Riding the Bike with One Pedal.

Category: kansas city (Page 3 of 10)

Dear City of Kansas City:

We are in the GRIPS of yet another winter storm (9″ of snow forecast for the area), and based on the pandelerium on the television news, we are all going to die. OK, strike that, we are just all going to be MISERABLE. My husband keeps shouting, “WHITE DEATH! WHITE DEATH!” every time Katie Horner comes on.

Yes, winter weather is serious stuff. As we saw last year, our general approach to the white stuff is “Meh, it’ll melt!” and we saw how well that didn’t work. Including last week’s snowpocalypse, which resulted in snow days and now we have streets that weren’t cleared well last week, packed down with large patches of ice, getting a new layer of snowfall today and tonight.  But really, the solution is pretty damned simple. Our mayor pledged we’d have more snowplowing this year, and I recognize it’s a costly expense (other cities recommend contracting for clearing by the inch, vs. by time, it’s amazing how much faster it gets done…) and I think we need to take it one step further.

We need Snow Emergency rules. I lived with them for five years in Minneapolis, and it is remarkably efficient. The city has to declare a Snow Emergency by a fixed time (it’s 6 pm there), and that is The Beginning of Teh Rulez. In this day and age with internet and mobile, it’s even EASIER. Trust me. I can’t tell you how many times we’d ask each other, “OK, what day is it?” because rules apply by day and how you can park on the city streets. And for those without a garage or off-street parking, don’t panic. It works. I only had my own parking space for a year, and all the other years, I was bright enough to consult a calendar, determine odd house numbers from even, and know which side of the street to park on. So here’s how it works in Minneapolis, where, I think, we can all agree: they know snow.

Snow Emergency Declared, 6pm. From 9 pm to 8 am the next day, no parking on “Snow Emergency Routes”. These would be the biggest main streets in the city. All side streets allow parking on either side.

Day 2, 8am-8pm – no parking on EVEN-NUMBERED sides of the streets. You can park on the odd-numbered side, and on either sides of the Emergency Routes. (God bless ’em, Minneapolis even has a web page to HELP YOU DETERMINE what side of the street is even or odd.) After a street is fully plowed, you may park there (even if it’s still before 8pm.)

Day 3, 8am-8pm – Guess what. Now you move your car to the other side of the street, the EVEN side. If you were smart, you did this the night before after the street got plowed, so you don’t wake up in a panic screaming “OMFG what time IS IT and did I MOVE the car????”  (Why no, I never did that, what do you mean?)

Now, I also know we don’t have the elite Black Ops of Snow Removal here in the city. It might even require an extra day or two for our Snow Emergency Time Frame to allow total street clearing. But I can tell you this: it would solve the issue of our side streets getting plowed in a half-assed manner or not at all. My BFF’s street can barely allow a car down it because people are parking on both sides, let alone a snowplow. So now they’re completely ice-packed, treacherous, and who knows when it will all melt.  And I think we’ve had a couple winters now that show we do need some sort of actionable plan. Yeah, people will bitch. But they’ll bitch anyway, about the roads, about the snow, whatever. Grow up, grab your balls, and force yourself to pay attention for a few days for the greater good.

And if you really wanna rebel and don’t follow the rules, it means you get a ticket and possibly towed – revenue generated for the city. Win fucking Win.

Any mayoral candidate who seizes on this concept and incorporates it into their platform will have my vote!  Well….maybe. I did fall for the no-more-steel-plates platform, and that cost us a lot of moolah in racial slur settlements.  Probably enough to have bought us a couple more snowplows.

Wut?

I was so focused after my lunch meeting, I auto-piloted right on past Aldi’s, where I wanted to pick up some olive oil. (We’re making duck confit at the NuWo household. FANCY!) So I pulled in to the ghetto Price Chopper, which is fine for quick trips. They are not an expansive store, by any stretch.

Grabbed the oil and a couple other things and went to checkout. The cashier said something I couldn’t understand, so I looked up, smiled and said, “What?”

She said, “You know, for those pouch things you wear around your waist.”

My smile kinda froze. First of all, it’s a fanny pack, I’ve never worn one, and …WTF? Did I just plummet to earth into someone else’s body and we’re having a conversation about how to travel in Europe as Ugly Americans?

I kind of half-nodded, smile frozen, my lips sticking to my teeth as the air dried them….and uttered a very non-committal “OooOohuh,” as I am rapidly hitting all the buttons on the pay station so I can sign my name and be done.

“Good for when we take our dog hiking, you know, down by the river, we do that when it snows.”

At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m dealing with The Girl Who Slipped Through Screening, and I’m just bobbing my head in an up-down-angle-side-to-side, lips frozen still in smile, and I’m trying to push the cart forward, grab my groceries and go, still making some sort of neutral “Ahhhhhhhh” sound.

I still have no idea what’s going on there, but I figured I’d at least blog it. I’m not sure if she was talking about the advantages of plastic bags? They fit in a fanny pack, and certainly would be handy when walking your dog down by the river.  Girlfriend needs to buy herself some segues, along with a few more sentences. Of course, any observer might have thought I was the crazy one, what with the demented smile, ooooohing and ahhhhing, nodding and bobbing like a boxer. They might be right.

Them’s the Pits….

I had a day on Friday where I rolled from one thing to the next: coffee in the a.m. with a salesperson, then the rest of the day unfolded at my feet. Off to Costco, then to Indigo Wild, one of my favorite local businesses, to get some Xmas shopping wrapped up. Their factory has a little storefront and the employees are always cheerful, dogs can be seen roaming around,  and the smells are to die for.  I fell in love with the Mazel Tov soap (a heady mix of almond and orange) but stuck to my list…except for one little “for me” treat. I was looking at their Zum Mist, which comes in 10+ scents, and had a little note that said something about “the perfect mist for rooms, lockers, cars, anyplace that needs a little freshening, even your body.” I think, “Self, that is nifty! Let us select one of these!” I sprayed about four different ones, and settled on Clove-Mint. Nice and spicy, with the uplifting mint notes. Paid for my purchases and headed off to meet friends for lunch.

Now this part is unheard of: I’m more than an hour early. So I decide to hang out in my car, maybe do some knitting. Keep in mind, the weather was unseasonably warm, and the sun beating in on me through the car windows had me feeling a bit steamed. A smidge sweaty. Not so fresh, you might even say. I think to myself, “Hey! I just got that spray!” and I proceed to snake the spray can into a sleeve and give my armpits a refreshing little mist.

Then I decide I should call my insurance company, to make sure that my prescription refills were sent in properly, and handle any problems before the weekend comes and offices are closed.

Suddenly, my armpits begin to burn. As in, BURN. CALAMITY. A NEST OF FIRE ANTS UNDER EACH ARM.  EN FUEGO. CUIDADO. And I’m shouting my choices at the automatic operator, writhing about in my seat, trying to reach behind me to see if I can grapple successfully for some handi-wipes I keep in the car, apparently for emergencies like this one. No luck. So I continue with my phone call, while keeping my arms in the air, trying to prevent skin from touching skin, as that seems to exacerbate the problem. Every so often I do have to clutch them in pain, while the service representative keeps putting me on hold to check things. I think to myself, ok, essential oils, probably best not sprayed directly on skin, and especially skin that doesn’t really see daylight and has only seen  gentle Dove products for the past decade.  It feels like the fire of a thousand suns is pouring out from each armpit, and a gingerly attempt to touch the skin makes me imagine a rash the size of Kentucky. I revert to arms-in-the-air. This phone call with the insurance dude takes 23 minutes. By this point, I am ready to run into traffic and make the pain stop, but it also begins to subside, albeit at a much slower rate than its onset.

By the time everything is wrapped up, and I decide I can go into the restaurant and wait without tying up a table for an obnoxious amount of time, the pain is nearly gone. I was prepared to go to the washroom and have a mini-shower right there in the sink, if it came to that.

BUT.

My pal Teri did point out that at least it was just my armpits. That not-so-fresh-feeling-let’s-try-this-OMG could have been a helluva lot worse.

Fuchsia Friday

Screw all this “Black Friday” stuff. I get it, it’s all about stores coming out of the red ink and into the black, but good lord, folks, you really NEED to trample your way in? I was thinking about all of this yesterday, as I considered reviving my tradition of going out shopping on Black Friday, wondering when it all turned from a shopping day with more excitement into a fuckin’ piranha tank.  There’s very little I need that would require me getting up at 3 am at this point in my life.  James even reminded me of this adventure (“Remember, you said you weren’t going anymore?”)

Oh yeah. And here I was, contemplating Joann’s AND CostCo. I still was, until I saw that I’d been looking at the wrong day, and that Joann’s didn’t open at 7 am, but instead, at 6 am. One hour was enough to make me really question if it was worth it or not. So I jumped online to calculate just how much I’d save on that damned OTT-Lite, and lo and behold? Joanns.com was having a sale. With a floor OTT lamp for $50, and free shipping if you spent $75. Since I was going to shell out over $100 on the lamp alone (with the extra coupon), I tapped in all my info, got a replacement bulb and one thing I needed to complete a gift. Grand total of $75.97, free shipping, bay-bee!

I did go out later, made a grocery store run and a trip to Westlake Hardware, and let me just say, I don’t know if they have a special training course at Westlake Ace for how to treat women when they come in? But the car industry could learn a LOT from these people.  I needed to get a few nuts and bolts, a new humidifier filter, and what I thought was a thumb screw. Within a minute of entering the store, I was greeted by two people, and the man working the floor asked if I needed help finding anything. Indeed I did, and within five minutes, we had all the nuts, bolts and washers I needed, at the correct size and length. He looked at the part I brought in, pronounced I already had a screw in there, but needed a tiny allen wrench (for thirty-nine cents) and I was on my merry way, with everything I needed and no frustrations.  As I left, I was reflecting on how awesome everything had gone (I had imagined myself digging through compartment after compartment of bolts, probably spilling some) and that my experience is like that every time I go. I don’t work for them, no affiliation, I just have to say, I’m either lucky, look unbelievably pathetic, or they’ve got some really good customer service, and I’m betting on the latter.

At CVS, I couldn’t help but stare at the woman who was checking out in front of me, and she looked back at me with some glimmer of recognition, but didn’t say anything. I pondered how Kansas City gets smaller and smaller each year, and sometimes people who work in other places I frequent will pop up (say, at the grocery store, and your mind struggles to place them.) I didn’t think much of it, but she returned, because they’d overcharged her for photos, and she had no photos. She looked at me again, and I finally had to say, “Do we know each other? You look really familiar.” And she said, yes, we did, and told me who her husband was, who is someone my husband got into it with during his last months with a local waterfowl organization, and so there we had it, not only did we have a connection but it was utterly fractured and stupid.  I was instantly regretting asking her who she was and realizing exactly why she didn’t greet me in the first place, and so we stood there at the pharmacy counter, awkwardly, like Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant and Mrs. Robert E. Lee somehow got stuck at the same tea table  (I’m playing the role of Mrs. Grant, btw, I don’t care what side Missouri fought on.)  I graciously told the cashier to handle her refund first, and we both stood there staring at her while attempt after attempt to credit her back failed. Then she had to call a manager, who didn’t show up, and she finally asked Mrs. Lee if she could take care of me real quick while they waited for the manager. I scrawled my name on the line and escaped as quickly as I could, wondering how in the hell they were now in our neighborhood. Like I said, small town, big city.

So it was a good day, no crazy shopping, though I’ve lived vicariously through others, as people post pictures of their giant tv’s and exhaustion from having to either work the sales or from still dealing with family. Me, I’m having a British crime procedural marathon, watching episodes of MI:5 (Spooks) and nibbling on cheese. If I were to paint the day a color, it would be the shockingly bright, happy magenta I love so dearly, making it a very fuchsia Friday indeed.

Stay Tuned!

I’m currently in a battle with the Water Department.

For some unknown reason, my account has been locked. I tried to log in and pay our bill, and surprise! No go. I figured it was because I had signed up ages ago and they just did an overhaul on the payment site. So I called the Action Line today, and after sitting on hold for 15 minutes (being reminded every five that if I indeed had a life-threatening emergency, to hang up and call 9-1-1), I was able to get through. Only to learn “oh, the water department? They all screwed up today, their phones ain’t workin’ and their computers are screwed up.”

Great.

The woman on the Action Line took my information, and -I am not shitting you – five hours later, I got a call back. I was told to just plug in my user name and the reset-password they gave me and it should work.

No.

Still locked out. I was informed that “Well, she can get right into your account.” WHO IS SHE. “She’s the lady who worked on this whole new website.”

Gee, you think maybe she’s got some fucking admin privileges I don’t? Because I’m betting she does. Nonetheless, we keep trying. I’m told to wait ten minutes and try again, and someone from the Action Line will call me in fifteen minutes.

I waited twenty minutes, no luck, account still locked. I even went into (gag) Internet Explorer to try it, thinking perhaps our new website is only as strong as its weakest platform. Nope. Still locked out. And it’s been an hour and fifteen minutes since I was supposed to get a follow-up call. Oh sure, I have other options, but I get like a terrier about shit like this, because it’s so STUPID, and should not take 8 hours to fix, or if it does, just say so. And if you think I’m letting go of this? mmmm. Nope. I have a case number.

Gosh. I wonder how they’d feel if I just took such a laid-back approach on payin’ ’em. Something tells me it’s not a two-way street.

The (Self-Appointed) Spelling and Grammar Police Are Having A Week.

I don’t claim to have perfect grammar, spelling, or even spectacular sentence structure. I do, however, make every effort to use correct spelling and proper grammar, and I try to limit the number of sentences I start with the word “so”, as that is a particular weakness of mine.

This week has been a bit crazy, hectic, stressful, you name it – but I have been provoked twice now to actually yell at the television because of spelling and grammar. The Fox 4 morning news crew are a fun bunch, but a couple of them just cannot get the proper use of the word “good” versus “well”. I finally had to post on their Facebook page because I just couldn’t take it anymore. Don Harmon, the weatherman, had just finished saying “Slow..ly. Slowly. I think that’s right.” And then Mark Alford responded with something like, “It’s going good out there.”  My post:

Way to go, Don, properly identifying adverbs! (slow-LY!) You are correct!
Next, let’s get Mark telling the world things are going WELL instead of
‘good’, since that is not proper grammar and it makes me yell at him.
Thanks!

To his credit, Mark actually responded with humor, saying “im well with that!” I may have to go down there with a ruler and rap some knuckles. Actually, it would be rather fun to have a paintball gun and every time an egregious grammatical mistake is uttered, KAPOW! I would also shout what they should have said, since I’m quite good at that already.  The traffic guy should be very afraid if this comes to fruition.

Which brings me to this morning, when KSHB (NBC)  flashed up two different slides (the typed-up cards on their template background that accompany the anchors while they’re talking) with horrid typos. The first one was about the new television season, and that production had “haulted” on a show. Uh, wtf is that? You can haul things, but you don’t hault them. Then, THEN, the next story was about – wait for it – BOAL GAMES. This is not the closed-captioning system translating, this is someone typing it in for the day’s stories. Seriously, I think six-year olds know how to spell “bowl”.

I think what bugs me in all of this is that even though I don’t hold my local media outlets to the standards I would hold, say, the New York Times, I do expect a certain amount of accuracy and I expect a whole lot of proper grammar. This isn’t a reality tv show, this is the news. Manufactured, selective, tilted at times, sensationalist most of the time, but you are still THE NEWS. And in ignoring grammar and spelling, it feels like we are moving yet another ten paces closer to accepting an unacceptable level of national stupidity. Why not just start typing it all in phone-texting style? Hell, start doing shots of Jager during the news, why wear a tie, or a nice pantsuit (Katie Horner, I’m lookin’ at you), just wear swimsuits or dress like the cast of Jersey Shore? Talk smack, talk trash, why have standards at all? Editorialize while you’re at it!

Nevermind me, I’ll still be getting my real news from NPR. I have never heard Steve Inskeep say “Things are going good!” And I’m GREAT with that.

How To Merge

This would ordinarily count as a public service announcement, however, I may wind up cursing so much, the lesson will only remain appropriate for truckers, sailors, and Marines.

First, a message to the old man leaving Price Chopper on 103rd in your little white truck: FUCK. You. Thank you for not understanding the general concept of merging, so I was forced to hit my brakes and send my leftovers flying off my passenger seat, to leak and smear on all the papers in my bag. Fuckyouverymuch. Punching it to get out of the parking lot? I get it. Getting into the middle lane and pulling into my lane while there was still room? That’s awesome. Except you didn’t do that, did you. You went below the speed limit and made like you were coming over, then went back into the middle lane, then came back over again, as I was wildly gesturing and screaming at you by that point and sending all my belongings on to the floor of my car.  I got to play the “Is he coming over? Is he waiting? He isn’t going a consistent speed? I am? But now I’m not, as I don’t want to wreck my car?” game.  And, for the record, I was going below the speed limit. I got to come home and scrub things, after calling you numerous, colorful terms that would have made even George Carlin pause and look at me in admiration. Have a splendid evening, douchecanoe.

Merging. I have witnessed this problematic element of driving quite often of late. Let me break it down for you. The whole fucking point of merging, especially when getting onto the highway, is to be TRAVELING AT THE SPEED OF TRAFFIC. This is why those goddamned red lights on the entrance ramps are the bane of my existence, even though I get the reasons behind them. This isn’t a putt-putt-putt along lane, slow way down maybe stop if it doesn’t feel right. We are not doing the goddamned double-dutch jump rope and you get to pick and choose when your feet are going in.  Get your ass going. And to all the rest of you sailing along in the right-hand lane? Get the fuck OVER. Y’all don’t seem to understand how badly I wanted a driver’s license as a child and it was denied to me. I studied the inserts Shell Oil used to run in Woman’s Day and Family Circle, using Goofy to show how to properly accelerate (imagine an egg between the pedal and the floor! Press down slowly!) I ate up every bit of information on what to do in accidents, when to use flares, how to stay safe on the road. So to say that I studied the Iowa Motor Vehicle License book would be an understatement. I absorbed it. I can still see the line drawing for merging onto the highway.

Here’s the one from the Missouri booklet, it’s quite similar:

mergemofos

This is not that hard, people. Driving isn’t a right, it’s a privilege. Let people in as they’re merging, and if you’re a merger, speed the fuck up so you’re not creating a potential 20-car fender bender and sixteen more high-blood pressure cases.

So. In case you’d like the full-blown directive from the same book, here you go:

ENTERING THE HIGHWAY
Entrance ramps are short, one-way ramps used to get on the highway. At the end of most entrance ramps is an acceleration lane. Use the ramp and acceleration lane to increase your speed to match the speed of the vehicles on the highway.

As you are speeding up, watch for an opening in the highway traffic. Switch on your turn signal, and pull smoothly into the traffic. DO NOT stop at the end of an acceleration lane unless traffic is very heavy and you have to stop.

Drivers already on the highway should give you room to enter, but if they don’t, DO NOT force your way onto the highway. You must yield the right-of-way to them, even if that means stopping at the end of an acceleration lane.

Namaste, motherfuckers.

StoryCorps

Or, as the lady who strolled up with her kids while we were waiting called it, “Story Corpse.” The Wo and I both laughed about that one later.
StoryCorps 2010
This was parked in Brookside for the past few weeks – part of a journey two Airstream trailers make on each side of the Mississippi, gathering stories and memories shared between two people. On Wednesday evening, we got to be part of that really cool, special opportunity: to record ourselves and be a permanent part of the collection in the Library of Congress. One person is the interviewer (me) and the other person tells their story (the Wo.) When reservations were first open, I logged on about 10 minutes after they’d begun, only to find nothing was open. That’s how fast it filled up. I added myself to the waiting list, not thinking it would actually happen. Then, I happened to be on the computer when the email came out to all of us wait listers, and there was only one time slot that could work – I crossed my fingers and replied. Thirty minutes later, I got confirmation that we had the 5:30 slot!

Because I’ve been listening to NPR for so long (I answered, “My entire life,” which is pretty much true, apart from some breaks here and there), I knew what we were doing, but the Wo got a bit panicked the night before as he read some of the sample questions. As he put it, “Nobody expects the Jenquisition!” Of course I wasn’t going to ask him unnerving, awkward questions, and I knew how he’d answer most of the questions, anyway. Eleven years and change of togetherness combined with a pretty good memory (sometimes too good) and I figured it would go pretty smoothly.

It did, there were lots of laughs, some tears/watering eyes, as we touched on the highs and lows of our combined lives. We exited with our own CD of the 40-minute conversation, and we’ll have a certificate and our own little place in the gigantic library someday. Who knows, maybe we’ll be one of those Friday morning voices I hear on Morning Edition. (I’m not counting on that.) I did fall completely in love with the microphone and noticed I totally dropped my voice when I asked the questions. Made me think, hmmm, maybe podcasting isn’t such a goofy idea after all. Heh. But what I really took away was a reminder of how much I love this man, how much he loves me, and how much I cherish our life together.

StoryCorps 2010

I Would Shoot This Week Like I’d Put Down A Rabid Possum, If I Could.

Hey, didja all enjoy the full moon this week? Beautiful, bright, havoc-wreaking full moon that it was? Good god. The Crazy ratcheted up pretty high this week, I must say.

On Wednesday, I met a couple friends for an impromptu lunch at Red Snapper. Upon leaving, I thought my back tire looked low. Indeed, it was. As in almost flat. Yikes! So I hustled across the street, got air back in it, skipped my errands, and came home. It stayed inflated pretty well and looked good the next morning, so we assumed it was a temporary seal thing, hitting a pothole, etc. But now I’m paranoid. So I left work yesterday with paranoia in my heart, looked at my tire, and decided it looked lower. Not like the first time, but lower and something must be wrong. (One thing to know about me: I go from blissfully ignorant to OMFG WE’RE GONNA DIE AND LOSE ALL OUR MONEY FIRST in about 8.2 seconds flat.) So I’m worrying. And as I start to drive in the parking lot, I hear this crazy noise. OMFG! I pull over, spanning four parking spaces, and put the car in park, frozen, listening. I’m quite certain this sound is coming from my tire. Except the sound continues, after I’ve stopped. I finally realized that it was a plane flying overhead. Yay! I’m losing my mind!

Get home, the Wo takes a look, agrees it’s low, and we come up with the game plan: tomorrow at some point, I’ll go in to Firestone, get the thing fixed, get an oil change, and be on my merry way. We refill a bit with the pump he has. He checks it this morning: pretty low again, so now we accelerate the time frame, and I’m heading up there for an 8 am appointment so they can get it taken care of and I can be in Westport by 9:45. Everything seems fine, I’m hanging with Mr. Magoo in the waiting area until he’s finished, then I switch seats so I can keep an eye on things, and get called to the counter around 9. Lookin’ good. Except for one thing. They can’t fix the tire. It’s all shredded on the inside, he says. And my two front tires have wear on the insides of the tires and you can’t see it unless the car is up on the hoochymomma thingy, but it’s really bad and I need four new tires, he gestures at wildly circled numbers on a sheet of paper and can I hang on a sec because he has to run something out to some manager in the parking lot.

I get out the phone, and call the Wo. Tell him briefly that I’m being sold 4 new tires and could he talk to the man when he returns. Which he does, at that moment. I hand the phone over, he goes through the spiel again, and hands the phone back to me.

Now. Here is where, for me, it really broke apart. I can be blissfully clueless and unaware at times. But the rest of the time, my antennae are set on “11”. And so, as I take the phone, and as most people do, my head tilts down to listen and talk. But I am still watching the employee – who is looking at the computer, and I see, in this short second, he rolls his eyes. So as I’m hearing my husband in my left ear “THEYARETRYINGTOSELLYOUTIRESYOUDON’TNEEDYOUNEEDTOGOSOMEWHEREELSE” I’m thinking, “You motherfucker. There are two people standing right here, and the only one who gets to roll their eyes at my husband? IS ME.” So I’m pissed. He’s pissed. The Wo’s pissed. I hang up. Store dude looks at me and I say, “OK, this is why I let him handle these things. Can we just fill the tire with air and I’ll pay for my oil change?” And he says, “Well, he sounded really angry, I’m just saying, if you don’t replace all four tires, you have AWD, you would void your warranty (I’m still puzzling that one, as the dealer’s warranty expired a year ago), and let me take you back in the shop and show you this wear, you can’t see it unless the car’s in the air, so you can explain it to your husband,” and I’m all, “NO, that’s fine, let’s just settle up here.”

Because if I go back into the garage, it’s another point of sales pitch to wear the little lady down, I suspect.

So I wait, and then another employee comes in and tells me all about her morning and how she was t-boned on her way in and blah blah blah, and then a new dude comes in and says it looks like I need to be helped. I decline, saying I’m just waiting. But here’s what I think is interesting. First dude has now gone back into the garage, and never comes back out to interact with me again. New dude is now “handling me” and feigns shock and awe at the numbers on my tires and that I’m going to drive off the lot with my car in such a state, even, but is all smiles and polish and tells me they will give me their recommendations and an estimate, should I want to return. Now, I’m not all-knowing in the world of auto repair but I felt like this guy’s appearance was definitely a planned move and part of the whole schtick. (I heard the schtick given by the t-boned employee over the phone, all the dreadful things they found and how much it would cost.)

I pay, collect my key, my receipt and go. In my car, I look at the price tag: just over $1,100. Yes, eleven-hundred. Dollars.

The Wo is already regretting having sent me there, but he wanted me to have a nice place to sit and wait, but now I’m going where he wished he’d sent me in the first place, to Larry’s Wholesale Tires on Wornall.  Larry, or his other cousin Larry, comes in from the shop to see what I need and sends me down the road to the U-Haul place (which he also owns, and I ponder this, thinking how unassuming he is and he probably is quite well-off), because that’s where they fix tires. Honestly, I don’t know why I ever thought I’d be incapable of driving a car in NYC, because if you can cross two lanes of Wornall without a light and make repeated left-hand turns while you’re on it, I’d say you could take on just about any traffic situation in this country. I get down to the U-Haul spot and for whatever reason, I am instantly reassured. I’m greeted, there’s no problem, just back it in here, okey dokey, the guy finds a 1.5″ metal shiv that’s in the main part of the tread, he extracts it, does other manly things to the tire (including patching it), tells me he doesn’t see any shredding, but at some point I’ll need A new tire, because the side seam looks a little worn, and they all blinked when I told them what their neighbors up the street wanted me to spend.

So then I ate some Indian food at Chai Shai with Beth and knitted and decompressed (and wished I’d gotten the mango shake instead of the iced chai, because o.m.g. is it good,) ran into Dan of Gone Mild there, always nice to see him and say hello.

Then I came home, and discovered the breezeway was filled with bits of foam and bright red maribou feathers. Because Tripper had GONE INTO THE CLOSET, removed one slipper, and systematically shredded it everywhere. Then he took JWo’s old shoe he’d already done a number on, and completely chewed off the toe. That fucking dog isn’t getting out of his crate until he’s 12.

Next on my list? Re-installing software on my laptop that was rebuilt on Wednesday. I told you, this week has just been from hell! TGIF, indeed!

Nommy Sunday

One of the wonderful things that hobbies bring you includes new friends. Between knitting (that would be me) and duck hunting and tomato growing (that would be James), we have an eclectic, delightful group of friends.  Last week, we had the Bhut Jolokia tasting, and we were gifted a jar of homemade mustard from Tomato Town’s Todd & Julie (Farmer T and Farmer J, respectively). Made with whiskey. It looked stupendous:

Homemade Pretzels and Mustard

The first thing James said (after thank you!) was that we needed to get some good bratwurst from Fritz’s. I said, “Homemade pretzels.” Now that we’ve got the pretzels done and covered, I’m all for bratwurst next. This mustard was heavenly! While my pretzels turned out beautifully and delicious, the mustard was really the star of the show.

Homemade Pretzels and Mustard

I made the pretzels from Alton Brown’s recipe; they probably could have been rolled out thinner, but the taste was great. I used Mediterranean Sea Salt instead of pretzel salt, and while I followed the directions to a T with the parchment paper and the oil, I will not go that route again, as the pretzels stuck to the paper and were frustrating to try and remove. Silpats would probably work better.

Homemade Pretzels and Mustard

Utterly delicious! Thanks Julie & Todd!

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