Don't Be a Jerk When You Come Here

The tire place called Thursday to tell me the new valve stem had come in. Apparently, the first order got lost, so they had to order again, and it was 10 days before the second order came in. I had my car there by 8 am yesterday morning and was on the road again by 9. Now I am down to one light on the dashboard. The check engine light presumably will stay on until BMW fixes this EGR cooler issue, but at least it doesn’t yell randomly like the tire pressure monitor did.

[I am so traumatized by the warning chimes on my car that when the chime goes off to the tell me the temperature is 37 degrees, I always get a bit of a gut clench until I see that it’s just that alarm. LOL]

It took me most of the morning to get all my errands done.

I’m trying very hard not to complain about all the people moving here, because we moved here 29 years ago, but my experience at the Panera drive-through is so emblematic of why we dislike this recent influx of foreigners, especially Californians. I pulled into the Panera parking lot intending to grab a quick bite to eat from the drive-through. A Ford Explorer with CA plates was parked just at the entrance to the drive-through—not in the drive-through, but blocking the entrance—with two empty car lengths ahead of it. I sat there for a few moments, expecting that the driver would notice that someone was behind them and pull up. Nope. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that the car just to my left was trying to pull out of its parking space but apparently didn’t see me. I tapped on my horn to warn them and they stopped. The Ford Explorer still didn’t move. By this time, I was annoyed, so I honked the horn. The Ford Explorer moved into the drive-through just enough for me to pull up so the car to my left could leave.

The Ford Explorer still had two car lengths between it and the car ahead of it. Finally, the Explorer pulled up and the woman inside gave her order. She then moved up just enough so that I couldn’t get to the order kiosk. (There were still two car lengths between her and the car ahead of her.) I had to wait until she pulled up further. When I was done, I tried to pull forward so that the lady behind me could give her order, but the Ford Explorer had only moved a few feet. Her window was down, and I was so very tempted to yell, “People like you are why we hate Californians!” but I restrained myself.

Honestly, I would have been annoyed by that behavior even if she had had Montana plates on her car, but the CA plates were just icing on the cake. That is not how most people behave here. (And my apologies to my CA readers, because I know not everyone in CA behaves like that, either.)

It’s not even tourist season yet.

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I worked on the red Candy Coated quilt again yesterday afternoon. I’ve got one quadrant quilted:

I could feel the shift when I finally relaxed into the process. My quilting improved from that point, although Amanda Murphy is right. Part of what quilting does, besides anchoring the layers together, is add texture. As more quilting gets added, everything blurs together into an overall textural effect. I did lament to the husband that it seemed like my really nice swirls were in the sections where the thread blended into the background, so you can’t see them.

One added benefit of those gripper rings is that they keep me from hunching over my work, so my shoulders don’t get as tired. I did switch back to the larger ring and will continue to use that one. I found that as I got better—and faster—I was bumping up against the smaller ring too often.

DD#2 asked me when I was coming to Seattle again, so I’m planning a trip there in a few weeks. (Why yes, I’d be happy to take a road trip.) If BMW gets its act together, perhaps I’ll be able to combine that with a stop in Spokane to have the dealer do the recall work, but I’m not holding my breath.

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Broody Hen has been parked in her nesting box for almost two weeks now, so we may know by the end of next week if she’s got any chicks. The gestation period is about 21 days.

We have to make a decision about pigs soon. We had talked about taking a year off so that the husband could get some infrastructure work done out in the pig pasture. If we’re going to go ahead, I need to let the breeder know soon how many weaners we’ll want.

And my seed order arrived yesterday:

I’m always a bit nervous until I have seeds in hand, although I keep a backup supply in the freezer that I rotate out every year or two. I put a few veggies back on the list this year, like collard greens and acorn squash. I still have to get a fresh batch of seed potatoes. We saved the Yukon Golds for seed because they were so nice, but everything else has to be replaced. I’lll pick those up as soon as the feed store gets them in stock.