gaaaah

02.09.03 @ 8:12 p.m.

I spent the weekend at home. Saturday morning, I did not in fact wake up when I was supposed to, and Dad had to yell up at my window because he never bothered to learn to use our call-box. I knew I should have called and told him how to use it. Still, I managed to get dressed in record time, and we went up to Albany for the dog show.

Jubee was really happy to see me, absolutely ecstatic in fact. I was surprised she remembers me because I haven't given her any attention since who knows when. But she's a sweet dog and deserves more attention than I can give her on my visits home. Nobody did very well, Roofus got second place, Jubes got second out of two. Blah.

Dad wanted to rent a movie, but I was too mentally shot out to really care. (I had fallen asleep in the car and was still groggy.) He rented The Commitments because I said I wasn't interested in watching Minority Report (I hate Tom Cruise, I really do.) Unfortunately, Mom didn't want to see The Commitments, having seen it several times, and I didn't want to see anything, I was tired. Why was I so tired and generally unenthusiatic?

Well, I got Mom to take me to the library so I could stock up on pulp Regency Romances. God, I love the paperback exchange. It's like a library with no time limit. On the way back, Mom shifted and the clutch went "SNAP!" It was stuck in neutral, and we had to coast over to the side of the road. Some very nice Mormons came to our rescue, which has made me put a temporary moritorium on making snide comments about them in my head. (My apologies to any members of the Church of Latter Day Saints, but frankly, I've known too many Mormons in my life to not make a few jokes now and then. No religion, nothing really, is safe from vague ridicule by me.) My resolve was severely tested by the fact that they gave my mom a card with the address for the Mormon website. But they not only went back to their church to make a phone call for us, they also pushed the car off the main road to a side street We hoped Dad would get the message they left on the voicemail, but he didn't. We waited 45 minutes until the sun started to set, and walked to a shopping center. (We were in the middle of acres of suburb... in the words of "Pleasant Valley Sunday", "status symbol land".) It was probably between half a mile and a mile away. From there we called Dad and he picked us up. Aaagh.

This morning was nice, though I got thoroughly carsick. The only thing that can make me carsick is humid, warm, recirculated air, like a car heater. And most of the time that doesn't bother me, but it was exacerbated by a nervous dog. All weekend, Dad took Sassy to the shows, and she is a fucking wreck when it comes to shows. It's a nasty trait she inherited from her mother, though Nezzie's generally okay in the ring. Sassy just freaks out, clawing at the concrete in a desperate attempt to get away or at least to her crate. Dad said today she's just this side of useless. Shame. We skipped the Shepherds so we could all sleep in, and Mom came with us to watch the corgis (she has no eye for quality in a dog - she can't differentiate between much except color. Dad and I successfully judged which male would be picked in Open Dog, she had no idea how we knew) and accompany us all to Eugene. Grandma came, too. I think we all would have rather she stayed home, but her heater is on the fritz (she could have stayed in our house with the fireplace), but everybody pretty much acknowledge that she didn't want to be alone. I should be nicer. My dad's contempt for his mother and my mom's frustration with her has assuradly rubbed off on me.

After they all left me here in Eugene, I went to photography. I have the upper hand on all my fellow students because I know how to print. We made contact sheets today, but I threw mine away. I didn't want to put it back in the fixer (I had only fixed it for about a minute) and I never bothered to make them in high school. We were actually never taught to make them by Hack. Anyway, my teacher, Shelly, I think her name is, made a good argument for them and I eventually decided that I would make a new contact sheet when I filled the negative sleeve I had. (By the way, I was vaguely horrifed that Shelly made a test strip by ripping an 8 x 10 sheet of photo paper in half. Such waste. I snagged a darkroom and a paper cutter to make nice, neat strips to use as test strips. Am I totally anal? Don't answer that, the answer is probably 'yes'.)

I want to go watch Law and Order and the ER I taped from last night now, so I shall.