Where to start....
Friday afternoon, I met Howard downtown after he dropped his car off at the dealership he just bought it from. The day he bought it, the check engine light came on. He called them and they told him to bring it back in. Before he did that, he took it to the place we trust. They told him that the thermostat needed to be replaced and the serpentine belt was very worn as well. Howard took it back to the dealership and of course they told him that the only thing wrong was the thermostat needed to be reset. That's when his tricky move came in handy and he told them he had already had it looked at. Er, um, wellllll. Yeah, buddy, replace it and while you are at it, take a look at that serpentine belt. So when he left, he had an appointment for Friday to have both items replaced.
After dropping the car off, we met at a restaurant. I ordered fried shrimp with remoulade sauce. See, I don't order shrimp with remoulade sauce for the shrimp. I order it for the remoulade. I don't even particularly like fried shrimp but I LOVE remoulade. There were a couple things on the menu that looked good but my eyes kept coming back to remoulade sauce. Yummm. I told Howard that's why I was ordering it and strangely, he just nodded because he already knew that. When I get my plate, I see cocktail sauce. I asked about the remoulade and she tells me they are out of it. I know it's just a sauce but THAT IS WHY I ORDERED THE DISH. Seriously, I was angry. I didn't express it to her of course because I know what they do to your food when you are mean to them. I've seen "Waiting". But if I order something on the menu and you are out of a certain part of that dish, I think you should tell me. End rant.
While downtown, I snapped a couple pictures.
That white structure is actually Howard's gauge station. He goes in there and hooks his computer up and does things. And then he takes a boat and goes across the river measuring at different intervals. Or something.
These are pictures of the wall that runs along the river. It goes on and on and I've never really taken the time to walk it and read about the murals. Probably because Howard gets bored after one. Hence why I only have two pictures before he was dragging me away.
After lunch, we headed back to the dealership to get Howard's car. They said they had fixed the belt but their mechanic wasn't skilled enough to change out the thermostat. They wanted us to bring the car back Monday so they could take it somewhere else to get it fixed. Howard asked for the new thermostat and said he would take it somewhere to get it done Saturday he wasn't going to be taking anymore time off work. We dropped the car off at the place we trust and headed home.
Saturday, we went to pick it up and promptly headed over to the dealership to give them the receipt. They had said they would reimburse Howard for $80 only. But after discussing it, we felt like they should reimburse the entire amount of $140. We went in and handed the guy the receipt. He started arguing and between Howard and I "speaking loudly" about the reasons we believed they should pay for all of it and the customers stopping to stare at us, it didn't take long before he was agreeing with us. I'm pretty sure he just wanted us out of there.
We stopped by Walmart and bought an inflatable pool. Howard's co-worker had purchased one that morning for $79 and said it was extremely easy to set up. It was going to be 93 degrees on Sunday and we had yardwork to do so we went ahead and got it.
We set it up when we got home on what we thought was level ground. Not so much. The water was spilling out one side once it was filling up. We drained it and started over. Nothing we did worked. We even drove to the neighbors and asked them for their secrets. They didn't have any. Turns out we are just epic failures. Not sure if we are going to return it and upgrade or try and make it work again. I just know we've wasted a TON of water so far.
Sunday afternoon, I was sitting on the couch happily watching HGTV when Howard comes in and tells me not to lift a certain board up outside. He said there was a snake under it. Then he says, well I wasn't going to tell you but there are actually 2 of them. He was going back outside to attempt to kill them. When his cell phone rang 15 minutes later, I grabbed it and without thinking ran out the door without shoes to give him his phone. I ran around the corner and came upon Howard weilding a shovel and that's when it dawned on me. Oh right! Howard's killing snakes out here. He lifted the board up and there were 3. Heebie Jeebie Heebie Jeebie. I freaked and ran away. He told me he was able to get 1 but the other 2 are still out there. Yay!
The finale of Lost was on last night as I'm sure everyone is aware. I was crying within 2 minutes of the 2 hour special shown before the finale. Howard came in the room and dropped a couple tissues on my lap without even knowing I had tears running down my face. I asked him how he knew and he just said, because I know you and I know you will cry like 100 times before it's all over. And with that, he left me alone for the rest of the night to enjoy my most favorite show's ending. I enjoyed it. I know it might not have been what everyone was looking for but I'm happy with it.
And now I'm off to the vet to get Copper looked at. Late Saturday night, Howard noticed a lot of blood built up in his right ear. I used the almighty google to determine it's probably ear mites and it was nothing absolutely urgent but I'm still worried about him. My poor little guy:
