Which is what I spent an awful lot of today. First I went out this morning and dropped eighty dollars on getting the car washed professionally and its interior steam-cleaned, to try to wipe out the awful mildewy smell that came after L dumped not one but TWO quart-and-a-half sized cups of iced tea in the floorboard, and to get out as much as possible of the general grunge the car’s picked up from being used hard. It’s a lot better looking and smelling now, even if the people at the car wash did take twice as long to finish as they told me they would. I don’t know whether it took them so long because they told me optimistic fibs about how long it’d take them, or because the car was so filthy it took more work than they thought it would. Quite possibly it was some of both.
Once that was done I went and got a haircut and beard trim, in anticipation of The Date That Didn’t Happen tonight. And after I found out the date Wasn’t Happening, about three o’clock, I started on a round of pawnshopping, looking for a guitar to give T as a birthday present. She’s wanted one for several years, and simply can’t play my 1973 Höfner HF-11 classical guitar, because the neck’s too wide for her fingers to manage. Three hours and eight pawnshops later, I came away with a 1996 Epiphone PR-100 with case for what turned out, when I got to researching it on the Web, to be about the discounted retail price for a new one, but I don’t feel I got skunked. All the reviews I found of it seem to agree that it’s a good starter model, and quite adequate if you’re not planning to be a guitar hero, which T isn’t. As soon as I got it home I restrung it, and was pleased at its bright but full tone. I can’t play it easily, though, because the narrow neck that T needs is just too narrow for my wide, fat fingers to get around.
The Komodo dragon from the Gateway Arch will go to Joe’s Garage. Fnord.
