Judo, Drippies

At the place where Ali takes ballet classes they started offering Judo classes.  They are offering the first month for free so Ali went and took a class yesterday.  She really liked it.  She told me how she threw the instructor as well as being thrown several times herself.  She was excited about it and said how it gave her a feeling of self confidence.  She showed me her throw move at home.  She definitely would have been able to flip me over if she wanted to.  I’m happy that she likes it.  I don’t know if she is thinking about doing it beyond the free period or not.  Her schedule now is already busy enough, something would have to give. Plus the cost of Judo is not cheap.  If I threw that on top of the costs we incur from ballet, hair dresser, massages and facials it adds up to a huge chunk of cash. 

I have done a decent job of not thinking much about Buttons since we had her put down.  One time I can’t help but think about her is every morning when I get done washing my hair.  Buttons had a strange quirk where she actually liked having water dripped on her.  Most cats act like water is sulfuric acid.  After rinsing my hair I wouldn’t dry it right away and instead would let the water drip onto Buttons as she meowed happily.  I still find myself inadvertently standing up and looking for the cat to come in when my head is wet.   It makes me a bit sad.  Although I can say that cat maintenance has become much simpler since Buttons is no longer around.

Ali has become quite the regular reader of my blog, for better or for worse.  She said she was surprised that I omitted her pitching performance when I was doing my experimental throwing Sunday night.  I gave her a brief lesson on throwing from the stretch versus the wind up.  I knelt down and let her throw a few at me.  She had a couple pitches that were pretty good, called strikes in any league.

They finally got the replacement parts to perform the recall work on the party van, nearly 8 months after the initial work was done.  Better late than never.  I drove the van to work today to drop off at the dealer later.  It was the first time I drove the beast in quite awhile, a couple months at least.  It really needs a bath.  The one side that doesn’t get much sun is starting to get covered in mildew.  I’m having the dealership fix the cigarette lighter as it is a necessary for cross country trips to power the GPS and satellite radio.  I will fix the rear view mirror that fell off myself and I’m not worrying about the stereo system that changes volume by itself sometimes.  I need to get a steering wheel grip for it.  Whatever substance is on the wheel now gets slimy as it warms up.  

It’s looking like for our 10 year anniversary we may be taking a road trip to Georgia.  Instead of an expensive and extravagant trip to someplace like Hawaii we are thinking about heading to what looks to be a nice timeshare in northern Georgia.  We were looking at all sorts of places, including resorts in Idaho, Colorado and Montana.  Our plan was to to go to a pet friendly resort so we could take Nicki with, eliminating Ali’s biggest concern when we travel.  However with the price of gas, driving up to 3000 miles one way would get extremely costly and time consuming.  Georgia would be much closer and would allow us to take the Camry if need be since the drive wouldn’t be nearly so long.  The resort looks very scenic with lots of beautiful views and hiking available.  My biggest concern was that Ali would see it as a lame thing to do for a 10 year anniversary but actually the opposite seems to be the case.  The idea of taking Nicki along is thrilling to Ali.  I really want to use the timeshare to see the other areas of the country as well.  If we hadn’t spent so much money already this year on various home improvements a trip to Idaho or Montana might have been in the works.

The Toyota dealer surprised me yesterday.  They called up and said they would replace all FOUR tires for $160 TOTAL.  That is roughly what I paid to replace one tire when it got gashed a year or so ago.  Plus it will be aligned for free, Ali can have a loaner to drive during the day and they will work on the console squeak as well.  It was far more of a concession than I was expecting.  In this case, outwardly showing my discontent has paid off big time.