I was packing things into my car last night for the trip home today when Angie came by. She complained about her boyfriend playing Internet games all the time, so she was going for a drive; apparently we have the same problem in both cultures, heh. She came up for a bit and met Frank, helped me carry things out to the car, and told me some pronunciations of words in my learn-Korean book. She left and I figured I wouldn’t see her again that night. Haha, how wrong that was! She and Andy stopped by again with my clean glass (she had been drinking chocolate milk when she left), and again later with chocolate cake for Todd and I, and a final time asking for a jack. This is when the fun began: Todd and I went outside to see what was the matter. Apparently, Andy and Angie’s car had a flat, so we were going to help. They found a jack in their own trunk and Andy and Todd started getting the car jacked up and the nuts off. You’d think it would be a simple matter to then pop the wheel off and put on the spare, but the wheel wouldn’t come off. They kicked at it and hit it with the tire iron, but no luck. Then two of our other neighbors, two men, came out and started to help. The wheel was rusted on and no amount of pulling or hitting seemed to help. I went and got my hammer as well as a flashlight to see better. They whanged on it without any luck, so then we decided to try lubrication. No one had any WD-40, so I ran in to get my spare jug of canola oil. Who doesn’t keep a spare gallon or so of canola oil, I ask you? So that got liberally applied and I supplied everyone involved with Chlorox wipes to de-oil themselves. The wheel got whanged with the hammer and pulled on more, still no budging. I ran to the grocery to get Fix-a-Flat and WD-40, but just as I got there, Todd called to say they got the wheel off. I guess the canola just took a while to get working. The only problem was that they didn’t use all of my oil, so now I have it in addition to my normal bottle of canola oil hanging out under my sink.

I’m at my parents’ house till Friday, when I’ll go back to Lexington for a few hours before Todd and I go to his parents’ house for the weekend. Todd’s watching Frank currently, but when we’re both gone, we’re having Eric, who has had ferrets in the past, watch my little stink-weasel. I’m going to pay Eric back with cookies of his choosing, and the offer to watch Simon, his Siamese, when he needs it.

I had a nice day wandering around the farm and shooting photos of blooming Easter flowers, trees, ducks, Goldy the golden retriever, and everything else around. I’ll be sure to post them when I get back in town on a fast connection. I also cleaned some leaves out of Mom’s little goldfish pond in the yard and I was surprised to find that one goldfish from last year survived the winter. I saw a bright orangey red thing under a leaf and thought, “That can’t be that goldfish,” but it was. I lifted the leaf off and I guess the fish was still cold and sluggish, because he just floated there. I stuck my finger in and wiggled it in front of him, saying “Hi fishy fishy,” which I’m sure he just loved. He then swam by my finger to a murkier end of the pond.

I just finished watching Wallace and Gromit in the Curse of the Wererabbit, a very funny movie. It’s actually the first in the Wallace and Gromit series I’ve seen; I had been mistakenly thinking that Chicken Run was also in that series, but no, it’s just claymation. I loved all the bad puns and mockeries of other movies (King Kong, The Matrix, the Snoopy/Red Baron spoof, etc.), but I wish I knew what British humor I was missing. There are bound to be lots of other funny bits in there if I were only familiar with British culture.

So I’m getting over my new-pet paranoia and getting used to Frank. The first night, I laid awake for a while, worrying he’d keep me up by rustling around in his cage, which is funny because he actually was keeping me up, but it was my own fault for worrying senselessly. The second night, last night, was fine because I was dead tired, and he didn’t try digging through the base of his cage as he likes to do. I fell asleep early and while he did rustle in the morning when the light was turned on, it wasn’t much and he went back to sleep soon. I had put in more bedding and a washcloth for him to hide under, which I think made him happy. And I’m happy because he’s using his litter pan finally. He kept going in one particular corner of his cage, so Todd just lifted the little shelf a few inches more and was able to slide the litter pan under it into Frank’s favored corner. The litter pan is attached to the cage bars, so he has no choice but to go in the pan if he wants to use his corner.

Jess came over last night to watch American Idol, which on a side note was very annoying last week. Come on, people, how could you let Sanjaya and Haley get through but let Sabrina and Sundance slip away? Ridiculous. Anyway, Jess fell in love with the Frankster. I worried she’d be allergic to him since she has a cat allergy, or find him gross because she dislikes my hermit crabs. Nope, she played with him all night, and kept calling him “Frank-Frank.” That helped, probably, because the little guy was too tired to stay awake when I was going to bed; he was out like a light.