Who WAS That?
2008-06-26, 4:33 p.m.

Day 1403/1404

Started this Wednesday. Fecal debris found the rotor. Sorta. Kinda had �that talk� again. Haven�t had the post-mortem on it yet, but suffice it to say I called bullshit on both Cindy�s doubting my commitment to our relationship AND HER commitment to the relationship. In a nutshell � I seem to be making all the efforts at changing my behavior, supporting her efforts, letting her do her own work. In return, I keep getting a drunken spouse, nothing but flak for support and very little evidence of any effort to improve on her part.

In return? She made the crunchy coleslaw for my Al Anon District meeting last night. I thanked her profusely and repeatedly. Almost to the point of being insincere. (God, I hope I didn�t cross that line).

So. Waiting for the dust to settle. This evening will be interesting.

Back to yesterday�s thoughts:

Good lord. Who was that whiney, sniveling, snot nosed little brat that took over my journal entry yesterday? Someone find that boy a pair of balls, wouldja? Cripes!

Picked up Eric�s car yesterday. Finally. Poor kid had Christmas type anxiety so bad he could hardly sit still. Or maybe that was me. Not sure who was worse.

So the saga of the car goes something like this: Thursday last week we went looking. Found this sweet little Malibu. Gently used. Zach�s buddy worked at the dealership. Got us a real good deal. Chopped almost $2K off the sticker price. We go back into the bowels of the dealership and jump through the financing hoops. Finance dude ask when we�d like to pick up the car. After some schedule comparing and bargaining amongst ourselves, we agreed on 5pm Monday and told Mr. Finance Dude so. He nodded his head affirmatively, took some notes, did the handshake game and we were on our way.

Poor Eric. I teased him the entire weekend. �Only 3 days to go!!� �36 more hours!� �10 hours till car time!�

Monday afternoon, I suggested he call the dealer and make sure everything was hunky dory. First time the kid finances a car, thought there might be some questions or additional data needed. When he got hold of them, their response was �Oh, you�re picking it up TODAY?� At 3pm, they realized we had an appointment for 6pm. Not good. The dealership tried to hustle it up. They failed miserably. Ended up rescheduling for Tuesday at noon. At 4pm on Monday, they knew they had to have the car ready by noon Tuesday.

You see where this is headed, don�t you?

Yup. Got there at 12:05pm Tuesday. Car was not ready. Went in and did the financing thing � signing papers, refusing extended warranties 17 times. Finance dude #2 tried the hard sell � �but if your suspension fails, it could cost $4800 to replace it!!� Dude � if the entire suspension system fails all at once, I guess that little trip over the edge of the cliff was a little rough. If the car gets THAT effed up, I think insurance coverage kicks in. �But if you�re a/C goes, it could cost $3200 to repair!!� Dude � this is New York. You need A/C in June, July & August, maybe. The other 75% of the year? Who cares!?!

So we refused all that crap. Signed papers. They STILL hadn�t submitted anything to a bank. But everything was signed and ready to be submitted by the time we left. Hope the financing gets approved � we signed shit based on what Mr. Finance Dude #2 told us.

After all this � car STILL not ready. We�ve been at the dealer for 45 minutes. Sales dude (Zach�s buddy) tells us to go across the street and have lunch, but bring the receipt back � they�ll pay. Eric�s all �Hell, I could eat!�, so we bop on over to Applebees and have lunch. For free. Sorta. They tell me the check is in the mail.

Get back from lunch. 1:30. Car STILL IS NOT READY. Feckers. Finally, the salesman gets the high sign and goes back to retrieve thee car from the prep area. When he pulls up, there is still tire shine goo dripping off the tires. But the plates are on, registration is taped to the window and Eric has both keys & fob�s (with remote start. Lucky little shit!) One hour and forty-five minutes to do a 20 minute task. This is not a small dealer either. They have 3 or 4 separate buildings spread over a half mile. They represent at least 5 or 6 different makes. But maybe that was their problem. Too big. Small stuff just gets lost in the feeding frenzy. But Eric�s got his car, we got a free lunch (supposedly), and in spite of it all, I may go back there and deal with Zach�s buddy again. Those Buick Lucerne�s are sweet looking cars. Used though. Definitely used. The price of a new one? 60% of what we paid for our first house! I�d be afraid to take it out of the driveway.

Beautiful morning for a bike ride. So I did. Biked to the Y, spin class for an hour, bike to work. Bike ride home? Brutal. Into a stiff breeze. Breeze was out of the south-west. The only directions I go on the way home? South & West. Perfect.

(OK, now we�re segueing to the present)

Got home from work a little late. Needed to make a �crunchy coleslaw� for a picnic meeting I was to attend. Had all the stuff, even made the dressing the night before. Just had to bust up some Ramen noodles and brown them and some almonds a bit in butter before tossing it all together. And take a shower. And get dressed & go. In 10 minutes. For reasons completely beyond my understanding, when I walked into the house, Cindy was already started assembling the coleslaw. This is (I think) after I called BS on her behavior. (Which was after she openly doubted my commitment to working on our relationship. With me?)

Went to the picnic meeting. Coleslaw was a smashing success. Everybody wants the recipe. Got home around 10, Cindy was already in bed. Don�t know if she did her normal Wednesday evening meeting or not. When I finally got to bed around 11, she didn�t up & leave. A few times during the evening, our legs would �accidentally� come into contact. She didn�t shun the contact, and I wasn�t about to press things any further. At least when we touched she didn�t try to kick clear or take off out of bed. This morning? She was her usual surly self. Have no idea what�s going through her head.

Good session with Annette (the shrink) today too. Filled her in on all the grisly details. Even had a transcript of our email tag from yesterday. We talked about a lot of stuff. Someone (Blueyedmom) mentioned that to date, Cindy hasn�t really lost anything of significance. There was the crisis last year with her drinking getting really bad (like 6 days a week) and me having that fling with Ms. CL. But that storm seems to have been weathered, so she�s relaxing a bit. Getting more cavalier & daring with her drinking. Bottom line? She�s still addicted (duh), still in denial, still trying to blame her problems on me.

Taking a half day vacation tomorrow. Loaned someone our aero bed and need to pick it up. (It was Ms. CL I loaned it to.) Finally getting it back. Will be an interesting meeting. Hopefully not too strained. I thought we parted under amicable terms, but I clearly have no clue how the female brain processes information. After that, maybe I�ll use the time to get in a bike ride to clear my head.

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