Stuff (and nonsense)

How my mind goes: after spending the bulk of two or three days in bed with back pain--and this is the last I'll speak of it--how peculiar (and annoying) it was to discover that I'd somehow fried the pin number to my cell phone completely out of my memory. There were messages on my phone, but I couldn't remember the pin number to retrieve them.

The annoying part was that I was *sure* I knew what the number *ought* to be: a short version of a specific date, an important date, a date I know (and consistently remember) quite well. Tried it. Nope. "Sorry," says the robotic female voice, "please enter your pin number." Okay, let's change one digit. "Sorry." Hmm, one more? After three tries, the voice says "I'm sorry you're having trouble--Goodbye," and hangs up.

I want that voice. I want it imbedded in a lapel button that I can simply push before I walk away from--ohh, I can think of dozens of scenarios. Can't you?

* * * * *

We sold a small quilt! (The one I showed Randy working on a few weeks ago.) I took my share of the money and stashed it in my project fund. I'm not ready to announce my project yet. . . still trying to think it through and determine whether it can be done.

Randy is downstairs starting a new quilt, a mini nine patch top (nice antique fabrics) that Mom asked us to do (he'll quilt it, I'll bind it). Also on the table, waiting to be basted, is a 24 x 24 four-patch: I bought the top online and I think it's big enough to quilt in our frame.

Fun times in small-town Pennsylvania.

* * * * *

We celebrated our 11th anniversary this week by trying out a new restaurant across the river. The place used to be (for years) Italian, and pretty good, but they sustained heavy flood damage last year and had to close & remodel. We ordered our steaks and looked around--new lighting, new flooring, and a big unfinished salad bar--when someone yelled hello from the kitchen. I had to turn to look, and I can't really see that well through the corner of my glasses (I'm very nearsighted), but Randy's face fell immediately. It was A__, the creepy guy who lived for a few months next door.

A__ had moved in temporarily with our next-door neighbor and proceeded to shamelessly sponge off him, bringing women home for midday trysts while our neighbor was at work, tossing his trash in our (and our other neighbors') yards, stealing our laundry detergent (we have a shared laundry room). He was just bad news. Always, always falling down drunk when we'd see him, and always, always blurting out his fake "hey how ya doing?" I've known a few sociopaths in my life, and I knew in my gut that this guy was a bullshitting loser the first time he spoke to me. He once bragged about stealing his roommate's car *and cell phone* so that the guy couldn't call the cops on him. (He finally wrecked the car; we saw A__ sitting in the driveway one afternoon, his feet braced against the front tire which was bent at a severe angle, actually *yanking* at the thing as if he could bend it back by brute force.)

There's more, but you get the idea. A__ finally got kicked out of the apartment and fired from his job. We had hoped that he'd left town. No such luck.

Our salads arrived. R. kept apologizing. Let it go, let it go, I was saying, but I'm sure we were both wondering: will he spit in our food? Walk out to our table and try to make conversation? Both were unthinkable.