R.I.P. Gunner

Gunner, the 2001 Volvo S40 is dead. 

 

 At 194,000 miles, the timing belt broke rendering repairs too costly for the age of the car.  This is our second vehicle to die by timing belt.  The first one, the Focus, was due to our ignorance.  This time, I was anticipating a need for a new belt and I even had the shop look it over at the last oil change in July to determine if now was the time and they thought it still had lots of wear on it.  Well, they were wrong and now we are down to one vehicle.  And the NPR vehicle donation program just gained a car.   We are going to see if we can function with just the truck.  We are both retired, we both have bicycles, and the city bus runs on the street five houses north of us. Stay tuned.....

We got this news on Monday and week #1 with just the truck went fine.  Steve didn’t need to drive anywhere Wednesday morning so I was able to drive Sarah Everett, a woman I visit teach, down to Jefferson City to get a new military ID at the National Guard facilities.  She can’t drive and she lost her original card and she needed one to claim the benefits of her late husband.  We had a nice drive down and back and she took me to lunch afterward.  I found a restaurant called Oscars that had a gluten-free menu and I ordered a patty melt on toasted gluten-free bread!  Mmmmmm – greasy and good!

I visited the doctor Friday morning to follow up on the current high blood-pressure medicine I am on.  She suggested I bring in our home blood pressure machine and calibrate it with the one in the office just to make sure the higher-than-they-should-be numbers are legitimate.  I think we will bring our bathroom scales in at the same time.  You know how it is – you weigh yourself at home and think you are doing pretty well until you step on the scales at the doctor’s office and - oh my! - you aren’t as skinny as you thought you were.

We had the Fowlers over for dinner Saturday night.  Jan is the Fine Arts secretary at Rock Bridge High School and a very nice person.  She and her husband, Rodney, are devout Christians and we had a very good conversation over dinner about religious matters. 

I made grape jelly this week.  Nine half-pints. 

And, of course, I have been sewing and watching movies.  First, I watched “Hello Dolly”.  Then, of course, I had to watch “Wall-E”.  Steve’s August movie was “Up” so I watched that again.  And, my Netflix was “Philomena” which was not as warm-fuzzy as I thought it might be - but, it was still good.

On a final note, I have made a truce with the backyard squirrels.  No longer will they leap onto a hanging bird feeder full of seeds and scatter them all over the deck.  Now, I strew seeds along the deck rail and the birds and squirrels have to share.  Aside from millet sprouting in my flower pots, it works very nicely.