A Story about a Girl and Her Car (Part 1- I guess this is goodbye old pal)

Jackie wasn't always the dented mess she was on that Wednesday afternoon.  Infact, she once was a very classy lady.  When we met in 2003 she looked like a million bucks (luckily for me her looks and her actual price were vastly different, like 990000 different.)  When I drove her I knew she was the right girl for me and she has been my faithful friend for 8 years.  It hasn't always been easy.  We've had our differences of opinion, like when I wanted her to work and she decided her battery needed replacing.  But we've always come to an understanding.  So when I gently bumped her into another car I took it as a sign of my ever increasing maturity and care for Jackie that I took her into the shop the very next day and did not indulge in my favorite activity of procrastination.  Good Job, Me!  I thought as I drove away in my rental.  The universe must have thought so too because it promptly rewared me, in game show fashion, with a NEW CAR!!  Jackie's inguries were too severe and she was sent to a car farm where she has wide open spaces were she can use cruise-control all the time and there's a drive-thru car wash on every corner.

I'm not the type of person who gets attached to objects.  When my apartment got broken into a few months ago I wasn't hardly bothered by what they took.  Atleast not the objects themselves.  I lost all my pictures saved on my computer and camera and the script I'd been working on for a year but the computer and the camera themselves weren't that important.   But Jackie feels different.  I went to the garage the on the other night to collect my crap out of the car and to my own surprise I was struck with a ball of warm sadness at the base of my throat.  I realized that I would never see my car again that these were our last moments together.  When I dropped the car off at the shop I didn't expect that this would be it for her.  She was quite drivable.   I realized that I had developed a relationship with this car.  Jackie's not a thing, she's a pet.  I don't have any pets right now but that's what my relationship with Jackie felt like.  I spent more time with her than any one person in my life.  I talked to her.  I took care of her.  She wasn't the fanciest but she was mine.  I love the yet to be named new car, but I will really miss Jackie. 

Good bye old friend. 

Jacqueline Susann Johnson

Adopted Dec. 2003 - Died Jan. 2011

It's okay to be nice to myself.

I don't like spending money and I really don't like spending it on myself.  No matter how much I have or how much I've saved I always have this vague feeling that sometime in the near future I'm going to really need that money and if I spend it now I won't have it when I need it.  I do that with a lot of things. 

I decided to do myself a favor and get a new fancy smart phone.  And oh boy is this thing ever smart.  It is my new favorite thing in the whole wide world I've been playing with it non-stop since I bought it.  It makes the computer I bought look like a hunk if crap.  Which it is. 

Yesterday as I was driving home from work feeling pretty sorry for myself I came to a decision.  This whole being burgled thing is not going to get me down.  It is the perfect reason to get that new phone I've been wanting and so I did it.  I'd been itching for a new phone for months.  My cell contract was up in October so I could get one of those deals with the cell company where they sell you a phone for cheap if you sign a new deal with them.  I don't know anything about cell phones and even less about smart phones.  What usually happens is I break a phone and go to the cell phone store and ask them what the cheapest phone they have is and I buy that one.  But this time I wanted to get something good but not so good that I wouldn't be able to understand it.  I'm not tech savy and I don't use my phone for a lot so I wanted somehting pretty simple.  What I ended up getting was the LG Optimus T (pictured above.  It's the one on the right).  Pretty snazzy.  My favorite thing is the calorie counter.  It's awesome.  Getting excited about gadgets and toys has never been part of my personality but this thing is just so cool.  I'm sure I'll get bored with it at some point but I'm so glad I did something nice for myself.

It's hard sometimes when you're stuck in the grind of life to remember that we are all just little kids on the inside that we need to take care of ourselves and nuture ourselves the way we would a child.  Little Julie is so happy and excited about her new toy and I feel like the hero parent in Christmas morning.  All around good feelings.

What's something you've done for yourself lately?