Spring and Other False Starts
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As we enter late February, we here in the South are now getting our False Springs. For those unfamiliar, False Spring™ is when temps jump up into the 70s and the sun shines and it’s just LOVELY outside. The redbuds bloom, the daffodils and paperwhites pop up and your brain says “Yay! It’s SPRING!”
Only to get freezing cold a week later and perhaps snow. Welcome to the South!
I am enjoying our first False Spring™. It makes me want to actually go out of the house and do things!
It also makes me think of other false starts I’ve had. Sigh. MANY MANY false starts. The most recent being a kitchen career. I managed it for 8-9 months, and I’m proud of that, but it’s not something I’ll go back to. My hands simply cannot take cutting hundreds of pounds of produce every day. I liked the job, actually, but my old body did not. Prep is for the young! I’m not going to get into the other false starts, that will lead to a rabbit hole of melancholy and I do NOT need that.
I just took a tiny little food plating class on domestika.com. It was on sale for $7 and there’s a 25% off Rakuten, so I said WHY NOT? I was an OK class, perhaps better for complete newbs. The girl was ok but her speech pattern ended every sentence as a question? You know that kind of speech? It’s endemic in millennials in particular? Yeah. And her advice on how to edit food shots was to use a PHONE with various apps. LOL LOL LOL! I actually DID laugh at this. Yeah, sure, use your fucking PHONE for editing if you plan to use online only, which apparently is all she does. A true pro who works in REAL media would NEVER use a phone for editing. You can take pretty dang good pix with a phone, but you need PHOTOSHOP to edit. Period. She also talked too much about Pinterest. Clearly she is all about being an “influencer” which I think is idiotic. Anyway, aside from those annoyances, the class was ok. I might take another since they are, like, $5.
Got Romeo’s brakes done - to the tune of $600. My mechanic told me $300, but neglected to be clear that it’s $300 PER PAIR. Sigh. He also pulled nails out of my tires and put the worst of the lot on the back. He also diagnosed my pressure sensor issue to ONE dead sensor, which is great since they are fucking $170 ea. The tires are toast, that’s the next big expense. I don’t feel bad about this, since we’ve spent thousands on that damn Ranger. A couple of grand on Romeo for NECESSITIES is fine with me. I’m going to try to keep the tires to $500-600. I might get the Michelins I was eyeballing, if Tire Rack has them on sale or something, but I’ll probably have to go a step down from those. My main need is wet grip and a quieter ride. These crappy Tiger Paw ones are loud and have zero grip. We hates them!
I’m thinking of Dave today. No reason, really. I was thinking about automation of our house and how much that would’ve helped Dave. I really wish he’d lived to see the beauty of smart phones and how much can be done with them. I know another blind guy, and his iPhone enables him to message and use apps like everyone else. Dave has been gone over 17 years. Here is his memorial page, if you’re interested. Can’t believe it’s been that long.
Which brings me to this: APRIL 1ST, WE’LL HAVE OUR 20TH ANNIVERSARY! Can you believe that?? Celebrations will be had! We got married in 04, right after buying Maplehurst. Here are a few pix and here is the VERY amusing story.
Guess that’s it for the brain dump today. I hope you enjoy the Tale of the April Fool’s Wedding and the nice weather of False Spring™ #1. :) The image is all my wedding rings! Yep, ALL of those!