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Subaru from Connecticut
Tuesday, May 10 2016
This morning Gretchen and I drove to Danbury, Connecticut to maybe buy that 2004 Subaru I mentioned yesterday. Gretchen had taken the dogs for a brief "poop walk" in the forest, but they'd gone off on their own had hadn't returned by the time we left, so they missed out on an interstate adventure. (I don't think Ramona or Neville has been to to Connecticut, though Eleanor and Sally went there once.)
Our destination was a tiny car dealership with drawn blinds and not much sign of activity, that sort of business that in golden-age television is understood to be place where things are not entirely on the up-and-up. Our contact was just some guy whose relationship to that business wasn't entirely clear, but he arrived at the appointed time even though he thought he might be delayed by picking someone up from an airport. Soon he fetched the car from inside a garage. It looked good, though the engine rattles didn't inspire confidence. With that guy and Gretchen, I took it for a spin around the block and the main thing I noticed was the acceleration, the main thing missing from the car it would be replacing. I looked under the car before and after that drive and so no obvious leaks, and there didn't seem to be any contamination of the oil on its dipstick. On the drive this morning, Gretchen had told our muffler guy friend that we wouldn't be getting the $1100 clutch job and that instead we'd maybe be buying a replacement Subaru. "Watch out for leaking head gaskets," he'd warned, adding "If its head gaskets leak, you don't want it." But I couldn't see any evidence of leaking from the head gaskets. The only unexpected problems with the car were a frozen air conditioner compressor and a missing radio, which caused the seller to go into a spasm of agonized bargaining with himself, eventually knocking $100 off the price. When he heard of the prices we were being charged for things by our muffler guy, he shook his head and said he could get such work done for us for half those prices, which sounded great to Gretchen but to me sounded more like just another play to sell us the car. He would have chatted for a good while longer, but by now I was okay with buying the car and also needed to get home in time for my workday, so I left Gretchen to complete the transaction and drive the "new" car home on her own. (She would also stop at the Danbury Whole Foods to buy lots of exciting food that's impossible to buy in the Kingston area.)
On the drive home, I kept hearing and rehearing a single track from a mix-CD Gretchen had made years ago. The song was "Easy Silence" by the Dixie Chicks, which, in my mind, I interpreted to be about Eleanor and her loyal dedication to security and policing the perimeter. It kept making me cry in a delicious self-pitying kind of way, and whenever the next song came on (something by James Taylor), I skipped back and listened again. It takes an hour and a half to drive from Danbury to Hurley, so I probably heard it at least 20 times.
I showed up at "work" only about 20 minutes late, but nobody had tried to contact me, so it didn't matter.
Today I was picking my way through tricky undocumented Javascript and PHP trying to figure out how to do some things within the baroque framework provided. My usual contact must have been otherwise occupied, because he never got back to me with my question. And then it was 4:45pm and Nancy was here to pick me up for pottery (she'd been in Florida and missed the two preceding classes). I filled a travel mug with Mountain Brew Ice to get in the mood for pottery.
I had a little more luck this class than I had during the first one, though I'm now consistently having problems with my pots ending up lopsided as I pull up their walls. But there are lots of ways to kill a pot in its infancy. Today, for example, Susan was trimming a bowl and cut right through the bottom, making a large perfectly-circular hole in its center. "I guess I just made another planter," she sighed. I looked at it and thought it might make a good reflector for a lamp. But then I cautioned, "A Jew should never take advice about making lampshades from a German."
As always, those of us in our group who know each other well all went out for Chinese food after class.
Back at the house, Gretchen had done a number of errands, including registering the new car to make it street legal and teaching her poetry class (with Neville!).
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