*****
On the way home from campus, having already had the burning truck experience, Rachel and I decided we'd also stop by Walmart to grab a skein of yarn she needed to finish up the temperature blanket she's been working on for two years now. She's just adding the border, but realized about halfway through that we didn't have enough white yarn to make it all the way around so she had to "frog it," a textile crafting term for when you have to "rip it, rip it, rip it" apart, and start over again with a new skein.
Why a new skein? Because it can be very difficult to colour match across batches of yarn, so even though "white yarn" might seem like it should always be just...white...in fact there are variations across batches of white yarn.
So she pulled out the border she'd begun earlier and has started again with a fresh, full skein...which we had to pick up from the store. Walmart is on our way home, so that's where we went.
It was 9:56 pm when we walked in the door, where we were met by a police man and a door greeter.
"This door closes at 10:00," the door greeter informed me.
I glanced at my watch. It was, as I mentioned, 9:56.
"The store closes at 10:00?!" I said, with some degree of surprise because...I don't know...it just seems like Walmart keeps insane business hours. Some of them are open 24/7. "We'd better hurry!"
"This door," the greeter enunciated slowly, for my sake. "Not the store. You can still use the far door. It's open until 11:00."
"Oh," I said sheepishly. "Okay, thanks. We've got plenty time then, Rachel. Let's go find your yarn."
Our van has been rather grumbly lately and we've been meaning to take it in...and just hadn't (since nothing seemed life-threateningly wrong). And then I had the TPMS light come on that made me concerned enough that we decided now was the time to take it in. As it turns out, none of the grumbles are particularly concerning and will be easier to diagnose once the parts die entirely (they're all to do with the air conditioning and not the engine), so we're not dealing with those things right now. But our tire pressure monitoring system was sad...because apparently I had a nail in my back tire...and my back brakes were ready to be replaced (which we knew would be coming up soon because they were "warped" when we took it in for a tune-up before our last cross-country trip, and they chose not to replace them then, saying that we could wait for them to wear out a bit more first).
All in all, it wasn't so bad of a trip to the mechanic. But we had to pick up the van today by 4:00, especially since it's a long weekend. But I had gone on a bike ride to the park with the kids. And Rachel had a babysitting job today. So Andrew and I were trying to figure out the best way to get the van home when this happened...
We decided Andrew would bring Miriam to the park, leave her to supervise the children, take me to pick up the van (which is literally next door to the park). We'd both drive home, leave the van there, drive back to the park to pick up Miriam...and make her drive home (because we're trying to get in those driving hours—and I hear she even managed to park in the garage, so that's awesome).
Andrew joked that it was a little bit like the goat, cabbage, wolf problem and quickly claimed the role of "cabbage in this situation." Miriam then claimed the goat. And that left me with the wolf. Only instead of wolf, Andrew wrote, "That makes you the worst."
When they pulled up at the park to pick me up they unrolled the windows and chorused, "You're the worst!"
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