doing some video editing and more high-end stuff, and, well, I didn’t buy enough RAM.)

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5 thoughts on “Oddz ‘n Endz

  1. pistols at dawn

    I think everyone in Iowa is carrying a cattle prod at all times, but usually to use on fine quality Angus cattle, not hooligans and ruffians.

    Maybe it’s just my childhood memories of Iowa not accounting for actual problems, but it’s hard imagining anything dangerous occurring in the Mason City I remember. Perhaps it’s a shining jewel in Iowa’s crown, though.

    Reply
  2. SkylersDad

    I have an answer for your dog walking problems. We found a product at REI called Yak Tracks, they are like slip on tire chains for your shoes. Very cool, I no longer slip!!

    Reply
  3. Beeker

    Dude! The dog… HEEL!

    Seriously, with enough work that dog won’t leave your side until you tell it to. Won’t even pee or poop without your permission.

    Seriously. i’ve seen it done.

    Dog save the keester!

    Reply
  4. Chris

    Pistols — My childhood memories of Iowa are all rosy, too. It’s the adult memories that scare me. That and the ruffians and hooligans…

    SkyDad — Dagmar wants to buy me new boots. It’s on my list of things to buy next time I get a payment — right after the RAM I need for my computer.

    Beek — Teach me! TEACH ME!

    Kat — I don’t really have problems, I just had a bad day. (Okay, well the car is a problem, but not a major problem. A major problem would have been being IN the car when it got hit. Or losing my job. Or having someone die… Those are major problems.) But I have to admit, it was a really sucky run of bad luck I had there for a while!

    Reply

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