Thursday, December 23, 2010

Everybody's Better

Things got so much better after the vet (on our second trip yesterday) showed me a trick to keep Maggie's bandage from sliding down her leg and her from taking it off so often.  Tape. Specifically sticky tape.  Stuck to her hair.  This particular bandage has stayed on since dinner time yesterday, which is kindof a record for us.  When I was comfortable that the bandage wouldn't come off, I let her out off leash, making her a happier dog, and all of us a happier family.

The boiler peeps are coming today ... sometime.  Meaning I have to stay home until they arrive.  Not an awful thing.  I'm slowly coming out of emergency management mode as things resolve themselves and stopped at the library yesterday to pick up a classic to read.  My attention span has gotten so short, by reading news articles, that it's time to stretch the old attention span a bit by giving it one of the oldies.  The Grapes of Wrath.  I started it last night and fell asleep on about page 5.  Not an auspicious beginning!  I checked out Anna Karenina, too, which I have also never read.  But it's a thicker book, so to the shorter one I went!

(The above pic was taken with an iPhone app that Walt Mossberg recommended, Hipstamatic.  It makes pictures look all old-timey.  Cool, huh?)

Against the good advice of my mother, I bought the car in the lower pic, a VW Passat 4motion station wagon earlier this week.  I traded in the monster truck and used some of the money from the Scion settlement.  The car is All Wheel Drive, so should be able to get me up the hill to the country house with no problem.  And it has excellent reviews and only 75,000 miles.  Plus, the place I got it is the repair shop I've been using for the last 2 years - folks I trust. It makes me happy to get decisions like, "what am I going to drive" out of the way, and for less than the combined value of the truck and the car, giving me a small cushion in case of emergency.  To address my mother's concern about giving up the hauling/transporting capacity of the truck, I've got a few options that are less wonderful than just having a big truck sitting ready, but more wonderful than having to drive, and park, said truck every day. Thankfully, about 90% of what I'd want to transport will fit in here, and the other 10% (all the furniture in my country house), can go in one trip of a moving truck.

4 comments:

  1. Nice wheels! I love that photo app, Jordan - Maggie looks so...arty! Glad things are settling down.

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  2. So glad things are starting to smooth out for you. Now if you only had heat and hot water . . . but let's hope that will come today as an early Christmas present. You new car looks good. Great to have the room in the back. Hope you have happy, comfy holidays!

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  3. Hope you have an uneventful, even peaceful and happy, Christmas weekend. :-)

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  4. Good to hear that things are starting to head in the right direction ... up instead of down. Life is so full of peaks and valleys. By the way, I love you "new" car. It's even "my color". I am glad that you found it and had money left over.

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