Auto Adventures

I've been giving my wee 2002 Toyota Echo, Cutie Pie, some LUV in the past few weeks -- getting her ready for winter, plus some upkeep/maintenance.

October 17 I was due to have installed:

• Windshield #3 (I live in a major Rock-throwing Zone);
• New bushings (to replace dried, cracked 12-year-old ones);
• My winter tires; and a
• New block-heater cord (as my original one was clipped off by scamps on the Labour Day weekend.)

Well...2 out of 4 ain't bad...eh?  The winter tires were put on, and the block heater cord repaired...but it turned out that the glass installers didn't have the right-sized windshield, and the Parts Department 

Toyota Echo Sway Bar Bushings

 discovered that the sway bar bushings they had in stock weren't the ones that would fit my Toyota.

Sigh.

Parts ordered "STAT!" and appointment re-booked for today.  I drove my car off the lot and home-ward.  Then I noticed a knocking when it was idling at a stoplight.  I figured I'd have them look at it when I came back in for the windshield and bushings.

It turns out it was my water pump...and that the water pump is an Important Part.  And they didn't have one in stock but could rush one up from Calgary (2 1/2 hours' drive away).  Fed Ex to the rescue...but it meant keeping my car there over night as the part wouldn't arrive early enough to get everything done before closing.

Sigh.

They offered me a "loaner".  

Uh-oh.  

You see, I drive a standard shift car, because then I know I'm The One Doing the Driving.  I don't like cars that want to drive me.  I prefer to drive them!  

I was afraid the "loaner" would be a Big Bad Automatic...

But...it's a Yaris, they said.  Same size as your Echo.  And PLAIN.  Very Plain.  

They were right.

The "Loaner" in my driveway

Aside from the fact that its covered with logos and advertising, and is an automatic transmission, and is black, I could drive this car.  Now.  Maybe forever.

Of course, I'm not ready to buy a new car.  My 12-year-old Echo has only 224,500 km on it (give or take) and is in pretty good shape (or will be, with new bushings and water pump and windshield #3).

But if I were...

I mean, this Yaris sedan is a car that's a car.  It doesn't try to drive for me.  It lets me do my own shoulder- and mirror-checks.  It doesn't tell me where to drive.  It lets me use a map.  It's dashboard doesn't look like it belongs in a 747.  It has an AM-FM radio and CD player, and neither of them phone me. It's the right size for my garage and has a capacious trunk.

Now install a 5-speed manual transmission and paint it red...

I'm praying they still make them when I'm ready to buy!

This is not my Echo, but one just like it...my Ideal Car

Distracted

That's how I've been this week.  And grumpy.  Ups and downs.  Many prayers muttered under my breath as I dealt with my wounded car.  >.<

Based on the Black Book value, I thought it might be a write-off, so I've been researching replacement costs.  Blessing #1: in the process of this research, I found out that my Canada Pension income is going to be more than expected, beginning at the end of this month.  Hooray!

Blessing #2: It now looks like it can be repaired after all (hooray again!) but the shop can't get me in for at least a week -- currently backed up with hail claims from the summer and recent 'deer hits'.  I know; it sounds as if the good citizens of Lacombe County have conspired to decimate the local white tail population ...but I doubt it.  Just adjusting to longer dawns and earlier dusk-driving, which is when these beautiful creatures decide to leap out at drivers from the side of the road.  I've been very blessed never to have had such an encounter; my car damage came from other humans, while the car was parked!

Now I have to wait till Monday to confirm who's going to pay for car rental while the shop fixes my baby...later this month.  I'm hoping that my patience -- such as it is -- will be rewarded with Blessing #3, and that all the costs will be covered by the other parties' insurance company.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Pookie had her first immunizations yesterday and this morning she is a bit off her feed and certainly subdued.  I'm keeping an eye on her, but expect this is par for the course.

For most of the week I've been working on and off on my second C&G assignment, involving researching contemporary applique artists I like, and deciding who to focus on.  While I admire the fine work of Elly Sienkiewicz and the fast, fun, fusing of Laura Wasilowski, I am really leaning toward applique as surface design -- or should that be 'surface design as applique'?  This means I've been looking at Sandra Meech, Bonnie Lyn McCaffery, and Rosemary Eichorn.  And then there's the team of Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn -- "Double Trouble" -- who are embroiderers who use applique to add to the texture of cloth they make completely with stitch on water-soluble fabric.

My mind has been a-whirl with ideas, excited by simply reading about what these artists create and how they do it!  I want to try everything at once!

I decided to try to calm myself by working through the 3 exercises in the one book I own by Sandra Meech: Contemporary Quilts: Design, Surface and Stitch, Batsford Publishing, London, England, 2003.  It took me the better part of puttering around yesterday, but eventually I finished Exercise #1, based on a photo I took a few years ago of a rusty old hand-pump in the overgrown yard of an abandoned country school (now a historic landmark).

This sort of exercise is not new to me, but it is particularly useful in training the eye to see, in studying colour, and in focusing the mind on one's art -- and off one's problems!

Today has dawned brighter than the past few days; the snow on my front lawn has melted, and I'm off for a good run jog.  Then it'll be time for Meech's Exercise #2, some work on the reconstruction of my daughter's sweater, and maybe some embroidery to round out the day.