I've been trying to troubleshoot my mother's new mobility scooter, through phone calls and text messages to my mother (who is at home, but not on the same level of the house as the scooter, and her back is hurting so she can't go down the stairs to where the scooter is) and my father (who is at work, and who allegedly read the instruction manual and tried to assemble the scooter yesterday.) According to my dad, the scooter is much too heavy for even one healthy person to lift, and is certainly too heavy and unwieldy for my mom to lift to get it into and out of the car. According to my mom, the salesman said that she could lift it in and out of the car herself. So my dad said that the salesman must be a liar, then.

Actual solution: the piece that my dad said is too heavy to lift? Release a lever on it, and it splits into two pieces, which are smaller and lighter and liftable. It took me about 10 minutes of reading the manual to figure this out. My dad, who claims to have read the manual, had no clue that the pieces could separate. So he says that he'll look at it again when he gets home from work. (Knowing him, this means he will not look at the manual, but will look at the scooter and try to figure out how to separate the pieces, and will probably end up breaking something.)

This is why my mother has not let my father assemble anything without my supervision since the time I was about 10.

Equipment salespeople lie like rugs, sad but true.

I watched someone in a parking lot this weekend pull the pieces of a scooter out of a car trunk and assemble it. I was both highly impressed and dismayed at the idea of someone who needs a scooter trying to wrestle those pieces.

With this one, according to the website, the heaviest piece is 34 pounds.

Timelies all!

Got to work, turned on my computer and found the screen was kinda dark. I could just about make out the icons, but had no idea where the cursor was. Called IT, they said they'd put an emergency ticket in to the guy in my building. Sat around twiddling my thumbs. Computer went into sleep/screensaver mode. I moved my mouse, and the screen was back to normal. IT guy never got to me. (I do think I need a new computer, as this laptop is pretty old-2007 I think.)

With this one, according to the website, the heaviest piece is 34 pounds.

That's kind of a lot! Clearly it depends on what your disability is.

Hil, stop reading this post now.

OMG, you guys, the pulled pork I made over the summer continues to be fucking delicious. I love having delicious food in the freezer! It's not helping any with the kale in the fridge, but I'll come up with something.

That's kind of a lot! Clearly it depends on what your disability is.

That's what I was thinking. I'd have problems getting that out of the trunk of a car--and back in.

34 pounds definitely sounds like a lot.

Pulled pork and kale sounds delicious!

I need to convince my colleagues that asking me for something at 3:15 is a bad idea. If I wasn't working from home I'd've spent even less time on it before deciding it can wait until tomorrow morning.

That's kind of a lot! Clearly it depends on what your disability is.

It is a lot, but it's nowhere near as much as my dad was making it out to be. According to him, he could barely lift it, and it would take two healthy adults to lift it safely. That did not sound like 34 pounds to me. (And it wasn't -- it was two 34-pound pieces attached together to make one really bulky piece.)

For my mom to be able to lift it, she just needs to be able to get it in and out of the car. She wouldn't be able to carry something like that a long distance, but I think she'd be OK with just getting it in and out of the car.

From what I've seen, 34 pounds per piece seems to be about the lightest that these scooters get. The lightest I've found in a quick Google search is 29 pounds for the heaviest piece.

So, mr. flea was asking me if I knew anything about the Hamilton musical everyone was suddenly talking about, and I played him some of the soundtrack from Youtube, and he said, "... is that the guy from The Electric Company?" Yes, we know Lin-Manuel from his raps about Hard and Soft G.

Tonight we went to observe a fencing class, Casper's new interest, and she said, "They look sort of dorky." I was like, "Honey..." and she said, "I know, I'm actually kind of dorky myself."