hold the wheel and drive

Oh hey look, I have a website. Imagine that! I bet I don’t have any readers left considering I’ve posted utter crap in sporadic bursts for a while now. If you’re still here, thanks!

I’m still having problems with my back and I have a yucky cold, so I’m going to the doctor today about both issues. I also have an exterminator coming to the house today to do a termite inspection, but they can’t possibly give me any less than a two-hour window, so I’m working from home for a few hours while I wait for them. My landlord scheduled it for my house and the house next door, which he also owns and rents out. Evidently we have had termite problems in the past. I wonder if that explains the weird enormous cracks in the paint throughout the house. I can hear them going off like shotguns sometimes and since I am a little catastrophe-minded, I sit and wonder if it’s possible for the house to actually fall down around me. There are, seriously, cracks several feet long in multiple areas of the house, though most of them are on the walls around the staircase. Could that be termites? I don’t know. I started to Google and then got grossed out by all the pictures and quit.

I’m also stressing that they may want to treat the house for termites this afternoon, and I’m not sure what to do about Abby and Marco. Should I take them with me to the doctor and leave them in the car? Don’t you have to take pets out of the house when they do exterminating things?

Did I tell you that I let Jamie practice driving while I was home over break? It’s true. She has her learner’s permit but my parents are so paranoid and spazzy these days that they’ll never take her out driving. So I drove her over to the elementary school and we practiced parking and turning and driving and such, and then I decided to let her try to drive home from there on the real road. Of course, the first thing we see is a tractor trailer coming toward us on the two-lane road. Jamie did very well, and I get a gold star for not hissing or fake-braking once. I nearly pooped my pants, though. I think teaching kids to drive must be one of the most frightening things a parent will ever do.

There’s a bit for you for now. I really need to get back into the habit of writing regularly again. In other news, I am hungry. The end.

6 Replies to “hold the wheel and drive”

  1. Certainly, if you have termites, they could reduce a load-bearing stud to rubble over time. But that probably wouldn’t cause the place to collapse. Probably.

  2. You’re a braver woman than I (and no doubt more patient); teaching someone to drive should earn you some kind of medal. I say this as someone whose motto for driving tests is “fourth time lucky.”

  3. Are you parents spazzy and fearful about the driving because of the old accident? Or was it some trauma that the daughters inflicted upon them during driver training and Jamie is being made to pay for it?

    My mom taught all three of us on a clutch. How that car survived I don’t know. Way to go ’83 Nissan Sentra!

    How her neck survived all that clutch-training whiplash is a mystery too…especially since she seems to catch the worst of other things (breast cancer, hysterectomy, slipped vertebrae, ACL tear, and unbelievable number of hideous viruses due to working in a hospital, etc.). She’s like a good-hearted Rasputin.
    -cK

  4. you will, of course, take the cats out. It’s true – they should not endure, will not endure, the gassing.

    I just had too much chocolate. Stupid working late and nothing around but left-over holiday chocolates. x-(

  5. My parents were always spazzy and fearful and a bit impatient about teaching us to drive, but it’s magnified by a million since the accident. They’d taught the first three of us before, so Jay is the only one left.

    By the way, my home is termite-free, and Marco opened the cupboard under the sink and hid behind the dishwasher while the inspector did his thing. My cats are mental.

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