Navy Girl Vanessa had driven out to jujitsu on Monday only to find that the building was locked up and the place was like a ghost town. Spring Break, apparently. I contacted Josh and he confirmed that there’s no jujitsu at all this week.

So after work yesterday, I drove out to my cousin’s car shop and got an oil change and got my windshield wipers replaced. The original wipers that came with the car had been just smearing the rain on my windshield instead of wiping it off. My cousin also fixed my right rear tire, which I knew some time ago had been leaking air and I’d (well, Mr. W, actually) filled it with air once and it seemed fine for weeks afterwards so I forgot about it but apparently there was a big nail in it.

And then I went home and was happy to see Vanessa’s car in the garage. When I walked in, she was sitting on the couch and she looked up at me with wide sad eyes. I looked to her right and saw that she was watching the end tearjerker scene of What Dreams May Come, one of my favorite movies and one that had a large part in changing my life. We chatted a bit, drove out and had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, had margaritas and fried ice cream at another local Mexican restaurant, and then came home and watched Somewhere in Time, another movie by the same novel writer, Richard Matheson, and the same producer, some Deutsch guy.

I’d missed having friends nearby that I could go out with. And I’m enjoying the week off from jujitsu. But I haven’t exercised since last Friday. Oh well, you can’t win ’em all.

This morning while getting ready for work, I remembered a phone conversation with my childhood friend Sandy when I had broken up with an ex. I was saying sadly that I miss him. She said, “You don’t miss him! You’re just bored.” I paused, considered it, and by golly, she was RIGHT. Cuz if I imagined myself out doing something, the feeling of missing him went away. That just goes to show the dangers of boredom. Idle hands are the devil’s playground, the saying goes.