fixed, and not broken

    My parents have been and gone. Arrived yesterday around 1:00, I think. We hung out at my apt. until my father's nervous anxiety about my car's flat tire propelled us out to the farm & home store (oh, yeah) to get the tire repaired. In retrospect, it's a damned good thing we left when we did 'cause it took for fucking EVER to get the tire fixed. There was a long line in front of us, and at least one of the technicians was as dumb as a box of rocks. (He came out while we were waiting to ask the ~14-y-o girl waiting with her parents--who seemed to be the only one of her family group who understood English, at least the way the technician spoke it--how to open the hood of their car. I didn't see what they were driving, but I don't think it was a Duesenberg, or a DeLorean. How hard could it be to find the hood release?!) So: bad news, it took hours to accomplish the repair; good news, it was done by the tech who was obviously not an idiot, involved more labor and materials than were written on the work order, and only cost $13.30. (Since I'd expected to buy a new tire, that was particularly awesome.)

    After all that, we were starved. Came back here and ordered a massive pizza from World Famous. It arrived in almost record time, we ate, and they left for their hotel a few moments later.

    They seemed to have calmed down a lot over the period of time that they were here. When they arrived, they were both keyed up. I initially thought that something was really wrong: somebody was ill, or there was other serious trouble that they were working up to telling me. I eventually decided that they'd just convinced themselves/each other that something was wrong with me, and were trying to determine what it was. Once they realized that I'm still me, they could behave "normally" again. What passes for normal, anyway.

    In other news, I seem to have sprained the fourth finger on my right hand. No clue how. It happened sometime Friday, probably afternoon, at work. Symptoms: sore (internally); more painful when touched or moved a lot; slightly swollen; skin almost taut, especially over the half by the nail; slightly warm to the touch; no discoloration. It hurts more to twist it than to bend it--not that I'm doing much of either. It's not excruciating; on a 1-10 pain scale (10=worst) it's a 5, escalating to 8 when I crank on it a lot. That's something I can live with.

    After yesterday's snow, today is once again sunny & beautiful. Time to leave this cube & enjoy it while I can.