Week Off With No Car

It has rained a couple of times this week, but I don't pay as much attention to the weather when I'm not out in it. I've had the week off due to the Thanksgiving holiday, and I've spent an inordinate amount of time inside, mostly because, on Tuesday, my car stopped functioning. After waiting around 2 and a half hours for the tow truck, getting my car towed to the nearest service station, getting told the next day that it was a fuel pump problem that was under warranty from the dealer, waiting another hour and change (this time with Jeanine) for another tow truck to get my car towed to the dealer, and finally hearing from the dealer that they'd ordered a pump from Tennessee (was the really the closest one?) and that my car probably wouldn't be ready until Wednesday or Thursday of next week, I've more or less adjusted to the sudden lack of mobility that being a one car family entails.

Greg came down for Thanksgiving, which we celebrated on Friday instead of Thursday due to Willow being a two family kid and Friday working better for Greg anyway. Jeanine did all of the cooking, and I did all of the driving (using Jeanine's car, of course) to get Willow and Greg. Dinner was yummy. Jeanine pressure cooked an imitation meat roast with stuffing for the vegetarians (Greg and I), while everybody else (including Eva and her friend Michelle) ate more meaty fare.

On Friday morning, I went with Jeanine to the San Jose Harvest Festival, which has become sort of a tradition. The guy she buys her tie-dyed dresses from is always at the festival. I figure that, despite it being "buy nothing day", it's okay to buy things directly from the people who make them. I ended up buying a flute from this guy and a couple of candles.

I've been listening to a lot of records, both trying to catch up on music I haven't listened to and continuing my quest to re-listen to everything I own. At this rate, it's going to take awhile. I also finished reading a book called "White Trash", which is a 400 year history of class problems in the U.S. It didn't tell me much I didn't already know, but it shaded in the blank areas a bit and reminded me that there have always been assholes in the world. Too bad not everybody reads history, because I don't think Trump would have been elected if more people did. As they've done for more that 400 years, people like Trump prey on the uneducated poor with promises that most of us can see for the lies they are. It's interesting to me that he is already backing away from some of his more outrageous statements, and people actually seem surprised by this. Are memories really that short? During the election, his whole persona was calculated to get racists, rednecks, and frustrated idiots to like him, and it worked perfectly.

I go back to work on Tuesday. I'm still not sure how I'm going to get home the first couple of work days this week, because Jeanine is working in the evening. I've got at least a couple of options though.