my car is kicking my ass. then dragging me down the sidewalk by my hair and throwing me into the reservoir and laughing at me.

so where did we leave off with the distributor problem? oh yeah, i had just been towed to philly from north of baltimore. $180. so i talked to wayne on monday the 29th. he seemed kind of defensive (which i can't fault him for, since i suspect most people who've just had to tow their car 60 miles twice would be super pissed off) and a little bit bothered by the fact that someone else had worked on the car (but what could i do? i was in virginia fer chrissakes), but otherwise his usual friendly accommodating self.

two days later he's put another reman distributer in the car (from a different parts dealer, since the first one didn't work out so well). i didn't pick it up, though, til the following monday, since wayne didn't have my current phone number so couldn't call me.

so, i pick up the car on monday the 5th. wayne doesn't charge me (as he shouldn't). drive to the barn (70 miles round trip) on tuesday. car's fine. drive to the barn on thursday. car's fine. drive to the barn on saturday, in high-of-19-degrees weather, and it's fine on the way out but begins to exhibit distributer problem symptoms on the way back. i limp home (get off the highway, get off the highway!) hoping the car will make it (cuz, though i was dressed for being outside in 19� it would still not have been a rocking good time, susie got pregnant, neighbors 3 houses away complained about he noise kind of party to wait for the tow guy.). and it does. make it home, that is. but goddammit, it's only been 3 trips to the barn (210 miles) since it was in the shop last!

when i saw wayne this morning he was not happy to see me. 'course, i happened to be jogging by his shop just as he was getting out of his car. 'course, if he would get the car fixed right, then maybe he could go more than a few weeks without a visit from me.

in other news, of course karl's parents got home. it was blissful, BLISSful, i tell you, that first sunday after they'd gone on saturday night. no obligations. blissful.

the beanie baby saga:
karl's brother had asked them to call when they got home, so we'd know they got there okay. but the first thing he hears is not from them directly, but an automatic message from ebay informing him of a purchase. for a beanie baby. backstory: his parents have got a friend at the school they work at (they're teachers) who sells beanie babies on ebay. so whenever they come to the states, they buy a few for her--ones she can't get in the UK. this keeps her happy and she does favors for them in terms of getting them coverage when they need to be off school. back to the present: so this trip, karl's mom decides that she's going to get some for herself, too. no reason R should be getting all the ebay money. so she goes home with thirty (THIRTY!) beanie babies in her suitcase. the claim is that half are for R and half are for her to sell on ebay. but then she gets home and the first thing she does, even before calling her son, is bid on beanie babies on ebay. [note: she's using S's account because he showed her how to use ebay while she was here, using his account. not sure why she doesn't have her own account.] last i heard, she'd won 27 beanie baby auctions. i fear that next time we're there, the house is going to be overrun with them. it'll be like those people they show on news programs who can't enter their houses because their crap, their "collectibles" or old national geographics or cats have taken over the house and then one day the neighbor smells something and when they finally knock down the door they find a week-old corpse half-buried in stuffed animals. okay, so i haven't really heard news stories quite like that. but it could happen!

the "midwestern" vacation:
the other thing that alarmed me about this visit was the promise of another parental trip. they want to go to the "midwest". i put it in parentheses because where they actually want to go is the rockies--yellowstone or jackson hole or somewhere, but for whatever reason they keep calling it a trip to the midwest. when i first heard them say it i carefully tried to say that the midwest is really just a lot of corn and why on earth were they thinking of a week-or-2 vacation there? but then they started talking about yellowstone, and i understood. anyway, they want to go. i was all talking it up, saying how beautiful that part of the country is and what a great idea that would be for a vacation, when i realized that the plan would be for us to join them. full stop. halt right there. now, i certainly have nothing against the rockies--they are beautiful and i'd love to go again. and i have nothing against the parents. however, their idea of a vacation (nice hotels, driving through (rather than hiking through) the scenery, stops every 2 hours for "a drink" which is not just a stop at a coke machine but a full-out hour-long stop, often including a "snack" (i.e. "meal"). this is not my ideal vacation anywhere, but can be tolerated in places like tenerife, where mostly what you're doing is laying around by the pool. this is, however, my worst nightmare of a vacation in a place like yellowstone. they'll want to drive around the park, getting out at the sights to take pictures, hit all the gift shops and all the cafes, stay at a lodge, and generally stay on the well-trodden path. if i'm going to go all the way to the rockies, i want to hike. and camp. and be close to the natural beauty and far away from the fat white guys in RVs. so far, there are no definite plans, and karl has not confirmed that we're going. but when that discussion comes up, i'm going to have to say no. i can't do it. i'll be so completely unhappy. instead, i'll either stay home alone and go out drinking every night or i'll find a volunteer vacation to go on.

again, not to say that i don't like his parents. i do, very much. but me spending two weeks+ with them per year is a bit much, especially when it costs me a lot of money (tenerife) or completely disrupts my normal schedule (xmas). i only barely spend that much time with my own family.