What a Week

Monday: Feel coughy (not a word, I know, but I'm using it anyway) and crappy, raining, etc. Go to work anyway.

Also I was worried that my rear wheels weren't on good enough after having changed my rear brakes Sunday, so that was in the back of my mind all day Monday.


Tuesday: Feel even worse, come to work anyway again, change T-Mobile plan to get unlimited internet so I can use my phone as modem for new laptop (netbook, $400, small enough to fit in my purse), and internet won't work. Decide to give it a day or so. Mom calls, says my great-aunt (who was more like a grandmother because she lived so close to us and I spend a lot of time over there as a kid) isn't doing well at all. She has had Alzheimer's since I was about 16 (so nine years) and she hasn't known anyone for at least the last five. She can't speak, and she broke her hip in the nursing home about six years ago and they wouldn't fix it so she could walk again because they thought she wouldn't last much longer. So for the last six years, she has been unable to speak, walk, feed herself, or use the restroom (really, if there were a God, and he were merciful, he would not have let that happen). So intellectually, I have known that she's been "gone" for a very long time...I am convinced that she is no longer "in there" which I guess if one has to get Alzheimer's, at least eventually, mercifully (in a sick and twisted sort of way) you are unaware of what is happening to you. So I thought I had dealt with it long ago, and processed that she was gone...and then my mom called and told me that and was hit with the realization that, no, I have not processed it, and no, I am not okay with it EVEN THOUGH I know that it would be the most merciful thing for her. I miss her, I miss Uncle Posie (her husband and my surrogate grandpa who was a little crazy, hilariously funny, and very inventive), and I'd give anything to have one more day with them both. So anyway. I had to leave the office for a bit and go cry in my car. And I need to, again, but have shoved it down into the recesses of my mind because I can't give it the time I need to right now, and anyway, there will be a funeral for that I guess.

Go to class, discover that I could have been taking Management for Engineers instead of Finite Element Methods (read: EASY A instead of possible D), come back to work, still worried about wheels. Decide to meet some friends for dinner. Before dinner, decide to go to other friend's house and check wheels. Pull up in driveway, and he freaks out because something looks wrong with my rotors. Discover that rotors are wrong size, hurry up to take old ones to be turned (call the people I got them from and leave a civil but angry message), cancel dinner, come back and get car off ground, wheels off, calipers off...and discover a leak in the seal of one of my caliper pistons (new caliper, $300...or rebuild kit, $25 and EIGHT HOURS TO REBUILD). Grapple with the realization that I won't be driving my car for a few (possibly several) days. Go pick up turned rotors, leave car and borrow friend's (he has five). Get dinner at 9:30, (STILL FEEL LIKE HOLY HELL), FINALLY go home and go to bed.

Wednesday: Feel even worse than on Tuesday (are you sensing a pattern here?), go to work anyway. Raining, and that's a problem because the loaner car leaks a little, drip...drip....drip onto my left shoulder (I had been warned that that was an issue so wasn't TOO awful). People that shipped rotors call and declare that their website isn't at all misleading (even though I chose MY make and model and somehow it jumped makes and models while I was clicking on things in MY MAKE AND MODEL'S BRAKE CATEGORY such that I ended up with 02-03 WRX rotors). Get angry and hang up on them. Post on WRXAtlanta forums about how the people who sent me the wrong rotors won't take them back (not even for a partial refund) even though they have LESS THAN FIFTY MILES ON THEM and I ordered them AFTER CHOOSING MY CAR'S MAKE AND MODEL AND THEY WERE WRONG. People agree with me, and one guy offers me a great deal on new ones that actually fit. And hopefully I have hurt their business, because there are 2500 members of WRX Atlanta. Plan to post it on NAISOC (North American Subaru Impreza Owners Club) forums as well. Go to bank to deposit $2200 check (refund from old escrow account) and it isn't in my purse because it was in my car and when I moved cars I took everything in the house. Call T-Mobile b/c internet still won't work and they try some stuff and then tell me to wait another day because nothing they have done fixes it. (At this point, it is only around 11:00 am). Go to class, feel stupid and behind, come back. Having issues with a project at work; it's not as easy as it looked. VERY FRUSTRATED AT THIS POINT. Email people about work problem, leave. Had enough. Go home, eat, take Nyquil, and accidentally crash before planned, miss hubby's phone call. Wake up at 1 am because of thunder, pee, text him to tell him I'm ok. Back to bed.

Thursday: Wake up feeling EVEN WORSE. (WONDERING HOW MUCH FUCKING LONGER THIS CAN CONTINUE). Cough a lot, rattles, hurts, but NOTHING comes up. I am hating life right about now. Get dressed, come to work. Get out of car at work and realize my entire ass is SOAKING WET because it rained all night and that drip, drip, drip had been dripping right onto the seat. Put saran wrap on the door to try and not let it get any wetter since I have to go to class and back again today. Also it is hot and humid IN THE FUCKING BUILDING so I am sweaty and hot on top of having a wet ass. That brings me to now. I am thoroughly pissed off, hot, sweaty, wet-assed, and feeling like HOLY HELL. I can't stop coughing and NOTHING WILL COME UP. And to top it all off, I STILL CAN'T GET ON THE DAMNED INTERNET WITH MY PHONE. So I get to look forward to calling inept customer service people to deal with yet another problem. And look! It's only 9:38! I can't wait to see what the rest of the day and week brings!

Don't piss me off or I'll punch you. Amen.