8 hours later

Spending 8 hours in a car with two sick people (colds/sinus) is a good way to get sick.

This morning i made sure I headed along that path.

BTW - Merry Christmas and all that. Happy all that to you and yours even if you don't celebrate formally, it is hard to avoid the holiday here in the US, one way or another.

What so special about this morning?

Kind of better to follow in tweet form.

A thread: https://twitter.com/Ge_Willi/status/1077483353463554049?s=19

Yeah, I locked myself out of my In-laws house, at 3:20 or so this morning. The little white dog was insistent on going outside. I put on some pants, a t-shirt and headed out. The gates on the back yard are old and not always closed "Always check the gates" that and the dogs were fucking FLYING out the door and off the porch and i really didn't want them to be going after something i might have to deal with. And so i followed them out after opening the dead bolt and heading out. With my phone for some reason. Door went 'click' behind me, dogs were just pooping, walked back and... locked. Ah fuck. It is 30F and i'm barefoot in a t-shirt and everyone is asleep. Fun times.

I knew i had put the garage door code in my phone a few years back so I could get in and out w/o a front door key, no problem right? Go open the garage! Had to find the code, the correct one. Turns out I have a bunch of different alarm codes, all mysterious 4 digit numbers, which fucking one was it.

Figured that out, with relief, went to open the door from the garage into the laundry room.

IT.
WAS.
LOCKED.

Well... fuck.

Knocked on the door, it made a shit ton of racket opening, maybe someone will hear. Nope. Silence. Everyone was TIRED. I guess.

Went to get the dogs into the garage, but no leashes, and who knows what out there for them to chase, so that was a bit of fun going from the back yard to the garage. But hey they went right to the door, and I closed it, hoping someone would hear the door making noise again. Nope.

At least it was a little warmer in there. but upper 40s still isn't exactly comfortable when you aren't dressed for it or working out intensely. I opened and closed the door partially a few times, maybe it would wake them up. Nope.

Called and texted my wife, her phone is usually on vibrate, it makes enough noise that she/we usually hear it. Nope. Make it even better since she was even worse sick wise she went to sleep in a different room and well no one to miss me not coming back in. Texted the rest of the house. For some reason I didn't call the house number. Guess the back of my monkey brain was thinking if they can't hear this monster racket of the door opening, they aren't going to hear the phone.

Time crept on. Eventually little white dog had to shit again, she started doing laps around the new used car in there and I heard a splat and then had a calm dog and a wickked bad stink of dog shit to cope with. Awesome, something to clean up if we ever get out of here. They all were going to mass, they'll wake up eventually.

Dogs were cold. And confused. There was a bit of movement, mice maybe, in there to entertain the black dog, but white dog was cold too. I got coal I guess. My punishment for being such a horrible person is being stuck out in the cold freezing my damn ass off.

Well white dog got a bit agitated again, she wasn't looking comfortable and not wanting two piles to clean up in there we opened the garage and made another trip to the back yard.

Maybe they will hear me open and close it now? (nope)

There was a packing blanket and a couple small fleece blankets in my car, no keys, but one of the back doors was left open (busted motor on the lock, so have to do it by hand) it set the alarm off, but that was just flashing lights (not that anyone would have done anything about the horn going off with all likely hood given my luck).

So now I had a packing blanket and two tiny (very small) bits of fleece fabric. I wrapped up in those and had a much more comfortable last hour or so. Still cold but at least my feet were starting to get some feeling back in them. Dogs settled once, and I was out just after 6 am.

Sure - I could have done this or that or should have tried this or that or why didn't. Well i didn't. I did what i did for whatever reason.

I'm pretty freaking tired though. I fell asleep before dinner for a few minutes, my nose has progressively gotten runnier and runnier, congestion is setting in.

Given the dog's GI stress I probably wouldn't have gotten much sleep anyway, but I wouldn't have had to have been cold.

I CAN'T EVEN BLAME THIS ON DRINKING! Holy shit though yesterday I was ready to start again, or at least found the one situation where I did drink to cope as a mechanism that went beyond just drinking.

This morning was maybe medicine, or meditation or something. Oddly transformative in some weird way. It has been really strange. i did almost deleted the whole thread. Probably should have, I didn't realize my FIL is following along over there, not sure how he felt about it, but everyone seemed to want to know all about it here. Whatever friction was there, oddly it was a nice way to be a public dumbass and engage people with a crazy story, about spending 3 hours in the cold with your dogs locked out of your in-laws house, on christmas morning.

Nose is running - sinus pressure could go either way, we were maybe going to drive back tomorrow but i'm tired (not sure why i'm typing this right now, this late, i'm tired - maybe ensuring i can fall asleep when i turn the lights out?) and after this morning one more day hanging out - sleep in - be low key, maybe cook food for everyone, vacation a bit here with the family before heading back north.

The dogs are zonked out, i think it took as much out of them as it did me.

On to the next adventure.

till then,
heddwch
G

But damnit the real reason I started to write this I haven't even gotten to.

Heading back here after dinner at the other house, i got in the car to warm it up, transmission is a bit cranky when cold, and took out the hardwired CD and popped in and cued up one of the few christmas songs I can stand and love.  The Pogues Fairytale of New York. Youngest gets in with E and the song starts and she knows the words, and the melody, WHAT? HOW IS thiS POSSIBLE WHAT KIND OF CHRISTMAS MIRACLE IS THIS???? We sang it together, then we sang it again.

I was given this album on a cassette tape, middle school maybe? I didn't ever wear that tape out but I know every note, que and lyric on the whole thing, and here is my youngest kid SINGING ALONG WITH ME "you scum bag you maggot you..." yeah all of it, I guess there's a bit of history to explain to make sure she understands the meanings and the layers to the politics involved in writing the song but that can way, a proud dad can sit here and still grin about the fact that even as odd as it found a spot on a rotation where she's listened to it enough to be able to sing along in tune, on cue with it, so stoked. Merry Christmas.

merry christmas
g