random thoughts – Day 2,087 (Wednesday) – angels and blue tooth

Tuesday’s snow began at 9:45 a.m. and at 10:30 p.m. when I went to bed it was still snowing. I don’t know when it stopped, but a weather post indicated Gardner got 7.5 inches of snow. At 5:00 this morning I heard noise in my driveway. It wasn’t loud, it was just there, and I slid out of bed and peeked out the window to see someone on a riding snowblower with a headlight clearing my driveway. I thought it was StepDad.

As I drank coffee, the sun rose above the trees. It cast a long shadow of the tree in the front yard onto the snow. The silver tree in the front window made reflections onto the wall above the window and the leaded glass window in the front door made reflections on the wall. 

Later, Mom called. She and StepDad were wondering who had cleared their driveway, mine, and the house on the other side of theirs. I told her what I saw and so far, our collective best guess was the guy across the street who helped me yesterday. Later, StepDad came back to my house with his walk behind snowblower and cleared the front walk and the area closest to the car. It appears that my guardian angel has a couple companion snow removal angels.

I was definitely not sad that I didn’t need to shovel and instead invested the time in applying for jobs. This was followed by looking at dental and vision plans and calling my dentist’s office (again) for further counsel on the coverages they accept after finding a list on their website of the one they stopped accepting throughout 2025. That’s when I learned my dentist has its own office plan similar to some of those offered by the big insurance companies and I could sign up before my appointment today and it would cover the x-rays and the discounts would apply to the visit.

I arrived in Fitchburg early enough to visit a gas station before my appointment. Stupidly, I took a wrong turn and ended up at the same station where I had trouble with the gas pump turning off a week or two ago. The nozzle placement is an ongoing situation, but it happens more at that one station from hell.

To complicate things, someone from another car came over to ask me how I like my Renegade because she is considering buying one. So there I was, on a bit of a time crunch, fighting with a gas pump, swearing up a storm in my head due to said gas pump, and trying to hold a civilized conversation. It was a lot. I immediately pointed out the gas tank issue, which has been an ongoing battle since 2021 when I bought the Jeep. To emphasize my point, the pump turned off every few seconds and I was trying very hard not to swear out loud (and said so), ended up spilling gas, and in the end I finally said “fuck it” and gave up on pumping gas. When I put the nozzle back on the pump the display showed barely three gallons added instead of the half tank I wanted, so it was a colossal waste of time. And the other person just kept patiently waiting for me to answer her questions and talk more about 2017 Jeep Renegades. 

Part of me wanted to tell her to shut the hell up so I could focus on filling my tank and get to the dentist, but I didn’t and was nice to her. I told her what I liked about the vehicle, plus the troubles I had with the roof panels not closing (twice), the surprisingly small cargo area, and she witnessed the gas nozzle challenge.

Ha! I have Bluetooth!

As for the visit in the dental chair, it went as well as it could have. The dentist and the assistant were really nice. The problem broken tooth was examined, x-rayed, photographed, and capped with the strongest material they. I now temporarily have a blue tooth. Literally. Like Papa Smurf blue. 

I asked if I could now receive music though my new blue tooth (which would be really cool) and we all chuckled but maybe they were just being polite to me like I was polite to girl at the gas station earlier. In two weeks, I will return for the tooth to be checked and preparations made for a crown. Until then, I need to avoid biting hard things at that tooth.