Good Monday to you!

It's amazing, no matter who lives in my house at any given time, I can always count on the couple of hours before dawn as a time that I can safely crawl out of bed, perk a cuppa and do whatever I want to do without having to worry that anyone will bug the heck outta me. I could play Disco music and dance...without worry that anyone will wake up and walk in on me. As long as the dog shuts up, I'm pretty much safe to enjoy myself in any way I see fit.

I don't go nuts that early in the morning, I just play some music, visit some sites and, as I just finished doing, practice my Aussie accent.

You know, that's a tough one. I can do a pretty good British accent but that Aussie thing messes me up. I either start sounding British or even more Southern than I already sound. Last night a guy called me and asked me where I was from because of my accent. He knew it had "to be someplace North."

Yeah, I'm from the North. But when I go back there, they ask me if I brought my grits and sweet tea with me. In California, they ask me what part of the Bronx I come from. I've lived in 6 states and not one of them owns me when it comes to my accent. Wherever I go, they want to know where I just came from. It's sort of sad...but I could just say that I'm a child of the planet Earth and leave it at that.

I'm in a weird mood this morning. It's early, I might change that before the sun comes up but if it's still here in an hour or so, I might just act on it.

Oh! Did I tell you that I fixed the brake fluid leak in my car? There's a plastic box that holds the brake fluid and it's connected to metal pipes in two places. Where it connects at the bottom, it's come apart. The guy told me I needed a new master cylinder because some idiot thought that plastic and metal should be welded together under the hood of a car. I know little more than how to drive and where the gas goes but I know that's a plan for disaster. And to do it with the brake fluid! What a bonehead maneuver.

Anyway, I didn't think that a thousand dollars was reasonable. But, I was sick of pouring half a can of brake fluid in the car every time I left the house. When the guy showed me where it was broken in an attempt to sell me a huge auto repair, all he did was show me what had to be done.

Then, he said something stupid like, "Cars are here to serve us, we just have to know how to make them do what we want them to do." OK then. I want that car to stop dumping brake fluid.

This is when my imagination comes in. I developed a plan to make that car do what I wanted it do to. I wanted wire but I didn't have any. And as much as I know about Home Depot, I don't ever remember seeing the wire that I needed there. And, I didn't want to drive the stupid car anyway...now that I KNEW how fucked up it was. I was afraid to put it in drive. So, I found something that I figured might do. I grabbed a metal coat hanger and wrapped it around the pipe and the plastic thing to hold it together. It wasn't as tight as it would have been if I had wire so I had to get some pieces of newspaper and fold them up and shove them under the coat hanger to tighten up my handiwork.

Ta da! I fixed the car. I made it serve me by knowing how to make it do what I wanted it to do. Yay me. I drove it to a few places over the weekend and I keep checking the brake fluid level. It hasn't moved. Double yay me.

I think the guy was saying something about "high temperature epoxy" when the wire idea came to me. From now on I'm going to start asking people to point out the problem to me before I pay anyone else to fix it. If I can take a coat hanger and some newspaper and make that work, imagine what I could do with wire?

I know there was something else that I meant to tell you but I keep thinking of it when I'm driving in my gerry rigged car and nowhere near the computer. I should take notes. Oh, I have one of those things you can talk into and it will play it back...but my granddaughter used it which means there's no use looking for it. It wouldn't be anywhere that it should be. It would be someplace that I'll never look like the back of my linen closet. I'll probably find it when I get the Christmas linen out.

That's the story of my life. All the good shit gets misplaced. But, I always have my figurative coat hanger and folded newspaper.

:)