10-18 & 10-19

10-18

My mom is going out of town on Thursday morning, so I went to the cabin today, and will be taking my youngest nephew to pre-school then.  Which is fine.

I went out back to take the garbage out, and my nephew's rabbit was dead in its cage.  I kept telling them we should let it go somewhere, maybe even up at the cabin, but they were sure it would die out in the wild.  Guess we'll never know.

I just closed the file of "Arcove's Bright Side" I've had open on my desktop for four months now.  That felt strange (honestly, it was like one of those start-up files that you don't even think about; it's just always there).  Not sure what to do with my time here.  I'm like a kid on his first week of summer vacation (a kid that actually does homework, I mean.  Not a kid like you.  Or me).

I had six DVDs from the library, and could only watch one.  And oddly, the one I picked was the one movie I had already seen--2020's DUNE.  I can't remember if I've ever said anything about the movie, but I had read the book in 2019 or 2020, so I was able to follow the plot of the movie pretty well (unlike the still-incomprehensible 1984 version).  But this time, as I watched it, I wondered if a regular viewer could make heads or tails of it, and when it ended, I just shook my head, because I sort of hate where they chose to end the film.  Not sure why . . . maybe it's Zendaya.

Exercise: Yes (18)

10-19

Last night, when I drove to the dam to do my run, one of the Hazard lights was on in my car.  I didn't know what it meant but I checked my tires and found nothing wrong, so I did my run and promptly forgot about it.  The next day, however, it was very apparent what my dashboard was trying to warn me about: the rear driver's side tire was completely flat.*  

I tried to inflate it at the cabin (it only got halfway full and stopped), then drove--extremely slowly--out of the area and around the lake.  I saw a log lying in the middle of the road, and stopped to pick it up so no one would hit it, thinking that maybe that would elevate my karma and I'd make it home on a half-filled tire.**  I made it all the way up to where the dirt road becomes paved, and then remembered I had a solution.  

I pulled over on the side of the road and dug in my trunk for the Fix-A-Flat I knew I had in there (honestly, I'm not sure why I didn't think of it before I left).  I found it, and paid attention to the traffic around me, since I was out in the middle of nowhere, with no cell reception, wondering what I'd do if I didn't have that can (or couldn't find it, which was just as likely).  And you know, not a single car drove by, in all the time it took me to re-inflate the tire.

I drove as slowly as I could back to civilization, and went to the first gas station I found to fill the tire the rest of the way.  It had an air hose, but it was broken.  So, I drove to the other gas station in town, and it didn't have one at all.  So I had to drive to the next town over (I did consider just driving home like that, but worried that I'd be tempting fate), which did have a machine to inflate the tire (wow, it's $1.50 to do it now . . . making me feel about eighty years old).

While I was there, I got a text from my brother, asking if I had winterized anything at the cabin (drained the water from the pipes, left faucets open, etc.).  I told him no; I just did what I always do, which is shut everything down.  He texted back that he's going hunting this weekend, and won't be able to winterize the cabin, and there's going to be sub-freezing temperatures there.  In other words, I should've somehow known about this and made everything right.

I groused to myself and made the long way home.

What I hate is, that had I been thinking clearly, I could have turned around and gone back to the cabin to winterize all the pipes that night, when I was only twenty or so minutes away, rather than drive home and have to carve out two or three hours to go back and winterize another day.  It was something my old man absolutely loathed about me--my inability to think constructively--and I feel nearly as bad about it.

But I was worried about my tire, I guess, and was fixated on recording a podcast for Halloween, which I knew I'd have to get edited before next Monday, and by the time I got home and both my mother and my brother told me the pipes were going to freeze, it was too late to just turn right instead of going straight after filling the tire.  Well, at least I got another episode recorded.

I had planned on hitting the library to write (I've written nothing this whole week), and then going to my cousin's house, but I guess I'll do those two things tomorrow instead.

Exercise: Yes (19)

*That tire was brand new, one I just bought this weekend.  Coincidence?