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the dream of the 90s
Monday, March 28 2011
I'd been unable to find the receipt for two AutoZone DuraLast car batteries that had failed at some point during their warranty period, which had been something of a downer given that they'd cost about $100 each. But when I bought the latest replacement at Advance Auto Parts (AutoZone's competition), the guy had asked me for my phone number "for the warranty." That got me thinking: all these auto parts places keep my purchases in a database. Maybe I didn't need a receipt at all! So I called AutoZone and confirmed that this was indeed the case. I took both bad batteries back to AutoZone today and was told they'd have to be tested and that it would take a half hour. So I went off to buy groceries and a watering can.
When I got back to AutoZone, the guy told me both my bum batteries tested good, which made me question the value of the test. Happily, though, when the guy went to pull the batteries off the rack, they started spilling acid everywhere (which, in the context of the AutoZone battery charging rack, produces a dramatic hissing as the acid runs down into a tray of bicarbonate of soda). Today I looked like a reasonably clean-cut American, certainly not the kind of guy who would attempt to hack his car batteries (as I'd done with these). Evidently I'd overfilled them with distilled water when I'd tried to revive them, but I played stupid and acted as surprised by the spilling acid as the AutoZone guy. He agreed that both batteries were unusable and gave me replacements. I'd been wanting a refund, but that's not how the warranty works. So now I have two brand new car batteries and no place to put them. Perhaps one of my upcoming projects will be some sort of battery-powered firewood transporter, giving me access to the downed trees much further down the Stick Trail.
Back in mid-March I'd optimistically turned the boiler off "for the season," but that season only lasted about a week before Gretchen clamored to have the boiler turned back on, partly because her cold-sensitive mother would be staying with us. And now it seems we've entered what meteorologists call a "pattern," an unseasonable situation that persists in increasing defiance of the odds. Such patterns are welcome in the winter, when they can mean wonderfully prolonged warm spells (we've had a few of those). But when it's prolonged cold at the time of year when you want to be lying in the sun taking care of your vitamin D deficit, it seems like a cosmic injustice.
Still, spring is an inevitable force, and it's coming even if it's delayed by as much as two weeks. Today I continued with the repotting of sprouted seeds in the little windowsill greenhouse in the dining room. Later I went down to the actual greenhouse and planted some lettuce and a mix from the Hudson Valley Seed Library labeled "Ultimate Salad Bowl" (illustrated with a salad bowl walking on tentacles comprised of USB cables).
This evening Gretchen had her first-ever pleasant volunteer session at the Rosendale Theatre (currently being run as a collective). She popped the pop corn, sold beverages, and got to watch a movie for free. It helped that relatively few people turned out to watch the movie and that her nerves hadn't been batter-fried from a day working inside a prison.
While she was doing that, I watched a little solo teevee for the first time in something like a week. I watch a couple comedy shows that Gretchen has given up on: Portlandia and The Onion News Network. It turns out, though, that I've already seen all the episodes of Portlandia to date and our DVR is just sucking down reruns. Despite that, though, I almost always find myself rewatching whatever the opening segment happens to be. It's full of stuff I missed with the first viewing, just like an episode of the Simpsons. I especially like the opening sequence of the pilot episode of Portlandia, which features a glorious musical arrangement entitled "The Dream of the 90s is Alive in Portland." My favorite moment in the "video" comes when a bunch of Portland freaks are seen tooling around on a variety of bicycles, including an absurd double-decker model.
Later I started watching American Beauty for maybe the first time in ten years, but was interrupted when Gretchen came home. She wanted to watch Jeopardy.
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