Adding insult to injury

Friday, Steve and I built a giant punk tikki head on our front lawn. He was almost six feet tall with his mohawk. Lit candles in his eye sockets were a low budget yet impressive special effect. Loving how he turned out, I ran out later to sculpt something else. My creativity was nipped in the bud when a skunk and I startled each other. We retreated, crept forward, and retreated again. Finally, I made a "no please, after YOU" motion with my hands that he seemed to understand and he hopped off to hide under the neighbor's car on the other side of the fence. Phew. I have a long history with skunks - but that's a story for another time.

Punktikki was still standing and lit at 11:30 that night. He'd been reduced to a crumbled, kicked and tackled pile of snow by Saturday morning. We'll see what college drunks think about a metal post in the middle of our next snow sculpture.

Sunday was predesignated as couch shopping day. Our twelve year old futon has finally decided that it wants to retire, and has let us know this at least twice. Understandable. Just before we left the house, our bed collapsed on Steve when he sat down to put on socks and shoes. We now must shop for a couch (maybe to sleep on) and hardware to (maybe) fix the bed. Couch shopping - also a long story for another time. Oh the horror.

During the last bit of all this errand running, the car shuddered and the muffler increased in volume - like a squadron of WWII prop planes. Not only had the back end of the muffler taken a beating from our icy driveway (thank you plow service that never shows), but now the front end of the exhaust system had come loose. The floorboards vibrated under our feet in a most alarming manner. To go any faster than 50 mph, the car struggled like molasses going uphill in January.

Home by early evening, we took the bed apart in order to put it back together. Feeling industrious, we even vacuumed under the bed while we had it moved. The vacuum cleaner made a grinding noise and started to burn. Nothing as impressive as flames, but there was black murk around the headlight, and a very nasty smoked motor smell.

I poured myself a big glass of wine, and Steve made pie plate nachos for dinner. We sat cautiously on the futon and recapped our day. Skunk? Footprints lead under the porch, to a wee cave under a pile of lumber I've asked my landlord to remove for the last four years (we've had skunks, cats, possum...). Couch? Oh the sticker shock. Bed? Fixed. Mostly. Car? Can't drop it off on Monday, Steve has a dentist appointment to get to (horrors equal to or worse than couch shopping). Vacuum? A trip to the repair shop (who told us they don't make 'em like they used to anymore).

I'm beginning to wonder if the weather is broken too. Half an hour's drive away, the temperature is 34 below zero. We were in that town on Saturday...