flea | Entries tagged with car

I've got enough going on right now that I'm a little overwhelmed and paralyzed with it. I'm also really tired; I worked last night and had trouble falling asleep (was the sweet tea at lunch super-potent?)

We did get the license plates and registration transferred to the new car yesterday, so we are officially completely done with car stuff. We are still deep in the bathroom plumbing project (plumbing is done, but closing up the wall in the bedroom is next, and then we need to deal with taking down and replacing the ceiling in the downstairs bathroom), and we still need to decide what to do about the roof and porch projects we got estimates for. I have been doing more research on the house and that is interesting but also distracting me at work.

At work I am giving a presentation to a staff organization the week of May 17, and then giving a talk at a state conference May 28, and neither of those things are fully developed yet, and I'm having trouble getting them developed, due to inability to focus. Part of the problem is that I could totally wing the first, if I chose, and sections of the second (demonstrating a software which I have already trained groups on 3 times and written up a training manual). I need something to give me the urgency to nail it all down.

I am going to SF next Thursday and need to plan my packing & hem my dress, do some further planning for while I'm there, and worry about how everyone will manage without me (fine, of course, but I still need to worry!) SF-istas, my current plan is to visit the Asian Art Museum the afternoon of Thursday May 13, and would welcome a companion, and I have most of the day Friday May 14 unplanned, though I may want to sleep late. I've never been to Golden Gate Park, but wonder if that is too big a project given transport issues and my potential tiredness.

mr. flea and Dillo went out and drove a Ford Fusion tonight. mr. flea loved the Fusion. It drove really nice, he likes the style a lot (I think it's ugly.) But. It's too small for him.

So, where we stand is:
Casper now wants a minivan.
Dillo still wants a Ferrari.
I want a hatchback, and liked the Fit a lot although we didn't drive it and it may not be powerful enough. I have this irrational thing where I think sedans are dorky and old-personish.
mr. flea wants a car he can get excited about, that he likes the look of and the driving feel of. he's leaning towards the Matrix at this point, of what he's looked at, but he's not excited about it.

Our criteria:
1. It must fit mr. flea comfortably, and also a car seat in the back. Dealbreaker.
2. We want good gas mileage, good safety, good reliability. A manual transmission.
3. Style issues.

So, we'll probably satisfy one and two, and forget about 3, I guess.

Two and a half weeks ago, Casper broke her thumb.

Last weekend, a pipe burst in our bathroom ceiling.

Today we set out to deal with the bathroom - hit Lowe's at 8:30 am, kids in tow. We bought a shop vac, pipes, and stuff, and headed home.

Dillo and I had fun watching mr. flea cut chunks out of the bathroom ceiling. Mold was already beginning on the wet drywall, so it was a good thing. (The homeowners insurance people are coming Tuesday morning, and they said to go ahead and open up the ceiling.)

We took a break at 11:45 so I could get a ride into an event at work. The car, on startup, made a horrible sort of valve-ish noise, and would not start. mr. flea thinks the engine may just have up and died (for no particular reason - the car is 10 years old, and it's a Ford, so we weren't expecting it to run forever, but I hardly expected the engine to go!)

The tow, which we called at 12:45, didn't come until 2:30. Since the dealer (to which the car was being towed) closed at 2:00, mr. flea couldn't ride along and pick up a rental car. We've looked at other options but I think he's going to call their courtesy shuttle on Monday morning and run out there then to get a rental (it's cheap, and they have a courtesy van!)

We're pretty resigned to the idea that this means a new car. (A 2000 Ford Focus is worth almost nothing; certainly not the price of a new engine!) Yes, we wanted to get a roof, but maybe we'll get a car instead.

None of these are huge, catastrophic catastrophes. But I'm getting a little tired of lurching from one crisis to another, and would like a little break. Please?

We're talking again about the possibility of a new car - a used Toyota Matrix is looking good right now - an '04 or '05, maybe. This leads to talking about the funding of a new car. Which leads to actually setting out, with data, what our monthly income and outflows are. And of course it turns out that the reason we are finding it so hard to save anything is that they are too close together. Our absolute necessities: mortgage, child care, utilities, car insurance and gas, student loan payment, and groceries, puts us with $1200 left over for the month. I'm currently sending $250 of that to my IRA, and then there are things like two plane trips for 4 to Boston in successive months, my MLS tuition, dental care, termite treatment, etc. Some is getting frittered away in mr. flea's lunches out and unnecessary household items, but not really very much. Not enough that if we were really tight about it we'd be able to save up $6000 in the next six months for the other half of a car.

This burden should ease. mr. flea got a rather nice raise recently (6% if I am doing the math right), which was a nice surprise, since my workplace is furloughing me 6 days this year. In 10 months Dillo will start PreK, though my plan is to put the monthly daycare money into a college savings fund starting then. I should be getting a (marginally) better-paying librarian job in the next few years, assuming my workplace ever stops its hiring freeze.

But it's disappointing to see how our spending has risen to our dramatically increased income. Our mortgage is twice our rent (we had really cheap rent); our utilities are higher here (gas/electric some, because the house is bigger, but we now pay 3x as much for water/sewer/trash as we were, which is just a function of the municipality); we have a student loan payment for the first time in a while. Some luxuries are included in those "necessities": $30 a month for satellite TV, $12 a month for a cell phone, $45 for internet. Not a lot I suspect compared to some people.

Dillo is running around the house with his pull-up pulled down so his penis is sticking out the top. he's also shouting, "penis power!"

Our beta fish Rosalina has been getting increasingly sick. She's got some kind of fin ick, and her gills are all poking out, and she has no appetite and lies at the bottom of the bowl. We've given her some kind of antibiotic and added an anti-ammonia treatment to the water this week; right now mr. flea is changing the water with some water her has carefully let sit for 24 hours in the sun (I had been just using a de-chlorinator). I hope she perks up soon. Casper is actually fairly soigne about the possible demise of her fish.

My teeth are still remarkably sore. I think everything is fine - I can sort of feel the stitches and it's a little weird. I just thought I would have stopped needing painkillers by now, 5 days in. I do okay for a while, but then ache sets in and it makes my whole head ache. Also, the most painful thing is yawning, which is kind of funny.

We looked at new Toyotas today. I don't think we're going to buy soon, but mr. flea has been talking with a coworker about whether a more fuel-efficient car or doing the house projects would reduce our carbon footprint more. I liked the 2010 Prius (it's a redesign), and it has an adjustable driver's side seat. The only one they had on the lot had a moon roof, which reduces head room by more than an inch, but I think without it mr. flea would be okay on clearance. We also looked at a Matrix, which isn't available in a hybrid. That had tons of head room, but it felt a little cheaper somehow (it is, technically, cheaper, of course). Both are hatchbacks which I love and miss. We'll be in the market for a car in a year or two (we currently drive a 2000 Focus), so I think we may wait things out and try to get a nearly-new 2010 Prius at that point. Almost all of our driving is stop-and-go city stuff, and we'd get nearly double the mileage in a Prius. But if we decide we can't afford one, it's good to know that a used Matrix would probably be a fine and widely available choice.

Meanwhile we need to start calling some contractors to get a sense of what fixing the home energy audit stuff would even cost. I don't have any sense at all. And it would be nice to insulate the upstairs enough so that when we come home in the afternoon it isn't 87 degrees in our bedroom. That's with the whole-house AC set at 78. With the bathroom vent fan, we can usually get it down to bearable (82-83 with ceiling fan on) by bedtime. But, really!

mr. flea broke down on the highway on the way home tonight. As breakdowns go, it was smooth and convenient; he was on 147 just south of downtown and right by an offramp with a convenient gas station. He called a tow and had him drop the car at the mechanic's, then swing by the YMCA to pick up Casper, then swing by the house (all within half a mile of each other; the mechanic is a block from the YMCA, actually). So they arrived via the front door and I looked out to find an immense flatbed tow truck in the street! Needless to say, Dillo was charmed.

Given the sudden total lack of power and the car's age, it's probably a timing belt. Good thing this didn't happen on a deserted stretch of I-85 in South Carolina, eh?

First he did part 2 of his dissertation proposal defense (carried over from last week, when they ran out of time) and his committee told him that's he's bitten off too much and needs to seriously consider the scope of work. They were nice, but he is disappointed.

Then he got in a car accident - he was the striker, not the strikee, but it was the other guy's fault. Our car is drivable but needs body work; the other guy (in a minivan) had a bent rear axle and may be totaled. The other guy did have insurance, nobody hurt (though mr. flea indignant his airbag did not deploy). They waited in a convenience store parking lot for more than an hour, at a major intersection, talked to the police 4 times, and the officer sent out COULD NOT FIND THEM. Finally gave up and drove to the substation, but it doesn't count as leaving the scene because they tried, and I guess the other guy admitted fault (he pulled out into traffic; mr. flea had the right of way.)

So now he is driving home in cold rain and we'll load up the Dillo and go pick up my pump and 6 oz of milk from my office where I forgot it (and I thought my day was bad for that!) and pick up Casper and maybe pick up some ice cream and come home and have some chicken cacciatore (already cooked) and drink red wine and try to make the poor bunny feel better.

In good news I got a hefty Child Care Reimbursement Account check in the mail, so maybe I can order Casper new (pink!) shoes and the Dillo a cute jacket anyway.