Whew!
Tuesday, I attended my parents place. This was in response to a summons from my mother (in the form of a hint delivered via ICBM) to attend and farewell my grandmother. I went over at about midday, and wound up staying and assisting with making dinner for a Gathering Of The Clan, or equivalent thereof.
Yesterday, I decided to deal with some errands. The first of these I concluded without leaving home - I phoned up IKEA's home shopping customer service people and discovered that the reason I hadn't had a call from them was because I hadn't had a call from them (I'd ordered some bookshelves on Monday morning, and hadn't received the call on Monday - I was worried I might have missed it on Tuesday). So, I sorted all of that out, and paid for the whole boiling, and the bookshelves are being delivered next Wednesday morning. Next errand on the list was heading into the local branch of Harvey Norman (aka "Hardly Normal") and putting my Palm Treo in for servicing. It's been refusing to boot, refusing to hold charge, refusing to let me make phone calls and refusing to let me put the stylus away and remain powered on. That took a bit over half an hour, due to there only being one person in the store who knew how their repairs database worked. So, that's going to take between one and five weeks, during which time I'm back to my little old Palm M515, which still functions just fine as an organiser, despite being reluctant to synch with the computer. Then I went to the nearest Officeworks to me, which just happened to be in Subiaco, and returned some suspension files I'd purchased a couple of months ago, which were about 2mm short for the filing cabinet I had also purchased a couple of months ago. On the way, things got interesting.
One of the wonderful features of driving in Subiaco, for those of you who haven't had that pleasure recently, is that there's very little space on the roads in which to do so. So, when I came to the corner of Rokeby Road and Hay Street, and saw there were two lanes at the lights (I was on Rokeby Road) I leapt at the chance to move out of my existing lane. However, I was unaware that the truck I was attempting to dodge from behind was not turning right at the lights. No, instead he was coming straight through. Great. On the other side of the lights, my lane ended rather abruptly, as it was turned back into parking (wonderful thinking on the part of the City of Subiaco council... must remember to write them a thank-you note). The truck, being somehow unaware of my presence (I'm currently driving my mother-in-law's Mazda 121, which is effectively a rollerskate on steroids) barrelled straight through. I was trying to change lanes, dodge the truck, and navigate somewhere I'd not been familiar with for something like ten to fifteen years. Consequently I clipped the curb. Hard.
Oh shit, thinks I. At the next left turn, I turn left, and head down Churchill Street, looking for somewhere to park so I can inspect the car and see what damage I might have done to it. No such luck. I wound up going all the way along Churchill street to Nicholson Road, and turning left there. The next left was Hay Street (which is a one-way street, as well as being the location of Officeworks), so I turned down there, and made my way into the Officeworks carpark, where I inspected the damage. The front tyre on the passenger side was flat. Oh bugger, thinks I, since the last time I did something like that, I'd managed to dent the rim of the wheel and needed that replaced. Anyway, in I go to Officeworks, and swap over the suspension files (getting a different brand this time) and a couple of other bits and pieces (namely a DVD storage box, and a box of white label stickers to put on the mail for the former inhabitants of this place so that I can redirect their mail). Back out to the carpark. The tyre is, if anything, even flatter. Oh shit, thinks I once more. Time to look for the nearest tyre replacement place.
Luckily, there's one of these on Hay Street in Subiaco. Took me two goes to get in there, since the first time I went right the way past it and had to do a bog lap of the block to get back there. "Do you have a tyre for one of these?" asks I of the very nice lady who was working there. She looks through their database, and discovers that no, they don't. They'll have to order one in. Can't get the same brand as the other three tyres on the car, so shall have to use a different one, which fortunately, they can order in. It'll be in tomorrow, come in at about 12.30pm, it'll cost you $150, in the meantime we'll put on your spare.
Mazda 121s are one of those brands of cars which don't have a regular sized spare tyre. They have what's called a "space saver spare". It's a car designed for running about town, rather than driving long distances in the country, so the designers put in this little wheel with a tyre which resembles the tyre of a wheelbarrow. It saves space in the boot, which allows them to make the car smaller. So having the spare wheel on is a purely temporary measure at the best of times.
In the process of fitting this spare wheel, they pull off the existing wheel (which *won't* fit in the spare wheel space of the car - having a "space saver" spare wheel is therefore rather defeating the purpose, yah?) and discover that the flat may not entirely be due to my clipping the curb. The ruddy great 1cm diameter nail that's stuck in the treads may have something to do with it too... The really fun bit: neither of us can remember anything which might have given any indication of having driven over said nail.
So, I cautiously drive home (discovering as I do so that the handling on the car improves massively if the tyres are all inflated... I wonder how long we've been driving on that nail?) and bide my time until my next appointment, at 4.15pm, with the doctor. I'd noticed a strange looking mole on my back a while ago (about 3 - 4 weeks) and I'd been planning to get it looked at - I take after my father in having dark hair, pale skin, and enough moles to make me look like a bloody Dalmatian dog - on grounds that even if it isn't cancerous, better safe than sorry. So I went in, pointed it out to the doctor, and she said "oh, too big to take off, we'd better do a biopsy" and promptly booked me in to get the biopsy done at 1.45pm today. I agreed to this, having completely forgotten about the car's problems.
So, today it's been interesting. First, a rush out to Subiaco to get the tyre fitted (this time I got into the correct lane (the right lane) when approaching the Rokeby Road/Hay Street intersection). That was done by about 12.45pm, which meant I had an hour to head back down to the doctor's surgery in Cottesloe for the biopsy at 1.45pm. I was massively early, of course, so I got to spend a lot of time sitting in the waiting room, which I used to re-read "Wintersmith" again. The biopsy was done (the most painful bit, as always, was getting the local anaesthetic injected) and I have to call up about the results of that on Monday afternoon. I've also changed my dosage of thyroxine, so I had to get a new script filled, and I have a form for a blood test 6 - 8 weeks from now.
Now, at some stage, I have to make arrangements to head out to Willagee and speak with the nice people at the licencing centre there, and transfer over my driver's licence from the ACT to WA. I also have to head down to Medicare in Fremantle, and hand over various doctor's bills, as well as getting my address changed with them (note to self: take bank statement as proof of new address). I also have to start looking for a new contract, since all this running around and having to pay for bookshelves and tyres and things is doing 'orrible things to my bank account.
So much for having a week off.