sore toe

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"Oh, Auntie, my sore toe's mortified!" One of my big toes has been hurting lately. Today, Cathy said to call the doctor about it and get an appointment. Well, it'll have to wait until after my shift at the public radio station -- I don't feel like I could rely on the doctor to have things be done in time. I've been able to keep taking my walk and all. Any sensation I get from the toe acts as a reminder to try and walk with my feet a little bit straighter. I feel like I'm twisting my legs to get them not to go whatever the opposite of pigeon-toed is. When I see my own footprints I realize that I must walk goofy or something.

Another weekend. Should be an interesting two or three days, counting today. I'll be getting out of the house and even out of town for a near-final get-together with the friendly group at the radio station. Some people hate pledge drives, but for me they're a primary form of human interaction, even if it's not the exact same cast of people each time. I was thinking of taking my walk on the campus, and I still might, but I'll have to pay for parking while I do it. The passes we get for station work are very specific in their time frame, and I hesitate to load an extra half hour on there.

A day or so back, we quietly passed the second anniversary of the loss of armoire_man. Yup, still gone. Yup, still miss him.

Sarah's friend Traigh came over and played yesterday. For most of the hour, they messed around on scooters in the driveway of a house where some of her friends live. The driveway makes a good downhill ramp and the house faces a fairly quiet cul-de-sac, so I was glad when the family gave her blanket permission to play in the driveway. They also kicked a soccer ball (found in the yard) back and forth. Then Sarah remembered that there was going to be a new Sponge Bob episode, and we adjourned for home.
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twelve days

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Twelve days ago, I took my iPod to Best Buy and asked them some questions about it, with the result that they sent it to the shop and said it'd be about two weeks. As you may know, I promptly set about burning a set of disks for my Rio Volt player to sort of fill the void.

Today I had a pleasant session at the radio station, answering phones for the pledge drive. The highlight was a woman who called, and when I asked if she'd decided how much she'd care to pledge, informed me that the station LIES. That Terry Gross LIED, and how did I feel about LIARS? She seemed to feel that although she enjoyed some of the music, she just couldn't give money to a radio station that played LIES. I said I'd pass that along, and she spoke a little longer and then hung up. Well, that livened things up for a while. I considered answering the phone "Thanks for calling the International House of Lies," but.

I left the station and placed a call on my cell phone to the doctor, since Cathy said I should call about it. They said the nurse would call me back. I'm still waiting for that.

Then I headed on home, stopping at a world foods market to see if they had Jolly Beans (Jiri Mame). They didn't, but suggested another product instead, so I tried that. It's not bad, but it's not the same thing at all -- sort of like one long Combo with a softer shell and something like peanut butter inside. I thought of checking with Best Buy, but went home instead.

So when I got home, there was a robo-call from Best Buy that my iPod was ready. I quickly headed over there, pausing to tell the Rio Volt that it had done a good job. Good thing I didn't burn any briges, because it turns out that what took twelve days was not a repair job, but just for somebody to look at the unit and determine that it had the wrong SKU and send it back to the store I had taken it to.

I'd have thought they might have consulted the records and seen that I had been awarded the new unit as an exchange when the old one went spooey, but apparently they aren't the looking-at-the-computer department, they're the department for sending things back if they can find a discrepancy in the paperwork, and that takes twelve days.

So the nice gent at the desk got the right SKU for the unit and is sending it back. Should take about two weeks.

On the plus side of the ledger, the radio station had two baskets of CDs for the volunteers to poke through. I picked up the Anonymous Four singing music by Hildegarde of Bingen, and a set of duets with Ray Charles, performing with folks like Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, Johnny Mathis, B.B. King, Gladys Knight, James Taylor, Van Morrison, Willie Nelson, and Natalie Cole. If I convert it to mp3s, guess which one I'll be leaving off.

ps: Snow's almost melted off the front. I tried to help it along by busting up the biggest piles and scattering them with the snow shovel. I'll be tickled pink if we can get 100% melted before the next snow.
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