Good times call for cheese and whine

It's been busy, busy, busy here at the casa de la Toyland.

It all started last Sunday when we were invited to a cookout for which we were to bring a side dish, and for which I impulse purchased a Zyliss folding mandolin while we were buying produce at the grocery store, and so (as it turns out) I could more easily make mass quantities of tasteless au gratin potatoes AND slice a little skin off my left thumb.

Good times.

The fun continued into Monday, when, because I have this amazing device that drastically reduces prep time for thinly sliced root vegetables, I made a cucumber salad to add to lunches AND inadvertently sliced off several layers of the skin on my right thumb.

To add insult to injury the husband later informed me, with wrinkled nose, that he only likes sweet things made of chocolate so the sugared/vinegar dressing really didn't “do much for him.”

I suggested he hold a couple of the slices firmly on his backside ... and stop talking to me.

Good times.

Even MORE fun ensued after he dropped me off at the auto repair shop (afterhours, of course) where the kindly mechanic had finally figured out why the Check Engine light was in constant party mode on my dashboard and had fixed said conundrum.

Last year around this time the same mechanic fixed something presumably connected to the problem, turned off the light, slapped an inspected sticker on the windshield, I paid him, drove away and two hours later the eerie glow was back on. Being the lazy person I am, I chose to ignore it for the next 12 months.

But this time the mechanic pin-pointed a rusted-out valve in the gas tank and fixed it. He also changed the oil, slapped on a new inspection sticker, and my newly inspected, injected, detected and neglected old car was ready to go.

Whew.

Needless to say, Tuesday was its own disaster.

Not only were we slow in leaving the house in the morning as a result of a perfect storm of dawdling, lollygagging and dallying, I was further delayed by the stunning realization that I’d dropping off the kids at the babysitter's house while leaving the emotional equivalent of a swimming pool of frozen breast milk (about 40 ounces) out on the kitchen table. I had to go back home and return the milk to the freezer before it festered.

Since I was already late (and arguably deranged) I decided I might as well take the dog to the vet.

To the normal person a visit to any doctor, even a veterinarian, isn’t a spontaneous occurrence akin to stopping for a coffee.

But it was overdue. The dog had been chewing on her hind leg for weeks now and despite the husband’s best intentions, he hadn’t found the time to schlep the poor pooch the three or so blocks to get it checked out.

Ah ... time? Where does she go?

I call, they tell me to come on over, and the visit is in-and-out-here’s-a-prescription-what’s-your-hurry? and I’m back on the road.

So, so late now; might as well stop at the apple farm and buy some artery-clogging goodness for the people at work who are probably already picking up my slack.

Mmm … Doughnuts.

I get back into the car only to see the flashing lights of police cruisers ahead on the highway. Oh man, they're checking inspections, which (thanks to the mechanic and $375 worth of work) I now have, but because the registration expired three days ago and I haven't yet peeled it off and replaced it with the one in the envelope stuffed in my bag … I am forced to realize the horror of yet another delay: I have to go back home and get the husband’s car because I am NOT paying another fine for non-affixed registration thankyouverymuch.

So I casually take a left when I want to take a right.

And that's when it happened, folks, I kid you not. ... The Check Engine light blinked back on.

Cue never-ending stream of expletives.

Good times.