Shave and a haircut....

So this morning I get up bright and early. Who am I kidding I was awaken by the boys before 7:00am. I ran outside and put down weed and feed on the front yard to help keep up with the Joneses next door and have a weed-free lawn. I will do the backyard tomorrow morning. Anyway after doing that I headed out for a hair cut. I wanted to get my hair cut short for our vacation. Oh, by the way did I mention we were heading to Alabama to see my dad? The forecast for down there is mid to upper 80's so I want to have as short of hair as possible. After my haircut I headed over to the Saturn dealership for an oil change and to see what "other"service they want to try and talk me into. We get free car washes for the Saturn as long as we own it, but since we live on the other side of town we don't use this service that much. It was real handy when Jen worked across the street at Lincoln. I figure over the 8 years we have owned the car we have used it enough. Anyway, I find that if I get the car washed before I get the oil changed I can usually avoid a huge crowd at the car wash. Yeah they are free, but they are free too ALL of the cars that they sell at the automall, and there is only ONE thing to drive through so it gets real busy on the weekends and after 5 on the weekdays. The quality of the wash is kinda poor but it's free. Anyhooo. I get into the dealership and it doesn't look that busy. I deal with the girl service advisor that I like working with. They have a grumpy old man that tries to sell you everything under the sun and makes it seem like if you don't do the service he recommends that you will surely kill yourself in an accident. I notice that I am 500 miles away from 100,000. The advisor says it's time to start looking at the 90,000 service for the car, but then she does an ideal thing. She actually takes the time to look back at my previous service to see that I had had alot of the stuff done over the past couple of years. That's the kind of service that I appreciate. I can't afford the "recommended" service at 30, 60,and 90,000 miles, so I have been doing a couple thing at a time. I call it my a la carte service plan and it works pretty good. She tells me that I am next in line so it won't be that long which is fantastic. I go into the waiting room and grab a pop and a couple of cookies (I really like that feature at Saturn). I go outside to look over the used cars and some of the demo models. I like to take a look just to have some idea of how much it would cost if I would ever have to replace the Saturn. It's cold and windy outside so I don't hang out there long. I go back in and grab a refill to hear my name being called. Dang that was fast. Of course as I am paying my bill some one else pulls a car in front of mine blocking the exit. The service girl gets pissed at her co-worker and kind of lets me know it under her breath. After a short wait I head out.

After my quick Saturn adventure I head over to my brother's house. I agreed to take care of his lawn while he is out on the road. Just to keep you up to speed on that story. My brother got divorced in December. In the settlement he got the house, that he didn't want, and also let his ex live in the house for a couple of months until she found a place to go. Well, the deadline for move out was May 1, which came and went since she didn't have a place to go. And then the deadline was extended to May 15, but later extended to the 18th. After she moves out, we move in for a major clean,repair, update, job on the house. We don't want to throw alot of money into it, but it has to be presentable for when it goes on the market. Anyhoo again, I feel a little awkward going to the house with her still there since I haven't talked to her in months and wasn't sure how that meeting was going to go. I pull up to the house and see my mom and another van in the driveway. That's weird. Come to find out that a guy from the gas company was there to disconnect the gas grill from the meter so we can get rid of the gas grill. For some reason my brother's ex just leaves for work after letting the gas guy start the work but then locks him out of the house. Yeah he does the work outside, but he can't turn the gas back on to the house without making sure that the water heater is properly lit and the furnace is working. You know the general stuff they do to make sure the don't blow up someone's hosue. So they call my brother, who is somewhere USA, who in turn calls my mom, but she doesn't have a key or garage door opener to the house. My ex mother in law was supposed to be there to let him in, but didn't show up. Finally the gas guy leaves a note on the door and takes off. Mom and I chat for a while, but then I decide to give the grass a cut. Lucky for me the lawn mower is in the shed out back so I didn't have to worry about it being locked up. I grab the mower and start cutting the grass. I lived at that house with Dan and my friend Paul for a couple of years, so it was like old times cutting the grass again. The only thing is that when I cut the grass the last time I didn't have to worry about the doggy landmines in the back yard. Man, that's alot of shit. I finish up cutting the grass and am heading out and see my ex mother in law standing there, so I end up talking to her for a while. She got the wrong message from her daughter so she didn't realize that we were locked out. The conversation with her wasn't as awkward as I thought it would be and we both expressed our feeling that we wish that the marriage would have worked out. But, time to move on. As I am leaving I get a bright idea. I ask my ex mother in law if she has a key to the house. I run down to the hardware store and have a couple of copies made for mom and me. I get back to the house and test the new keys out to find that they are extremely tight in the locks and they won't turn. I am doing everything to get it to work including using motor oil to lube the key down and using a pair of pliers to get it to work. Finally I look at Alta and ask her if she is sure this is THEIR house key and not HERS. She looks at me and gets that look like "oh crap". Yep I made copies of her house key. She just gives me the real house key to my brothers house and I take off. I run in the door, put the kids together, and head out to William's haircut since Jen was working. That went very well with Andrew behaving (pretty much) and Christopher behaving as well. By the time I got home I was done for the day. We spent the rest of the day just playing and watching TV.