My sister-in-law got a laptop for her birthday. Her parents had asked if there was anything she needed for school, and she said “a laptop.” So her dad gave her his, which is less than a year old and way better than mine! This is actually the second laptop they’ve given her, the first one being from when she studied in England for a semester. I bought that one from her a while back - she needed money, and I needed a laptop. Mine has something like a 40GB hard drive…this one has 100GB. Mine has 512MB of RAM…this one has 1GB. This one is lighter, smaller, and has more nifty widgets than mine. She’s not even an internet addict like me! She doesn’t need all the space and RAM, she’s not playing games or anything. She will probably put some music on it but mostly she’s using it for school - typing in Word, doing a bit of online research. And yet even though I know this is way more computer than she needs, I’m not going to try to come up with ways to convince her to trade with me. It would be too much hassle to transfer all my stuff, and anyway - her dad gave it to her, not me. But still…I totally have new computer envy right now. Please pass the methadone latest issue of Computer Shopper.

I got home about 1:00am and found that :MK: - my wife’s sister, who lives with us, in case you haven’t heard me mention that a million times before - had parked down the driveway. Now, normally A and I park down the driveway, and MK&R park on the street. During splatter-berry season, they park on the cross-street, because there is nowhere to park on the street where their cars will not be pummeled with messy sticky berries. On Friday night I had to park on the street because :MK: had allowed utility people to park on our driveway because she didn’t know I would be coming home so early. (It happens that they were there until after I would have normally been home, so being early didn’t actually have anything to do with it.) But my white car got all splatted up, and I need to find a car wash at some point.

Anyway, I pulled down the driveway and blocked her car and A’s car in because I was too damn tired and my feet hurt too damn much to park on the street or the cross-street. I went in and checked :MK:’s work schedule…she had to work Sunday morning. And she leaves at 5:30am. I started to write a note asking her to please move my car when she had to leave, but I didn’t want it parked on the street, so could she also move mine back down after she had moved hers up, etc. I decided that was too complicated and I should just do it myself. But I didn’t want to do the complicated stuff, so I got the brilliant idea into my head that I would move my car onto the lawn, back hers up a bit, and then move mine into its normal spot.

Yeah, that whole “onto the lawn thing” I just mentioned? Not very bright. Because, you see, I could not then get my car OFF the lawn. I ended up ripping giant holes in our lawn and the neighbors’ lawn, because I was desperately seeking a way back onto a paved surface. It was 1:00am, I was exhausted, my feet hurt, and I was really pissed that :MK: had parked down the driveway on a day when she’d have to leave for work at 5:30am. Once the cars had finally switched places - and as I came in I could see huge gashes in the lawns - I left her a note saying please do not park down the driveway unless I am out of town. Because, really, it is my parking space. If she has to bring in something heavy, I don’t mind if she pulls down the driveway to bring it in and then backs out again. But for her to park down the driveway because she is too goddamn lazy is just not okay with me. I woke up A and she agreed that it’s my parking space. (See, she owns the house, and I am her partner, and MK&R are tenants. Hence me getting the good parking space.)

Anyway, I was just absolutely furious, and I had to take one of A’s Ativan so I could calm down enough to get to sleep. Fortunately I was very tired, so I managed to fall asleep pretty quickly. Unfortunately I had a crummy day on Sunday because :MK: and I were upset with each other all day, and I’m having another crummy day today because tonight I have to go over to the neighbors’ house and apologize and offer to reseed their lawn, which I don’t know how to do. (Yes, I’ve printed instructions off the internet.) So I generally had a bad weekend, you could say.