The State of the Holiday

We had Aaron's school play today. He was very eager to get there, and afterwards was very enthusiastic, which seems odd, because during the show he looked like it was torture to be there. I suspect that while he likes singing and performing for us, the actual moments of being in a choir of enthusiastic 2nd graders is a little hard for a hearing-sensitive kid with good (likely perfect relative) pitch.

We have a new(er) car! Rob has been going to our county auto auction for the last several weeks, ever since we sold our minivan, looking for something younger and smaller to replace it with. Wed. night he found a good one at a good price and bid for it, won, and then had to negotiate with the seller because the reserve hadn't been met. He talked them into a price higher than his bid, but lower than their reserve, and Thursday we went to collect. So now we have a Nissan 200SX SE-R in gloss black sitting in the driveway. It's a pretty little thing. It needs a new muffler, and there's a small piece of rear bumper missing (which is odd, because the rest of the bumper is not just intact, but glossy-new), and the engine computer reports a knock (which we can't hear). Otherwise it seems to be in excellent condition. It's certainly got zip, as it was pulling away from the Saturn at every acceleration opportunity on the way home. Rob is over the moon about it - he's been grinning all day. He's got a temporary muffler solution he'll be putting in tomorrow to last until the title shows up (in the next three weeks).

In somewhat grimmer news (making the happy car thing very timely) Rob's new 90-gallon tank has developed an in-tank infection, which is devastating the fish. We've lost more than a dozen so far, including two large severums, one of which was more than two years old. The last four days have had multiple fish deaths per day. We're treating for everything we can think of and crossing our fingers. We still have a Red Devil, a Raphael, and a couple of Firemouths in there that we'd hate to lose. The Red Devil particularly has a lot of personality, and has been with us for quite a while now. The 75-gallon tank is going along great, but even if we could guarantee that she wouldn't bring the infection with her, we couldn't move her back, because she would tear into the Bala and Iridescent sharks that are in there now (never mind that they're more than twice her size - she's not the type to care).

Dad W. is up for the holidays now. He and the temporary neighbor are going out hunting a Barnes & Noble tomorrow. He'll be here through the New Year, and then he vacates the same day A comes in. A has torn her rotator cuff in her left shoulder, so unless something changes drastically between now and the New Year, she's going to need a lot more help than usual while she's here. With the torn muscles, she can't transfer (from her chair to a couch, or a toilet, or a car seat), and needs to be assisted heavily with things she normally manages herself. Nor can she use her crutches at all. She's likely to need surgery on the shoulder and I'm crossing my fingers that if she does, it can wait until March, because right now all her local support has gone south for the winter.