Posts by Jonah

Even when I can handle it myself, I’d say my favorite perk, by far, of being female is having males come to my rescue when I have automotive problems.  

Also, sometimes it’s unwarranted. Berck needed to take the Focus today, so that left me with trying to get the Miata up the hill.  My first attempt left my wheels spinning, so I needed to back up off the icy tracks and onto the snow on the edge to get some traction.  Unfortunately, right at that moment, our neighbor Al drove up behind me in his white van.  That left me less room to back down our one-lane alley.  Then I suddenly saw Al in my rear-view mirror trying to push my car.  I opened my door and stuck my head out to tell him I needed to back up, but before I could, he told me that I might have better luck if I backed up off the icy tracks and onto the snow on the edge to get some traction.  I sighed and said I thought that sounded like a good idea.  He also told me to use the emergency brake and hold the button in to keep the wheels from spinning as much, which actually worked pretty well.

 
During my lunch break today, I thought I’d be nice and go wash Berck’s car.  I drove over to the nearest car wash and then waited for an eternity for the four morons in the car wash bays to try to figure out the payment machines. Finally, it was my turn.  I did a thorough job and used the brush all over the car, even the wheels.  Then I headed back out onto the road hoping I’d have enough time to run by the grocery store.

The car wash is on a little road that empties out into an on-ramp onto South Circle.  It’s a tight curve, and you have to try to accelerate quickly into oncoming traffic.  I take this curve a lot, and as long as I’m not driving the Land Cruiser, I’ve never had any problems. But today was not one of those days.  I don’t know if it was because my tires were wet and soapy or the snow tires just don’t have as much grip.  I made the curve and then just kept rotating, sliding off the road to the right and spinning around backwards.  There’s no curb there, and the ground is flat.  I headed forward, and the car seemed fine.  I waited until there wasn’t any oncoming traffic and pulled out into the right lane.  But the car was not fine.  Unfortunately, that stretch of road is an overpass, and there is no shoulder.  So I limped along until I came to the first turn, which is an entrance into a trailer park.

I got out and investigated.  My newly cleaned car was now filthy from spinning around in the dirt. But more importantly, the left rear tire had come unattached to the wheel.  I texted Berck and then opened the trunk to get out the jack and lug nut wrench.  That’s when a gentleman in a pick-up pulled up as he was exiting the trailer park and asked if I could use some help.  Of course I could, and he took over, undoing the lug nuts with his own drill and socket he had in his truck. He had my spare donut on hardly any time at all.  Berck still hadn’t responded, so I drove back to my office.

When he finally saw my message, Berck told me to take the disassociated wheel and tire to Rex Tire, where they determined the wheel was fine (whew) but the tire was toast. I went back to work and waited for Berck to come, since driving 30 miles home on the donut was not advisable. Berck had just given a set of Miata wheels and snow tires to his buddy at work, so he borrowed one of them back and met me in the parking lot at work.  I got to watch another man jack up my car and replace the tire, this time while I at least could be helpful by holding a flashlight.  Berck complained that I’d let some stranger over-torque my lug nuts.  Then he took me out to dinner.

Maybe I’ll wash the car again tomorrow.

There was a fire inspection at our building at work at this morning at 7 a.m., and someone had to be there to unlock our office. I volunteered last week and immediately set my alarm for Thursday at 5:40 a.m. I put it on both my personal and work calendars and set each to send me two notifications. There was no way I was going to forget. I checked the weather last night (not much snow) and calculated my commute time and and double checked that my alarm was set for 5:40 with the “Bright Morning” sound. I went to bed early.

This morning I woke up with Berck rubbing my belly, which is his way of telling me that my alarm is going off and it has awoken him. My phone was vibrating, which is how I usually set it. It was also going off at its usual time of 6:25, and it said I had a missed alarm from 5:40. In ideal conditions, I have a 40 minute drive to work. I was already late.

I was out the door in ten minutes, dressed and teeth brushed, and engaged in the extreme sport of driving without my windshield defrosted. There wasn’t really snow on the roads, but people were driving sooo slowly. I got to work at 7:20, twenty minutes late. The building was pretty much empty, and I unlocked our office and propped open the front door, hoping they hadn’t gotten to my suite yet.

At ten till 8:00, the fire inspectors finally strolled through the open door, sweeping the ceiling with their gaze, searching for sprinkler heads. “Hi, we’re just here to do a fire inspection!” they greeted me cheerfully. They found all the sprinklers then told me not to use the fire extinguisher because it had been recalled. Then they inspected the fire extinguisher more closely and realized their co-worker had signed off on it. Tsking and taking notes, they told me they would let the property managers know we needed a new one.

It snowed all day today, but it was too cold (edit: too warm) to stick. This is the most dangerous precipitation. As soon as it got dark, the temperature dropped, and all that melted snow on the roads froze. I started up the pass tonight after work and then realized that suddenly the cars in front of me were going REALLY slowly. When everyone around you is doing something out of the ordinary, it is often a good idea to give in to herd mentality. Sometimes there is wisdom in crowds.

So I slowed down too and turned off the radio, wondering how long I had been dangerously driving the speed limit. Eastbound traffic on the other side of the creek had slowed to a crawl as well, and that’s when I realized how many backwards vehicles there were on the side of the road. Once I got high enough, the road dried up and it was safe drive normally again. I turned my podcast back on.

The dictionary definition of luck is “success apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions.” By that definition, I consider myself extremely lucky, because my ability to avoid disaster does not seem to be related at all to my own efforts. Another way of thinking about it is being blessed. Today I’m thankful for luck.

(If you have a Pixel 3 phone, make sure your alarm volume is turned up if you set it.)

And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.” And it was so. God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:14-18 New Revised Standard Version

And the stars

My commute home this time of year involves driving into the last bit of light after the sun has set. Last night Jupiter and Venus guided me home as I traveled west. In the summer the days are long and I get home with the sun still in the sky. But in the winter I pause before I go inside and look up at the sky when it’s clear. We live far away from the city, and I can see the Milky Way nearly every night that it isn’t obscured by clouds. Right now the Pleiades are visible to the east when I get home and Aldebaran of Taurus is just peaking above the horizon. Stars are not only useful for navigation and time telling but they’re beautiful too. I’m thankful for stars.

For signs and for seasons and for days and years

While last night’s sky was clear, tonight it is snowing and foggy. I drove home slowly. One of the things I love most about Colorado is the seasons. In the South, where I spent my childhood, it’s hot and then it’s not as hot. I used to stare wistfully at the calendar pictures in December and wonder what it was like to experience snow. Now I live in a place with proper seasons, though our summer is pretty short (my car has snow tires on it more of the year than not). Today I’m thankful for seasons.

Tonight we played Balderdash with cousins. 

I had pumpkin pie with ham (long story… well, not really… I just asked for pumpkin pie with ham and I got it).  But we really wanted something to eat on the way home from Orlando to Apopka.  Berck convinces his mom to get off a highway that starts with a 4, which are all the highways in Florida, to stop at a Krystals.  Because we don’t have those in Colorado.  She really doesn’t want to, especially since it was between two pawn shops and a liquor store (THAT part of town), but she does. Berck orders some Krystals burgers with extra mustard and some chicks. I ask for a large sweet tea. Berck orders me a medium sweet tea, and I didn’t argue, because it’s past midnight and more caffeine at this point is simply not necessary.  We get our order at the drive-through window, and then Berck says, “They put CHEESE on these!”  and orders his mom to drive back around through the drive-through.  Right then, a white dude with dreads and obviously suffering a psychotic break throws himself onto the pavement in front of us and starts hollering and thrashing about.  My mother-in-law, who doesn’t want to be there but who has been ordered to drive back around to the drive-through windows, starts driving forward, and Berck yells, “DON’T DRIVE OVER HIM!”  We manage to miss the psychotic break-dancing and proceed to the drive-through window, where Berck complains that we didn’t order cheese on our Krystals.  We get some replacement Krystals and then continue on our way.  (The schizophrenic dude has now picked himself up and started down the sidewalk.)  We have an argument about navigation, but the computers want us to go one direction, and Berck’s  mom prefers to rely on her memory of the roads in the area. We take a road heading north called Apopka Vineland Road, which Berck’s mom refuses to believe actually goes to the town of Apopka, where she lives.  Berck is trying to convince her that the reason they called it that name was because it goes from Vineland to Apopka.  That’s when we get to a train track with the gates down and the lights flashing.  Several cars in front of us are driving around the tracks, because, it is pretty obvious that the crossing warnings are malfunctioning. There are three possibilities at this point: take our chances flaunting the crossing signals, turn around and try a different route, or stay there indefinitely.  Berck’s mom decides to turn around and try a different route.  We take a detour and end back up on Apopka Vineland road, which, spoiler alert, ends up in Apopka.  

Today I’m grateful for my long-suffering mother-in-law who takes us to get Krystals, even when she really, really would rather not.

Well, we won’t be buying any more appliances from Home Depot.

Our washer started leaking and at times shredding our clothes, so we decided to get a new one. After much research, we picked the best rated Lucky Goldstar washer and ordered it from Home Depot, who had the best price and promised to deliver it to our house. We scheduled it for three weeks out on the only weekend we’d be home, since someone had to be home when it was delivered.

We got a voicemail the day before from the Linn Star Transfer, the delivery company, saying it would be delivered between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. and that the delivery driver would call us half an hour before the delivery. 7 a.m. is pretty early for us to be up on a Saturday, but we made sure we were. We moved the car that was parked in front of the downstairs door out of the way. The two of us unhooked the old washer and with much effort got it outside and out of the way. Then we waited. And waited. Finally, at 11 a.m. we called the delivery company. The person answering the phone said she would contact the driver and get back to us. An hour and a half later, that person called back and said our washer did not make it onto the truck and would be rescheduled to be delivered the next weekend. Well, A) we were going to be out of town the following weekend, and B) we really needed to do laundry! The delivery dispatcher very unhelpfully insisted that the only thing the delivery company could do was reschedule the delivery.

After about half an hour in phone tree hell, we finally got a human being named Laura at Home Depot’s 800 number, who was very sympathetic but apparently powerless to do anything. She escalated our call to Courtney, who could apparently only read from a script about completing our order. We told her to just cancel it.

Lowe’s did not have the particular model we wanted in stock, but it had a similar one, so we purchased it. I had planned on spending my Saturday somewhat differently, but instead I fought traffic up and down the mountain pass in our 1960’s pick up truck to fetch the washer. Lowe’s loaded it up in my truck for me. Other than having to spend two hours driving, the process was relatively painless. We got it hooked up, and the washer works great. We pretty much ran it non-stop Sunday night and all Saturday.

I usually prefer buying from Home Depot over Lowe’s, but dealing with Linn Star Transfer was both demeaning and infuriating. It won’t be happening again anytime soon.