Last week I had a chocolate mini-cake from Carl's Jr. I left the plastic tray on the ottoman. Eliza found it.

She was very proud of herself.

She's also a complete cheeseball.

I swear, the other two didn't start giving me these looks till they were about four.

Miss Eliza let go of me and took a couple steps earlier this evening, and then a couple more soon after that. Then the older kids spent the rest of the evening working her to death. They kept standing her up and encouraging her to walk. She ended up taking lots of steps, total. The most she ever did at once was three or four. So she's off to the races, I guess! I had a feeling this was coming. Numerous times lately she has been standing, holding on to something with one hand, and I could see the wheels in her head turning. I could tell she was thinking about letting go and taking off.

Eliza just turned 10 months yesterday, so she beat Madalyn for first steps by a full month and JZ by three months. I have always said that E. would walk earlier than the other two. She's one determined little individual. Mad also started out more slowly. I had to stand her up and then coax her to take some steps. It took her like a week before she actually let go and walked on her own. Eliza started doing that right away. I have a feeling she's going to be tearing around here like a maniac by next week! The girl is a force of nature.

No sick days.

I'm not at death's door or anything but I have a touch of the whatever-it-was that kept Madalyn out of school all last week. I know I'm running a bit of a fever and am having random, minor chills and aches. Was a bit dizzy earlier, which Madalyn tells me is standard for this particular illness. When I cough, my head hurts. I had a crummy night's sleep last night, not just because of the usual Eliza scenario but because I also kept waking up all sweaty, even though it was cold in the room.

Alas, there's no rest for the weary at our house. No one will be arriving to take over. I just have to keep on trucking. Blah.

Huh. I guess I don't really have a point. It's just a pain, is all.

The van is back and, for all intents and purposes, appears to be fixed.

I drove it from Norman Chrysler to an ice cream shop, from there to PetsMart, from PetsMart to Olive Garden and then all the way home without so much as a hiccup. (You'll remember that when we drove it up there to drop it off it died about halfway there as we were going down the highway.) Additionally, I sat in our driveway with it running for at least fifteen minutes because I was locked out of the house and waiting for Robert, who'd stopped at the grocery store.

Can I get a 'hallelujah'?

I am still tempering my enthusiasm, as I've been burned so many times over the past three months that I just don't want to be disappointed again. So, while things look good, I want to drive it for about a week with no further issues before I really let my hair down and party. But the situation appears promising. I went so far as to call and make an appointment to have the XM installed which Robert bought me for Christmas. I'm also going to spend some time this weekend getting the poor thing cleaned up. It needs a full wash, detailing and some shampooing done to the carpet. It's needed it for a while but I wasn't about to waste time fussing with it when it was going to be out of my possession indefinitely.

By the way, want to know how much it cost me, out the door, to pick up the van? $14.56. That was because, somewhere along the way, some nimrod managed to break one of the knobs off my air conditioner and I asked the guys in Norman to fix it. The knob was $13 plus tax. That's it, folks. I'd like to take a moment to point out that the first place we had the van here in town tried to replace the computer and happily charged us $900 for it (which we will be getting back from them post-haste). And don't EVEN get me started on the fools at Dodge here, who apparently couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were on the heel, much less figure out that the computer was still under warranty. You know, for all the trouble this caused me, the lesson learned is one that's been driven home to me countless times in the past few years: everything happens for a reason. Now that it's all said and done I'd much rather have had the van gone for a while and ended up not paying to have it fixed than have had it back months ago and paid out of pocket. Perhaps one day that lesson will actually sink in and I'll stop flipping out over everything.

Shuh....and monkeys might fly out of my butt.

Around 11 pm tonight I got my phone out of my purse to charge it and noticed I had a voice mail. It turned out to be Brad, our new friend from Norman Dodge. (Why he didn't call the home phone, I'm not sure.) Brad sounded upbeat, which I took to be a good sign. Indeed, the upshot of the message was that the van, in their estimation, is fixed. No, that's not a typo. They've had it two days and claim to have repaired the problem already. No, "We don't have time" or "We can't duplicate the problem" or "It worked fine for us when we started it." None of that, just "We decided it needed a new computer. We put one in and drove it around. It appears to be fixed." Then Brad went on to say he planned to test drive it some more this afternoon and tomorrow morning.

So it appears that, as of Friday, I will have an allegedly repaired van back in my possession. I should be excited but perhaps, if you've been following the saga, you'll forgive me for being a bit gun-shy. If I pick the van up and drive around Norman to various places and it starts every time; if we drive it home and it doesn't stall in the middle of the highway, then I might do a happy dance. For now I'm taking it with a big grain of salt, waiting to hear from Brad again tomorrow with another report. Part of me, after reading all the horror stories online, believes it will never truly be fixed. But another part of me, the stupid, eternally-optimistic part, keeps thinking about how funny and, yes, not surprising it would be if the guys in Norman fixed the van in under 48 hours when the incompetent boobs here had it for a total of five weeks and couldn't even find the problem, much less repair it. Could it really be as simple as us having taken it to two previous mechanics who just didn't know what they were doing? One can only hope. What I do know is that none of my vehicles will ever be returning to either of the places here.

Oh, and get this: Brad said something about this being covered under the warranty, if I understood correctly. In fact, I MUST have understood correctly because they wouldn't have gone ahead and replaced the part without talking to me first if I was going to have to pay for it (I learned this from the Great Gas Tank Debacle, when they actually asked me if I wanted them to replace the gas tank despite the fact that the van was completely crippled and there was no way I was getting it home without having the work done). Now, what puzzles me is this van has 61k miles on it. I didn't know that any part of it might still be under warranty, but perhaps the computer system is covered for longer than the rest of the vehicle. So, if I that means what I think it means I get to go and pick up my van and not have to pay a red cent for it, which, WOW. Perhaps THAT is the reasoning behind all this trouble? Is that it, o cosmic universe? Did the first two garages fail so that the van would end up being fixed by people who knew what they were doing AND wouldn't charge me for it? That's just TOO good to be true, don't you think?

More updates as they arrive....

Update: The van is now in the possession of Norman Chrysler/Dodge. We dropped it off yesterday -- the service department wasn't open but they have an after-hours drop where I deposited the keys and a detailed log of exactly how the van had acted ever since I'd picked it up on Thursday. I wrote down times, distances, and any problems that occurred. Hopefully this will give them some sort of clue what to check first, or at least give them a jumping-off point for trying to make the problem reoccur so they can see it.

One little gem I got to add to the log once we got there was how the thing died while we were driving down the highway. No, I'm not kidding. At least we had the good sense to go the back roads to Norman and stay off I-35. I was behind Robert in his dad's car, essentially blocking for him, should something like this occur. Fortunately the van had the momentum to get to a nice, wide shoulder area and Robert had the strength to turn the wheel to guide the van off the road (I, myself, can't steer the thing when the power steering is not operational). After we sat around for about ten minutes it started up again and ran merrily the rest of the way up to Norman. WTF?

What makes me angry is when I first Googled this issue back in October I came up with numerous stories of this very same thing happening -- mostly to Dodge Durangos. Apparently this has happened quite a bit, and it just the way it's happened to us -- the 'no bus' message appears, the vehicle won't start, it dies randomly, including while people are driving on the freeway. What I want to know is what is Chrysler waiting for? Are they waiting for an entire family to be obliterated in an accident before they recall these vehicles? They know this is happening, and they don't care. Because no one has brought a lawsuit it is simply easier for them to turn a blind eye to the problem and knowingly allow unsafe automobiles to drive the roadways, and if someone gets killed because of it, no big deal -- as long as the family doesn't sue. I am seriously considering doing some more research and asking my father-in-law what he thinks about some sort of class-action suit or something to try to make Chrysler step up and take responsibility.

The other thing that worries me is, if I remember correctly, a lot of the stories I read online said they never could get the vehicle fixed properly and eventually gave up. I will have to go look again, though, since it's been a while and I may be getting confused with something else. Wouldn't that be just like our effed-up luck, though? Stuck with a van that is unsafe to drive, that can't be fixed, and can't be sold to pay off what we still owe on it (which is quite a lot)?

I am normally a really, really polite person when it comes to speaking with people I don't know, especially when said people are in the service industry. I worked, as a teenager, at McDonald's for 4.5 years and I know what those people put up with in terms of the general public being assholes. Even if the other person is in the wrong it takes a situation of titanic proportions to make me actually lose my shit and go off on someone. Apparently having my van out of my possession for three months and being told, numerous times, that they can't find anything wrong with it nor duplicate the problem, is enough to put me over the edge, because I made a right scene at the Dodge dealership service department this morning.

Apparently, according to these bozos, the van hates me and must know I'm driving it and decides to mess with me. Then, when I return it to Dodge, it miraculously fixes itself, making them unable to duplicate the problem. The guy's first excuse was "Well, it's out of gas." Well, no it's not. It's way low and the gas light is on but I just drove the damned thing home and it made it so obviously it is not OUT of gas. Plus, WTF? So call me and tell me I need to take it and gas it up before you can work on it. Don't leave it sitting there for nearly two full weeks until I come looking for it.

When I dropped it off this last time I told them that they would have to take it and drive it around, turning it on and off numerous times to get it to repeat the issue. Did they do that? No. They left it sitting in their back parking lot and went out and turned it on once or twice a day and figured that got them off the hook. The response I got when I asked about that was, "We don't have time to take it out and drive it around." Let me clarify that I am not asking them to take it on a day trip to Dallas. All they'd have to do is make a circle around town. Drive to the theater, say, turn it off. Turn it back on, drive to Walmart, turn it off. I guarantee it would die on them after the first two or three stops. And, excuse me, you "don't have time??" You don't have time to fix Dodges, even though you are the service department at a Dodge dealership? Driving the vehicle to cause the issue to repeat is part of fixing this particular vehicle! It is not going above and beyond the call of duty. It's just what will need to be done in order to get some answers.

Now, there may be some people reading who might think it falls to me to get the problem to duplicate so that they can then look into it. Here's the catch, though: when it sits long enough, it will then fire up and work properly for a while. So even if I duplicate the issue and then have the thing towed down there, by the time they get to looking at it it has probably sat long enough that it's going to start for them and appear to function. And here's the real kicker: I DID get the problem to reoccur right there, AT THE DEALERSHIP. Two weeks ago I took it down there after returning from our California trip (we had picked it up, at their request, the night before leaving. The van worked for approximately an hour's worth of errand-running before going wrong again.) They sent a lackey with me; I was going to drive home with him in the van and then let him drive it back down there, in hopes the problem would occur again. I started it up and, before I even had a chance to drive away, it idled off and I got the "No Bus" message in the odometer. I went back inside and told them, "It's doing it NOW if you will go check it out." And yet....this morning they claim they still can't get the problem to repeat. So what the hell happened when I left it there, malfunctioning at their curb?? I can tell you what happened. They let it sit there so long that day that it reset itself (or whatever it does) and they then drove it back to the back parking lot, parked it, turned it on and off once or twice a day for the first few days, and then never went near it again. Because they are too busy. To repair my Dodge. At a Dodge repair shop.

So, yes, I finally snapped. The conversation, such as it was, ended with me demanding my keys back, telling him corporate would hear about this, and declaring loudly, "I will NEVER buy another Dodge" as I slammed the door behind me. It wasn't pretty. I'm not proud. But I have been nothing but polite to these people (and the ones before who couldn't manage to fix it) every single time I've talked to them. I have NEVER given them attitude, even when I called to find out they'd had the thing a week and hadn't even managed to look at it yet. ("Okay! I understand! Thanks!" -- no sarcasm whatsoever.) I have been unfailingly respectful and patient (until today). So I hope that I can be excused; even forgiven, for finally reaching the end of my rope. Until this morning I had never acted in a way that should have caused them to be less-than-interested in fixing my vehicle. I simply cannot grasp why they were so unwilling to do the work necessary. It's not as though I'm asking them to revive a ninety-year-old car that has four hundred thousand miles on it. It's a six-year-old van. It is not obsolete. I can't be the only one in the United States of America who's had this problem. So FIX IT. That's all.

Here's where we stand now: I called the service department at the Dodge dealership in Norman and spoke extensively to someone there. I explained, in detail, the problem (both with the van and the local Dodge idiots). The man to whom I spoke (Brad) was sympathetic and they are going to take a look at it. Brad assures me he is ready to do whatever it takes to get the problem to repeat itself so they can then figure out what's wrong. I have dealt with this particular service department before. Year before last they were the ones who repaired my van after the Great Gas Tank Incident of '06. They seemed competent and did a good job, so I'm willing to give them another go. One of the things Brad mentioned during the course of the call is that there are not one, but TWO computers on my van. As far as I know, only one of them was replaced. Could it be as simple as it being the other computer that's the problem? Surely not. But I can hope, anyway. After all, if you Google "Dodge no bus" you get back thousands of incidences of this message and the fix is always a new computer.

There's the latest. Sometime this weekend we are off to Norman, me in the van and Robert/kids in the car. We will drop off the beast and wait to hear something. (I'm pretty good at that by now.) Let's hope we finally have a bit of luck coming our way.

I'm kind of wondering what's the point of life right now.

Now, before anyone gets worried, don't get me wrong: I don't mean that in a suicidal, why-should-I-go-on-living kind of way. I'm speaking more in an existential, cosmic, possibly-having-an-early-mid-life-crisis sense.

I get up in the morning and spend an hour or ninety minutes rushing around, getting everyone ready, freaking out if it seems like they are going to be late. I run them to school. I come home and sit in front of the t.v. or computer screen, devoting my time to inconsequentialities. I go pick up kids and spend the rest of the evening doing mundane tasks to get ready to start all over again the next morning. Every weekday is spent wishing it would hurry up and be over with, already, to get me one day closer to the weekend when Robert comes home. The weekend comes and goes in the blink of an eye and I'm back to Monday and the whole damned thing starts over again. No friends, no activities, no hobbies. Just me, in a house, existing. Which begs the question: what IS the point? What am I actually accomplishing? What is the purpose of me being here, day in and day out? Do I have one?

Oh, sure, in the long-term I guess I have at least one purpose -- to raise good kids. But the end result of that is so far off, and it's only one thing. Surely that can't be my only reason for being. What if I'd never had kids? What would be my purpose then? It can't be the only thing for which I exist.

I find it sad that I'm wasting my life by wishing it away. I wish the week would go faster so it would be the weekend. I wish the month would go faster so my next trip would arrive. One of these days I will run out of time to wish away. It will be the end of my life -- will I realize, too late, that I have spent all my time waiting for the next weekend or the next vacation and neglected to enjoy the present? That would be tragic and unfortunate. Certainly there has to be a reason for my being here, on this planet, at this time -- something that is relevant every day. My entire existence can't be hinged on my next vacation or my next planned activity. That's what it feels like now, though. All I'm doing is taking up space, staring at the wall, performing pointless tasks, paddling furiously to keep my head above water, and for what? Will the world fall off its axis if my carpet's not vacuumed, or if my kids are late to school, or if they don't go to school at all? Am I really accomplishing anything of any relevance to the universe by treating these things as though they are important?

Great....now I have an existential dilemma AND a headache. Thinking sucks. I'm going to bed, for my 7 hours of sleep which will be punctuated by at least three wakings from the baby. Because who really needs to be well-rested for yet another day of vehicle-less-ness and diaper-changing?

The ennui train is now departing the station.

Those who have known me for a long time will have at least a vague recollection of this, but for those who don't: have I ever mentioned how much we used to travel? Starting from the time Robert and I got together right up till JZ was a baby and our finances took a big dump, we used to travel. A LOT.

I was just looking through some of my old files I have saved and found a few lists of our yearly trips.

First off, check out this itinerary from 1999, pre-children:

January 22 - 30: California

March 4 - 7: Kansas City
March 7 - 10: Hot Springs, AR
March 26 - 28: Amarillo (cat show)

April 9 - 13: Vegas

May 3 - 9: Mom and Dad visit
May 22 - 23: Midwest City (cat show)

June 14 - 17: Atascadero
June 17 - 18: Hollywood (Poison concert)
June 18 - 19: Atascadero
June 18 - 22: Monterey (with Robert)
June 22 - 27: Big Sur
June 27 - July 3: Atascadero

July 27 - August 5: California

September 24 - 28: Vegas
September 30 - October 3: Chicago

October 7 - 9: Dallas

November 2 - 6: Disneyland; L.A. Beatles convention
November 7 - 16: Atascadero

And, yes, you're reading it right. I had a mere three weeks between two of my California trips.

Now check out this itinerary for 2000. Keep in mind I was pregnant most of this time:

February 14 - 22: California

March 8 - 12: Kansas City

April 6 - 14: Mom and Dad visit

June 20 - 28: California

July 13 - 16: St. Louis (Gateway sci-fi convention w/ MSTies)
July 29 - 3: Atascadero
July 3 - 4: Hollywood (Poison concert)
July 4 - 9: Atascadero

August 27 - 30: Vegas

September 23 - 30: California (returning less than a month before Madalyn was born)

December 23 - 30: California

I like how I begrudgingly took three months off to have a baby and then headed right back to CA again.

As if that wasn't enough, here is our itinerary for 2002. Madalyn was a baby/toddler and as of September I was pregnant with JZ:

January 18 - January 26: California

February 19 - 21: Eureka Springs, AR

March 8 - 11: Kansas City

April 3 - 6: Las Vegas
April 22 - May 4: California

June 21 - July 12: California
July 26 - 29: St. Louis

August 3 - 6: Las Vegas

October 21 - November 9: California (parents' house and also four days at Disneyland)

December 23 - January 6: California (parents' house plus overnight trip to LA for the Rose Bowl)

I remember that summer well. Madalyn was with me on all of those trips and by the time we got to Vegas we were both just DONE. We were worn the hell out. I needed the rest of August and all of September to recover!

So having spent the first six or seven years of my relationship with Robert traveling like this it was quite a change to be reduced, for a few years, to visiting California once a year, at best.

We are now on the road to recovery, though. Much of this isn't set in stone yet but here is a rough outline of my 2008 itinerary:

December 22 - January 4: California

March: either my parents visit or we go to California or somewhere else for Spring Break

May 22 - 26: Louisville, KY

June/July (to be determined): California

August 8-10: Minneapolis

October: possible Fall Break trip

November: North Carolina (or possibly another location -- meeting some girlfriends)

December: California

Not quite up to late 90s/early 00s standards, but a pretty meaty schedule, considering we have three times as many kids as we did then. I'm going to be pretty busy this year. And just as happy as the prospect of all these trips is the fact that we are in a position, financially, where they will all likely be possible. A couple years ago I wouldn't have been able to consider half this many.

*dusts off traveling shoes*

The following books are currently in transit to my house:

Plum Lucky (new Stephanie Plum between-the-numbers novella)

Zen Parenting: the Art of Learning What You Already Know

Buddhism for Mothers: A Calm Approach to Caring For Yourself and Your Children

Pre-ordered; due to be released February 5th on DVD: Across the Universe (which I highly recommend -- more on it later on my Beatleblog)

Yes, retail therapy is alive and well in my house. I wish I had something to report other than the most recent things I've blown money on but, alas, 'tis all I have going on right now. The titles of the second and third books should give you an idea of how well I'm handling being confined to the homestead.

Gah. I think I need to look around and find a better attitude before I post again.

Do you ever go through a phase where it feels like everyone is ticked off, or at least mildly annoyed, at you? When you are suddenly struck with the impression that a memo has been sent out about you and everyone received it and signed off on it?

I'm having that now.

I don't think I'm being paranoid but with me you never know. It could all be in my head. Or perhaps everyone is a little grouchy and down now that the holidays are over and the bad weather is really starting to kick in, and I'm picking up on that. All I know for sure is that people suddenly seem a bit testy and/or stonily silent with me when that's not the norm for them. Whether it's truly their actions or simply my perceptions I have yet to figure out.

If it is all on me then it becomes rather a vicious cycle. I perceive people as being annoyed with me so I get even more sensitive and overly-analytical of their behavior, which, in turn, makes them appear even more unfriendly toward me when it really may not be their intention.

If it's NOT just my imagination then WTF, people? I don't think I've been putting my foot in my mouth any more than usual recently. Lighten the hell up. Y'all should be used to me by now.

God. It's no wonder I'm practically a hermit. I'm obviously not cut out for social interaction.

Here I am, once again, on the eve of the end of a California trip which has gone by too fast. This has been just the kind of trip I hate. That's not to say I'm sorry we came or I didn't have fun, you understand. It's just that there are trips that seem "long enough" and are pretty relaxing and then there are hectic, rushed-feeling trips that are over in the blink of an eye, and this was one of those. Two weeks (a day shy of two, actually) is just not enough time to do everything, see everyone and also spend time relaxing. I looked at my mom tonight and said, "I feel like I've hardly been here" ('here' being sitting in the living room with her and my dad). It seems as though all we've done is run, run, run since we've been here, and yet I didn't get to see any of my friends even half as much as I'd like to have. So what on earth were we doing all this time? I sure wish I knew. And I wish I had another ten days here. I need at least three weeks in order to have time to spend with friends AND do activities AND still spend evenings hanging out with my parents and being mellow.

So, yeah, I'm taking it pretty hard, as I always do when I feel like the time has evaporated into thin air. By the last few days of my longer trips I am usually not anxious to get home but resigned to it, and wishing that, if I have to go, I can just get it over with. Not so for trips such as this one. The past few days I have been in a funk, digging in my heels and refusing to acknowledge that I have to go at all. I feel guilty, too, for not spending as much time with my parents. One of the main things I look forward to on my visits is sitting around, watching t.v. with them and I did almost none of that this time.

I think there's a good possibility I wouldn't be quite so crushed over leaving if I was going home to some sort of normalcy. But, no, I'm going back to no vehicle and no answers about said vehicle; to more wondering and worrying about whether it will ever be fixed, to Robert being gone most of the week again instead of being with us, to boredom and friendlessness and routine -- and not even a pleasant routine. Just dropping off and picking up and making meals and doing baths and laundry and overeating. Not looking forward to it, people; not looking forward to it at all.

If there's anything good to report it's that it won't be long before I see my folks again. I hope to get them out to our house for Spring Break in March, but if that doesn't happen I am going to try to get us out here again. At the very least I think they will visit sometime in the spring, even if it's not in March. And, of course, there will be a much longer trip in the summer. Surely I can get along until then.

I hate to have my first update in a while be such a downer but those are the breaks. It's what's going on with me right now, pleasant or not. I'm hoping to rally in a few days once I've gotten home and found some things to distract myself.

Any good thoughts would be appreciated for us as we travel home all day, Saturday the fourth.