Thank you for your comments, squeezes (virtual and otherwise), gifts (!!I got gifts!!), support, love, feedback.

I escaped to San Francisco for a few days and felt like a PTSD-stricken refugee wobbling off a leaky boat. MM can attest to my extreme fragility. Fortunately, food, company, comedy shows, and rest have returned me to somewhat-among-the-living.

I’ll go more into other stuff later (I am proud of that sentence and am leaving it in there), but first — just some crap I’m getting done, now that crises have passed and life is rolling forward again. Here come some BEFORE pics.

It’s not like I have a brown thumb when it comes to gardening — it’s more like I have no thumbs at all. It took years of people saying “uh, whoa” when coming to the patio that I even saw the weeds, the bizarre overgrown pathway, the many dead plants, the ivy that’s creeping into the house. That chair cushion didn’t go missing in 2010 — it just got swallowed up by the.. uh.. plants.

The best and most wondrous aspect of this snoozy story is that I hired a guy named Bill, a guy with the most profound Southern accent I have ever heard. I will do what I can not to pester him on Friday, but I will force him to say “barrel”, “July”, and other word that sound excellent through (I suspect) an Oklahoma-area filter.

I got 6 totally thrashed dining room chairs redone. “After” pics to come, once I overcome the shock of how much the re-doing cost! Yipes. But they are beautiful, so beautiful. Forgot to ask the chair guy if he encountered any manufacturing marks, but they sure look like Møller. The money will be recouped one way or another, even if it’s just payment of years of sitting my Danish ass upon these stylish seats.

You stupid car. You stupid, stupid car. I have spent instant-headaches amount of money on you, car. Enjoy your new transmission. Stupid.

There will be no “After” pic of you, car.