Woke up when James' alarm went off and despaired of getting back to sleep as I was hot and restless—then woke up at eight o'clock. This being Tuesday, I still had laundry to do, which I would start after I took Tucker for his walk.

One teeny, tiny problem.

Our television is almost seven years old. We got it in the spring of 2008 after the switch or the power supply, whatever, died on the huge 40-inch tube job we'd moved from the old house (or, rather, the movers moved, because I wasn't having any of my friends getting a hernia helping move that thing; I swear it weighed 200 pounds—when the guys from H.H. Gregg delivered this television, they nearly popped a gut taking the big tube job away, and there's a dent still in the foyer floor caused by one of the guys losing his grip). Well, this television as well has been having trouble with the on/off switch since...August, I think it was. You'd switch it on and it would have to click twice to come on. Then it became four clicks. And ten. We started leaving it on at night, tuned to a blank channel. Once I forgot, and as I left the house to take Tucker for "walkies," it had gone through twenty clicks without starting up, but was finally on when we got back.

Last night after Castle, I was a dope and accidentally shut it off. Now if I'd noticed and turned it right back on, it would have come on; it only did the multiple click thing when it had to be started "cold." But I didn't and this morning when I turned it on, it clicked and clicked, and out Tucker and I went for twenty minutes, and it was still clicking when we returned. It was still clicking at ten o'clock, and eleven, and even after I unplugged it hoping it would "reboot" (or at least stop clicking) and re-plugged it in, it just clicked away—at noon, at one, at two...

In the meantime I replaced the light bulb in the laundry room (compact fluorescents supposed to last for ten years, eh? this one hardly made it to four and never was bright enough), did the laundry, had lunch, cleaned out the carry box and put a new toy into it, and made room in the garage since the truck will be longer with the chair lift on it. I hung several light items on the wall with tenpenny nails hammered into studs, tossed a bunch of trash away, put the ladder in a different place. I also pumped up the tires of my bicycle—hey, they're still okay!

While I was downstairs, Tucker swiped two stuffed turkeys I use for Thanksgiving decorations, demolished the head of one, and gouged the eye out of another. Thank God he didn't eat any of the eyes—he understands at least ten words, but his self-preservation level is zilch—and I tossed the decapitated turkey, was able to wash and put the missing eye back in the other, and he went to his crate to cool his little doggy heels.

After the clicking had gone on for six hours now, I thought, well, maybe I'll go to H.H. Gregg/Costco/whatever to look at televisions. I hadn't even reached the bedroom to change when the doorbell rang. Guess who! Yes, TruGreen. Where the !@#$!@#$! were you on Friday? Then I was going to take Tucker out when James arrived home; it was so slow that they were releasing everyone who got in early. So we went to H.H. Gregg and bought a TV. Not much different from the old one. It's "smart" but I didn't particularly care. The neat thing is that, because they are making the frames on them smaller, we could get a 50 inch screen vs. the old 46 inch and it was still the same width. The financing took twice as long as the actual looking around and picking out the television, and we did finance because it's 24 months same as cash and my credit card is frankly screaming with all the crap we've had to buy this year: the trailer hitch, the lift, the co-pay on the chair. It's like a freaking faucet.

You've guessed the payoff to this one, right? When we got home the television had finally come on. Screw it, I'm tired of paying higher power bills because the silly thing has to be on all night every night. But, dammit, couldn't we have waited until January?

We had turkey thighs and rice for supper, watched the last of the Shelter Dog specials and finally put a little Dave Allen At Large on.

And I had to give Tucker another rubber bone (good thing I bought two) because his new purple one has vanished. Today I looked for it everywhere. He only plays with it in the living/dining room, and I checked under everything, including under James' desk (found a rachet set, a Coke-spattered CD, and a Patrick O'Brien book) and the secretary (found the other ball), but it was not to be found, and he was just playing with it Monday night! I still haven't found the old rubber bone, which I even looked for under our bed, in our closet, and under the futon in the spare room. There's either a wormhole in our house or the dog's a fripping wizard.

This still doesn't explain what happened to my copy of The Happiness Project...

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Someone died, someone was wounded, someone will never walk again, someone was separated from their family for over a year, someone came home feeling panicked and alone...someone sacrificed for all my freedoms, including the silliest, to give me a day clear to read a book, buy a gadget, spend extra hours with my husband. They served in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard. So many get up every morning and don't know what life will bring because of what Fate will deal them. Forget Nik Wallenda, daredevils, plucky adventurers, climbers of Everest and divers below. These are the real brave ones; they give up much to make a difference to us, the people they serve.

Happy Veterans Day.

Labels: birds, dogs, electronics, money, shopping

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 11:02:00 PM

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