We had some rain, off and on, during the night, and today was mostly overcast. Overnight temperatures were quite nice, and the garden survives.
This morning was very good, on the pain scale, for myself, but not for my daughter. I headed to the garage this morning on my own, and didn’t even bother to bring the walker – though I did remember to bring the water jugs.
I always leave early, but I forget that the new location is closer enough to make a difference in travel time. I got there almost 45 minutes early.
He took the truck in almost right away.
The oil change got done and, when I asked, I found out he’d already checked the steering linkage for me when he was doing the diagnostic on Monday. All is good. We talked for a while about the check engine light. The most common fix he’s seen for that code is changing the gas cap, but we might not need to do that. It could be as simple as the cap not being on tight (we know it is), or the O ring not sealing as well. Applying some oil to the O ring would help with that. It could be dust in the EVAP system, especially since we drive on gravel roads. He described the system to me and told me about a number of other possibilities. My scan showed it as a “very common” code to come up. He assured me it won’t affect drivability. He never recommends getting work done, if it isn’t actually necessary. We can clear the code ourselves with the scanner, or it might even go away on its own.
In the end, he charged me for the oil and filter change, and an hour of labour for the diagnostic testing done on Monday. Considerably less expensive than I feared, at the start.
The whole thing was done before my actual appointment time!
I didn’t have a lot of driving after that, but I could already feel the truck felt like it was running smoother. The oil gauge was where he said it should be, and looking better than before. We’ll be doing many trips into the city next week, so it’ll get a work out, then.
I headed into town to refill the water bottles and picked up a few other little things, then headed home. My older daughter helped me with bringing the bottles in, as her sister has barely been able to get out of bed for the pain.
Later on, after I’d gone out to do the outside cat feeding, I hosed down the mats from the sun room some more, then checked on the garden. I ended up with a little harvest; just enough for a meal or two.
It’s been a while since I’ve tried harvesting, or even weeding, any carrots. The Rainbow Mix carrots are harder for me to reach, but are the one planted earlier, so I made sure to take from that row. They were a lot thicker than I expected! Then I grabbed the two Lemon Squash from the old kitchen garden. My older daughter is making a hearty potato soup for supper and made sure to include some of this!
The 10 day forecast is looking pretty good. Aside from a trip to the post office, we don’t need to go anywhere and the weather looks like we should be able to get things done outside – and finish clearing and cleaning the sun room!
My daughter and I headed into town this morning, hoping to get the truck worked on, even though I hadn’t received a message back from the garage with a time. I had my suspicions, but my daughter had something to do in town after, so I knew it wouldn’t be a wasted trip.
Oh, my. I really feel for the owner of the garage.
When we got there, he was outside, on the phone. My daughter stayed outside by the truck while I went into the office and waiting for him. I couldn’t hear what he was saying on the phone, but I could hear his tone, and it was a lot tenser than his usual laid back manner.
When he came to the office door, he was furiously texting while also apologizing. He had meant to text me back with a time, but had never had a chance to look at his schedule to tell me when. He was finally able to set his phone down on a shelf just outside the door, telling me how, after he’d had to go home yesterday, unable to work on our truck, things ended up taking hours longer than it should have. Of course, that absolutely screwed up his schedule completely.
He had just sat down at his desk and started getting his schedule out when his phone started ringing again. From where he’d left it just outside the door! He had to answer it and went outside again to talk. When he came back, he looked absolutely frazzled.
He was, of course, needing to catch up on things, and I could already see his bays were full, so there was no way we’d be getting in anytime soon. He had no openings today and, at best, could squeeze me in between other scheduled jobs. Of course, that would me us waiting in his office, since there’s nowhere else to go in the industrial park his shop is now located in. Alternatively, he had openings tomorrow.
We’ll be back tomorrow morning.
Poor guy. Yes, there was another mechanic, but there are things only the owner can take care of and, when it comes to our truck and needing to figure things out, he had taken that on himself rather than delegating.
That arranged, my daughter and I headed into town. I had forgotten our water bottles to refill, but we’ll be back to do that tomorrow. My daughter ran her errand and we were soon home.
I was feeling really good today – left the walker in the truck and didn’t even need a cane. After we had lunch at home, I headed outside to see what I could get done, as we are expecting rain.
I got the cat beds soaking in the tub finished and set out to drain and, if it doesn’t rain, dry. Floor mats got hosed down, which will need to be done again another time or two. I got the cat cage dismantled and the interlocking mat under it set out for soaking, then hosing down.
With the cat half of the sun room finally empty, I swept as best I could, but the floor washing and window washing will have to wait. Instead, I brought out all the cleaned cat beds and blankets and set them on one side, then brought all the food trays that had been removed and laid them out on the other, along with a water bowl. This way, the cats will at least have someplace warm and dry to hang out in, should the weather get wet. The wind, at least, seems to be dying down.
By the time all that was done, it was time to do the outside cat feeding. The singleton kitten would not let me touch her today, but she kept calling at me. She looks so sad without the little kittens to play with! I’m glad she’s staying close to the house now, though. Hopefully, with all the trays returned to the sun room, she will start hanging out in there more often, and the other cats won’t chase her out.
Before heading in, I did my evening rounds and checked on the garden. I watered the muskmelon, since they are under their own mini greenhouse set up. Then I noticed a strange bit of colour among the yellow leaves of the red noodle beans in the other bed.
There it is. Our single, sad, floppy little red noodle bean! I couldn’t see any others. Which I found funny because the same thing happened the first time we tried growing this variety during what turned out to be a drought year. We got just one sad little bean that year, too.
I would really like to successfully grow this variety, but I think I’ll wait a year or two before I try again.
I was still able to get a little harvest for today, though.
I got a handful of beans from the ones planted later in the season, with the Arikara squash. My pain levels started to kick in, so I asked a daughter to make supper, and I now have those beans on my cooling plate as I write this. I also grabbed a few of the Blueberry Tomatoes for the girls.
Sept. 23, and we still have a few things we’ll be able to harvest. If the long range forecast is at all accurate, we will have no danger of frost at all for at least the next 10 days.
I’m appreciating every frost free day we’re getting as a gift right now!
Okay, main goal of the day: getting the truck to the garage for our afternoon appointment.
As usual, we planned on leaving early. My daughter was really struggling this morning, unfortunately. She’d had a bad night. We’ve had more outings than usual that she came along with to help me out, and it’s starting to wear on her.
This time, it was Gouda, parked on one of the inside out cat beds under the canopy tent. So adorable!
I was having a good day, when it comes to pain levels, and started off driving but right away realized I was feeling unusually sleeping. A down side of having to take painkillers every 6 hours. I never get more than a few hours of sleep at a time, if I manage to fall sleep at all.
We got to the garage about half an hour early and settled in the waiting room chairs. We could hear the owner working on something in the back and he didn’t see us, which was fine. We were in no hurry. I actually started to fall asleep in the chair.
Then he walked by the door to the office, focused on his phone, stopped and did a double take when he realized we were already there and waiting. He greeted us then continued outside, going back to his phone.
Shortly after, he came back and apologetically asked us if we wanted to go into town for lunch or something; he needed to go home to take care of something. We were okay with that and he said he would text me when he was back.
I got my daughter to drive and we ended up going to the Dairy Queen, because I had some coupons. My daughter was a sweetheart and insisted on paying for it, too.
We took our time about it, though I wasn’t that hungry and ended up saving my burger for home. I just snacked on some fries. I don’t really like fries all that much, and gave the last of them to my daughter, since she hadn’t eaten before we left. After a while, we decided that we could just as easily go back to the garage and stay in the truck, where I’m sure I would have fallen asleep. We were getting ready to head out when I got a text.
The thing he had to take care of at home was taking longer than it should have, and he had no idea how long it would be. Rather than have us wait, he asked if we were willing to come back tomorrow.
I answered yes, then asked if he wanted us back for the same time. By that point, I don’t think he was able to keep checking his work phone. I’ll just assume the same time if he doesn’t respond.
So we headed home, instead, stopping only to pick up some gas.
$1.899/L
Ouch.
At least I got my 3¢/L CAA discount, so we paid $1.869/L instead. Every little bit helps.
Once at home, I sat at my computer for a while, but was still so sleepy, I couldn’t actually accomplish anything useful. My husband came over to talk and the first thing he said was that I looked really horrible! 😄😂 I did consider just going to bed but, by this time, it was past 3 and I knew that would screw up my night.
After a while, though, I started feeling better. Well enough to go outside to do the evening cat feeding. The singleton kitten, I noticed, is no longer a junk pile cat. She is now and under the cat house cat! The sun room trays are all outside right now, as we’ve made very little progress on clearing and cleaning the sun room, and spread out on the ground near the cat shelters. As I was topping them up, the little one was peeking out from under the cat house, meowing at me. I could see she wanted to come out so badly, but was also too scared to actually do it!
She did come out eventually, though. Especially after I started to add cat milk to some of the trays, too.
I was still feeling good, so I decided to do some yard stuff and garden watering in between topping up the cats’ water bowls a bit at a time, so as not to scare them away from the food. I checked the drying cat beds and stuff, and they were finally all dry, so I tucked those into the wagon and under the screen for now. I’ve got other pieces soaking with detergent in the tub, so I agitated them for awhile. That water got quite brown in the process! They are still soaking, as I wasn’t up to scrubbing them today. Then I started watering the garden.
Yes, the garden is still worth watering! Not all of the beds, but some of them. The strawberries, squash and sunflowers at the chain link fence all got a watering. I’m really impressed that the squash – winter and summer – is still surviving and blooming.
The old kitchen garden got watered and I found a surprise. In the beets and parsnip bed, the parsnip greens have gotten so tall, their leaves were sticking through the wire of the cover. Some of the beets are also quite tall and the only reason they aren’t going through the wire is because they’re in the middle of the bed, under the highest part of the curve.
About a third of them were gone.
Not completely, but at one end, there was a substantial empty spot that had been full of leaves.
My first thought was deer, but that seems so unlikely. The deer don’t typically go through that garden; too many paths and obstacles. Plus, my daughter added more wood chips to the paths yesterday, and that’s not a surface a deer would want to walk on. The alternative is skunks or racoons, and they would have cause more damage than just a bunch of leaves eaten. So it must be from a deer.
The wire cover did protect the plants at least somewhat, as they were not completely eaten down to the ground, like the Swiss Chard all was. So frustrating!
The tomato bed in the east yard got watered, but I didn’t bother with the other two beds. Since our single Arikara squash has been harvested, I cut away the vine, so that bed is now just bush beans. The leaves do have some minor frost damage, but I could see there are still beans developing. I probably could have harvested some, but didn’t have a container for them and didn’t want to push my limits.
In the main garden area, I did some more selective watering. I was doing the very last bed when my older daughter came out. I asked how her sister was doing, and she said not very good. She’s dealing with with increased pain levels now, so she’s settled down in the cat free zone to have some movies playing while she continues knitting my ankle socks for me.
While I finished watering the last bed, my daughter told me her plans for roasting the Arikara squash and to use half of it to make a squash soup. Personally, I look forward to having straight up roasted squash. I want to get a good taste of it to see if this is something we want to keep growing in the future, other than to keep collecting seeds for a rare squash variety.
I started telling my daughter how surprised I was with how little frost damage there was, and that I could probably harvest some things – then asked if she wanted some peppers. We had two California Bell peppers that are fully red now, plus a couple of Sweet Chocolate peppers that were ripe. She happily took them and will be using them in her soup. There are still some green peppers on the plants that will hopefully do all right. With peppers, though, we can also harvest them early and let them ripen in the house.
I did remember to look up what colour the California Bell peppers get, since they are bright red and, for some reason, I thought they would be yellow. I found images of both red and yellow peppers. 😕 I got them from MI Gardener and looked at their page, and their image is of green peppers!
So… red it is.
I headed inside soon after, as I didn’t want to push myself. At this point, I might head into town tomorrow on my own, rather than dragging my daughter out with me again. This time, I want to remember to grab a couple of 5 gallon water jugs to refill in town, after the oil change and whatever else needs to be done.
For now, I’m coming up on my schedule evening painkillers time, and I think I’ll try to go to bed after that and get a few hours of sleep before the next set. I tried that last night and it didn’t work. I ended up awake until somewhere past 4am. That might actually help me finally get some sleep tonight, though!
An odd thing about taking the painkillers every 6 hours. I’m not entirely sure how much it’s making a difference. I still get hit with the lower abdominal pain, enough that I’ve used the topical painkiller to help with that. Yet even when I’m not feeling the abdominal pain, I’m still feeling other pain. Particularly that left shoulder’s rotator cuff. The painkillers don’t seem to be touching that at all. Which makes me wonder; if they’re not helping with something as relatively minor as the shoulder pain, how much can it be helping with the abdominal pain? Granted, my shoulder has never hurt badly enough to warrant a trip to the ER, but you’d think a dose as strong as what I’m taking now, 6 times a day, would reduce the shoulder pain too, wouldn’t you??
Ah, well. It is what it is. At least I’m not getting side effects like that violent dizziness I was getting with the Percocet.
So… that’s how the day went today. We almost got the truck done! Our mechanic had told us what he’d needed to go home for, and I really hope it all worked out for him and his family.
If all goes well, the truck will finally be done tomorrow, and it’ll be ready for the winter, as well as all the trips to the city we’ll be needing to do over the next couple of months!
Okay, we are back from town, and were done with the truck way earlier than expected.
As we pulled into the parking lot at the garage, we saw a truck pulling out and leaving. Then we found the doors locked! It turned out we had just watched the owner leaving to drop someone off. Which was fine. We were about 40 minutes early for the appointment.
I messaged our contact with the rescue to let her know we had arrived and were waiting for the owner of the garage to come back. She messaged back right away, suggesting she come over right then. She had just arrived at work and was only 2 minutes away.
Of course, I said yes!
Then the owner returned. I went in to talk to him while my daughter waited outside, then helped the woman from the rescue load donated cat food into the truck box. None of which I could see from where I was standing inside.
I described to the owner what I was seeing on the gauge, even as we drove to the garage, compared to what we were seeing for weeks after our last oil change, which included an engine flush and the third oil sensor replacement. It had been working just fine after that. I explained how the readings started changing after a while, first only when we made a trip to the city, little by little. There was the direct correlation with engine temperature, which I monitored during the drive in.
After they were done loading the truck, he drove it into the shop and started testing it – well before our actual appointment time.
While he was getting ready to hook up his physical mechanical oil pressure gauge to test it, my daughter told me about the ear mite medications and where she tucked them away, and that she’d made sure to set the biggest cat food bags centered over the axle to distribute the weight. I quickly popped open the tail gate to take a look and was totally amazed!!!
Of course, I messaged the women from the rescue to thank her again.
It wasn’t until later that I realized the larger bags my daughter was talking about were not the 9kg size we typically see, but two 40 pound bags of a brand we buy from the feed store in the town north of us. !!!!! You can just barely see one of them in the shadows in the first photo above.
We had expected that the garage would hang on to the truck for a while, and we’d get a ride into town, but that didn’t happen. We sat outside in the sun for a while, then popped into the waiting room when it started getting too hot. My daughter had brought her knitting bag and worked on one of the ankle socks she’s making for me while we waited.
They worked on the truck, revving the engine at times, testing it out. After a while, the owner came back and got on his computer for a bit, then got a printout to show us, which I got to keep.
What it came down to is that yes, our oil pressure is slightly lower than “normal”, however, it is within range. I told him flat out that, after all the problems we’ve had, I don’t know what “normal” is anymore, so he told me where, on the gauge itself, I should expect to see it. Then we talked about how that can change based on things like temperature (winter is going to show higher than summer), and even just age and wear and tear on the engine.
There is nothing else to show why that pressure would be that small amount lower, so he wants to change our oil to something thicker. He asked if I could come back tomorrow, and we can, so that’s now booked for tomorrow afternoon. As he was starting to remove his pressure tester, I remembered to ask him to change out our burnt headlight bulb – I’d bought a new bulb weeks ago, but we were never able to get it done ourselves, for various reasons. So he quickly did that for us.
The whole thing was done, and it wasn’t even noon, yet.
When I asked about paying, he told me he’ll give me a total after I come back tomorrow and he does the oil change. We both forgot about the check engine light, but the oil change with a new filter might actually fix that. I did remember to text him about it shortly after we left.
My daughter hadn’t had breakfast before we left, planning to take me out for breakfast after being dropped off in town. So the first thing we did was go for lunch. After that, we walked over to the dollar store, as I was looking for some specific things for the Christmas ornaments I wanted to work on. I ended up not finding anything, but my daughter found several small things she picked up.
From there, it was a stop at the pharmacy, where my daughter was a sweetheart and quickly ran in with the signed consent form they needed for my new pain meds. My husband had asked me to pick up a couple of things at the grocery store, and my daughters had their own shopping list, so that was our next stop.
Normally, I would have put some gas in the tank at that point, but I didn’t want to do that until after the truck was done and paid for. So that will wait until tomorrow.
By the time we were heading home, I remembered that we needed to stop at the post office, too. We are expecting several important letters, and one of them was there today. My older daughter now has a time for her appointment that was rescheduled to early November, along with the date they were able to give her right away.
I still haven’t received a call about my own biopsy I was supposed to get at the end of the month. The one I was supposed to receive before the weekend. If I don’t get a call by tomorrow, I’ll call the clinic that referred me and let them know.
That done, we got home and unloaded at the house. After bringing in the groceries, assembly line style, we started bringing in the donated cat stuff.
Then I got some pictures of what we got, which are the rest of the images in the slide show above, though I had already emptied two small bags that were torn, into the kibble bin for the inside cats. The 40 pound bags and two boxes of cat milk went straight to the old kitchen, so they were not included in the photos.
One bag had nothing but cat treat. So many cat treats!!! Another had more cat treats, plus three small bags of freeze dried chicken catfood, plus several loose little cartons of cat milk. There was a freezer bag of loose kibble, plus a slightly bigger bag of kibble that were on the side.
The last bag I went through had a couple of larger bags of kibble, a smaller one that was partially used and taped shut, and some canned cat food – and even more bags of cat treats!! I also started finding some strange little individual packets that were loose among the treat bags. I found the package they’d fallen out of and found out they are pill pockets.
With so many bags of dry treats like that, we should start mixing some in with their kibble feedings.
Which is what I can do next, as it’s getting time to feed the outside cats.
We did come home to a problem, though. Something is wrong with our toilet. It had gotten clogged, which seemed to be cleared, but now it’s slow flushing. We’ve checked the basement and there’s no sign of problems at the drains to the septic tank, though we’re due to run the hose through and flush it, anyhow.
This morning, after taking my scheduled meds and supplements, I was feeling well enough to do the morning cat feeding. Which meant, of course, I stayed out to check on the garden.
There is definitely cold damage on a lot of things, but most might actually have survived. The winter squash on the chain link fence was my biggest surprise.
The first one is what should be a Black Futsu. It had been protected by a large leaf. The other images, save the very last one, are of the butterneck squash – and they are still producing female flowers! Even the summer squash, which could not be covered, seems to have had minimal damage. The last image above is of some lemon squash developing in the plant in the wattle weave bed that was a thinning by transplanting location. It’s smaller, but further ahead in maturity, than the plants in the retaining wall bed that were direct sown and never moved!
It will be another day or two before we really see how much the cold damaged things, though.
Yesterday had been quite damp and chilly, so we never did take the frost covers off. I did that this morning. The chocolate stripe tomatoes look like they didn’t handle the cold too well, but it’s still too early to be sure. The peppers and our single developing eggplant seem okay. We had rain yesterday and the frost covers were quite wet, so those went on the clothes line. The mock orange my mother had planted at the laundry platform has grown a lot this summer and was very much in the way.
My daughter and I headed out to our appointment at the garage at noon. The plan was to basically just hang out in their waiting area while the oil change was being done. My daughter even brought along her knitting. She has finished the socks she was making for herself and has started a pair of ankle socks for me with the glitter yarn.
We got there about half an hour early, even after being stuck behind a slow moving vehicle. The garage owner was there when we came into the office – me with my walker, my daughter with her cane. What a pair we make! For me, though, the walker was more of a “just in case”. I was actually feeling really good still. Usually, the pain levels start to creep up in the afternoon.
I asked him if he’d received the screenshots of the OBDII scan I sent him yesterday and he had. He spent some time going over the readings and noted that replacing the oil sensor had come up as a fix again. We talked about the other things, and they did not concern him. One of them is the gas cap sensor, which I didn’t realize until then. I’d look the part up on Amazon, following the link from the app, but didn’t look any further into it – I was pretty distracted by other things at the time. I described to him the changes I saw with the oil pressure gauge readings over the months since it last got replaced, and that I thought the oil change might help with. He said, only a little bit. Maybe. I should not be getting those readings. He asked more questions and spent some time looking things up on his computer.
In the end, he asked if I could bring the truck back on Monday and leave it with him for the day. He wants to set up an oil pressure tester and drive it around. This would tell him if it’s the sensor acting up again, or if there’s something else going on. I told him the only problem with that is, we have no other transportation. We talked for a while and, in the end, he asked me to bring the truck back on Monday morning. They’ll drive us into town, so we’re not stuck in his waiting room while he tests it out. He does not want to do the oil change until he’s had a chance to run the test.
So we booked that and headed home. We actually got home at almost exactly our appointment time. 😄 We didn’t even stop to get the mail because the post office wasn’t going to open again for another hour, and we have a parcel to pick up.
While we were gone, our prescription delivery came in, which included my new painkillers. My doctor is quite serious about pain management! I went from Tramadol/hydrochloride, 50mg, up to 3 times a day, as needed, to Tramadol/acetaminophen, 325mg, 4 times a day for two weeks. In two weeks, I should be in the city getting more tests done, so if I need more or something else, that’ll be taken care of, then.
Which means that when my afternoon alarm went off for my next painkiller dose, I had my new Tramadol to take, instead of the T3s I had in my purse I expected to take while the oil change was being done. I read the paperwork that came with it and noted that the potential side effects include dizziness and nausea, which is what I started getting about a week into the Percocet trial. Something to watch out for.
I was still feeling really good. So good, in fact, I was decidedly suspicious. At this point, not feeling pain is downright weird. (Even stranger is, the bleeding seems to have stopped, too!) After taking the meds, though, I got incredibly sleepy, falling asleep at my computer. That passed, though, and I was feeling good enough, I decided to take a chance and headed outside.
I didn’t push myself with anything too “manual labour”-ish. The outside cats got fed and I was going to finish washing and rinsing the cat beds and blankets from the sun room, but my presence was keeping the singleton kitten from going to the food bowls, so I switched gears.
I got the weed trimmer out. My brother had fixed the cracked handle on the larger one and brought it back, but I noticed there was only 2 batteries instead of 3 for that. Which was probably good, as it made sure I didn’t push myself too much. The lawn needs to be mowed, so the first thing I did was trim around the low rocks in the yard, so no one will hit them with the lawn mower, then moved to the old kitchen garden. The paths there have not been trimmed for quite a while, and some areas were getting pretty thickly overgrown. So much so that I needed to rake it all up before doing a bit more trimming around the garden edge and the nearby cat shelters. Now that we have a lovely, huge pile of wood chips, I want to lay down a thick layer on the paths in the old kitchen garden.
But not today.
Instead, I went back to the cat beds and blankets. They’ve had several soaks in the old tub with detergent, but for the past few days, they’ve been sitting on the grass, getting rained on. I got the wheelbarrow to wash individual pieces, having to use a scrub brush on some of them, to get the mats of cat hair and burrs off, then set them in the old tub for rinsing.
The first things I worked on were flat things I could hang on the line, so after the first few were done, I headed over and took the dry frost protector sheets off the clothes line.
Then I pruned the mock orange back, so the laundry would no longer catch on it. What a difference that made! I left the branches for a daughter to clear away tomorrow, though.
That was what I worked on for the next while; scrubbing a few pieces in the wheelbarrow, rinsing them in the tub, hanging them on the line, then doing another batch. Both the wash water and rinse water had to be changed several times. An entire winter and spring, plus part of a summer, of cats, skunks and raccoons make a serious mess! The last items could not be hung on the line. Some because of their shape, like two cat caves. Others because they were just too thick and heavy to be able to hang on a line. Some of those ended up on the water bowl house, which has a metal roof, to drain and dry. They’ll need to be flipped a couple of times, I’m sure. The last ones got draped over the upturned wheelbarrow to drain. Once they’ve had a chance to drain most of the water they soaked up, they’ll get moved onto one of the cat shelter roofs to dry in the sun. We are expecting rain tomorrow, but not until the evening, so we’ll have to keep an eye on things. The thicker items will probably take several days to dry.
I’m happy to say that I still felt really great, even after all this. I don’t know how much I can attribute to the new pain meds and how much to it just starting out a good day and staying a good day!
So the main thing we needed to get done today – get Damocles an oil change, at least – didn’t happen, but today still worked out to be a productive day.
That makes me happy!
Gosh, I miss being able to work outside more! That’s the part of all the health issues that bothers me the most. I really enjoy the work, and not being able to do it is so very frustrating. I’ve gone over the things that need to be done over the next while with the girls, to prepare the yard and garden for winter. Getting the sun room emptied and cleaned out is a priority right now. Nights are starting to get cold, and the cats will need their winter shelter. My older daughter has her commissions to work on, so there’s not as much that she can do, but my younger daughter is planning out her days based on the to-do list, now that we expect to be able to stay home for a few days, other than a much needed dump run on Saturday.
Time to catch up on things while the weather holds!
The girls and I headed out at 9 this morning. I even headed to the truck ahead of time to check the tires and secure my walker in the truck box. Everything was going as expected.
One of the things that I’ve been noticing on the truck is that the oil pressure has been slowly dropping over the past while. Still within normal levels, though, and I figured an oil change would address that. Yesterday, my husband had called the garage to book one for me, because I would remember while driving, then forget once I got home. In the last few days, however, it was starting to drop even while at highway speeds and, when stopped at traffic lights, the needle had started to drop just under the “normal” line. Again, not enough to be too concerned yet, but definitely something to look into.
Two things happened once we got on the highway.
The check engine light turned on, and the pressure gauge started to slowly drop while I was still at highway speeds. Still within “normal”, but it hasn’t dropped like that, while maintaining a speed, since we got the oil pressure sensor changed again.
My daughter messaged my husband for me to call the garage again (he’d left a message, yesterday) about the oil change appointment, and to mention the check engine light was now on. I’d texted them last night to ask them to do a general check on things during the oil change, because we were going to have a lot of medical appointments to drive to. So when my husband called, they were ready with an appointment time for me, tomorrow afternoon. They squeezed me in. Normally, it’s at least a few days before they can book me. Mind you, that was at their old location. They have more bays available in their new locations.
I was taking the highway into the city with no construction on it, rather than the one that went straight into the city almost directly to the hospital my daughter’s appointment was at. That meant we had a town to drive through, with gas stations and plenty of parking space. Since we’d left so early, I pulled over any my younger daughter checked the oil for me. Oil level was fine, but the engine was still hot, so it would not have been completely accurate, but with where my daughter could see the line (something I have a very hard time seeing), we didn’t see any need to add more oil.
My older daughter made the executive decision to cancel her appointment (which, to be honest, she’s been wanting to do for at least a couple of weeks now), and we headed home.
As soon as I parked the truck, I linked the OBDII scanner while my daughters headed inside to call and cancel the appointment. A couple of codes came up. This was one of them.
Top reported fix (the only reported fix, actually): replaced EVAP Canister Vent Solenoid Valve Assembly.
The other code was for the oil pressure sensor performance. That one listed 4 top reported fixes. Replacing the oil filter, which would have been done with an oil change, was the first. Second was replacing the oil pressure sensor, which has already been done, and is finally working. Next is to replace the engine valve lifter oil filter, followed by cleaning said filter.
It also doesn’t look like it’s going to be a very expensive fix, though I have only the link to Amazon parts to compare to. The price will likely be higher, locally.
On the plus side, after this fix, our mileage should improve. When we stopped at our usual gas station’s parking lot to check the oil, they were at $1.699, down 10¢ from yesterday. The other gas station, across the highway and just up the block, had gone UP 10¢ to $1.899 !!!! Yesterday, I’d pre-paid enough gas that the needle was just barely touching the full line, and we’re already down a quarter tank since then.
I screen capped the scanner’s readings and texted them to the garage once I got inside. My older daughter had called the hospital and left a message telling them we had vehicle troubles. My younger daughter remembered to call prescription refills to the pharmacy for delivery tomorrow. The doctor called back not long after. I had a chance to talk to her for a bit and said we’d turned around and come home because of the truck. She was understanding. She spoke to my daughter for a bit, and they will call back with a new appointment time later.
Ah, that reminds me. While we were out yesterday, my husband answered a call from the eye clinic. My 6 month eye tests are in the middle of next month, and they were needing to reschedule. That came in before I reached my own doctor’s appointment. Since I’m now expected to have my surgery in about 4 weeks, that actually works out, since I would probably have had to reschedule, anyhow! I want to book an appointment for my older daughter at the same time. It’s been years since she had her eyes tested, and she needs new glasses badly. Once she has them, she can finally take her written test for her driver’s license. She knows how to drive – we taught her how when we were living not for from here before, and she was just big enough to reach the pedals. Since moving out here, she just hasn’t been able to get it done. She doesn’t even have photo ID for this province.
Now that my younger daughter has her current medications, she wants to do her road test, but she needs to do 2 hours with an instructor, and get access to a loaner vehicle, since our truck wouldn’t be accepted for a road test. They don’t care that the light on the dash is just tire sensors needing replacement. We don’t know how much a road test and loaner vehicle will cost, but with all the extra bills we’ve been having, we don’t have anything “extra” to cover it anyhow, even with the girls helping out as they are able. Now there’s going to be another truck bill.
*sigh*
Well, it is what it is. We just need to deal with things as they come.
It would be nice to get a break, once it a while, though!!
The rain started early this morning, and hasn’t really stopped since. We were getting thunderstorm warnings but, from the look of the weather radar, our weird climate bubble is in action again, and the most severe parts of the system is going around us.
Which means no progress in the yard and garden outside, but that’s okay.
First, an update on Domino. Curtis shared the shelter with her for the night. When I came around filling kibble bowls, I pause to pet Curtis through a window, eventually letting him out.
Domino came over and let me pet her!
Granted, she was after the window. She wants out. However, she didn’t run away or act all tensed up when I started petting her. She even leaned into my hand! Which she’s never done for me before.
Along with the dry kibble, I mixed up some of the freeze dried cat food mix to make a pate for her. This is the stuff that was donated. I’ve never heard of it before. Going over the ingredient list, is has all sorts of things good for the digestion, so I wanted to make sure Domino got it as a treat. When I brought it over after doing the kibble, Curtis climbed back in through the window to rejoin her, and they both seemed to enjoy the new food quite a lot! Curtis didn’t stay long, though, and I let him out soon after.
Bug so wanted to go into the isolation shelter. I would have let her in, but she runs away when I come close still, so I wasn’t able to open a window for her. Ah, well.
We waited for the worst of the rain to be done, then my younger daughter and I headed to town. Our first stop was at the post office, where I picked up my second package of replacement seeds, this time from MI Gardener.
The broccoli-rabe is something new for us to try next year, as is the Copenhagen Market cabbage. Possibly the Atomic red carrots. I can’t remember if I’ve tried that variety before, but we are out of carrot seeds in my stash. The rest are to replace seeds we either ran out of this year, or are almost out of. Next year, we’ll have to have a better set up for starting seeds indoors. One where no mouse can eat up all our seedlings as soon as they germinate, as well as having a warmer ambient temperature.
After getting the mail, it was off to town and a bank machine to get out some for the next stop; the clinic where my husband’s doctor had the paperwork for Canada Revenue ready and waiting for pick up – after paying the $70 for it. My husband has his own lines on the form to fill out, and then we can mail it in.
That done, it was off to the grocery store to refill a couple of our big water jugs and pick up a few groceries. Then some gas and home.
The entire time, my daughter was messaging the family, letting them know where we were, and that yes, the truck is still moving! Every time I grabbed the shifter, I was half expecting it to just slide around, because that linkage had fallen off again. It didn’t happen, but it’s going to be a long time before I stop getting that sensation! Especially when we are driving in the city. I keep waiting for that sword to drop!
Once at home, we pulled up to the house to unload, then my daughter took care of parking the truck and closing the gate while I put things away. By then, it was time to feed the outside cats for the evening, and I took the time to mix up more of the freeze dried cat food mix for Domino – this time adding more hot water to make it more soupy.
Once again, Curtis came over and wanted back into the isolation shelter, and I let him. Domino came right over to the window and would have run out if I wasn’t blocking it while pouring her treat into the kibble bowl.
She let me pet her again.
Not just a little bit, either. I stayed in the rain, petting her until I was starting to get too wet and cold, and she let me!!! She was pushing her shoulders up into my hand so I could scritch them for her, and rubbing her face into my arm. This is a HUGE step forward!
I’m still amazed that she didn’t adapt to the indoor life and spent the last two months hiding from people. She is more friendly to me now than the entire time she spent in the isolation shelter before we took her to the rescue! It would have been nice if she could have been adopted out to spend the rest of her days as an indoor cat.
Ah, well.
The rain is supposed to continue through most of the night. Tomorrow, my daughter and I have to leave by about 8am to get to her appointment in time. It’s in a horrible area to drive in, and I expect to have trouble finding parking. The satellite map shows me that there is a parking lot across a street from it, but nothing tells me if it’s public or private parking. Of course, because of all the one way streets, we’ll actually have to drive around and back track to get there.
I would really love to be able to go to a specialist that doesn’t require driving through downtown in the city. The streets are narrow, they haven’t been properly maintained for years and are crumbling, there are too many one way streets, and the parking sucks. Unfortunately, it seems that our province’s health care system has tried to mash everything into or near the downtown area. They don’t care for anyone living outside the city. We don’t have enough votes to matter.
Yeah, I’m feeling pretty cynical about it. We’ve been dealing with this BS for too many years.
*sigh*
I’m concerned my daughter was referred to this clinic, too. It’s one of those places that is very… ideologically driven, shall we say… and was the subject of a report released last summer, documenting a toxic work environment, racism, sexism, etc. Three board members got fired over it, though I couldn’t see anything that singled any board members out for the problems. Just vague “management” issues. This referral is after she saw a specialist in a different clinic, and was treated horribly. When I found out what happened, I encouraged my daughter to file a formal complaint, but she doesn’t want to go through the hassle. I have no reason to believe this clinic would be any better, since that first doctor was supposed to the top specialist in our province.
So… it happened again, today, but this time at home.
First goal of the day was to make a dump run. As usual, I back the truck up to the house to load it up. My brother and SIL are out for the weekend and my SIL was using their beautiful zero turn mower, so I made sure parked the truck well out of her way.
My daughter and I loaded up the truck, then headed out. Finished up at the dump and head home. With the renter’s cattle now rotated onto this section, we made sure to close the gate when we left, so I stopped in the driveway as my daughter got out and opened the gate. As soon as she did, I went to put the truck back into Drive and…
Nothing.
The shifter just slide back and forth, no resistance.
The steering shifter linkage we’d just had installed as no longer working. Broken? Fallen off? We had no idea.
We just got the truck back. Aside from the drive home, this was the first time we’d driven it! They did test drive it a few times before I got it, but still… it should have lasted.
Damocles dropped his sword again.
Once we got over our disbelief, I left my daughter to take care of closing the gate back up, etc. while I headed in. I saw the barn door open, so I went to see if my brother was there. He was working on some of his equipment, so I told him what happened. He said he was busy, and I told him, I was just letting him know, since the truck was just sitting in the driveway, outside the gate, and told him I was going to go phone the garage – and see if I had any more tows left on my CAA!
I called the garage and left a message, then tried to log into CAA.
It didn’t recognize my password.
I double checked and confirmed I had the right password.
Still didn’t work.
Tried the app. I rarely use the app because I always have trouble with it.
It actually wanted my CAA number input first, but again, I couldn’t log in.
I tried to reset my password. A code would come in to my email account.
It never came in.
I hit resend.
It didn’t come in, and this time, there was no “resend” option.
By that time I got a message from my SIL, telling me my brother was looking at the truck, so I gave a phone handset to one of my daughters, in case the garage called back, and headed outside.
My brother couldn’t fit under the truck to see anything – the guy that had done it before, on the street, was incredibly tiny to fit under there! So he brought out a jack.
The next while was spent getting the truck raised up and secured, with blocks, a second hydraulic jack under the truck, and something I can’t remember the name of that can support up to 2 tons, set up to support the truck’s weight should the jacks fail.
It still terrified me, and it takes a LOT to scare me.
Those two pieces are supposed to be attached. The white plastic visible, fits over the metal nib above. It simply fell off.
In the second picture, you can see what terrified me, the entire time my brother was under there. All the safety precautions didn’t matter. The youngest of my brothers had been working under a car. He had taken precautions. It still fell, killing him instantly.
My brother got the linkage connected, but said it would just fall off again, so he looked around.
What he found was a hook, which holds the weight of the linkage cable. It was bent enough to be touching the transmission. Which meant the weight of the cable was actually pulling the linkage loose.
He thinks something had to have hit the hook. Who knows when or how. He straightened it out and then added some zip ties to hold the cable. Now, the weight of the cable actually pushes towards the linkage instead of away, helping hold it in place.
All the while, he explained things, took pictures and even some video. Some of which I was able to message to the garage.
When everything was done and the truck was back on the ground, I was able to drive it to the garage without any problems.
My brother is the best.
I never did hear back from CAA, so I still don’t know if I have any tows left. When I got inside, I phoned the garage and left another message to follow up. I suggested swinging by with the truck so they can take a look at it at some point. There is no way it should have fallen off so easily, even with the hook bent out of place. Even with what my brother did, it could still simply pop off.
Which meant we suddenly weren’t sure about our next trips.
We were planning to do a combination celebration for Father’s Day and a birthday today. My older daughter was going to treat us to Pizza Hut, which meant a trip to the nearer, smaller city. We would have combined the trip to hit a Walmart and a liquor store along the way.
None of us felt comfortable doing that, even though my brother assured me the linkage should hold now.
We decided we’d go to town, instead.
My younger daughter and I headed in so we would arrive as the pizza place we were going to was opening at 4pm, with my daughter messaging the family to let them know where we were, constantly. We ordered the pizzas, which would take a while to cook, giving us time to go to the grocery store. Along with the stuff we picked up for ourselves, I grabbed a small cake for my brother and SIL as a thank you and a Father’s day gift.
It took longer than expected at the grocery store, so when we were done, we went straight back to the pizza place to pick up our order. Then we made a stop at the liquor store for my daughter to run in and pick up a few things for herself and her sister. Then it was off to home.
Every stop we made, we were both on pins an needles. Would the truck move? Did the linkage hold?
It’s insane.
The truck ran just fine. Didn’t stop us from being constantly on edge!
Once at home, I pulled up to the house to unload, then quickly delivered the cake to my brother, staying just long enough to slip it through their door. They went out for supper themselves, not long after, but they will have desert waiting for them when they get back. 😊
Overall, it’s been a day of “rest” in that I didn’t work on any projects outdoors. While waiting in line at the grocery store, though, I couldn’t resist. I picked up a packet of Scarlet Nantes carrot seed tape. I’ll do another succession sowing of carrots. At this point, I’m basically just throwing as many things into the ground as I can, hoping something will make it. Deer got at the Spring Blush peas in the trellis bed. They’re survive, but a few plants are going to be set back. I really want more of the basics, like peas, carrots and beans. If I could, I’d be doing more potatoes and corn, too, but we won’t have ready space for those, even if we did have the time. There is a space down the middle of the trellis bed where I can plant the new carrots, though, next to the rainbow mix that’s already there. Sort of.
Being the 20th, with tomorrow being the first day of summer, I decided to do the garden tour videos today. I’ll see how the files turned out when I’m done here. Hopefully, I won’t have to do them over again, tomorrow.
So that’s where we are at now. Damocles dropped his sword again, but my amazing brother saved us again, while we had our hearts in our throats the whole time he was under that truck. We’ve all had our pizzas for today – my daughter got us enough to last us a couple of days – and we’re just relaxing until we’re ready for cake or pie and ice cream.
Then I think I’m going to try going to bed early. I feel absolutely wrung out.
Happy Father’s day to the dads out there! I hope you’re having a better time than we have been! 😄
This morning, I headed into town fairly early to pay for the repairs on the truck, and take the keys. I talked to the owner for a bit and told him the background on when this happened before, and the C clip fix that I’d meant to ask him to check before but kept forgetting.
He told me that, with Chevy/GM vehicles, this is the most common thing he’s seen break down. He’s replaced a thousand of these. They just keep breaking. EXCEPT the after market part. Those hold out just fine.
Then I headed into town to fill the tank on my brother’s car before heading home. I remembered to stop at the post office, and yes, our parcel was there. It didn’t have our box number on it, as some places won’t ship to box numbers. So it had the post office’s address on it. As soon as I came in, the postal worker saw me and got it right out!
After I got home, I had some time to get things ready before going to the funeral. To my surprise, my sister phoned. She asked if I were planning to go, and I said yes. She told me that our vandal had been adamant that he didn’t want me, my brother or my mother there. (You can read why we would want to go, anyway, here), but that his wife had said she would not turn anyone away. I told her, no one has said anything to us directly, I’ve only heard through her, but I assumed as much. She just wanted to make sure I knew, in case there were issues.
There were no issues.
My brother and SIL came out to get my mother. Their son and grandsons where there, so while my brother and mother had one vehicle, the rest went in my nephew’s truck. We had more or less worked out how we would switch vehicles.
After the funeral, we went to the cemetery for the interment. I went along with my brother and mother, leaving the car I borrowed from them, for the moment. My brother parked in such a way that my mother could stay in the car and watch, as she didn’t want to transfer to the wheelchair again. We left when they started handing out shot glasses; our vandal wanted everyone to have a shot of vodka at his graveside. *sigh*
My brother started taking our mother back to the nursing home while the rest of us crammed into my nephew’s truck to go back to where their car was parked. Then I drove my SIL to the garage, with a friend following behind, to switch vehicles.
They waited to make sure the truck started and I was on my way. I remote started it and it sounded fine, but when I got in, there was a warning light, and a message to service the 4 wheel drive.
???!!!
The garage was still open, though, so I quickly told my SIL what was happening, then went in to talk to the owner, who was working on another customer’s vehicle. When he heard what I described, he looked absolutely shocked. Obviously, this wasn’t there when the parked the truck in the lot after servicing it.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to check it today. His diagnostic computer was at his second location. I asked him, so what do I do? He suggested I drive it for a while and see if the light turns off on its own, which sometimes happens. It’s not blinking or anything, right? Nope. Not blinking.
So I tell my SIL and they leave, though she made sure I knew her phone was linked to her car, so I could phone her if necessary.
Then I tried to drive the truck.
As soon as I put it in drive (which felt really stiff with the new part) and as soon as I started moving, the alarm started to ding. There is a large open area I could turn the truck around in, so I did that. While in reverse, the dinging stopped. Once in drive, it started again.
I returned to the parking lot and backed into a spot again, then went in to talk to the owner and tell him what happened.
There was absolutely nothing he could do about it at the time, and I couldn’t drive it home like that. So I called my SIL.
*sigh*
I know they’re really wanting their car back. Their other one, that they’ve loaned me before, it still in the shop.
She had to get to where they were all meeting at a restaurant first, and then said she would come back. In the end, it was my brother that came for me. He called along the way, and it’s a good thing he did. He misheard when she told me where I was. The name of the garage is very similar to the name of the general store in our little hamlet, so he was on his way there! He had just passed the turn off to the industrial park our garage is now located in. He was on hands free and kept me on the line as he turned around and came back, telling me what he was seeing as he drove in. He didn’t have far to go.
When he reached me, I could tell he was very unhappy about the whole situation. I don’t think he quite understood why the owner couldn’t just manually check it. It didn’t occur to me until well after, that he didn’t know the owner was working on another vehicle and couldn’t really stop.
I was apologetic about the whole thing, but really, there’s nothing we could do. We had no other options. I’m just thankful that they could lend it to us at all. They used my brother’s newly acquired electric commuter car to drive my mother and plan to sell their two gas powered vehicles. Both of which needed a lot of work done on them, just to be safetied.
But, we have their car again. We drove back to the restaurant to drop him off, and I took their car home again.
This is getting so ridiculous. I can’t even drive the truck away from getting one repair job done, without something else going wrong!!
I don’t even know how we’re going to pay for it. Thankfully, the bill I paid this morning wasn’t large; about $275.
I did remember to text the owner and suggest he try driving the truck around, as I hadn’t had a chance to describe what I was feeling to him at the time. I barely drove it, and all I can say is that something felt… off.
Thankfully, he knows me will enough by now that when I can only tell him something vague like that, he takes me seriously. He might not always find the problem right away, but eventually, it happens.
I had not planned to go out at all yesterday, for starters. I had my medical appointment in the the smaller city hospital this afternoon, and anything we might have needed could wait until we were done with that. My younger daughter was even going to come along to help out.
While I was doing the watering, I couldn’t resist taking these photos.
The white lilacs are in full bloom, and the honeysuckle in the old kitchen garden are just getting into that phase. They are looking just gorgeous!
Though, if you look at the background behind the white lilacs, you can see some of the clusters of dry Chinese Elm seeds among the leaves. They’ve been falling like snow for days, and won’t be done for a while, yet, even with the high winds we were having.
I did not expect to be later picking some of these to make a bouquet for my mother.
I was just finished up with the watering and gone inside, where my daughters updated me on the water pressure issue. They’d been doing dishes when suddenly the pressure dropped, dramatically. One of them was headed to check the pump and about to send a message to me, asking if I was using the hose, when they got my message asking them to check the pump because I’d lost pressure on the hose!
So we all just stopped using water for a while!
In the middle of all this, the phone rang. Twice. I managed to pick up and saw the display showing it was my mother, just in time to hear her hanging up.
I called her back immediately, and she was all surprised to I did. Yes, she had just tried to call me, she confirmed. I told her, you have to let it ring more than twice for us to reach it! She just laughed with a “you know me…” response.
No, I don’t recall her ever doing this before, so it’s not typical of her.
Then she informed me that our vandal had passed away on Friday. This was Monday. She had just found out from my sister.
For those who have been following this blog for a long time, you have been reading about the issues we’ve had with our vandal. When we first moved out here, things had been fine, but he had been working for years, trying to talk my parents into changing their wills and NOT leaving the property to my oldest brother. This included many verbally abusive messages left on my mother’s answering machine, and showing up at her place to yell at her. The property was originally supposed to go to the youngest of my brothers, who died in a quite horrible accident, more than 10 years ago. Our vandal expected the property to be left to him instead of my oldest brother, since he and my late brother had been so close, and he helped so much. When I told him I was good with it going to my oldest brother, he became furious. He’d spent the last few decades hating on my older brother, who was never able to find out what went wrong, and soon shifted that to me. Over the next while, we had to deal with verbal abuse, stalking, harassment, and the vandalism of our gate. He even went after my daughters. It got to the point where we though he might show up drunk and try to burn the house down, or even come over with one if his guns.
After we got him on trail cam video, vandalizing our gate, I pressed charges. They were stayed, unfortunately. When I caught him trying to do it again, I filed for a restraining order. Then the illegal lockdowns hit, and court dates kept getting cancelled and rescheduled, so it took almost a year before I finally got the restraining order. He retaliated by filing a civil suit against me for money, based on all the stuff he had abandoned on this property (while helping himself to pretty much everything that still functioned and ever returned them – a large part of why my mother asked us to move here and take care of the place). It was because of him that my mother transferred ownership of the property to my oldest brother, so it was taken out of the will completely.
The restraining order was for a year, and he did stay away. When it expired, I didn’t try to renew it. It’s such a pain to go through the court system, and I didn’t want to go through that again if I didn’t have to. For the most part, he did still stay away, though there were still a few incidents, some of which we caught on the trail cams. Then he got his cancer and blamed me and my oldest brother for it. We somehow gave him cancer. There were a few more incidents, from him yelling at me from the road while waving his colostomy bag at me, to showing up at my mother’s to yell at her, and leaving more of his vile letters slipped under her door. He kept using my late father and brother to try and manipulate and guilt her into giving him property that was no longer hers to give, anyhow.
We had been quite close in the past, and it was clear his behaviour was the result of his drinking and an undiagnosed mental illness. My mother kept ragging on us to reconcile with him, but couldn’t accept that we had tried, our doors were still open, but we would not put up with abuse and threats, and that is was on him to take the steps. Basically, in her mind, we should have just put up with his abuse to “keep the peace” and give him whatever he wanted. Except the land. She and my father never wanted the remaining two quarters to go to him.
Which leads me to something I have not said on the blog before, and will only say now, and only this once, since it no longer matters.
I had three other brothers. My middle brother already got his quarter section across the road from our driveway. He was our vandal.
This was a man with a big heart who did help us out quite a few times over the years. He helped a lot of people, many of whom took advantage of that big heart – especially girlfriends. What I later found out was that, when he helped us, it wasn’t out of generosity, but manipulation. He felt that, because he helped us with things years ago (even though we reciprocated whenever we could), that meant we had to let him say and do whatever he wanted to us, and we had to put up with it.
Hence why I feel so conflicted. On the one hand, I grieve losing another brother. On the other, I am thankful that he is finally at peace. There was something very wrong with him, and the people that should have helped him seemed to mostly enable him, instead. Of just didn’t realize he was literally inventing things in his mind that we never said or did, and told everyone about them. He alienated my late brothers children from us, telling them they were banned from the property, even though we’d never done anything of the sort. His inner demons destroyed someone I loved, leaving behind a shell of hatred, bitterness, envy and anger aimed at me and my daughters (he somehow seemed to forget I have a husband).
Obviously, there’s a lot more that happened that I can’t write about on this blog.
After my mother told me about his passing, we spoke for a while and I told her I would pass it on to my oldest brother, as I knew my sister wouldn’t. My mother had told my sister to email me about it, but she never did. She was the only one that still had any contact with our vandal (I will continue referring to him as such again, from now on), and had been visiting him. His wife had called to let my sister know, and probably told her not to tell me and my brother. We already knew our vandal didn’t want us at his funeral.
My mother wants to go to the funeral, of course, which would require transportation for her and her wheelchair. Something my brother is willing to do. We just don’t know when the funeral is. Talking to one of my daughters about it after, we came to the same conclusion. If we do show up, it would be bad – my daughter even thinks his wife might physically attack me. If we don’t show up, it would also be bad.
But we don’t know when the funeral is, and there have been no announcements or obituaries.
I passed the news on to my brother and SIL. Some time later, I got a message from them saying that they were going to visit my mother with flowers and a card to check on her.
Not knowing when I’d next be able to visit my mother, I decided I would meet them there.
My brother had brought my mother some lilacs he picked here, when they visited her on Sunday before going home. I decided to pick some white lilacs to go with the purple ones, then grabbed some honeysuckle, too. I wrapped the cut ends in a damp paper towel and tucked the bundle into a vase. Even without water in the vase, I seat belted the vase in place.
Earlier, my husband and I had talked for a bit about treating the family to burgers, and getting some red meat into everyone, when I came home from my medical appointment. Since I headed into town unexpectedly, I figured I would do that one the way home.
I got to my mother’s before my brother and SIL did. After I got the flowers set up in the vase with water, I sat down and asked how she was feeling.
Oh, you know… and she started describing her aches and pains.
Okay… so how are you feeling?
She went on about her being tired and her other usual complaints.
I finally said, okay, but how are you feeling about the news.
She seemed startled by the question, then started talking about how he was no longer in pain and at peace now, etc.
What I could see was that she really didn’t care, one way or the other. Which can’t be blamed on cognitive decline, because she was much the same way when my father passed away.
At one point, she started telling me how wonderful our vandals wife was because she stuck with him, even when he was sick. Other women would have left him.
Oh, how I was biting my tongue to not say flat out, “you mean like you did with Dad?” When my father needed her most, she moved out – largely because of our vandal – leaving my dad to what I later learned was continued verbal abuse, that my mother won’t even acknowledge happened.
After a while there was a knock at the door and my brother and SIL came in. They had brought her a bouquet, which my SIL started setting up in a vase they had brought, while my brother tried to give her a card. My mother started chastising them for spending money on flowers, unlike me, who brought flowers I picked and didn’t pay for. We managed to cut that off and suggest, “just say thank you…”
Aside from a few odd tangents, the visit actually went rather well. My mother had started to give me a shopping list, which included Voltaren, but I saw the staff had left her a printout of her medications and treatment, and the prescription version of Voltaren was on the list. I told her I’d talk to the nursing station about it, first. The rest was stuff from the grocery store; some fruit (she complained they only gave bananas and mandarins, and she wanted apples and grapes), some Ginger Ale in small bottles, because she found them so handy, and some crackers.
With how light things are for so late, I almost lost track of time. When I realized the grocery store was going to close soon, I grabbed the list and quickly headed out. My mom kept trying to delay me so she could give me cash, but I left my brother and SIL to explain to her I didn’t have time for that.
I managed to get the items and out of the grocery store a little more than 5 minutes before closing.
My mother was quite happy when I got back. I spent the next while washing the grapes and apples ahead of time for her, while my brother helped her look at the receipt and get out cash to pay me back. Which I would have been find if she hadn’t, but it wasn’t worth making a bit deal out of it (the nursing home doesn’t want residents to have cash with them at all, for obvious reasons). Then I made sure one of the packages of crackers was open, so she didn’t have to fight with the plastic sleeve.
Meanwhile, different staff came by several times. Someone came by with the snack cart, another came by with her bed time pills, and one even came by to help my mother get ready for bed, though she said she would come back after we were done visiting.
After I’d brought the stuff for my mother, we realized it was getting quite late – my mother’s window faces west, so we were getting lots of sunshine, making it feel more like the afternoon than evening. So we wound down our visit, then said our goodbyes, with all of us talking about our efforts to find out when the funeral would be and passing it on once we did.
On the way out, I made sure to stop at the nursing station to talk about the Voltaren, since my mother wanted me to buy more for her. It was confirmed, she now is getting the prescription version, two applications a day, so there is no need for me to get the Voltaren.
Then she told us there had been some… incidents, with my mother.
In general, she had been very easy, but as she has settled in, things have started to change. My mother is a big one about everything being quiet around her, but there is one non-verbal resident that makes vocal noises, but can’t speak. My mother kept telling her to shut up, and even grabbed her arms. !!!! There were other incidents, but this was the only one that got physical. She had handled it, and we were very appreciative of how she did it – and for informing us about it. We’ll have to have a talk with my mother. As it is, her behaviour has meant she can’t be included in some activities on another floor for now.
We had a good talk with the nurse before leaving.
After we parted ways, I headed for the DQ to get the burgers my husband had requested. As usual, I parked in one generic spots along the street rather than into their lot, as I find maneuvering in the lot with the truck is not worth the hassle. I got the stuff, loaded the truck and started backing out when I realized I’d forgotten to let the family know I was on the way home with food. So I pulled back into the parking spot and sent out a message.
That done, I backed out into the street again, and that’s when the sword dropped.
I tried to go from reverse to drive, but the shifter just slid smoothly from one side to the other, without any of the “clicks” while passing gears.
I knew exactly what happened.
A year ago, this happened after I’d gone to my mother’s apartment to do her grocery shopping. The truck got towed to a garage in that town, where it was found to be the linkage to the transmission. He had to order a part but, while waiting, he had jerry rigged it with a C clip, and it was working find. When he found the company sent the wrong part, we talked about it and decided to just go with the C clip. He told me he couldn’t say how long it would last. It might last a few years, or never break at all.
Clearly, it broke.
So there I was, in the middle of the street, unable to move the truck.
I popped my hazards on and sent a quick message to my brother, asking if they were still relatively close and saying I needed to get the truck towed. I quickly messaged my family, then called CAA.
Amazingly, I got a human being right away. After talking to the agent for a while, a tow was arranged. They even had the new address for the garage we use in their system already (they officially relocated barely a week before).
I got a message from my brother telling me they were just one town up the road – they’d spontaneously made a stop along the way, so were much closer than they normally would have been, otherwise. I updated the family, and then had to wait.
The truck broke down at really the best possible spot. Yes, I was in the middle of the street, at an angle, but vehicles could get around me, and I wasn’t blocking the driveway into the DQ. I had quite a few people stop, asking me if I needed help. Some even offered to push the truck out of the way, but I told him, it wasn’t going to move. It technically was still in reverse.
After awhile, my brother and SIL arrived and parked nearby. I told them more details about what happened and about the C clip that likely broke. My brother popped the hood but couldn’t see anything. He started the truck and tried to get it into gear, but nothing happened.
We still had people stopping and offering to help, which we greatly appreciated, even though we had to say know.
Then this couple came by. On hearing our brief explanation on why we couldn’t push the truck out of the way, the guy – a young, skinny little guy – said, Oh, I know what’s wrong!
He then got down on the ground and shimmied under the truck – he was small enough to fit! – while my brother stepped on the brake, just in case. He immediately saw that the wires had come loose from the transmission, then crawled back out and said to try it again.
Sure enough, he had temporarily “fixed” it. My brother was able to drive the truck across the intersection and into a parking spot.
He was pretty sure he was able to get it into neutral, but that was it. It would no longer move.
We were extremely thankful to this guy – and I noticed his girlfriend on the side, with a grin, proud grin on her face the whole time. At one point, he was talking to my SIL and mentioned he was a mechanic that worked on big rigs. As to what he found under the truck, he said “this happens all the time.”
!!!!!
So now we were no longer blocking the road and just had to wait for the tow truck.
CAA had sent me a link with a live status map that I kept checking. I knew I would be getting a phone call from the tow truck driver as soon as they were on the way. I didn’t recognize the company name on the page linked to, though. I also noted that, while they had the town right and the address for the DQ I was next to right, the cross streets listed did not exist in this town.
???
It took a while before I realized what I was seeing for the expected arrival of the tow truck, though.
Apparently, a tow truck wasn’t expected to arrive until this afternoon.
Which would have been roughly a 15 hour wait.
Yes, the system said things were busier than usual, but the next afternoon???
My brother recommended I call back, which I did.
This time, it went to the automated system, and the robot voice started asking questions – after telling me I had no open calls on file.
The robot voice even cut me off while I was giving the address, saying they could find no such address, before I finished.
Finally, it said it sounded like I was asking to speak to a live agent. Which I hadn’t, but I took it.
I finally got a real person. A different voice from before.
The first thing I did was confirm that I had an open call, which she told me I did. I brought up that the ETA was for the afternoon the next day, and how was that even possible? (Particularly since I’d made a point of telling them I was blocking a street) She asked me who told me that ETA. I told her, I got it from the link they texted to me. She said she would talk to dispatch and put me on hold.
For quite a while.
Finally, she came back and told me that there were no tow trucks in the area available, and they might have to dispatch one from the city.
Not the smaller, nearer city. The further, larger city. An hour away.
At that point, I told her that first, the truck was moved and no longer blocking the way, though we were still at the same intersection. The next while was a jumble of trying to explain to her where the truck was, and having to spell out the name of the business whose parking lot we were now in. Then I had to explain that I could not stay by the truck for that long (I didn’t say it to her, but my brother and SIL really needed to get home, and it was well past 9pm by then). She told me that, if I weren’t with the truck, they might not be able to take it. I told her, yes they will, and that I would give instructions to the driver when they called me.
The call was winding up when the agent hung up on me.
This particular agent was the worst I’ve ever had to deal with. In fact, I’ve never had a bad call with CAA before, even at times when I was on the side of the highway with zero street information to give them, because I wasn’t even near a cross road. I’ve had some difficult calls, but not like this.
After that, I dug out the envelop my mother had put the cash she gave me into, took the cash out and wrote a note to leave under the windshield wiper, since the truck wasn’t really parked well. It just said “tow truck is on the way” on the front, then on the back I put my first name and phone number. That way, if the tow truck didn’t make it until the next day, the staff at the company could see the note and know it was being take care of, and could call me if necessary.
At this point, I was prepared to cancel my medical appointment today. As my SIL started driving us away (I’d already transferred our food and drinks to their car), she then told me that they were driving to their place, then I would take their car and drive myself home.
!!!!!!!
I don’t know what I could do without them!
As we were driving to their place, I checked my phone and saw that the tow truck drive had tried to call me and text me, but my phone made no noises. I completely forgot that my “do not disturb” setting had kicked in at 9.
I called the tow truck drive back. After explaining things a bit, he told me to text him the details, which I did.
Then I texted our garage to let them know why our truck was there, and what was wrong, knowing no one would see the text, or the truck, until this morning.
Once we got to my brother’s, they made sure I knew how to start this car – it doesn’t use a regular key – even though it’s almost identical to the one they’ve lent us before.
Which is currently in the shop, getting thousands of dollars of work done on it.
They even made sure my phone was linked with BlueTooth, which I would not have bothered to do at all.
It was around 11pm by then and full dark when I finally started home. It was just past midnight when I parked in our garage.
When I got into the house with the food and drinks, I could hear the girls rushing down the stairs to get to me, and I promptly got buried in hugs. They are in total disbelief about the truck breaking down, yet again! And thankful that I didn’t have to cancel my medical appointment!
My husband was unable to stay up and was already in bed, so we tucked his food away. I hadn’t eaten since before noon, and was getting pretty famished, so I ate and went straight to bed.
Of course, I had a hard time sleeping.
Still, I did get some sleep. Enough that I’m not really feeling very tired.
So I got up early and did the usual morning cat feeding, then did some transplanting.
My daughter and I will be heading out for my medical appointment fairly soon. I’m hoping we get home early enough that I can at least finish the weed trimming before the expected thunderstorms hit this evening.
Meanwhile, we wait until we hear from the garage (I’ll probably phone them first) and find out what they can do with Damocles and when.
*sigh*
This is getting so ridiculous. Like we need vehicle troubles on top of everything else!!!
The Re-Farmer
(ps: my apologies for any typos. I don’t have time to go over them again! I hope they aren’t too egregious!)
