Legal At Last

You may recall in my last post, I was working on the Subaru, trying to pull off the rusty towbar. Well, here it is. Not as rusty as you might think, but enough that I wanted to pull it off and give it a good scrubbing. And painting. So when I put it back on, it won't immediately start rusting again.

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The kids were doing stuff last night. Nothing stupendous, just sitting around, working on computers. Kinda got my attention when I realized they were all just sitting, not actually moving. A bit lacking in the physical department here. So I made a resolution that they were going to become more physical. Like, going outside and riding bikes or something.





Of course, that means that we parents must set the example.



Right after I get this blog work done. Really.

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Yesterday was a lot more frustrating than it needed to be, in my humble opinion. I was already upset because the license plate for my new (to me) car had not arrived yet, and the temporary tag had expired, which meant that I could not legally drive the car. Not a big deal, really, since the Corolla is still running great, and it will still get me to work. But we had called the dealer last Friday and he had said he would mail the plate on Saturday, so we were expecting it by Monday. After all, it wasn't going to need to travel very far.

But.

Cheryl called me up at work to report that the van was acting up. She had taken the kids downtown to their class, and then this weird whining noise started up, and the car started having great difficulty shifting gears. Those of you with Plymouth or Dodge minivans, you can see it coming. The transmission was going out. She managed to get it all the way to the dealership -- it had just been there a week ago for brake work (which was another very annoying story). She caught the shuttle home. They called up after a while and announced that the torque converter was shot and it would be $2200 to rebuild it, $3000 for a new.

We weren't foolish enough to go for the new one. And it isn't just because of the extra money involved. Those of you with Plymouth of Dodge minivans understand.

So we were down to one car we could legally drive.

Naturally, there was yet another complication. The youth group was planning on going to the amusement park on Tuesday and needed extra drivers. We had put our names in as possible volunteers. And, naturally, the youth minister called up in need of extra drivers. And we had to beg off due to the dead van and the illegal Subaru.

I was not in a good mood Monday evening.

It took all my restraint to not yell out loud when I called up the two dealers to talk about (1) why my van, which had just been in for service, suddenly decided to die (I don't believe in coincidences); and (2) why my license plate, which was supposed to have been mailed on Saturday, was still not mailed out yet on Monday evening. For the Dodge, there wasn't much I could do, other than to authorize them to fix the transmission and kiss two thousand bucks good-bye. Hard to do much about seemingly coincidental events. For the Subaru, I rejected the dealer's idea to "meet him halfway" (about a half-hour drive) after his daughter's birthday party (about 8:30 p.m.) and told him to send it to me overnight (i.e. FedEx).

I felt really sorry for the young lady who came around the neighborhood around dinnertime seeking to get people to sign up for some Clean Water group. My patience was gone and the document she was shoving in my face, was seriously lacking in details -- like how much her little group was going to cost me (Mr. Taxpayer). I was rather abrupt, short, tense, and dismissive.

It didn't help that dinner was on the table.

Today was a little better. The kids didn't have to be at school, and the license plate showed up (FedEx) right on time for Cheryl to tape it to the back window and take James to the orthodontist for this 3 o'clock appointment.

And when I got home, I was able to attach the lovely new license plate, move both of my cars into the garage, and take a little picture of 'em.

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Walked out on the front porch as the sun was setting tonight, in a calm, reflective mood, and admired the sunset.

Not much of a day for accomplishment, today

Tried, I did. Got up almost early after a miserably long night of bizarre dreams (running through corridors after half-imaginary creatures can be exhausting), hoping to garner enough energy to fix everything that is wrong in the house, the car, my brain. But it was not to be.

The fuzziness in my brain didn't stop until nearly ten, whereafter it was finally possible to escape from the torpor of the morning and crawl under the car and attempt to wrest a rusty part from underneath - a rusted, decayed old pair of bolts, actually, that were foiling my efforts to repair the pipes which were leaking far too much noise (it wasn't really meant to sound like a race car).



It was nearly two hours later - two hours of lying on my back trying to contort my limbs into such a position to maximize the amount of torque presented by the pair of end-wrenches - that it suddenly occurred to me (these things have a way of alighting in my brain at inopportune times) that the section of pipe on which I was working, could easily be removed from underneath the car by simply pulling it off the rubber mounts. That took about five minutes. After that, removal of the rusty parts was a cinch.



Well, almost.

I got side-tracked a bit by the towbar. Evidently someone installed a tow package on this vehicle, but it was a bit rusty so I wanted to pull it off and get it cleaned up as well, especially since it was right up there with the muffler mounts, which needed a bit of de-rusting. So I started removing the bolts but soon found that they were really tight. Took a lot longer than I had planned.

The best way to deal with a blown schedule and a lot of frustration, is to (1) go for a ride; (2) buy new toys; and (3) take the kids to the pool. So that's what I did. Took the Toyota for a ride (it still rides fine), dragging the boys along with me so they wouldn't just sit at home playing video games, bought some new tools and a set of car ramps I'd been eyeing for a while, then went home and grabbed the rest of the kids and headed for the pool.

That was soothing.

Afterward, while dinner was getting cooked up, I finally got around to the project I'd been meaning to work on all day long: the garage shelves.



Bought a bunch of shelving a month or two ago, thinking it'd be an easy task to put up some brackets on the back wall and have some storage for all this junk in the garage. But Life Happened, and things got in the way, and it took me this long to get back to it. I'd built a little worktable (per Cheryl's most excellent plan) to have against the back wall, where the lawn mower and snow blower could sit, and the shelves were supposed to go above that.

Took me about ten minutes to attach a couple 2x2 boards against the back wall, then attach the brackets against those, then put up a shelf to see what it looked like.

Not bad. The brackets were supposed to work with 12-inch boards, but they stick out a bit. Gonna hafta do something about that.

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PostScript, Sunday

I was going to take a nap Sunday afternoon, but the unfinished Subaru project in the garage was nagging my brain, and I really wanted to do something with the shelves, too.

So I put the exhaust pipes and muffler back on the car, installed the flange to pull the two pieces back together, fired it up to make sure it was properly muffled (it was!), then re-parked the car to get it in position for Monday. Quick to say, but took me an hour or so.

Then it was time to work on the shelves again. The first one was done. Took me another hour or so to get the second shelf up, after realizing I'd need to put another 2x2 behind it to make it stick out far enough. Then Cheryl put all the paint and varnish and sprays and other assorted paraphenalia on the shelves, and we pulled the old workbench over by the new one (their heights don't match, but that'll get fixed next weekend), and it don't look too bad.



The Dream is to get shelving all across the back wall, and some on the side, then put up one or two additional loft sections. It might then be possible to finally have a place for all our Stuff.

Maybe.

VBS

Everything is running on a tight budget this year, so VBS was somewhat low-key. But that's not a bad thing. I'd much rather we rely on our own inventiveness than spending lots of money on pre-packaged curriculum and duplicating what others have done, so that every church in the area ends up doing the exact same thing. Part of the joy of teaching - for me, at least - has been the creativity of coming up with something new, something different, something unexpected and novel.

Cheryl and I worked with the middle schoolers again this year, helping the Youth Minister by coming up with the crafts and assisting wherever we could. Cheryl is a very crafty person (!) and seemed to enjoy that aspect. She also got to teach one night, complete with maps of the Holy Land drawn on the whiteboard, and did an excellent job, keeping most of the kids' attentions for the allotted forty-five minutes (which, for middle-schoolers, is a bit of a miracle). Everyone had a wonderful time.

Tonight is our close-out night. I'm a bit tired, having been under the weather these last few days, but all that will be forgotten once we get to the church and see all the eager children running around and get caught up in the excitement of singing songs, playing games, telling stories, and eating snacks.

I can't wait!!

Tidbits

Things at work are still crazy, and I'm getting frazzled with all the uncertainty and rumors and mental overload, trying not to let it get to me. But my nerves are kinda on edge.

I took the Subaru into the shop yesterday to get the wheel bearing fixed (which was under warranty), hoping they could fix the exhaust pipe as well, but the price they quoted for the pipe work was so far out of the realm of possibility that I told 'em to forget it. The service was nice, though. They have a shuttle that took me back and forth to work, and everyone was polite and friendly. In fact, the service manager told me he didn't think it was worth it to replace the entire pipe, which is all they could do (since it connects up to the catalytic converter); he suggested I take it to one of those muffler places and they could figure some way of welding it together, or putting some kind of flange on it.

I didn't mind, so long as I got my car back. That car is SO much fun to drive! Now that the wheel bearing is fixed, it is smooth and quiet, too. Except for when I goose the accelerator. Then it sounds like I've got a race car! Vrooom! Vrooom!

My New Baby

Adventures in Cowtown

Stoophihd Cohmpooteh

by James