Gosh, it’s been such a long time since I’ve written anything on here...I guess that maybe there hasn’t been anything of interest to write, and what I’d like to write about is off limits. I wish I had happy things to report, but things have frankly been a little crazy around the homestead. Sam finished up with a big part of school last month, so in addition to working, doing charity work, taking more classes, and mentoring at the college, he’s begun applying for positions which is super stressful. I’m so proud of him though.
I just feel lately like I can’t catch a break or something...like no matter how hard I peddle, I don’t cover any ground. Like yesterday, for example...oh what a day it was. I’ll start from the beginning.
I just feel lately like I can’t catch a break or something...like no matter how hard I peddle, I don’t cover any ground. Like yesterday, for example...oh what a day it was. I’ll start from the beginning.
A few weeks ago, my work schedule shifted around a little bit, and it turned out that I was going to be working 4/4s and 3/3s (four days on, four days off, three days on, three days off). Naturally I was super stoked because this meant a little bit of overtime and tons of quality time off. The first chance that I got, I decided to plan a little solo trip to San Diego. It just happened to be unseasonably warm there those days, so it was perfect. I booked myself a bed in a hostel and had the whole thing planned out so I could spend a full 3 days at the beach. But, 2 days before my little travel extravaganza, I started noticing my car running very warm on my drives to and from work. It never actually overheated, but it was well on it’s way to doing so. I panicked a little and immediately took it to the mechanic as soon as possible, and he told me it just needed a little coolant. Phew. The next morning, I confidently drove it to work, and what do you know? It overheated. I knew there was no way I could drive it to San Diego, so I nixed my trip and made an appointment at another mechanic’s shop. After waiting several hours for a diagnosis, I was told that it needed a new radiator and thermostat, and that it would set me back $600.
I’ve been looking into purchasing a newer vehicle for the last few months, and thought that maybe this was a sign that it’s time. I started browsing Craigslist and found a stunning black SUV that was within our price range and would be just perfect as our next car. I was super excited to finally have a car that could carry kayaks and all of our stuff when we travel and that I could even sleep in on solo road trips to the mountains. It was at the local Jeep dealership (a major convenience considering we live in a tiny town at least an hour from anywhere with options, and, besides having no time to make a day trip to look around, there was no way my car would make that kind of drive in it’s condition), so Sam and I took a little trip over there after work to check it out and see how it looked before calling on it. We drove around for several minutes, perusing the countless isles, but it was nowhere to be seen. We stopped for ice cream and headed home, defeated.
The next morning, Sam woke up with a terribly sore shoulder...nothing particularly new, but with a big physical test the following day, it was something that needed to be taken care of stat. He headed to the doctor and I headed over to the Jeep dealership to see if I couldn’t nab me a shiny new car. I met up with the salesman and told him exactly which car I was looking for and asked if it was available, and with a little glimmer in his eye, he said, “Yes! Let me pull it around for you so you can take a look!”. Several minutes later, he walks into the office and hands me the keys - to a gold one. I said, “I thought it was black, the description and the pictures showed it being black”, and he quickly brushed me off with an awkward chuckle and a, “Yeah, it did say it was black, didn’t it?”. Well, needless to say, that left a bad taste in my mouth and after thinking over the aforementioned “craziness” and not wanting to spend a bunch of our money on buying a car at this time, I decided against getting it. Later that afternoon I called the mechanic and told them to go ahead and order the parts and put me down for an appointment on my next day off :(
So, that was yesterday morning. Sam and I went out to breakfast and then we dropped off my car and he took me home in his truck. He had to work out of town all day, so the plan was to ride my fabulous new mountain bike back into town (a few miles along a busy highway) when the car was ready, strap the bike into the carrier on the back of the car, and then drive the car, with the bike, back home.
I decided I’d clean out the garage while I waited for my car to get fixed since neither of us were parked in there at the time. Since we bought Sam’s truck, it’s been a little nuts in there because all of the junk he used to keep in his van is now stored in the garage. We live in a neighborhood with a very strict Home Owner’s Association that doesn’t allow anybody to store anything outside...everything must be neatly put away. As a result, NOBODY parks in their garages. They put all of their stuff in the garage, and park in the driveway. That’s not how I roll. I don’t see any reason why, with a little organization, we can’t fit everything we own in the garage. The problem is, we keep getting more and more stuff and we’re quickly running out of space. We’re planning on buying a couple of hard-body kayaks soon, so I needed to figure out a way to store them so that they could be easily accessed. I had also picked up some snazzy hooks to hang our biked up with so they didn’t take up any floor space. Plus with our snowboards, bikes, gardening stuff, tools, Sam’s flooring stuff, garbage cans, golf clubs, tennis rackets, disc golf gear, camping stuff, ladders, etc...it was just time.
As I started pulling stuff out, organizing, and sweeping, the mechanic called and let me know that the car was ready and I could pick it up anytime. I wasn’t in a huge hurry, and I didn’t want to leave in the middle of my project, so I carried on, making my way over to my beautiful new bike...the bike that I’d just spent $95 getting put together and spruced up for the season. I’ve ridden this bike 4 times. As I attempted to pull it into the middle of the garage, the entire back end of the bike just fell apart. Completely fell apart. The back tire went one direction, the bike frame went another, and all of the gears, chains, breaks, and a few random parts that I couldn’t identify, fell into a heap on the ground. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I tried fooling around with it for about 45 minutes, but couldn’t figure out how to match the parts back up together. And can we just take a minute to discuss what could have happened if I had been riding said bike along the State Highway with cars traveling upwards of 65 mph literally 3 feet from me,and it just fell apart on me? Lord knows I don’t wear a helmet, or even shoes most of the time, so if I didn’t make my way into the driving lane and get myself run over, I guess the best case scenario would have been launching into the gravel shoulder and skidding off into the rattlesnake ridden, cactus lined, barbed-wire fence guarded wilderness. Which naturally brings me to the next part of my story.
As with any prickly predicament I find myself in, I immediately grabbed my phone and typed out a miserable text to Sam, packed with every negative emoji I could find. I just couldn’t believe my luck...the one time I really NEED my bike so I can pick up my car, and it’s in pieces, laying on the floor of the garage. But then I gazed down in horror when it said that the message could not be delivered. I looked around angrily and then made my way out to the street to see if I could get a better signal out there. Nothing. Then, as anyone who knows me knows is purely a last resort, I attempted to actually dial the phone number and call Sam. I instantly got a busy tone and the screen sad that the network was busy. What does that mean!? I tried again. Nothing. I tried the mechanic. Nothing. I roamed all around the neighborhood, looking for a signal. Nothing. Finally, I went inside, thinking maybe I could Facebook Message him just using the internet. THE INTERNET WAS NOT WORKING!!! There’s a little yellow exclamation point on the wi-fi triangle (I’m not particularly tech savvy, so bear with me here). I’d just like to reiterate the fact that I could, at that very moment, have been smeared across the State Highway miles from home with nothing on me but my credit card and a bottle of water, and nobody could call 911 for me because there was no cell service. Bad day to have an emergency, I guess. It turned out that the entire northern half of the State was out because of a severed fiberoptic line.
Feeling totally helpless and annoyed that I hadn’t just bought the gold car after all so that I didn’t have to deal with all of this crap, I made my way back out to the garage to finish what I had started. I dragged out the ladder and decided to install the hooks I’d gotten for the bikes, but was unsure of how to find ceiling trusses. I tried knocking around with a hammer to see if I could hear where the beams were, but I couldn’t really tell any difference at all. I made my way all around the garage, tapping and knocking...Nothing. I’d heard somewhere that trusses were usually spaced 16” apart, so I attempted to measure out 16” from the garage door wall and screw one in there. There was no truss there. I couldn’t even Google how to find one BECAUSE I HAVE NO INTERNET OR PHONE SERVICE. Sigh. Defeated and covered in sheetrock dust and spider nest remnants, I climbed down, finished sweeping, and put everything away.
I guess the moral of the story is that I have never felt more stupid or helpless than I did yesterday. It’s truly unfortunate because Sam doesn’t particularly have time time, or the desire for that matter, to do these kinds of things for me, so either I’ve got to figure it out, or it won’t get done. Interestingly enough, I lived alone for 4 years and never found a problem with making my own way. But today, at 30 years old (not knowing that it was a mass situation), I couldn’t figure out how to fix the internet, I couldn’t figure out how to fix my phone, I couldn’t figure out how to fix my car, I couldn’t figure out how to fix my bike, I couldn’t figure out how to get my car back from the mechanic, HELL, I couldn’t even find a freaking ceiling truss!
I’d had such high hopes of taking my bike out on trails this week. Miserable. My friend Nora ended up picking me up for breakfast this morning and then dropping me off to pick up my car afterwords, and I drove it home safely, so there’s that. I’ll probably end up taking my bike back to the shop to get fixed, and hopefully they will do a better job of this time so I don't die next time I take it out. Or, maybe I’ll just go for a hike.