I hope it's not an omen of things to come.

Walked out this morning to come to work, furiously scraped the frost off of Reba's car, decided I needed to put down some of the papers I was holding in my non-scraping hand, went to the van and put the key in the ignition, turned it, and--

Nothing. Deader'n a hammer. It being relatively new, and having just been used successfully on Monday to ferry children around, I surmised that one of said children had probably left one of the many tempting ceiling-mounted click-on, click-off reading lamps in the decidedly clicked-on position. Thus ensuring a complete battery discharge by this morning.

::sigh::

I put my stuff down and wildly tapped on Reba's window to get her to reopen the garage door, ran in and got the keys to Moby, put them in and--

Cranked right up. Thank heavens.

I finished scraping the last bit of frost off of the Focus and waved Reba and the kids on and got my stuff out of the other van--papers, garage door opener, parking deck card--and then see-sawed my way out of the tiny space between the front bumper of the Honda and the garage door in front of the Plymouth. Seems that when the battery is dead on the Honda, there is no way to shift it out of Park, which meant I couldn't back it up a bit to give myself some more room. Luckily, there was enough room to complete a fifteen-point, 180 degree turn.

And now? Well, I'm back at work! Finally, some REST!

And time to catch up with you all about the wonderful and strange adventures that occurred in the preceding week, none of which are actually THAT wonderful and strange, and it's probably a stretch to call them 'adventures.' But, you know, compared to watching batteries die, it's probably pretty compelling stuff. Or not.

Anyway, check back periodically for some stuff throughout the day. I have some massive catching up to do with the paying gig as well as the blogging gig, so I can't give you the whole story at once.

Most Disappointing Gift? Aside from the set of decorative stainless steel gut hooks from the Pampered Taxidermist, I would have to say it was one I gave myself, via Reba. (You know, you find something, buy it, and say, "Here, put this in my stocking for me!" Well, maybe you don't.)

Anyway, I found a wallet set at Wal-Mart that had in it the one thing I have coveted for years now--a key case. For some reason, it has become very difficult to find a key case. You know, the ones that have a row of little hooks to hang keys on, and the sides fold over and snap shut, keeping all the keys together so they don't jingle and/or get all nicked up and/or tear holes in your pockets. I have had the same one now for over six or seven years. It's leather, and just about worn to shreds. Yet, it still does what I need it to do. But it's unsightly. I have looked and looked for a similar item, and even thought about taking it to the shoe repair place to see if they could fix a new case for it. But I figured it would be cheaper to buy one. If I could find one.

SO, I was overjoyed to see the little set of stuff, and told Reba I was getting it so she could put it in my stocking, and that she could have the rest of it because the only thing I wanted was the key case.

Christmas came, and WHAT'S THIS!? Why, it's a KEY CASE FROM SANTA! Yay! After getting the kids settled in with all of their noisemaking supplies, I eagerly tore apart the box and got all the other stuff and laid it aside and began transfering all of my keys to the new hooks. Ahhhh. Nice! And then, I closed the sides over, the new leather so slick, so soft, yet still so firm, and--and--::sigh:: It lacked a good half inch being able to close. Seems as though I have too many keys. I took off several, and yet, still, no dice. ::deeply overwrought sigh::

Later on, I took all my keys off and put them back on the old hooks, and snapped the old cover shut. The key case quest continues.
posted by Terry at 7:57:00 AM