January 24, 2006
Mother is a little better, but the antibiotic is slow to kick in. She's still coughing a nasty, hacking cough. She doesn't feel like driving.
On top of everything else, the hot water heater died today. Thank God, Horace [the handyman] was able to come out and look at it. He is bringing a replacement tomorrow, a like-new one he is letting us have for about $125 including installation. Normally they run $500-$1000.
I will just have to creatively pin up my hair tomorrow since I don't want to take an icy shower at 6 a.m. It does remind me of Russia - never knew when I'd get hot water there. Never knew what color it would be, either.
I made an appointment for Alesia to get real photo portraits made on Saturday at a place in Perimeter Mall called Picture People. Some of the folks in my single mother's group have used them and liked them. I figured it was worth a try. She is very photogenic, and the last studio ones were made almost a year ago. Now she's filled out more, and she draws on eyebrows every morning, so she looks a lot more grown up. We need to go through her clothes and see what still fits.
The last batch of photos I made turned out really dark, and the shutter was sticking. I am thinking about going ahead and biting the bullet and getting a digital camera, finally. My friend Paul said the Nikon CoolPix are good, which I've heard is true. I told him he will have to teach me to use it.
I need to buy a new DVD player for the big TV downstairs, too, since Alesia rammed a disk in there the other night and broke it. She is always in too much of a hurry and too careless with mechanical things, but that's typical kid. It just irritates me because that DVD player is only a few years old, and it's a multi-disk one. Next one I buy will not be so expensive.
Alesia's friends at school are teaching her Spanish. I have told her I want to concentrate on English, but if I say something in Italian, she can't resist shouting "I know what you said!" Then I have to remind her it's NOT Spanish, it's Italian. She's usually right though. Funny.