$1.99 for a fax

I just paid $1.99 to send a fax. I’m irked by this. Which is remarkable because here are the events that led up to my paying $1.99 to send a fax.

Today my Jones did not go to school because he was still semi-comatose from the heavy-duty antibiotics his body is processing in its battle against the death bug he brought home last week. No doubt the fault of some parent dosing his kid up with aspirin and tossing him back in the classroom, hoping nobody would notice.

This bug has laid waste to the entire family, save Girl (knock wood). Every day I wake up with an entirely new symptom. Yesterday it was muscle pain. Today it’s sore throat. But I thought to take a Tylenol when I woke in the middle of the night (recurring hideous dream where I get caught in flagrante with various unsavory characters in my life), so it’s under control at the crack of dawn, when I must rouse to put Girl on the bus and begin my journey to Eloy, a monotonous hour and a half straight shot from my home.

I have court at the immigration detention center. I do the dead man walking march past the sequentially locking doors, the barbed wire, the surrender of my id, the marking on my hand in invisible ink, the guard escort. But that was actually really neat, being my first detention court experience. And my guy got what he needed, which was just a lower bond so that he could get back to his family and his other lawyer in San Francisco.

The immigration detention center is down a long gravel road out with the tumbleweeds with no cars in sight. And to top it, there is a dangerous felon on the loose from the nearby county facility. So naturally I blow out a tire. And when I say blow out, I mean the rim was irreparable. And there’s noone, so I go to fix the tire. And I actually manage fairly well, so butch in my sandals and skirt working those lug nuts. So that was actually really neat.

So it hurts to pay for the new tire and rim, but what are ya gonna do? But then I decide to bail on going into the office, because it’s all the way north and I’ve just come from all the way south and I’m sick and Jones is sick and I’ve had a day. But that’s just an excuse because I haven’t had a day.

My day’s been fine. I’m fine. I have a job that allows me the flexibility to bail sometimes. That in itself is pretty wonderful. I’m sick, but I’m getting over it. I’ve got health insurance. And I mean, after all, I’m not SICK sick. Court, jail, changing a tire – not really all that stressful. Paying for the tire sucked, but what are ya gonna do? Plus, there’s a Sonic Burger by the tire place and I got a strawberry limeade (My absolute fave, and good on the throat – Tylenol wearing off now). This is what being in your thirties is, I muse, trying in vain to get strawberry up my straw and wishing I’d gotten the Route 44. Nothing riles you.

And then I remember that I still need to fax the thing about the bond to the San Francisco lawyer. And since I’m not going into the office, I need to go to the Postnet…

So, correction. Things still rile me. I am totally riled right now. Over paying $1.99 for a fax.

Shout out to universal remotes

And to my beloved. This business trip marks my husband's first that I can confidently command the technology in my own home. I can watch tivo, live tv, or even a movie even though it is well past a reasonable hour in his time zone. Nachos in hand, I settle in for a night's viewing, secure in the knowledge that the remote has been programmed so expertly by my soul's mate, the captain of my ship, that even I can't foul it up. Hee-hee-hee. Blue screen of death; where is thy sting?

Dispatches from the ADHD front

So my girl comes home yesterday and says it's her shoulder mate's birthday tomorrow and she'll be in her workshop making him something. A shoulder mate, for the uninitiated, is the person who sits next to you at the table (or diagonal -- it wasn't clear). So she comes down and she's made this contraption with feathers and wood bits. Me: What is it? She: I don't know. Me: May I suggest making him a lanyard instead?

I mean, the kid is almost ten. Do I seriously have to tell her not to make the sort of present that only a mother would love? But I'm so delighted that she has exhibited sufficient awareness of the world that she even knows this kid's name and has managed to remember that his birthday is tomorrow that I don't quibble. So shoulder mate is getting both the feathered creation and a lanyard snake today.