fox

1. I was within days of taking it in for scheduled service when today's excitement happened.

2. Today's excitement can be avoided in future by following the simple rule that you can't just put the oil cap back on; you've got to put it back on really tight.

Oy.

(The car is fine - or, as fine as it was before I didn't screw the oil cap on tightly enough. The drive to the dealership was slightly harrowing, but the oil cap was stuck in a gap in the engine and nothing was actually ruined. So all they're diagnosing is whatever is causing the thing to stall when I start it and idle roughly, and all they're fixing is that ... and my oil pressure etc.)

1. Drove to my folks' Tuesday 27th; rained the whole way, PA Turnpike very difficult, started snowing about ten miles from home, glad I hadn't left any later. Accompanied parents to Dad's first chemotherapy on Wednesday, which we knew was going to be a long day but turned even longer longer longer when his blood count was wicked low and after the chemo he was admitted overnight for a blood transfusion. In the morning it was still low, conclusion some sort of internal bleeding, trundled over to Cleveland Clinic, by now it's to do with a whole stomach full of bleeding ulcers, which is actually not that bad, compared to other things it could be, but he's not likely to be discharged until Monday. It's been a really hard couple of days - sometimes he'd be groggy and confused and look a hundred years old, and other times he'd be his feisty self and not well, you know, but better. Bleh. Roller coaster. This afternoon I said goodbye while he was still awake, even though I was planning to stay a little longer, and then he dozed off and my brother said he was going to go downstairs to fetch some lunch, and I decided to go with him so that the minute we got out into the hall I could burst into tears somewhere it wouldn't upset my mother. My brother hugged me and I cried and cried, I mean, a nurse who had been in to take Dad's blood pressure a half-hour earlier happened to be walking by and stopped to ask if we were okay. But my brother - the one who has been more overtly keeping his eye on the pessimistic side of the ball this whole time - reminded me that Dad was two hours out of a procedure and doped to the gills and what we'd just left in the room wasn't how he is now. Which was true, and the most helpful thing my brother could have said right then - what a good egg he is. Anyway: both my mom and my brother called this evening to let me know what the doctors had said (see above re: ulcers), and they both said Dad was doing much better later in the day. Hurrah.

2. On the way back this evening, there was an SUV on the turnpike with no lights on - at about 5:00, when it was not strictly speaking dark, but certainly dark enough that lights were called for. Several of us blinked our lights at it several times, to no avail; I fretted and fretted and then finally after I saw the SUV come around the left side of a truck but only just barely, when I realized the thing was damn near invisible, the what-will-I-wish-I-had-done meter kicked on and I called 911. They redirected me to *11, which was fine, that was the turnpike traffic control line, and I explained that there was an SUV without its lights on and I was scared to death it was going to get pasted into a jersey wall, and this was the mile marker we were at, eastbound. The lady was very nice, took the information I was able to give her, and said they'd keep an eye out for it, and then five miles later for whatever reason the damn thing turned its lights on and I was so glad.

3. Home a couple of hours ago, and found a thank-you note from one of my five neighbors for the cookies I left for everyone (one per door); and the cookies themselves from one more, and I have no idea which one. I spent a couple of hours feeling paranoid, but have now concluded that either (1) someone is allergic after all [I did include a list of ingredients in case of allergies], or (2) because I included my name and apartment number on the outside, someone was confused and thought the thing was for me instead of from me. :-P I have also finally repacked a little bag to go to Hilton Head tomorrow with the Gentleman Caller for New Year's Eve. And soon I will go to sleeeeeeep.

• My nephew is three months old and awesome. He is also, at least at the moment, a Morning Person, which is mysterious, but what can you do. (Maybe he got it from his grandma, i.e. my mother. Who knows.) Even when he smells like puke - and he's in a phase where he's kind of randomly spitting up a lot of the time, but not in a way that seems to indicate any distress at all - I love him to tiny little bits. He smiles and laughs when we make faces at him, and sometimes when we don't; he even giggles in his sleep, which makes me wonder what on earth babies dream about. I'm nuts about this kid.
  
• Decent haul in the Christmas-present department this year, plus when I get home there should be some yarn I ordered and that will be even better. (And then I'll order some more yarn!, because it's possible I have a bit of a problem.)
  
• Apparently alone among Washingtonians, I am delighted that we didn't get walloped by the predicted snowstorm, because I'm meant to drive back tomorrow, and I'd like that not to take forever.
  
• I was all set to make my travel arrangements to Bismarck, ND for the Challenge Round in the third week of January, and e-mailed several people to ask some logistical questions - and a good thing I did, because one of them responded to answer the specific logistical question I'd asked him and also point out that the Challenge Round is in Grand Forks. Good thing all this happened before I'd bought my tickets! (I didn't just make up Bismarck; I'm headed out there the first weekend in February for the Senior Women's Nationals. Because who doesn't want to go to North Dakota in the middle of winter, twice? [g])
  
• Finally saw Harry Potter (and had to drive to a mall movie theater ~20 minutes away to do it, because I'd missed it at the nearby one, which was predictably embarrassing). I found it satisfying. My main thoughts are not that different from my thoughts on Voyage of the Dawn Treader, actually, viz: that Grint kid is a nice-looking young man, etc.
  
• My yuletide recipient left me a really lovely comment which convinces me that either she really, really liked the story, or she's very good at faking it. I am inclined to suspect the former. :-)

Hope you're all doing well, staying warm, enjoying the weekend, etc! I'll be back tomorrow and flying out again Wednesday, muahaha.

Home from my wanderings. Not a bad drive today, esp. once got off NY Thruway. (Best communication error of the weekend: I said something about my Thruway horror story, and at least two of my interlocutors heard "threeway horror story". Sadly they were expecting a much more exciting tale than the one I had to tell.)

I am determined to unpack all this shit and get it put away before I collapse into bed. Determined. Happy new year, y'all. :-)

Car is now fixed. Hurrah. They also gave her a bath. Yay for all four tires being intact.

I then succeeded in getting the last few presents I'll need for Thursday (presents happening on Christmas Eve at our house, since my brother's in-laws come over for dinner and then he goes to them on the Day). I still have to wrap about half of them, and I'm on the hook for wrapping my dad's presents for my mom as well, but I'm through shopping.

Will probably need to do some laundry. And spend a little time on the ski-machine thing. And give some attention to re-packing my stuff, because aiee, it's going to be a tight fit in there. (abka, are you going to need a lift back from NYE? I'ma need to work out exactly how many cubic feet I have to work with. Note please - and note to ellen_fremedon as well, whether or not abka is riding with us - smallest bag you can get away with, okay? Srsly.)

My brother and sister-in-law gave me the 8-bit Super Mario Bros. emulator for the Wii, and kicked off the nostalgia tour. They also gave me "World of Goo", which is a surprisingly mesmerizing game of moving stuff and building towers and things.

Some work to do tomorrow, as well. Mustn't forget that.

So getting out of the parking lot this morning was interesting, but once I'd done that (and hauled all my stuff to the garage where I parked once the car was dug free, because I'd judged it prudent to get out while there were people who could help, even though the packing wasn't ready yet), the drive home was virtually traffic-free on clear roads, entirely uneventful -

- until I blew a tire a few miles inside the Ohio state line. No worries, I'd noticed the "low tire" indicator and was paying attention on that basis, so I was already in the right lane, plus see above re: not much traffic. Moved stuff from trunk to back seat, started dealing with spare, was assisted by a very nice family who stopped to help and the dad of which actually did all the work, so my hands didn't even get dirty. (In fact of course everything he did, I could have done myself, possibly not as quickly b/c I haven't changed as many tires and I'd have consulted the manual a little more - except for one very early step where he figured out wtf the manual was talking about within about twenty seconds, when I'd already been looking at it for a couple of minutes. So without doing the helpless female, I was very glad he turned up or the whole thing would have taken me eight times as long.) Got home on the spare at 50 mph; thank god I was within fifty miles of home when that happened. Calling the local dealership tomorrow to say OMGHALP.

Bugger it - I'm driving to work while it's still spring break and I won't get hung up in the school zones. Saves me coming home to get the car between work and grocery shopping, as well. I'll take the metro next week.

(Curling is over, and of course I'm not precisely glad, but on the other hand, YAY! ... ahem. That's two more evenings a week I've got free until October.)

So I was only at the dealership for about an hour -- just long enough to cause a lot of trouble with my knitting and not to be able to fix it. But it is fixable, if I focus on it, and Gizmo turned out not to need any work at all; apparently the good vibes fixed whatever was wrong with her window, and it works fine now, but the nice service guys gave her a bath, too, which is great, because I've been intending to take her to the car wash since ... like, Thanksgiving, and never managed to get around to it. /o\

Went the long way around the Beltway to get home so I could hit Tysons, where there was nothing I cared to buy, but then I went (again!) to the Harris Teeter in Rockville, so I have apples and some other things, yay. (Most extensive kosher and kosher-for-Passover selection I've seen at any chain grocery store in this area, which in the circumstances I guess shouldn't surprise me.)

So last week, as you remember, it snowed. (We paused a few times to ponder that this weekend, i.e. five days later, when it was 75 degrees outside.) In the aftermath of the snow and ice, on Wednesday evening, I discovered that Gizmo's driver-side window was still frozen shut a bit -- discovered this when I pressed the button to open it and for a moment nothing happened. It finally did open, and I went along my way ...

... only to realize, slowly over a period culminating yesterday, that Something was in fact Wrong.

1. Gizmo has one-touch power windows, right? Tap the button and the window goes all the way down; tap it again on the way down and it stops; tap it once it's down and it goes all the way up. Yeah, only now, not so much: one-touch opening works, but one-touch closing doesn't. (I have to hold the button the whole time the window is closing? My life, so hard.)
   
2. Another feature is this: when you open the doors, the windows lower just a hair -- probably a half-inch? -- and don't rise again until the door is closed. Keeps the window seal tight and in-line, I believe. (At least that's how it was pitched to me. NOTE TO PASSENGERS, this does not absolve you from the continued reminder to push the door closed, not the window! [g]) But at present, this is much more functional on the passenger side. On the driver's side, it's happening, but not really. She's trying, but the window doesn't go down as far, so there's not a lot of motion back up again.
   
3. To confirm that something Wasn't Right, I tried a feature I never use, which involves holding down the "unlock" button on the key fob for a few seconds. This is supposed to remotely ("conveniently") open the windows and the sunroof. Yeah, but guess what? It remotely opened the passenger window and not the driver's.

So Gizmo is sick on the driver's side window. I called the dealership, and HOORAY, the guy said it sounds like a problem he's familiar with, either something needs reprogramming or (given the icy-fun situation I described) a fuse needs replacing, no worries, but I will need to make an appointment and bring her in, it's not something I can fix myself. BUT: totally fixable, continuing to open and close the door in the meantime isn't going to make it worse, AND (best of all) of course she's still under warranty, so this will cost me a couple of hours but not one dime.

I just need to work out a time this can happen. And, um, a lift to and from Annapolis, unless I just take an afternoon and work in their lobby or something. [eta: Wait, Monday and Tuesday are spring break! Awesome! No lift to Annapolis required.]

Thing One: near midnight when I got home, and not only did I get a parking space, but it is right outside the door. Win.

Thing Two: will not need to drive out to the eastern shore to spare tomorrow, as team in question won their first game and player in question intends to be back in time for their second game. Win win.

:-D

Turkey etc. consumed.  Nap taken.  Mom taught to knit.  (Casting on and knit stitch.  She has so far done six rows, of which only one was completed without acquiring another stitch somewhere.  It's so cute.)  Appointment made at Mac store for tomorrow, because computer freakouts coming across the plate pretty quickly now -- if I turn off the wireless device, no worries, but when I turn it on, which I need to do here, it periodically (sometimes with periods as short as 45 seconds) gives me BSOD and says "IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL", the only remedy for which I have ever discovered has been ... to turn off the wireless device.  I'm not fussed.  It's getting on for five years old, and I'd been thinking of replacing it anyway, so I may do so as soon as tomorrow lunchtime.  Mac owners may commence preparation for killing the fatted calf.

Posting quickly before I get booted.  Hope everyone's Thanksgiving/Thursday/Friday (if you're in Australia) was happy.  Shopping and movies tomorrow, probably.  Whee!

Also, I put gas in the car yesterday at Frederick, and then drove the rest of the way here -- a little over 300 miles -- on less than half a tank.  The second half will go quicker than the first, so I won't get 600 miles on this tank, but still, DUDES.  How awesome is that?  My cruise control loves me, this I know, because the half-dozen other drivers getting pulled over by the PA and OH state troopers tell me so.

NO LICENSE PLATES.

I have called and left a terse message for the guy who sold me the car, and also sent an e-mail, cc'd to the sales manager (whose name and e-mail are different now than they were last week -- same first name, different last name) and the general manager both, saying You know what, I don't want you to tell me when the thing will be here, because you already told me it would be here today, so obviously I can't rely on anything you tell me; what I would like you to do is send me an e-mail with the tracking number in it so that I can call FedEx and get an answer from them myself.



I don't expect to hear back from them in any useful manner -- they may give me the tracking number tomorrow, but the fucking package will probably be delivered tomorrow, won't it.  ("Same day."  Feh.)  But I feel better having yelled at them again, and all the way up the food chain as well.  (I also feel better because the Pepco situation seems to be sorted.)

[eta:  Fifteen minutes later, e-mail arrives from the GM:  "Give me a moment or two and I will get you an answer."  My first thought was yeah, of course you will; I don't know how long "a moment or two" is, but it's evidently longer than the twenty minutes it's been since I got that e-mail.  At least I've learned to just start out by not believing them.  Saves time.]