Sarah Avery (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dr_pretentious) wrote2006-06-19 01:42 am
dr_pretentious) wrote2006-06-19 01:42 am
Apparently My June Hasn't Been Disrupted Enough Yet
The good news is that we had an excellent time at festival and came home unscathed but for minor sunburn. Maybe before I head for Seattle I'll have time to tell you about one of the most sublimely beautiful sights I've ever seen, which comes wrapped in an anecdote complete with fire, mortal peril, and a happy ending. We spent lots of time with good friends we rarely get to see, participated in many lovely rituals, and danced more than we have occasion to in the whole rest of the year put together. I was a good girl, and kept it down to four hours of dancing a night and a moderate dosage of painkillers this year, which is why I now feel spent, whereas last year I came home feeling wrecked.
The bad news is that my ancient car's alternator is very nearly dead, and my mechanic urges me not to throw any more money at repairs. I wonder if I'd have been able to wring a summer's worth of teaching commutes out of it if I hadn't taken it on this one last interstate pilgrimage.
This is not a good time for us to have to buy a car. Quite apart from the expense (which is not trivial), there's the difficulty of cramming one more massively time-consuming and attention-consuming project into a month in which we're spending every weekend out of state. And here, I thought it was going to be a stretch to fit all the laundry and dry cleaning and packing for Seattle in around the week's worth of student appointments that I've crammed into two days. Seeing all those students and doing all those tasks while driving Dan to and from work so I can have the use of the car is going to be really tricky. There's no way I can start car-hunting in earnest until next week.
Well, this year is still an improvement. Last year, the four days of festival took me from having a minor overuse injury that annoyed me once or twice a week, to having a foot injury that left me intermittently cane-bound for six months. Given a choice between having to replace my car or having to go back to the cane, I'd rather replace the car any day of the week.
This isn't actually what my life is like, you know. We're not usually big on drama around here. I have an uneventful life: I write, I teach, I love the people who are dear to me. That's it, and I like it that way. Everything else is just...everything else. I could do with a little less of everything else right now. When people ask me how things are going, I want to be able to say, "More of the same, thank goodness."
I can't believe I'm going to be on a plane in three days. Once I'm there, I'll be delighted. I always am. Feel free to remind me of that, if you catch me looking dazed.
The bad news is that my ancient car's alternator is very nearly dead, and my mechanic urges me not to throw any more money at repairs. I wonder if I'd have been able to wring a summer's worth of teaching commutes out of it if I hadn't taken it on this one last interstate pilgrimage.
This is not a good time for us to have to buy a car. Quite apart from the expense (which is not trivial), there's the difficulty of cramming one more massively time-consuming and attention-consuming project into a month in which we're spending every weekend out of state. And here, I thought it was going to be a stretch to fit all the laundry and dry cleaning and packing for Seattle in around the week's worth of student appointments that I've crammed into two days. Seeing all those students and doing all those tasks while driving Dan to and from work so I can have the use of the car is going to be really tricky. There's no way I can start car-hunting in earnest until next week.
Well, this year is still an improvement. Last year, the four days of festival took me from having a minor overuse injury that annoyed me once or twice a week, to having a foot injury that left me intermittently cane-bound for six months. Given a choice between having to replace my car or having to go back to the cane, I'd rather replace the car any day of the week.
This isn't actually what my life is like, you know. We're not usually big on drama around here. I have an uneventful life: I write, I teach, I love the people who are dear to me. That's it, and I like it that way. Everything else is just...everything else. I could do with a little less of everything else right now. When people ask me how things are going, I want to be able to say, "More of the same, thank goodness."
I can't believe I'm going to be on a plane in three days. Once I'm there, I'll be delighted. I always am. Feel free to remind me of that, if you catch me looking dazed.
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On other matters, if you need more cat-sitting done, let us know. (Is Dan going to Seattle? Maybe not.) We're done with our apartment-finding.
To help you get thru the next few days, I have a banana-nut loaf with your (= Dr. Pretentious, not rianders, who got the last one) name on it. We'll try to drop it off to you today.
no subject
Congrats on the new apartment. You'll have to tell us all about it.
The alternator's not the only thing the Volvo needs. The car failed inspection because the driver's side front window doesn't seal properly and is held closed with duct tape and...drum roll please!...there's a major exhaust leak. I could describe poetically the configuration of the rust and the jerry-rigging adjacent to the catalytic converter, but the bottom line is, any time you touch the exhaust system, you're looking at something annoyingly expensive. Before the alternator went, we were right at the cusp of deciding to retire the Volvo. After some deliberation, we had the repairs scheduled for next week. Last night, Mel (http://www.melsauto.com/) listened to our description of the new problem and said, "Sarah, how attached are you to this car?" It's old enough that there's sure to be a next repair to do, and it probably wouldn't be six months before the next repair revealed itself.
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(Can I nickname the employer, in the spirit of Fair to Middling State University? "Gary's Small Liberal Arts College." Go GSLAC!)
My sympathies on the car issue. Last week I was seriously facing the possibility of replacing ours, which would also have been at an awkward time. Besides I am pretty attached to that car. But repairs turned out to be only about $450 and the car has been unreasonably reliable for years in that way that Japanese cars can be.
I have decided that one downside of not being religious is that I have no one to offer gratitude to when I get undeserved good luck, like the car NOT being destroyed. Mental note to self: don't complain about next small incident of bad luck...
Separate heartfelt gratitude goes to rianders and mischievouspie who came to pick us up on a Sunday AGAIN.
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I guess I learned that resale value is important so that you can get the next car. And for resale value, the thing still has to run.
If you love Volvos, there's a guy in Long Valley: "Long Valley Garage" 908-876-3730. Hours Mon--Fri 730a--6p. http://longvalleyvillageassoc.com/directory.php?cat_id=2&catname=Automotive