vrooooom vroooooooom!!!!!

 Wow, it HAS been ages since I made an entry. Not sure why. It’s not like nothing has happened. Two pretty major things have happened, actually. One of the major things happened week before last. The transmission died in our Outback. This is not quite as horrifying as it may sound, since first of all we paid nothing for it (my dad bought it from his Loony Neighbor nearly four years ago and gave it to us), second of all it’s always had strange problems rendering it a not-very-reliable vehicle so we didn’t depend on it for much, and third we kind of figured something dire was bound to happen to it sooner or later. Oh, and it’s 14 years old and Loony Neighbor did not take care of it. Still…. YIKES. We kind of have to have two vehicles. 

SO, last weekend… weekend before last? Yes, I am lost in time again. I think the Outback died three weeks ago. Whatever. My dad had surgery again about the same time (which I mentioned two long-ago entries back– he’s fine, everything went well, but he’s still worn out all the time which is very normal. As I well know from my own Fun With Surgery back in February). ANYHOW he had surgery on a Thursday, I went down to see him Friday evening after the surgery and spent the night, Baker B went to his mom’s house on Saturday. I came back up here Saturday evening, as did Baker B – but he barely made it home. The Outback was making a weird whining noise that got worse and worse as he came up the mountain. Oh, dear, we said. That does NOT sound good. 

I went to take out my contacts, and discovered to my horror that I had left my glasses in Asheville. I have been wearing glasses since I was THREE and contacts since I was 15, and I have never ever in my life left my glasses anywhere. When I’m in Asheville I always ALWAYS put them in their case in the bathroom when I go to bed. This time I laid them on the end table beside the bed. And DUH, there they stayed. I did not check the case as I ALWAYS do, just put my contacts in next morning and off I went. Since naturally I only have one pair of glasses and I can’t see my hand in front of my face without contacts or glasses and I do not have the kind of contacts you can just leave in, this was very very bad. 

But it was actually very very GOOD. Since the Outback obviously had some dire issues, and now we had to go BACK to Asheville Sunday to get my glasses, and my dad was not going to be needing his little truck for awhile (he didn’t even get out of the hospital until that Monday, since he lives alone and the VA loves hanging onto him for as long as they can -otherwise he’d have gone home the day after surgery), it was just excellent timing. We went back to A’ville, met Kim, went down to the River Arts District with her and walked around and had a beer at The Wedge which we LOOOOVE, then went downtown and had dinner at Hannah Flannagans (Kim and I both yearn for England and got Fish and Chips which sadly was NOT like England Fish and Chips and was quite disappointing, but the atmosphere and the beer was good) then Baker B and I went over to the VA to surprise Daddy with a visit and to borrow his truck. And of course get my glasses.

SO. To try and make a looong story a little shorter (I was just intending to make a very fast entry and announce the EXCITING second major thing that happened, hahahahahaha!) we took the Outback in to the Subaru Place and they said oh, it’s the brakes, and we said, YIPPEEE!!! knowing it did have brake problems so, ooooohhhh, maybe that WAS it! Hahahaha. They fixed the brakes, charged us $360, Baker B drove it back to work and didn’t hear the noise, then drove it home and of course it starts whining again. Takes it back, and of course it’s the transmission. Which sure would have been nice to know BEFORE we spent all that money on the brakes, but whatEVER. They did drive it before and after, but not far enough for it to start whining again. And they are a good shop with a good reputation, so we’re pretty sure they didn’t intentionally rip us off. And they tell Baker B it would cost more to fix the transmission than the car is worth, which we verified through doing some research on our own. 

Which means….. we have to buy a new car.  Eeeek!

Well, I really need to get OFF the computer since it’s actually a gorgeous day outside and I really didn’t mean to go on and on and on…. SO:

The Second Major Thing:

WE HAVE A NEW CAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, we have a two-year-old car with LESS than 12,000 miles which is certified by the Honda dealer so has considerable warranty on it and it is cute (although a little oddly futuristic) and gets great gas mileage and is a Honda Fit which is very very good as we do love our Civic. Which is 12 years old and has nearly 180,000 miles hence the decision to get a fairly new car as opposed to an older cheaper one. We shopped and shopped online (boy is THAT easier than last time we went car-shopping nine years ago) and we wanted something small, easy on gas, fairly new and not too expensive. We found this one in Morganton – it’s sitting in Baker B’s mom’s driveway there; we went by and surprised her after buying it. It’s really fun to drive and the only drawback is that it doesn’t have cruise control. Oddly we didn’t even realize that until AFTER we bought it. Since we didn’t find a lot of cars with our specifications that we could afford, it would not have been a deal-breaker. Also no sunroof and it’s four doors (we hoped for a 2-door) but either Fits don’t come with those two options or there were none within a couple hundred miles of us. Thanks to the skyrocketing gas prices and the devastated Japan car factories, there were not a lot of choices and they seemed to be getting snapped up fast, so I’m really happy to have found this one, despite the minor drawbacks. And we’re already referring to it as the Tardis since it seems way bigger inside than out.  

And if we aren’t happy with it, we can trade it in a year or two down the road. That’s how this one ended up back on the lot- the owner had bought it there two years ago and found they could get a brand new Fit for the same payments they were already making on this one, so traded. They have excellent trade-in value. So far I am VERY happy. And now I want to go out and drive around!