CORRECTION from yesterday's post: the date of August 24, 2006 was actually the Weaver 4-year anniversary and had little to do with baby Weaver, who was born about a year later. For shame!

I climbed up in the SPOOKY attic the other day and pulled down the "Autumn" box, which has all the Halloween and Thanksgiving knickknacks in it (or "nicknacks" -I had to look up how to spell that word. It's a fine word, knickknack, but alas there is no definition. It gives me the correct spelling, but won't tell me what it means.) I did not unpack the knickknacks and decorate, but I mentioned it to Mrs. Ditchman this morning who narrowed her eyes and gave me a wholly sarcastic "I'll get to it". It was a pointed sarcasm, a well-placed arrow of alternate intent that slipped right between the ribs and into the heart of the matter. I got up and unpacked the decorations.

Fun. I like decorating the house. I like October and November. I remember we picked up a few fresh decorations last year and it was a pleasure to see them come out of the box. I planted them around the house -took all of two minutes- and voila: Halloweentime.

But MAN, it was a hot one yesterday! Summer never really landed a punch this year and I guess when it saw Autumn slink in between the ropes it got up and went at him while he was still in his robe. My Apple thermo-widget says it will rain on Saturday, which will be something to see. My guess is that the data entry guy spilled his iced tea on the keyboard.

So, today it's more of the same with more of the same. I've got appointments and deliveries and appointments about deliveries. Yesterday I got the truck SMOGGED for a cheap fifty bucks with a PennySaver coupon for the local guy. Cheaper than the eighty they were going to charge me at the dealership, and now I can get the thing registered for another couple hundred. It's a 2004 Tundra that had a bad oxygen sensor on it, so my 'Check Engine' light has been on for years and you can't pass a smog test if that light is lit, and it cost me another $250 to get that fixed. How do I feel about this? Well, I feel definitively anti-government. It's multi-taxation! When I lived in Arizona I had to get my aged sensor-less Honda Civic smogged and I went to the DMV and paid four bucks and it was all good. That made sense. The air was clean there, too, but here in SoCal we need to create a cottage industry where you pay $8 for the "certificate" alone. You receive no certificate. "Zapped to the DMV automatically," the man at the machine told me. I picture a large warehouse somewhere on the I-5 corridor with the letters D-M-V painted on it. Inside are the countless millions of Smog Certificates of confident, clean California drivers. Where all the bundles of cash are, I have no idea. Note to government: you're doing it wrong. (And somewhere in the Sacramento offices there is a paper shredder for all those "notes to the government".) I want my certificate! Framed!

So my 'Check Engine' light is finally off, thank Vulcan. I did eventually get used to it, and now my dash just seems darkened without it. It was a mole on the face of someone you love. Remove the mole, and you can hardly recognize them. Must reacquaint, so I'll drive another few hundred miles today.

Incidentally, the 'D' light still doesn't work. $350 for that one. Until the government demands that all my dash lights work, my truck has no d-light.


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