Gasoline Alley

You can see Ansa in the back, begging the question what fresh hell has ol' Two Legs wrought?

 

I'm one who lets the small stuff get to her. The big stuff can go fly a kite. But the small stuff drives me around the twist as it slowly masses itself into global proportions.

I felt like an idiot today. Trouble with my second car (Strawbella) which I should never, ever, have kept. I got into the habit of ignoring her in spite of my good friend B's advice to drive her every third day or so.

So today B starts her for me, after inflating one of her tires, and then I go drive her off and next thing I'm without any kind of power at the crossroads with no winter gear on and the leashless dog in the back of it. And no cell phone with me. (You're beginning to see I should never be let out without a minder, right?).

So nice young man stops, and sits with me and sympathizes and says he doesn't know a piston from a battery but would drive me home. Sans dog, as he was driving girlfriend's car, he had taken her car and had snow tires put on it. My dream man.  So Ansa, my dog, watches me pitifully from the back of my car as I drive off with a stranger and leave her at the crossroads.

My friend B comes to the rescue again, picks me up, we drive to the crossroads and he charges up the car and we drive in tandem to my house. I let the car run for 30 minutes, and then shut her off and try and start her again. Fizzle. Nothing.

At this point my knickers are in a knot and the real fretting starts. I would be the neighbour from hell if I troubled B again. The CAA would come but it could be all hours by the time they got here and I didn't like their rep. the last time, a shyster. My brain rambles all around me, picking up fluff here, dropping it there. So I direct message B on FB, confessing to moronic/imbecilic/cretinous status for stopping the car and could he boost me again tomorrow?

B calls. Tells me he is on his way. He will keep my car overnight in his shed and charge up the battery over 14 hours. Then we will know if the battery needs replacing. Or not. No problem. No big deal. Nothing.

But an absolutely staggeringly big deal to me. I was about to be crushed by this one tiny piece of small stuff.

Worries, like I said before, never happen.

Thoughts from the Road

I am staying the night in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia. It is a pretty wee town, picturesque and prosperous, judging by the fine old buildings and the number of boats at anchor in the river. I was in the original Glasgow back in the day, I must say I am more impressed with the New World version. Cleaner and more hopeful.

Does anyone else do this? I see that Strawbella's (the car's) odometer is about to click over on to a major number with lots of zeros and I get all excited. I really, really want to see all those 0000000s tumble over at the same time. I get ready about 100K beforehand. The tension's unbearable. Will she do it? Will it all go smoothly? What if she gets stuck? And yeah, somewhere near Springhill, NS, the monumental event takes place to cheers from me. 170,000K is now on the smooth face of Strawbella.

And in New Brunswick, just past me, is where I always think of my friend Burt. Burt saved my life back in the day. He was one of those New Brunswick country men at odds with the city around him but making the best of an uneasy co-existence. He liked nothing better than being out in the woods and me along with him. He often caught our supper in a nearby stream. A great trouter. I learned a whole pile about simple living off Burt at a time when my life could not have been more complicated.

He would show up at my door on a Sunday morning, just when I'd put down a self-important busy week and haul me and the dog off for tramps through the undergrowth followed by, very late in the day, a peculiarly Canadian supper called a hot chicken sandwich - layers of cooked chicken slathered between two slices of the whitest bread ever, untoasted, with a mound each of green peas and french fries: all of this business covered in thick brown gravy. I was too starved to ever refuse.

(to be continued)

Waiting

I took this shot last night of the empty theatre: most of the tables had been set up for the meal tonight. After dinner is over then the chairs will be arranged as a regular theatrical environment.

It was a dress rehearsal of pitfalls and laughter and challenges. New curtains-stage lighting person, spotlight technician had to work from the left rather than the right, sound technician couldn't be there. Ironing board set-up in front for last minute touchups to gowns, etc. One cast member disappeared completely and missed her cue while she changed far too late for her appearance in a distant washroom. We thought she had fallen down somewhere and were organizing a search party. And the instrument/keyboard in a different setup, etc., for our music director had its own glitches .

But we had a beautiful freshly built dressing room ready to be checked out

Our most dependable cast member forgot both his solo and his lines and steadily got worse much to his increasing embarrassment and our helpless laughter.

But you know what they say, an awful dress rehearsal=good performance.

Oh my, let it be. We are all mad with excitement and trepidation!
And PS Strawbella still in the hospital. Fog impacts the plane carrying her auto part.

And I truly want to believe that latest story from Mr. Ed.

But meanwhile, I am a coddled Miss Daisy being grandly driven around in automobiles far finer than my own.

So I'm not laughing...

Day 4 without my car and stuck in an outport. Good times. Walking with the mail to the post office. And back. Friend took me shopping yesterday so stocked up on fresh fruit and veg. Another friend picked bakeapples for me.

I am out and about exchanging greetings with others who have never had a car and take this in stride. Not that it's far. But this sorry arse says business mail is heavy, etc., and then the dog. Well the dog is so well trained now she has a nap as she waits for me outside. A car is such a privilege. Let me remember that.

My new best friend Ed, the mechanic, was quite snarly when I phoned him yesterday to ask for an update. He said he'd be the one to call me when the car was ready. I downgraded him to one step above enemy.

Took on Bell Mobility and the slow decline of highspeed on my turbo stick. Told them it was prevalent all through the area as they love to blame:

(1) your computer - I have 2 and internet service is terrible on both
(2) Upgrade the stick - which I did and service got worse
(3) You need a new SIM - which I did and ditto.

They told me if I can get enough people to call and complain then they would actually check the tower.

Fawlty Towers. Yeah. My sense of humour smacks of of desperation.

So I went activist and posted on FB for local users to call the number and maybe, just maybe, we will get served what we are paying so dearly for. Monopolies, I hate them. And Bell is terrible to deal with here. Arrogant, over-charging and complacent gougers.

And oh yeah, the play is sold out again for Saturday night.

It's a huge hall so it's a case of "oh me nerves".

What, Me Worry?

Another in the ongoing series of sunsets from the porch, taken a few evenings ago

A small irritating thing can go wrong and it will drive me crazy, stressed out, yelly, snarly, not nice.

But a whole accumulation of stuff can happen, I lurch from one catastrophe to the next and I just laugh and say: OK, Universe, what else can you throw at me, see if I care. I will NOT surrender.

I was out and about yesterday taking some lovely shots as The Bay was at her best when I get back to the car and she starts up as she normally does but the gears don't engage, they slide slackly in their appointed track but nothing happens. Ends up I walk for miles in the blazing heat to the post office and call CAA who tell me they will have to send a flat-bed from the sounds of it. Which they do, several hours later, my being at the back of beyond 'n all. I wave bye-bye to Strawbella, who has never let me down quite this badly in all our years together. Today my new best friend Ed calls me to tell me not a part can be found in all of Newfoundland for my baby (a gear cable) so he arranged for it to be flown in tonight at a cost of $15, did I mind. The cable itself is, gulp, $470 + labour + taxes + air freight.

Soldier on, sez I.

One of our cast members did not show up at a crucial sound rehearsal on Sunday night (we now have a professional sound man but his time is limited as he is also involved in another ongoing production) and as our next venue is huge and just about sold out it was crucial she be there. Efforts to get hold of her have all come to naught and WE HAVE NO UNDERSTUDY. Performance is a few short days away with a final dress rehearsal the night before.

I heard Gordon-the-Gift was in town but has gone away again to his contract in Labrador and never came by to fix what he so badly effed up in The Tigeen.

Our theatrical troupe has also been asked to perform the play (with a deadline for answer of early this week) during the month of September for a festival and can't access the venue to assess it for space, sound, set placement, movement, etc. and THEY WANT AN ANSWER NOW.

A client downloaded one of her files to me and crashed my system here. Oh, six times. Eating my time and shovelling away at my temper.

Other clients drop in today and the lawn is overgrown, great imagery. Leo had been badly stung by a series of wasps and his reaction is to crawl under the covers and cry and forget the mowing. A reaction I totally respect, and well if the truth be known, envy, as what one of us out there wouldn't like to do the same thing if life ain't going our way but being grown-up we grin and bear it and carry on. More fools us.

And I haven't cracked. Here I am writing my blog and looking in the larder at all the hidden things we keep for emergencies when we can't access a grocery store.

Did I mention there isn't a car for rent anywhere on the island? Bloody selfish tourists.

A Timpani of Mechanics

Collective nouns. Love them. My favourite of all time being "an exultation of larks". So why not a timpani of mechanics?

The morning's horoscope read, in part:

"Watch out for car trouble".

Silly stuff, who pays attention?

10.p.m at night. Gorgeous golden moon dipping low on the horizon. My friend and I barrelling along in my car at a safe speed. Lots of moose around here at night. A sportscar passes us at a hell of a lick followed by a terrible squeal of brakes and he weaves all over the road and finally straightens out and we see the moose he has just missed taking off into the underbrush. Sports car slows to a stately pace in front of us. We just about hear his heart thumping and can't resist some snide remarks about his double digit IQ status.

Then out of nowhere we hear a bang, like a gunshot and my car starts to weave. I've been here before. And it's a blowout of the exact same tire.

But this time it's completely different. My friend is a retired mechanic who immediately and intuitively KNOWS how to handle everything. Finds the car jack in its special cave under the driver's seat (who knew?)and finds a rock to bang the shredded tire off when it refuses to budge after the ratchets are loosened. There is something about a man knowing all this stuff automatically that never ceases to amaze me. The ingenuity, competence and brute strength rolled into one tight package. At intervals, two trucks stop. Both are mechanics who offer help. My friend doesn't need any.

If I were alone in my car in this deserted strip of roadway with no cell phone coverage what are the odds I'd have been there the following morning still wringing my wrists?

Once upon a time, in a car dealership far, far, away….

So it’s like this.

I’m at the Toyota Dealership to get the winter tires on – a huge joke as it’s been warmer than South Carolina here. Seriously. Every bit of good weather on the planet earth has been tucked away in our corner of Newfoundland, for like months now. We go around grinning at each other, exchanging daily reports of the weather elsewhere: did you hear about Roscommon, under two feet of snow? Arf-Arf. And Ontario ? My God, 30 below. Snorfle, snorfle. And now it’s hotter than Florida here, snort, guffaw. Guys are out running in SHORTS here.

So I mention a funny noise coming from the car to the service guy. A noise I enjoyed a lot as my little Toyota - Strawbella - makes out like she’s a big hairy Jeep. But knowing cops and their sensitivity to this kind of thing, I thought I’d better get it checked.

Oh, exhaust pipe and gaskets and bolties, oh my? OK I tell him, go ahead with the extra work.

Then I’m paged again.

Oh, we don’t like the look of your brake pads at all, actually you don’t have brake pads to look at? Well, l think, with over 130,000k on her, baby should have herself a new pair of shoes. OK, I tell him, go ahead.

This all takes hours. I read, I knit, I stretch, I scratch myself, I play with lipstick in the bathroom, I drink some miserable masquerade of faux java and frown at the Timbits ™ in the nice glass container. I feel like a loser. Those with lives are taking the courtesy shuffle to all sorts of destinations around the city. Me, with no life, I’ve nowhere to go, no one to see, nothing to do. Just wait around 4 hours longer than I’d planned for my car to emerge.

Now the waiting room is down to 2 losers. Me and a woman of my age who looks oddly familiar. It comes to me. She looks amazingly like my dear treasured friend who recently died. Only 30 years younger.

I put down the book and say, in the manner in which all Newfoundlanders are speaking in this yucking it up way these days: Sunscreen weather, ha?

She chortles obligingly and says, my god where are you from?

Cork, I say, astonished – and so are you?

Yes, she sez, from East Cork originally.

Go on! sez I, me too! and where did you go to school?

St. Al’s, sez she.

I faint dead away.

Two Old Girls from the same Cork, Ireland, Secondary School, in a Toyota dealership waiting room. In St. John’s, Newfoundland.

And yes, we’re getting together for lunch soon.

You can’t make this stuff up!

Life

Life’s like that, isn’t it though?

A day can be a mix of good, not so good, and sometimes awful.

It is hard to be away from Toronto and have two good friends in not very good shape in hospital. Phonecalls and emails only fill you in on so much of it. Thoughts of them underline my day, every hour a stray thought. How are they? Is he out of the coma?

I’ve been having long overdue work done. A wooden floor has now been put in an empty shell of a new garage abandoned with abundant promises of return ‘in the fall’ in 2007 by my erstwhile handyman. I’ve also had a professional looking 16’ workbench and shelves for the tools installed in same. And hooks for hangy things. I’ve already started an empty tin collection for nails and screws. I’m a great one for the gear around the stuff. Though I must say I’m looking forward to fixing up some chairs and refinishing furniture in my very own workshed. And oh yes, Strawbella is looking forward to her new HQ.

I’d not found another handyman, you see, finding a new anything in this little outport is very difficult, due to village politics and people being related and that kind of thing. I couldn’t offend prior handyman even if he hadn’t shown up for 2 years. Joe, my new one, is a brother of Leo, my factotum. And the matter was handled very delicately indeed, my being privy to such ways on a small island off the coast of Ireland in the summers of my childhood and having a full drenching in village-speak. I should give lessons.

Electrifying said garage has been another story. Ditches were dug for the tubing, lines were strung, and hookups were connected to my impressive looking electrical panel in the house (completed 2 years ago with circuit breakers and ‘enough power to light up the village’ per installer). The panel box reacted most unfavourably to this assault and tripped breakers, shorting out my stereo speakers permanently it looks like. I’m fair lost without my music and my CBC, I am.

An SOS went out for an electrician to sort out the mess. Electricians are very thin on the ground in this neck of the woods. The fellow who replaced my antique system two years ago was only in town briefly on vacation and is now back at his millionaire job in the Yukon. Another local is adverse to any extra work as he likes to spend his day job earnings at night on on-line poker. Another is on the town council and doesn’t want his handiwork exhibited locally because of insurance (?!).

You see the disadvantages of living in a very small community?

But I have faith. I do. Really.

I only have to look at the wee farm out back (I’ve got potatoes, I’ve got onions, I’ve got collards, yeah collards!!!) and then over my shoulder at the ocean and thank Gaia for creating such a paradise and for plopping me in the middle of it.