This, that and the other thing

Just a few things I have been involved in lately:

Battery jumping-sounds like an Olympic sport, but all of us who drive know it is much more important. I used to help many years ago when cars needed their batteries restarted-but honestly, I was always scared that I would touch something wrong and do a little cardiac defrib on me or others. I avoided ever being the one responsible for red to red, black to black. Then, my cars were more dependable, AAA was my friend, so I didn't even need to think about battery jumping again....until two days ago. We were dropping off the Rav-4 for garage maintenance, etc, so SHusband was going to take his seldom driven little car and drive me home from the local garage. But, little car did not start, just played that little song we all hate "click, click, click". You know the one, it translates into "I ain't doing nottin'. So, I said, let's call AAA, SH said, no, that's OK, let's just do it ourselves. I do try to listen to other's opinions lately, so I agreed to give it a try. It was difficult for SH to move from car to car, leaning on them, but I helped, and YES, BABY! The little car started! What a sense of accomplishment. No need to wait for AAA, it took us just about 15 minutes. Off we went to finish our car delivery. I do know that when a car battery is jumped, that you do not turn the car off for 30 minutes, so that it can recharge, and we did that. Covered all bases.

The next day, yesterday, we needed to use the little car again to go pick up the newly refreshed, inspected and full of yummy new oil Rav-4. The garage called 15 minutes before closing, and off we went to trade a check for a car. But, the little car played that same song, "click, click, click". ARE YOU KIDDING ME? What the heck. We of course could not do our now perfected battery jumping-we had no "jumpee". It was too late to ask SDaughter to come drive, all neighbors were probably at work or with other obligations. In we went, called and our mechanic, who is also an almost neighbor, offered to pick me up on his way to work the next morning, and drive me to the shop. Only in the country could this be an offered service I think.

I knew that he had a big-as in high off the ground truck, so instead of sleeping last night, I was trying to figure out how I was going to haul everything up there onto the seat. So listen, I have a Rubbermaid step under our bed, we have fairly new mattress and box spring and they are really deep, and hard to crawl up onto. Sometimes we do the "flop" technique, but the better way is to pull out this cute little stool and like a queen, gracefully step up onto the bed. Can you picture that? Who would have thought that a grownup would need to do that? That little stool was put onto my porch this morning and when he arrived at 7:40am, I smiled, opened the passenger door, and said "WOW", he pointed out the hand grip-that was just out of my reach, unless I did a little bit of a hop. I asked him to wait, just a minute please, just like a switchboard operator with many years of experience, retrieved the stool, asked SSon(who was waiting for his van to pick him up for work-nicely late this morning) to move it after I was all aboard, and another problem solved.

After finishing my day's activities, (including a lovely new haircut) we jumped the battery again on the little car and drove it to be fixed.

But, here is another reason I was not sleeping last night-I realized that we were without a working car. When is the last time you were without wheels? We are do dependent on the freedom of turning the key and off you go to serve, save, and all the other tasks of life. I am in the position of being the driver for various family situations, and that is hard to do without a car, or at least one that starts. I know, I know, I worry too much, I plan too much, but that is my thing, a gift and a curse.

Another thing I did recently was get a new very much more hi-tech cell phone. I was a happy camper with my basic trac phone, but I wanted a cameraphone. I love to take pictures, I often think while I am driving, oh, I wish I could show that to SH. So I checked with the trac phone company before purchasing the upgrade, and I was assured that it would be "no problem". I will never trust that phrase again!

Here is the bottom line: after three weeks, at least 10 phone calls, to the misnamed "help line", some lasting over an hour for goodness sake, a total of three phones sent to me, an additional SIM card (brain of the phone), and, nothing worked, but then, a very dedicated tech support person found out that the reason nothing would work is because some uncaring representative gave away my phone number!!! The number that I shared with all, was now in the great abyss. I threw in the towel, and after speaking to friends living in the same town, found out that Verizon has great coverage in our little community. I checked out their programs and products online and off I went, and came home with my new best friend. Even my hi-tech SDaughter said it was sweet. I am still learning how all the keys work, but have taken pictures, and am loving this step up. I think I can surf the web and check e-mail, but have not had time to tame that monster yet.

Also, today, SD and I had lunch, and saw the movie "Lovely Bones". It is not usually the type of movie I enjoy since I choose not to read or see stories about a young girl who gets brutally murdered, but the book caught my sleeve as I was walking by at Barnes and Noble, it passed the skim-read a few pages here and there as my preview technique, and home it went. I thought it was really well written and centered on the main character watching those on earth from her heaven. It is not a movie for all, but we were glad we went, and had time together before her intense months ahead of student teaching full-time.

And the other thing I did? Well, talk to you of course!