Birthdays, Bullcrap, and Boomerangs

Not the Long Hots!

Well this has been an exhausting week!

Who knew that it would be the high point when Kevin texted me last Friday night to let me know he was having dinner with Joe and Paula?

Saturday was okay as well. Kenny and Nina were taking Taaro to Hershey Park for his birthday, and they invited (and paid for!) Riley to come as well :)

Kevin and I got some things done around the apartment, and our neighbors Jeff and Lillian brought up a fresh apple pie from the Amish market to thank us for all the veggies we've given them this summer.

Piranha Pandemonium!

Then on Sunday we went to Catherine and Ron's to celebrate my birthday (again, but this time with Kevin's family).

The praying mantis I found last week is all grown up now!

And we got these odd tomatoes that are only ripe on one side:

Then Kelly and Steve arrived, and Liv ran up to Kevin and said, "Uncle Kevin, do you and Riley want to play the Mario game with the piranha and Muhweegi?"

This was Uncle Kevin's reaction:

But he's a good uncle, and so he told Liv he would play if she went and got Riley to play as well:

Kevin made sure Liv knew they were only playing ONE round. But then the game moved so quickly that he and Riley played three with her.

My Birthday, 2.0

Then Hannah insisted we move things along before she got completely drunk:

So we ate dinner and then proceeded onward to cake and presents.

A Better Mousetrap?

Then on Monday the week started to turn sucky.

A week prior, our landlord had given us a heads up that an exterminator would be coming around to all the apartments. We've received the same notice and seen no evidence of that the past few years; so we figured it would be more of the same this year.

But when Kevin woke up at 9:15, he asked if I had tuned in to our security camera feed at all to see what all this activity was:

I had not, since I was busy at work.

But a couple hours later, Kevin started finding glue traps all over our apartment!

Pie in the Sky

On Tuesday Kevin went over to Joe's to do some work, and we had made plans for me to meet them there on my way home from work.

The only problem is that Joe lives across from an elementary school, and the faculty must have decided to schedule their back to school night for that same evening, so I had to park three blocks away from Joe's house! And to top it off, I had a migraine.

But Kevin came and met me at my car to walk me back to the house. And we insisted that we wanted to treat to dinner this time, so we all agreed on Gianni's again since I had missed it the week before.

Then after dinner we came back to Joe's and had the apple pie from Jeff and Lillian :)

Found On Road Dead

Wednesday morning was the low point of the week: I had just got on the turnpike on my way to work at 5:45 in the morning, when my transmission decided to die on me while I was doing 80 in the fast lane!

Miraculously, I somehow managed to safely cross three lanes with no acceleration, and then I got off at the Willow Grove exit and barely made it through the toll plaza before the incline of the exit ramp onto 611 finally killed my momentum.

I parked on the shoulder and turned my car off to freak out for a few minutes. And then I realized how insanely busy (and potentially dangerous) this road would start to get in just a few more minutes.

But before I got out to try to push my car somewhere safer, I figured I would fire it up again and just try driving it first. First gear caught just long enough to get me going, and I even thought maybe I could make it a few miles to Catherine and Ron's house, but then my acceleration died again just as quickly.

So I had to settle for getting into the empty Sonic parking lot instead. But then I called Catherine, because I couldn't think of anyone else who might be awake, and she said she would be on her way in just a few minutes, because she is the most amazing mom in the world!!!

She came to my rescue and we ended up spending the entire afternoon and evening car shopping together at Fred Beans in Langhorne. But more about that later.

A Boomerang Comes Back

Meanwhile, Kevin kept me apprised of events at home.

First there was this considerate park job:

(Kevin told me to let him know if I was on my way home soon, so he could go make this guy move. But the day I was having, I wasn't anywhere CLOSE to being on my home at that point.)

And then later that afternoon, Kevin saw that Boytoy was back... and it sure looked like he was begging Ruth to please, please, please let him move back in!

We have video!

The day starts out normally enough: Just two trash bags going down the stairs (and one has slippers on).

But, wait! There's a surprise visitor outside! And he may as well be holding up a boombox playing "What Is Love?"

Check out this walk of shame back up the stairs to Ruth's apartment.

Kevin said he considered providing narration through our camera in the vein of the Japanese guys from Better Off Dead!

Meownir, The Hammer of the Cat-Gods

I had no car to get to work Thursday, so I spent most of the day waiting around for the dealership to call and tell me that the one I had bought from them the day before was finally ready for pickup.

Meanwhile Kevin received a whopping $15.10 payout from the recent Facebook privacy settlement, and immediately took to Amazon to find something for the apartment that will remind us of Facebook and their crappy behavior every time we look at it.

Then he took a few minutes to dig out our hammer and some nails to hang up our newest pieces of wall art.

Since Odin is the father of Thor in Norse mythology, we gave him a chance to see if he was worthy of picking up the legendary hammer Meownir.

Spoiler alert: He was not. (As usual, it didn't even look like he had a clue what was going on.)

But Kevin was apparently worthy :)

And so here's our lovely new kitchen artwork!

For the record, I had made a casual push to get this one instead, and hang it outside our door for Ruth to see whenever she comes and goes:

The Story of Ford Performance!

Finally I got a call from the dealership that my new car was ready.

So we ordered a ride from Lyft, and they said our driver would be there in 10 minutes.

Kevin and I watched the guy's little icon on my phone as he proceeded to not move from the Wal-Mart parking lot for 22 minutes. And then I canceled the ride and got a refund.

(Super useful service, thanks guys! Suffice it to say, I will not be using Lyft again anytime soon ever.)

So Kevin called Joe, who was just about to go over the Burlington Bristol Bridge, but Joe graciously pulled a U-turn and came to bail us out and give us a ride to the dealership.

Thanks Joe and Paula! You are the best! :)

Then we sat in the dealership lounge for 25 minutes to wait for the car that they had told me was already ready nearly an hour ago.

Meanwhile Kevin noticed this book on the coffee table in front of us:

"The Story of Ford Performance."

Once upon a time there was a woman who was trying to get to work, when suddenly for no reason her car lost FOCUS.

Despite all the alleged horsepower under the hood, when she stepped on the gas pedal, every little MUSTANG said "Neigh!"

"Did TAURUS just take a dump here?" the woman exclaimed. "...Because this is bullshit!" She had to call her mother-in-law to ESCORT her to the dealership!

She was just an EXPLORER at the EDGE of sanity, on an EXPEDITION to find a new vehicle that would give her an ESCAPE from that exhausting old "Fix Or Repair Daily" routine.

Her time driving a Ford was not a FIESTA, that's for sure. So, this time, she thought she'd try something different.

So I bought a Hyundai Tucson instead!

Heat Wave

Later that evening Kevin was complaining about how hot it was. But then Riley came out to the kitchen and insisted that the heat was on in her room!

But she insisted that her baseboard was too hot to even touch. So I checked the one in the living room, and sure enough it was!

I called our emergency maintenance number and got Leon.

He gave me the classic, "No, no, little lady, you must be confused" routine. But I insisted that someone come over and check.

So a few minutes later, we saw Ralph slogging across our parking lot in the rain. He went into Rob and Nicole's front door instead of ours, but then he came back out just a minute later.

I called down and asked if everything was okay, and he said the boiler had been on.

More Birthdays and Boomerangs

Luckily the rest of the week picked up again from there.

I was able to get back to work on Friday. And then on Saturday we headed over to Kevin's parents' to visit his Aunt Lois and Uncle Jim who were visiting from Indiana.

We also celebrated Ron's birthday!

Catherine, Kelly, Steve, Kevin, and I had joined forces to create two baskets of smoked meats, crackers, and other snacks.

Kelly ended up running point on the final project, and then Liv and Hannah took all the credit :)

Then it was time for cake!

Kelly was confused by the number of candles: She had thought Ron was turning 73, not 1.

Sadly, our volunteer pumpkin plant does not look happy:

It probably should have sprouted itself somewhere dryer and sunnier to thwart off the mildew or whatever all that stuff is.

Then we got to visit with Lois and Jim for the rest of the evening :)

Sunday it was back to Catherine and Ron's, this time for a family party. Pretty much everyone except David and Angie's family was there.

I'm apparently not the only card carrying member of the SUV club in this family!

We had another wonderful evening of visiting with family, and then it was finally time to say our goodbyes until who knows when.

Lois and Jim boomeranged back to Indiana this morning and are probably almost home again by now. But hopefully we will get to see them again sooner rather than later :)