La Vengeance Posthume

Oh, yea of driving ability.

The BAD news is...

That I didn't pass my practical driving test. Because a) I stalled the car TWICE at the same light (ooh, the nerves!) and then forgot to take the handbreak off when I eventually got it moving and b) I didn't see a pedestrian waiting at a Zebra crossing. Boo!

Let's hope the next go on the 15th will be more successful.

The GOOD news is...

That it's the same to insure a car on a provisional license as on a full driving license. Which means that I can buy a car and use it to practice my clutch control before the next test.

So, my friend James and I went to test drive a little 1998 Nissan Micra 1.0 Twister today.

It's so tiny and super cute. I love it to bits already!

Here are a couple of photos I stole from here and there, just so that you can see how seriously adorable it is:

 

It's got an egg-beater of an engine (4 cyl, 16V), no power steering, manual transmission, A/C, cassette/radio, and a little bench-like fold down back seat. With out the seat folded down, I'll be lucky to get 1 1/2 suitcases inside. Still...it drives really well (albeit a little lurchy in 1st gear  - but then again, that's probably just my clutch control and trying to [wo]manhandle it around the parking lot) and should get good gas mileage. I think it's a perfect fit too since I'm short and don't have to worry about having lots of leg room. And Lord help any passenger...we'll be bumping elbows all along the way!

It's selling for £995 but I was able to weasel £20 off the selling price. The garage I'm buying it from will do a full MOT (look it up) within the next week, so I shouldn't have to worry about getting things fixed right away. They should fix anything that needs fixing and then let me know what I can look forward to for the next year (i.e. new tires, brakes, etc).

I put a £200 deposit down on it today, pending an independent inspection as required for my City Council loan. Money, money, money. Then hopefully, I'll be able to drive it away by the end of next week.

Oh, I do so love it.

Spring has sprung (at least in MY garden).

The weather has been warm enough lately to get my blue bells to come up out of the ground, and taking the hint from Mother Nature, I decided that it's about time to do some planting of my own.

The first challenge was to yet again clear out all the builder's junk. This meant picking up all the bits of brick, plaster, loose screws and glass that they left strewn about. I feel as though I've become a bit of a pro at this, seeing that I've done it three times now.

There was this strange raised square of paving stones along one of the walls and I thought, well heck, might as well sort that out too. You see, it was falling apart and didn't really seem to have much purpose. Late last autumn I discovered what seemed to be bits of plastic and glass lodged in the dirt under the rocks but nothing quite had me prepared for what I found:

* An Iron. As in, the kind you iron clothes with. The face plate was completely rusted off and it had all this crumbly blue stuff that looked like soap inside. I'm guessing it wasn't soap and can only hope that I don't come down with some sort of crazy lead poisoning.

* An old leather boot...hard as a rock!

* A silver soup spoon that, with a little elbow grease, cleaned up very nicely.

* Two 1 pt. 'Dale Farm' milk bottles, unbroken, and what looked to be about 3 or 4 more that were in pieces. They're kind of pretty...even in their grubby state. I think I'll use them for flowers.

* A plastic bacon wrapper.

* Tons of old pull tabs from cans of soda.

Although it was hard work sorting through all the junk, I was pretty happy with my finds. My little bit of backyard archeology!

My newly cleaned garden is now planted with wild flowers, physalis franchetii (Chinese Lantern), and a crazy amount of pink geraniums (since my one little over-watered plug did so well last summer). Being that it's still a touch cold out at night, I've repurposed all my jelly and peanut butter jars as mini-greenhouses for each geranium. Then, when it's warm enough to be left uncovered, I can the jars as tealight holders. Hooray, recycling!

Maizie, Internet Superstar.

Pardon the annoying guffaws. I just couldn't hold them in.

Driving on the wrong side.

It's really not so bad.

Okay, so maybe it's a little more difficult to keep to the center line and avoid hitting the curb. And maybe I need work on my manual transmission skills, but over the course of my hour-long lesson, I only managed to stall the car once (and that was shortly after I took off from my house with no instruction on the gearbox whatsoever).

Lessons learned:

1) Yes, British roads are significantly narrower than expected.
2) Checking blinds spots is soon forgotten.
3) 3rd and 5th gear are not the same.
4) Watch out for speed 'humps'.
5) I'm not a fan of roundabouts.
6) Even British people are hard to see at night.
7) 'Shuffling' your hands around the steering wheel (rather than hand over hand) is silly, regardless of what others might say.

Next thing on my plate is to sit my theory and hazard perception test, which I've got to pass before I'm even able to schedule the practical driving test. I've also got another lesson booked for Saturday so that I can get used to day time driving, which will hopefully be a bit easier.

Where, oh where, is my Peter Parker?

My new hair color just screams 'Comic Book Character'!

And I like it.

Dilemma of the Day

Being that I've lost weight lately, I decided to treat myself to a very cute dress. In fact, so cute that I couldn't pass it up. It doesn't hurt that the darts are placed just-so and make it fit near perfect. And it's the tiniest bit short enough to wear it with some dark skinny jeans.

My problem is that I'm just not sure which way to wear a cardigan with it. It's got a fairly large ruffled collar...do I tuck the sweater under the collar and layer it overtop?! It's a serious issue since the dress itself is sleeveless and I don't want to have to wait for the weather to warm up before I can wear it!

So...let me know what you think (I need all the help I can get). Here are some awfully dark Photo Booth pictures, but they're good enough.

Or maybe, as Anthony said, it's not really a sweater dress at all.

Either way, it makes me happy with it's little white birds.

To top things off, I've managed to win myself 6 free tickets to the Vagina Monologues on Wednesday. All told, 11 of us got tickets for only £67. What a steal!
 

Well, crap.

I did so hope that I'd get my cast off today, but it seems that the break isn't "knitting" as well as it should be.

I got a bit freaked out when, given the chance to look at the x-ray, it appeared to me that the break is WAY bigger than when I first broke it. Lucky for me, the consultant said that it just seems that way because of the angle my foot at the time of x-raying. Whew! And here I thought it was doing better.

I did get a new cast since the old one was rubbing on my shin a bit too much. Man, was it nasty on the inside (and only after 3 weeks!). My heel left a disgusting yellow-brown spot and little bits of black dirt and fuzz balls were left clinging to my leg. As for my leg hair...gross! They've grown all curly-wurly everywhere and I've got something that looks like razor burn where my shin was rubbing. I can imagine how badly bruised it was even just a few days ago, because there is still a little one in the middle of my foot, top and bottom.

Still, it feels much better. No pain...other than the scratchy hair and dead skin. It makes me wonder if it's better to break something in the summer so that you can at least hope for moisturized skin, or in the winter so that you don't have to worry about sweaty, stinky feet. I guess in the end you don't really get to choose either way!

Today is a day is today.

It's been pretty quiet around here lately.

Anthony is off in Dundee visiting our friend Michael and giving a talk to the University there. I've been slaving away at work all week long and have decided that I hate Mondays and Fridays because it's inevitable that some sort of crisis is going to happen. And usually during the last two hours or so of the work day.

I've sent off my application for a provisional driving license (or learner's permit, as we'd call it in the US). I'm going to try and block book a couple of driving lessons so that I have a feel for the road here before taking the driving test. I think I might also head down to the bookstore today to see if I can snag a book that will help with the Theory test. I haven't decided yet if I want to spend the money on learning to drive manual transmission, or to keep to an automatic. I guess it's that balance between spending more on the lessons or spending more on the car itself. Really, it wouldn't be so terrible to learn the stick-shift.

Speaking of driving, I can't really do anything while this cast is still hampering my mobility. It's a pain in the ass, for sure. It's supposed to come off on the 3rd, but the appointment conflicts with some Safeguarding (i.e. Adult Protection) training that I absolutely have to go to. Because my consultant GP is at the Fracture Clinic on Tuesdays only, I was told that I'd have to reschedule it for the following week. Agh! Another WHOLE WEEK with an itchy, cramped leg! Oh no...so I begged to have it off next Tuesday instead and they've agreed since it's feeling much, much better now. Really, the only thing that hurts is my inside ankle and shin.

Such excitement!

Is there such thing as too many vegetables?

I love our vegetable box, don't get me wrong. But do I really need an entire refrigerator drawer full of carrots, beets and parsnips?

Maybe I'm just a bad vegan and eat too much bread (my forever favorite food item). Or maybe I just need to have a huge veggie roast/steam/boil/broil/grill-up, with the intention of freezing them to throw into soups, stews and casseroles. Or...maybe I should get the Xtreme Veg Box (as Eden Farms calls it) every other week, with a smaller 'to juice' box in between?!

Such dilemmas.

Inauguration night went well. Our new, and much improved, President looked very tired when he was giving his dinner speech. I have high hopes for him and this week's episode of This American Life has pushed them even higher. Really, can we hope for a President who will set standards on the amount of pollution we put into the air and water and ground? Will he really decrease the number of veterans becoming homeless while increasing the amount of mental health treatment for those coming back with PTSD? Maybe. Maybe not. But in truth, I feel like this is the first time I've ever really felt proud to be an American...just the anticipation of what's to come is enough to keep me up at night.

Another thing that excites me is the prospect of going to see The Vagina Monologues. It's playing here in Nottingham from Feb 4th to the 7th and I'm definitely going. I read it a few years back and thought it was amazing but I wonder how it will be with a British audience and actors (since it seems very American to me). I'll just have to go and see.

Things that go bump under the bathtub.

Well, I think we've finally figured out why Sid has been lurking around the bathtub and toilet for the last few weeks.

You see, due to poor workmanship - namely because of time pressures and the fact that the builders are all non-native and therefore may be working to different building standards, it seems that we have a large hole underneath our bathtub. Part of this hole is occupied by the bathtub plumbing, the other part being occupied by large chunks of brick and other such building rubble. Underneath the pipes and the chunks of whatnot lies our sewer. It's not a problem right now as it's cold outside, but I'm guessing that it could get a mite stinky once it starts to warm up.

Outside, there's a rusty sewer cover and a fairly large sized hole in the bottom of the wall where the bathtub plumbing come out and connect with the downspouts. This, I've discovered, is a perfect hidey-hole for our new friend, a little brown rat.

The reason for it's discovery is because I put some slices of stale bread out in the garden for the birds. Lo and behold! when I woke up in the morning and looked out our bedroom window, there was it's cute little self nomming the life out of the nearest slice. It really is a cute little thing. I'm guessing it's a girl because it doesn't have nasty *ahem* man-rat bits.

We've seen her twice now and each time we open the window, she hops right back into the hole. It's not really much of a problem, other than that I think she's now living somewhere under my bathtub. That, and the normal problems that one might have, come summer, with an open sewer/bathroom set up.

I know we've got to get the hole sorted sooner than later, but I'm really worried that the management going to put down rat poison if I tell them that she's there. And we don't want that! All life is precious, folks. Even cute little maybe-carrying the plague rats.