Well, it goes like this. Sarah returned last week from London where she goes every year for the London Book Fair. You might have guessed that’s where the London Book Fair would be held. Although, a couple years ago it was in the Docklands, which apparently did not SEEM like London to many of the attendees, prompting a return the following year to a more central location at Earl’s Court. This year, Sarah reports having a bit more time to see something other than the inside of the convention hall. She hung out with her boss and his wife.  Fine meals and beer were had at The Blackbird Pub, an upscale vegetarian restaurant called The Gate, an interesting Asian fusion place successfully mixing Indian, Thai, and dim sum, and finally another pub at Tottenham Court. Much fun was also apparently had at the Ingram party.

Meanwhile, back the ranch, Theo and I did our best to entertain ourselves. There were photo walks around the neighborhood, dinner at friends’ in the SF, yard work, and play dates. Finally, on the last night of Sarah’s absence we had a rather too exciting evening with the in-laws at Kensington Circus Pub. The excitement started when a less-than-perfectly behaved child throwing toys and intimidating other children (Theo included), finally caused my mother-in-law to march over to the other table and dress down the mom over the lack of oversight. We quickly paid and left.

Then the fun really begins. We went out to the parking lot to find that a beat-up, mid-80’s BMW was parked immediately behind our Honda CRV in the parking lot, thus blocking us in. While I tried unsuccessfully to maneuver around the heap, the father-in-law went around to the restaurant and other stores trying to find its owner. After a bit he comes back and says, “She’s coming to move it. It’s a psychologist with an office across the street, and she says she’s made her point.” I was already steaming, having convinced myself that this HAD to be intentional, not accidental. So she walks up and says, “That’s what you get for parking at an angle.” Of course, my car was now at an angle because I had spent the last 15 or 20 minutes trying to get around the heap.

While my car began not at an angle, but quite parallel to the other cars in the stalls, it was taking up the last two stalls at the end of the row. The reason for that was the last stall had a bench jutting out into it and a extra concrete parking bumper in its midst, and they are narrow to boot.

Needless to say, I had nothing but unkind words for her. We spent the next 5 minutes with all five of us yelling at her, Theo included (“you’re a bad guy”), to move her heap immediately. As you would guess, someone sociopathic enough to do this in the first place had plenty of cuss words and inanities to spew back. Theo probably learned all of George Carlin’s seven words in the exchange.

I told her she clearly had issues and needs to see a psychologist, to which paused, stumbled and exclaimed, “I AM a psychologist!” I said, “I know, that’s the joke in it dearie.” (As far back as my community college psych class I’ve thought that some of them go into it the hope of curing themselves. But they never do.) And with that, she moved, we left, and we came home for dessert. And a shot of of whiskey!