A DISH IN THE HAND IS WORTH TWO IN THE WASHER

DATE: JULY 14, 1998

Yes, once again it is I, Captain Vegetable, with my carrots and my celery.

I'm taking a break from doing GROTTY (with a capital ROTTY) dishes. I've done one sink-full and only have about ten more sink-fulls to go. Argh! I'd pay someone a thousand dollars if they'd do them. I offered my $1000 to Mom and she laughed, though I kid her not.

Here's el stupido thing: we have a dishwasher in this nice, nice new house, but it won't work because the electrical circuit it's on (which is also the one the garbage disposal is on---and the electrical outlet in the bathroom) has burned out somehow. We've flipped ALL of the circuit breakers a million times to no avail.

So I'm stuck doing these nasty dishes by hand and hating every second of it. It wasn't so long ago that I'd shell out the big bucks to my siblings not to have to do dishes on my day.

Next on the list of grotesqueries: I can't put any slimy scraps of food-rubbish into the garbage disposal---I have to carry it all outside. And, we can't dry our hair or plug in the curling iron in the bathroom. Nice house.

Also, I'm STINKING hot because this is summer, and this is the desolate desert, and it is a billion degrees Fahrenheit outside, and we have no stinking trees to blot out the evil sun and the "refrigeration" in our nice, nice new house bites the big one.

The people who built this house weren't exactly tip-top in the smarts department. They put in far too small a refrigeration unit. They also put ALL of the vents in the master bedroom and almost none in the front of the house where people are most of the time. So you freeze in the bedroom and fry in the kitchen/living room. And because the unit is so gutless and small, we have to turn it down to approx forty degrees early in the morning and keep the blinds closed all day to shut out the Devil Sun and keep ALL of the fans on, just to stay ahead of the heat. N-I-C-E.

My, I didn't know I had such a diatribe inside of me. I have a headache. My hands are pruny, and I'm not even a tenth of the way done with the dishes. I guess that I'll just cry and cry.

Switching tracks:

Chien-Po (little bro) and I almost wrecked on the freeway coming home from San Jorge today. That's the closest I've ever come. I was behind a van (VAN 1) in the passing lane and we were passing another van (VAN 2) that was in the slow lane and was behind a very SLOW RV (is there such a thing a fast RV?).

As soon as I'm equal with VAN 2, it decides it wants to pass the RV it's behind. So VAN 2 starts coming into my lane and it doesn't stop! I had to go off of the road as far as I could, but at that point on the freeway, there's a cement divider and NO shoulder and no where for me to go.

I couldn't speed up because VAN 1 was still in front of me. It was also too late to step on the brakes. The VAN 2 idiot kept coming and coming! I was honking and screaming at it, and Chien-Po was as white as a sheet (no doubt having Oak Grove Wreck flashbacks).

I honestly do not know how a wreck was avoided, because VAN 2 came all of the way over into my lane. Suddenly, we were magically in front of the offending VAN 2, and out of harm's way. I can't explain. We had ten times the usual allotment of guardian angels today.

I reckon I should get back to my other nine sink fulls of hateful dishes. Criminitly.