Wednesday, September 25, 2019

An Interesting Couple of Weeks

Take me for a ride in your car, car.
Take me for a ride in your car, car.
Take me for a ride, take me for a ride,
Take me for a ride in your car, car.

Peter, Paul and Mary
Sometime toward the end of August, a heavy rain storm moved through the area. Richard had driven the truck down the driveway, which was a river at that point, so he could cut up some trees that had fallen over the driveway. When he drove back, he set the emergency brake and then didn't drive the car again for a week or so. When he got in to start it up it was frozen and would not budge. He was procrastinating about calling a tow truck to get it to the mechanic. We were now down to 2 vehicles.

On Sept 10 I left the house to attend the women’s Bible study at church. I got as far as the end of the frontage road, turned left on the highway, and my car had a catastrophic breakdown. The passenger-side controller arm on the rear axle broke, and the car would not move. Fortunately I was able to get off on the shoulder. The tow truck came and took the car to Randy, the mechanic.

So now we were down to 1 car. The next day as I left the house to go to the clinic for a punch biopsy on my nose, I grabbed the phone, and Richard said, “Who are you going to call if you break down? I can’t rescue you.” Good point. I jotted a few names down just in case.

I was concerned that I had a skin cancer. In mid-August, Richard had a large crater carved out of his nose during a Mohs procedure at the dermatologist’s office to remove a skin cancer, which a plastic surgeon had to cover the next day with a skin flap. I had visions of something similar happening to me.

It took a while for Randy to track down the part from a junk yard. He also discovered that the master cylinder was not working properly and the brakes were working on only 2 wheels. So he replaced the master cylinder too.

On Friday I got a call that the pathology report said it was not skin cancer. Yay!!

One of the men from church insisted on coming to the house last Monday to help Richard with the truck. They spent several hours working on getting the truck freed up and succeeded by spraying everything with penetrating oil.

My car was fixed and we picked it up. A couple of days later Richard took the truck to the mechanic to have the brake pads and drums and emergency brake fixed. Randy told Richard about a 2004 Saturn in pristine condition (it had mostly spent its life being towed behind an RV) he was selling for one of his customers (who was now 90 years old and not allowed to drive).

We bought it. So now we are have 4 vehicles that run, and 3 junk cars. We obviously need to get rid of the junk cars, but Richard doesn’t know how to go about it. This would be one of those "head-shaking" hilarious situations if it were happening to someone else. 

On Sunday I visit a man in the nursing home. He is either in his recliner, where he also sleeps, or he is in his motorized wheelchair. He was in the wheelchair Sunday, so I moved all of the pillows off his recliner and sat down. A little while later, I put my hand down, and the pad I was sitting on felt  damp. So I said, "This feels wet." And he said, "Yes. I peed my pants this morning because they took too long to come when I rang the bell." Because of the motorized wheelchair, he no longer is able to stand or walk so has to be hoisted and moved on a "lift and stand".

I'm thinking: What? I have been sitting on a pee-soaked pad and you didn't say anything?! I wet some paper towels and wiped down my behind and the back of my legs, then got some more paper towels and dried that off, and then I went and got an aide to bring a dry pad for his chair.

Tried very hard not to work myself up into a fury about it. Why didn't he say something??!! I noticed the end of a roll of paper towels on the top of his dispenser, so I grabbed that and when I got to the car put that all over the seat just in case my rear was still damp.

Oh yeah. One last thing. I baked a batch of biscotti for my brother-in-law’s birthday, and instead of turning the oven down to 300 for the second baking, I turned it up to 400. Fortunately, I smelled it in time. I was able to salvage enough to send him, and Richard happily ate the rest of the slightly burned biscotti.

4 comments:

Far Side of Fifty said...

Good to hear you don't have skin cancer! It sounds like Richard had quite a procedure. Junk cars...up here they sell them for scrap and someone picks them up...or sell them for parts on facebook:)

Donna. W said...

The lyrics you shared at the beginning? Woody Guthrie wrote that for his children.

Donna. W said...

Around here if someone needs to get rid of a car, they call the nearest salvage yard. Those guys will pick up old cars and trucks and pay you for them. Of course there is a charge, but it’s the easiest way.

Leilani Schuck Weatherington said...

Yes, Woodie Guthrie did write the original song. But his website requires jumping through hoops to get coyright permission to use the lyrics, so I borrowed them from a Peter Paul and Mary website, which were slightly different then Woody's and was also probably a copyright violation. I have urged my husband to do just what you asked. There are salvage yards in the area (that was the source of the part that fixed my car). He has trouble following through with things (he has terrible attention deficit disorder) so we muddle along.