Lame Excuses

When I was foureen and didn't finish my World History homework once -- okay -- I blew off a paper -- I actually used the excuse "My dog ate the whole thing."  Since I am 61 years old, I think I my age alone is proof that I was the first person to come up with that lie.

So when I say that I wrote an entry on Thursday about my upcoming first year journal anniversary [March 17th] and tried to send it from where I was working [out of town], so it wouldn't seem like I farted off for a whole six days not writing in my journal, I figure I have two chances of getting anyone to believe me -- slim and none.

[Try reading that sentence without breathing.  You'll need air.]

But I really did write one.  And when I clicked on SAVE nothing happened. So I clicked SAVE again.  Still nothing. Actually, something did happen. I swore. Pissed me off.  Hang on a minute, did I copy it and send it to myself?  NO, because when you go to AOL.com to access your journal you pretty much can't do squat, especially copy what you wrote.

Now I'm back writing on my new MAC, which I love for everything EXCEPT my journal. Why is it that MACs are such a mystery to the folks at AOL? Why can't they figure out how to let me change the font and use colors in an entry.  I smell Microsoft conspiracy.  

Sorry, my dog ate the MAC manual.

Working last week in Ann Arbor, which I consider one of the great college towns in the country [and it would be the greatest, except that it's in Michigan and it gets COLDER than Chicago up there] -- I got to experience a pet psychic up close and personal. She was part of the unusual ideation [that's brainstorming in marketing jargon] I participated in.

Most of us tried to be openminded and receptive to her, but except for one dog she "READ" by holding its collar, most of what she said seemed pretty obvious. Especially after she asked the dog's name and how old it was.  "Your puppy has a hard time focussing his attention."  Um, he's a she.  "Well, he's easily distracted."  Um, maybe because SHE'S a puppy.
Stuff like that.  Except she did know that the dog whose collar she held had a bad foot.  OOOOO, cosmic.  

The other thing that happened had nothing to do with the ideation.  I drove my Jeep the 270 miles from my house.  The second day of the ideation I drove it from the hotel to the facility, parked it and went inside. Fifteen minutes later I came out to get something from the car and noticed steamy stuff coming out from under the hood.  Oh, great, I have a new radiator and it's not working.

One of the guys I work with had spent Saturdays with his dad fixing cars before going to art school to be an illustrator, so he checked under the hood, while I turned on the engine and he found where there was coolant spewing out of a hose and tightened the clamp.  But he also noticed a loose connector from an oil thingy. Sorry, once I open the lid [I mean hood] everything on the engine a thingy. The end of the connector was torn and someone had reattached it with electrical tape which had come loose.  WTF -- who did that?  And when?  No problem.  We just got some more electrical tape and fixed it up the same way again.

You would think after all the trips to the dealer for warrantee work, to the Korean mechanic who bows when he gives me my bill, to National Pride who change my oil in ten minutes, to my friend who is an engine whisperer, that someone, somebody might have noticed there was a torn hose that was being held together with TAPE?  Sheesh.

Sorry, my dog ate the engine manual.

Meanwhile, there's only five more days until Mrs. Linklater's Guide to the Universe celebrates its first anniversary.  I say we all gather here at 9:00 AM CST on March 17th, before the St Paddy's drinking begins in earnest, for some serious roasting [via email for instance] of Mrs. Linklater's bad self.  And she will start posting your comments along with some of her favorite entries [all two of them] as she takes a trip down memory lane.