About nothing

My buddy jabacue wrote a post about nothing, and since I don't really have anything about which to write, I thought that I, too, would write about nothing.

I've heard a lot of good things about Seattle, though I have never been there. I'd like to go some day.

The transmission in my truck broke. I don't know exactly what is meant by "broke," but I suspect most of my readers don't know enough about manual transmissions in 1990 F150s for it to be a critical point. The transmission was tragically and immovably broken, so the truck wouldn't move. I had it towed to my guy at the shop, and he suggested we replace it with either a used or a rebuilt transmission. I wondered about just scrapping it. He said it was worth enough to fix it and sell it if we want to. The used transmission was cheaper (by more than half, if I recall) so that's what we chose. I wonder if it was a wise decision. We picked it up on Superman's lunch break today. The sucker cost almost $1000 to repair. Labor was a large portion of the charge, as it takes a lot of work to pull and replace one of those trannies.

I like that truck, but my ardor is waning. I like it less during the hot summer months (no a/c) than I do in the winter. I have a difficult time determining when it's best to cut my losses and move on. Hey, maybe if I keep it another 10 years (or more), it will be an antique and a collector's item. We need a pickup truck, and we probably couldn't get another one in decent condition for less than $1K. Now that it has a newer tranny (67K miles on it) it is a decent truck. Not a great truck, not a pretty truck (it has never been pretty), but a decent truck.

Light has gone out to look for a job. I had to kick her butt to get her moving. She only has an hour to try, because Sproing has an appointment to see the doctor later this afternoon. He did something to hurt his right ankle. I'm not sure what happened, but he says it has something to do with being roughed up by some big mean kids. It's been a bit swollen and intermittently sore for two days. I say intermittently because sometimes he milks the injury for all it's worth, and sometimes he runs around like nothing is wrong. I think the pain is genuine, but not as intense as he makes it out to be.

But about this job thing: the child needs a job. She isn't really a child, exactly, except that she's my child. She'll be 21 next month. She'll be in her senior year when she returns to college in the fall. She has never held a traditional job. She's done some long-term babysitting and occasional house- and dog-sitting. She spent a week as a receptionist last summer, filling in at a friend's office for the vacationing receptionist. She did quite well. She is intelligent and articulate, empathetic and responsible. She'll be an asset just about anywhere she goes. She just has to get out there and try!

Yeah, Sproing got roughed up a bit on Monday. He was at his "friend's" house playing the Xbox, and some big mean kids came around to pick on them. I really have no idea what happened. My sources aren't reliable. The upshot, though, is that his bike got stolen. Pisses me off. We called the police. The only name we had was "Big Devon," but the police officer was able to get some information about him. He (the officer) called Superman later in the evening and gave him the name. They did not find the bike, but the officer suggested that Superman go to the office that handles that stuff (?) in the municipal building downtown and file a juvenile complaint. That's on the to-do list.

I'm supposed to go to Columbia tomorrow to visit the Diva. -groan- I guess I'll call her therapist and arrange a time for that. Oooh! But if I go to Columbia, I can get a Cinnabon! Life needs frosting, you know.

I was schlepping around Wal-Mart this morning and ran into one of my professors. She taught my English class last year. She's a really nice (and pretty) woman. She says she likes my new haircut. I forgot that no one from school has seen the butch dyke cut yet. She indicated that she really likes it, though. That's nice.

Now that the hair has had a few weeks to grow out, I might take a picture and post it here. I like it a little bit better now. It was uneven at first, but it grew out enough for Superman to give it a buzz with the 1" shield, bringing the top to more or less uniform length.

And that's a lot of nothing. Congratulations on reaching the end.