back to life back to reality

this morning i woke up feeling discombobulated. and the feeling didn't change for most of the day. i felt there were a million things i needed to do, but i didn't know where to start. first, let me say happy birthday to my dear friend, molly. hope she's having a good one. i tried texting her, but it never went through, which is so odd. i have to try calling later.

i was planning my day and making lists of what to do when my grandma called and asked for a ride home. she has spent the last two days with her sister, my great aunt, and wanted to head back to her apartment. this was expected, but i didn't know when she would want to leave, so i add that to my list but had to change things around a bit.

my aunt's apartment is just across the river in moorhead, mn. i drove there and parked. as i walked in, i looked into the dining room and saw her sitting there so i went to get her. we went upstairs to get my grandma. she suffers from chronic headaches, so she didn't want to go to lunch downstairs. i packed up her suitcase and we were about to leave when she spilled her pop everywhere. she must've forgotten that she had an open can in her hand and she turned her hand to pick up somethig and the soda came out of the can. everywhere. so i got down on my hands and knees and spent about 10 minutes cleaning it up. i kept trying to tell them not to move so it wouldn't go everywhere, but... it didn't work.

we're finally ready to leave and my grandma can't find her purse, which has her keys in it. we look all over the apartment and found it - it was under my aunt's dresser. i didn't ask.

fargo and moorhead are both gridded cities and its possible to take just two roads to get the 10 miles or so from my aunt's house to my grandma's. so my gma and i set off down the one street in moorhead which will take us to the cross street that my grandma lives on across the river. about halfway there, i realize that the road might not be open because they were doing construction around my gma's apartment because of the flood. this would mean another 20 minutes out of my way to drive back and cross the river on the highway. luckily, the road was open (just barely - a small strip of street was carved out for people to drive).

the original plan was that i would take my grandma to get groceries, but since she had such a bad headache, she didn't want to go. she asked if i would get them on tuesday for her. this is kind of really out of my way, but i felt bad so i agreed. i dropped her off and started to head home to pick up my mom from work. my mom said i should've told gma that i would get groceries for her and drop them off - otherwise "you'll be over there every day." yes! she did get me. i was suckered.

along the way, i was listening to a podcast with my headphones on and noticed every time i accelerated, i thought i heard a ticking noise. i took out my headphones and realized that yes, there was a noise everytime i put the pedal to the metal. "ok, make sure to let dad know." and i disregarded it. about a mile later, i look down and all of a sudden the oil light turned red, started beeping, and then the engine switch flipped to H: HOT. this was not good. i know NOTHING about cars (hardly know how to drive them), so i pulled over as soon as i could. smoke was pouring out of the engine. i turned off the car and called my dad. the engine was STILL making noise. he told me he was coming to check it out and so i waited. after about 30 seconds, i realized the car might explode, so i took everything out of it that i could and stood across the parking lot from it. after about 10-15 minutes it stopped smoking and didn't blow up in my face. zaz!

my old man came (i love that expression! it's so leave it to beaver) and put some antifreeze or something in the car. we agreed he would drive the car home and i would drive his suv. i just decided not to drive it again, although he is convinced it will be fine. this meant i couldn't finish anything that was on my list today. i convinced my brother, homie, to take me to best buy so that i could get a new router (this just MIGHT fix my macbook - it doesn't work at my parents house) and come back and set it up for me. i'm typing on my macbook in my bedroom and so far, so good. its fixed!

so yeah, today was a complete wash (except for the router), but at least i didn't die in a firey car.

oh! but i need some things from you guys. 1) what podcasts would you suggest i subscribe to? i need some new media to consume and 2) crap i forgot.