It's crazy how much better I feel now that I've come back from getting replacement car keys. I ran that errand (plus getting a new house key, some booze, and a quick vote). I was beside myself with anxiety last night and this morning, and I owe a great deal of thanks to Alexis for dealing with me, and providing calm smart advice.
The car keys only cost six bucks each, and were simple to acquire (Toyota dealer a short bike ride away) and it could easily have been more difficult. In 1998, the year my car was built, Toyota started putting little computer chips in some car keys, that had to match the car's computer in some way. If my car was one of those, I would have had to have it towed to the dealership to have the computer replaced. As it is, I'm amazed to have it all done in one day for so little money. Triple A is a godsend, also.
Maggie goes to have her surgery tomorrow, so Alexis gets to be stressed out and I get to give calm smart advice. I'll have to think of some first. It's a surprisingly common operation (
TTA) in dogs, and I suspect it's due to a manufacturing defect. We missed the recall notice probably. Maggie is a young dog and this should improve her quality of life immensely.
Riding my bike around town to do my errands made me think a few things to myself: First I thought, "How the hell did I used to do this all the time?" and "Why did they design bikes so that all my weight is on my junk?" Later I realized that I had gotten all my errands done in less time that if I had driven (rush hour you see), paid nothing for parking, and worked up a nice healthy sweat. Truly In Urbis Rotas Duas est Optima but they need to work out that perineal bruising problem. If I bought a recumbent, would I use it more than my '91 trek mountain bike? I don't see people on recumbents zipping around completing errands--mostly they chug along, commuting.
As much as I would love to stay up all night drinking each time a state turned blue on the map, we have a surprise procedure at work tomorrow which will have me reporting for duty at six a.m. sharp. Work is once again in the "kicking my ass" phase, which is apparently standard for autumn. (The weather determines if animals can be shipped or not, so most of my quarantine cases come in the Spring and Fall.) One pair of animals--I can't tell you what they are, but they are evolutionary cousins--requires the use of so much
PPE that by the time I'm done in there I'm drenched with sweat and have fogged up my eyeshields to the point of functional blindness. The more interesting parts of my job are being swallowed up by a variety of different janatorial tasks.
I'm looking forward to tomorrow--specifically to it being over with. I hate to wish my life away, but I'm already mentally living in tomorrow, 4 p.m., at home.