Today is Pam's birthday, and with this one she joins me as an old person as officially recognized by the federal govt. We're both now on medicare. Turns out it was cheaper to buy her health insurance than to have the govt. provide it for "free." The req'd supplemental and the Rx coverage are a bigger hit than the major medical policy we've had for the 18 months since she quit work at the hospital and lost her employer-provided coverage.
This morning I took the truck over to LeRoy who will put it up on his rack and install the parts necessary to give me a working E-brake. When I get it back I'll take another stab at the wiper motor and then put it on the market. I haven't decided the best way to do that. eBay? The Chevy truck forum? Bring a Trailer? Some combination of those options? I don't want to mess with all the issues that come with Craig's List, especially in this 'hood.
I need to get a bunch of good photos before listing it, and want to get those in a setting that enhances not distracts. Having MoHo in the background is definitely the latter. I've thought about asking Marta if I can take it over there and have their cool old barn in the background. Or if I could find a construction site. I took pics of my '62 VW in front of an abandoned cement plant building and they turned out well.
I'm leaving Wednesday morning for a quick trip to Seattle and back, a dual purpose venture to see my folks and .... more on the other purpose after it plays out.
When I'm there I usually join my parents for meals in the dining room at the Ida Culver House where they live. But the whole place is under a quarantine because of a norovirus or something similar. The dining room is shut down and all their activities cancelled. They're delivering box meals to all the residences, but mom says they're pretty lame meals and certainly NOT acceptable for her son. So we'll be going out for dinner the two nights I'll be there.
That means I'll drive the Kia up and back and Pam will drive the rental car. It was going to be the other way around but my 94-year old parents cannot get in and out of a subcompact car and it won't hold two walkers, or maybe one walker and a wheel chair.
Which is why I spent time this afternoon thoroughly cleaning the interior of the Kia. We use and abuse it for tasks here on Baker Rd., like this morning when I hauled a bale of straw in back. A month ago I used it to bring Stella home from WA, and life in the woods of OR means it pretty quickly gets filled with gravel from the driveway, mud from everywhere else, and dust from the one day a month it's not raining. That's not the kind environment appropriate for taking my folks to dinner. Or anywhere else.
It's pretty much cleaned and spiffy inside now. With 120,000 miles the interior is worn but it's clean I'm supposed to get rain for my drive up so I'm not going to bother getting the outside washed.
This Kia is 10 years old, but still has the requisite number of cup holders and caddies, recesses that collect dust, dirt, fir needles, and misc. crud. How do you get those holes and mini-bins clean???
We had a car years ago - don't remember which one - that had removable inserts for all of those recesses. That meant you could take them out, wash them, and put them back.
Why in the world hasn't everyone copied that?! No brainer.
C'mon, man.
2 comments:
For all that time and effort I'd be ordering takeout from the nicest restaurant in Seattle and carrying it IN.
If it were up to me that would be my choice, too. But when your 94 not only do you have physical limitations, but your sense of what's going on around you is also...dimmed. It's their life, their normal, and they don't understand the effort involved by others. It's OK; after all they did for me it's a small inconvenience.
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