Shifty Gears
2007-03-13, 12:23 a.m.

Day 933

# 2 for today. Might want to go back one.

Went and took the day off work Tuesday. Between getting my mom to the doc, making sure Cindy�s car is up & running and just general mental health, I just said screw it, I need a day. Knocks me down to something like 6 weeks of vacation saved up for the rest of the year. Too bad I can�t sell it.

That thing I saw in the sky last night? Definitely was a meteor. That web site I checked out on Fireballs noted 48 sightings here in the northeast US & Canada. Mine wasn�t listed among them. Bummer. Must not have conformed to the official observer procedures or something. Maybe you have to be a member. At any rate, what I saw jives pretty well with some of the other observations as far as brightness, (about a half moons worth of brightness) and color (green with orangey red trailings) and time (right about 8pm), but it apparently lasted a little longer than I thought. Many people reported greater than 5 seconds duration. I saw it for only 1 or 2 seconds, but I�m certain I caught it partway through it�s fiery descent. That�s maybe the third really, really bright one I�ve seen. During the Leonid showers in November I�ve seen dozens. Getting up early for hunting in November is a perfect opportunity to see them. You�d swear you could hear them sizzle as they flare up, but that�s not happening. Over active imagination hard at work there. Still so cool to see.

Guess Cindy forgot to quit smoking. Might be more like in the movie �Airplane� when Leslie Nielsens character declares �Picked a bad week to give up smoking!� (Of course, later on it�s a bad week to give up drinking, then uppers, then something else, I forget). Anyhow, the quitting of the ciggy butts went up in smoke. She was probably stressed about her Dad and his performance yesterday. To combat that stress, she smoked. To offset the depression she felt about not quitting smoking, she drank. She drank, and as a group, the rest of us tuned her out. That just sucks so many different ways. Seems all it can do is turn into a self defeating spiral. Al Anon, here I come, again.

I distinctly remember saying I had stopped (or was desperately trying to stop) hunting down the hiding spots and counting empties. Well, it turns out it you stop seeking, they will come and find you. Got Cindy�s car cranked up tonight. Not 100% certain the problem is corrected, but there�s at least one very stout band aid in place. As a bit of a confidence builder, I took her car out for a shake down run. She has a Saturn with a 5 speed in it that I think is just fun to drive most times. So after getting it running, I back down the driveway and take off on a quickie 2 � 3 mile loop around the immediate neighborhood. Every time I turn a corner, I hear a clanking coming from the rear end. Shift gears hard, more clanking. Slap on the brakes, clank again. No matter what I do, anything that results in an acceleration (lateral, front, back) I get this clanking sound, like large glasses banging against each other. Now I�m thinking there are beer bottles under the seat or something. I reach under the seat as best I can (while doing 60 down some back roads) and come up empty. Eventually arrive home, pull the car in the garage and forget about it for a while.

After the car has a chance to cool down, I get the oil changed, then fire it up again to make me feel better about the engine. It runs like a champ. Sweet. By now, Cindy has pretty well passed out, the kids are up studying or something, and I�m left to my own devices. I remember the clanking coming from Cindy�s car. Being the curious sort, I went back out to the garage and popped the Saturn�s trunk. Jackpot!! The source of the noise is identified. There�s a kitchen trash bag in the trunk, tied closed. Inside the bag are 4 empty quart bottles of some of Canada�s so-so blended whiskey. Other than the bag, the trunk is pretty empty, so those bottles have free run of the place. They were certainly taking advantage of the room to roam.

Since I�m not keeping an eye on things, I�m not entirely sure how long it�s taken to amass this collection, nor do I know if this is all of them. But I am curious about when they got stashed in there. Had to be Sunday morning when I was at the gym. So she was planning on taking them to work and getting rid of them there? Hitting up a dumpster at a local mini mart? Heaving them into the woods on her way into work? I have no idea. The only reason I found them is because her car wouldn�t start this morning. If she�d been able to get her car going, they may have been gone by now.

Think I will mention some thing about hearing some odd noises coming out of her rear end (ha!! I know what THOSE are) (Yes, I�m 12 (8?)and farts are still funny) and wanting to take a look at it soon. Make it sound like her tire jack is loose or something. I know, I know, it�s button pushing, and not very subtle either. More like taking the wings off flies really. But had I NOT looked in the trunk, it would be a perfectly valid concern. Problem was, I got all conscientious (damnit) and already checked it out. Now it�s button pushing.

OK, here�s a deal. I�ll go push the buttons, then repent for it tonight at the meeting. That�s how it works, right? Commit a sin, confess, repent, get absolved. Sweet deal.

Naahh, didn�t think so. Guess I�ll just tell Cindy there�s some noise emanating from the junk in her trunk. She may want to check it out herself. I won�t offer any more information than that. Maybe that will let her think she�s off the hook.

Maybe that�s letting her off the hook too easy. Maybe that�s being enabling. Maybe I should keep it simple (stoopit) Just tell it like it happened. Hard to confuse yourself when you tell the truth. Never wonder about ulterior motives. Just lay it out there. Here�s the facts honey � now deal with them. Yup, I like that. Simple, honest, truth. Can�t often find fault with that. I love it when a plan comes together like that.

Off to bed with me. Busy day tomorrow. Might even let mom in on my dirty little secret (the Al Anon thing), but I�m sort of afraid where that knowledge might end up. In real life, I�ve been very private about it. Only Cindy and the kids know. I mean, it IS anonymous. It�s stigmatized too. That�s what I worry about. Not what it says about me, what it says about Cindy and what she�ll think (of herself) if word ever got out. Maybe Mom isn�t going to find out. Hate to burden her with a secret like that. We�ll just chat about broken ankles and how rough her brother has it these days. Ho hum.

Like I said, bed time.

Sweet dreams everyone.

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