sometimes the mountain comes to mohammed

Well, I finally got rid of that huge pile of debris in my driveway. After dealing with the junk removal guy who flaked on me, and the one who left a flier, but wouldn't return my phonecall (which sorta defeats the purpose of putting a flier on my door, but I digress), I was sitting home on monday, which I happened to have off. I heard a knock on the door, and an old, wiry, black man was there when I answered it. He offerred to take the junk out of my driveway with his pickup truck. I didn't think it would all fit in his pickup, which had been modified to have higher sides, but he said it would, and offerred to do it for $180.

I said yes, if for no other reason than to see someone try to fit all that stuff into one pickup. Turns out, I was right, it was 3 full pickups. He, and his helper (who I think was his son, because he was calling him dad), got rid of it pretty quickly even though I was worried that the bulging back tire would explode from the weight, or that the loose wood fall off the back and kill someone--hopefully it would be someone else because as long as my parachute opens, I'm fine.

Even though we agreed on a price, I gave the guy an extra $50 because 1) that's what I thought he should've charged me in the first place; and 2) I'd like him to come back next time I have stuff I need to get rid of (and by that I mean construction debris, not dead hookers).

So all in all...things are improving little by little.

In other news...my finger is still broken, but I did manage to take a couple of muay thai kickboxing classes. I did the kicks and punched with my left hand. I'd like to get back to "the jistu" (as my girlfriend calls it), but it was a good workout and I think it will help me from getting fat while I recuperate, plus it's probably better than sitting around trying to watch Lost re-runs to get caught up.