C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 87
July 21, 2013
July 20, 2013
We got the car!
We got there at the appointed time, and were told—there’s a glitch. They want to reapply the protective film on the nose to get it right.
Sigh.
An hour (and much bad coffee) later [Jane sensibly sticks to water]—it finally appears.
And finally…it is beautiful. The color is a pale greyed green that goes to a bluish tone in sharply slanted light; the moon roof is smaller than the Subaru’s, but perfectly adequate; the customer service is like Triple A for life (the American motoring association) within 25 miles of the dealership, which we are. And we have the other AAA, so we’re good. It drives like a dream. And the interior is roomy, which you don’t associate with a hybrid. It has cute little triangular windows up on the side of the dash, reminiscent of the old vent windows on cars, but not openable, of course; side curtain airbags, heated seats (another new install), and a backup camera, which has its moments. Pushbutton start, keyless admission: you merely carry the key on your person and *don’t* leave your purse in the car, eh?
We opted for dark seat fabric, and dark carpet: we have a black cat. But we’re still going to carry a fur-removal roller because of Seishi.
It has the control panel in the center of the dash, has 2 (one over the other) glove boxes, which is very nice. It has a lower center console, so we are going to have a discussion with Shu about that, we’re sure.
It has a door beep if you leave a door open. And another for the backup camera. Jane has a controllable but definite panic reaction at a highpitched repetitive sound: we are going to ask the dealer to do something about that.
I’m not sure about the backup camera: we have to back up into arterial traffic, and it’s not a matter of missing tricycles on the drive: it’s a matter of having to swing rapidly to stay in our lane and not to hit a passing semi, so I’m not sure it will ever substitute for having a look while you back up…I find that thought terrifying, where we live.
But it’s quiet, and has, once the seats are folded, a very adequate cargo compartment: not bad, even before you fold the seats; and it has a whole back window, not that split window of earlier Priuses.
You cannot see your nose: the front slope is extreme. You have to learn otherwise where your wheels are.
The car sits very low to the ground: anybody who has issues getting into a car would like this. The Subaru Forester could ignore curbs at will. This one…I wouldn’t recommend that.
Color us very happy.
July 17, 2013
New car today…maybe!
We have rethought the roof rack and called and asked them to skip that one, but go ahead with the moon roof. They have installed the heating for the seats, and that is good. We are told they MAY get the roof work done today.
We had a little worry about a post-factory moon roof, but they swear on a stack of Bibles it should work fine and will add, not detract, from future value of the car. Leaks are the worry. But having worked with aquariums and bulkhead gaskets, I just cannot see, outside of incompetence, WHY a roof insert should leak. It’s got to involve a gasket, and if competently done, should not be an issue. Granted it’s large and curved, still, if the ones from the factory don’t leak, the ones installed later shouldn’t, granted they tighten it properly. And it’s under a five-year warranty. So if it leaks—it’s their problem.
Anyway, it’s the roof rack they aren’t sure fits, and they might have to order another one, and it’s black, on a very pale car, so in the memory we’ve only used the one on the Subaru twice, we think we’d rather skip that one in the interest of prettiness.
And that may mean we get the car late this afternoon, maybe tomorrow.
July 16, 2013
Been having some site outages…I think the host is doing some upgrades.
I couldn’t get on either, last night for a couple of hours, and once this morning.
We should be fine in a day or so.
Got the computer fixed. They found one of the old-style pointer stick caps. Works like a charm. Big kerfluffle for a quarter inch sized part, but I not only have one now, I have a spare.
We have new fishes—the marine and freshwater tanks. I’m sure Jane will have pix sooner or later.
Jane and I both hit the wall re chaos in the house. My closet has yielded a full garbage sack (32 gall.) of clothes I can do better than; and I’ve cleaned out the clutter in here.
Now the living room.
If we can find the phone chargers, we’ll be doubly happy.
And we MAY get the new car today!
Day dawns…and I’m much better now…
It took me into the evening to shake the Benedryl effects. At least now I’m clear-headed, and the sting is just a red spot on my palm.
The house is a wreck. We had not yet recovered from unpacking from the trip when we realized we had lost the car title to the Subaru, which we have to turn in today…
It remains lost. Our living room is buried under boxes of old records we have searched.
A Dell repairman is coming in 3 hours to try to fix the mis-designed trackpoint cap on my NEW machine, which is darned near unusable, and without which the machine is useless to me.
With luck, however, we should get a call that our car is ready.
And the dealer will replace the title.
July 15, 2013
And in a ‘hold my beer’ moment…
We had a small species of yellowjacket wasps build their paper nest inside my garden seat on the edge of the pond. We’d turned it over yesterday, to try to remove them.
Today, seeing no wasps, I handed my coffee cup to Jane, reached in, grabbed the small nest and removed it.
My eyesight is not what it once was, and it was dark in there.
Yep. There were wasps. Only one nailed me. Two Benedryl, Benedryl spray, and two Sudafed and the pain stopped and the swelling’s nearly gone.
Brilliant, eh?
I feel sorry for the wasps, I really do, but when they appropriate my pondside seat, I’m territorial.
July 13, 2013
Ways to start the day, eh? I fell in the fish pond.
Nightclothes and all.
Tripped on a hose. These sandals I run around in are loose, and I’m also getting to that age when my feet fail to lift to the height my brain tells me they’re lifting. It’s quite curious…My brain says I stepped over it, but the foot fails to clear it, because of the toe of the sandal: but I can’t blame the sandal. My brain, every sense I’ve got, tells me the foot, sandal and all, ,will easily clear the obstacle—and it won’t, because my foot hasn’t lifted the height my brain told it to.
I tell you, age is a bitch. I think the same as I always did, I do as I always have, and now and again the body just fails to do what it’s supposed to do. I suppose I need some sandals that don’t have as much toe, but what I could really use is a 20 year old physique. Ain’t it a shame youth is wasted on the young?
Anyway, I fell on the rock edge, dinged my wrist, soaked an arm and shoulder, and scared hell out of the fish, who’d come to be fed. They don’t know what landed in their pond, but they’re sure they don’t want breakfast at that particular spot.
TO make matters nicer, I’d dosed the pond yesterday with SludgeRemover, which is, basically, blackish sewage.
Yum.
July 11, 2013
New car…
We hit 130,000 miles with all the warranties expired…and the seats being just a critical bit less comfy. So we started looking. We’ve been saving up for years, just putting a little bit by in a special account, so the finance was there. We wanted a Subaru hybrid, but the long-awaited car had no cargo space. We looked at the Forester, and the mileage is much improved: 28/32…from our 2004, which is 19/25.
Then we got a look at the Prius V in the hotel portico down in Oklahoma, and decided to go to our local dealer and have a look and a test-drive.
Well, we for very sure hadn’t intended to buy. We came to look. But the price is about the same as the Forester; the cargo room is there; the mileage is 44/40, (more in town, yes) and the local Toyota dealer is under reconstruction and nearly impossible to get into, so they were getting lonely for customers: half their cars are warehoused; plus the national just came out with a zero-interest for 5 years deal, so we wouldn’t need to touch our ‘car fund’ except to dole out money from it monthly while continuing to feed it from the other end. It’s a very Buck Rogers car…we had a Mr. Toad moment; and it’s not hard to adapt re the driving. It’s got some interesting quirks—the fancy braking system can be grabby if you lead-foot the brakes—but it has power enough for the mountains, and windows are much larger than the standard Prius.
And it would be under warranty the whole way.
We signed the paperwork on a car they’ll have to bring in and modify to our specs; and then to our surprise, they said they wanted our car now, so despite the fact it was so filthy from the trip and still having baggage we’d not offloaded—we’d even hesitated to let them look at it—they wanted to get to work cleaning it up for sale and they offered us a used Prius until our car is ready. Well—we cleaned out the stuff, put it in bags, loaded it into the loaner Prius sedan and bade farewell to our faithful Forester.
We opted for dark brown seats (less prone to show dirt) and the ‘sea glass green’ color. And we don’t know when it will be ready, but until then we get to practice on the loaner. It’s a big move, a change from driving essentially the same car, same controls, for 10 years, but driving places on half the gas is going to be nice. It’ll save us at least a thousand a year in gas cost, based on our usual 10,000 miles a year, and we’ll like that part. Exotic bits (hybrid drive and batteries) have an 8 year warranty, and there are cabs in NYC that have logged 600,000 miles on original batteries. So… we are the usual bit of OMG I can’t believe we did it mixed with ooooh, shiny!
July 10, 2013
We may have stemmed the tide of spam…
nothing has gotten through.
Of course if I find myself locked out…that’ll be a problem.
Likewise, write down my e-mail so if you should get locked out, I can get you in again.
‘Kay?
