The Dysmey Blog
The personal weblog of Andy West.
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04/16/09
Now The Car is Ready
Filed under: General
Posted by: Andy @ 9:23 pm

At long last, after almost a month, I got my car back!  I got the call on Wednesday afternoon.  The next day I drove to the transmission shop first.  Then I drove to the car rental place to drop off the rental car and to pay my remaining rent.  Then I drove back to the transmission place to pay for the transmission repair.  I was graciously given three hundred dollars off for the rental car costs.  In all I paid almost $1600 for the transmission repairs.

The transmission is a rebuild, and the lower gears are a bit stiff.  But they work, and the car should last me until the end of the month, after which I intend to buy a new car.

My cat is having trouble walking on her hind legs, as if they are barely strong enough to carry her.  But she can walk, and she can climb a little bit.  She does not spend all her time under the stair.  She spends her time in the Silverstone case box under the stairs, or under the bed, or even on the bed now that the hind legs are strong enough to get her up there. 

But as her progress was not enough, I decided to stop putting the medicine in her food and to give it to her directly into her mouth via syringe, like I did before.  She is not happy in the least for that, but at least she is walking better.

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04/12/09
Happy Easter Day
Filed under: General
Posted by: Andy @ 10:20 pm

The usual fare for Easter is ham.  I do not like ham.  Fortunately we had ham a couple of weeks ago, and the folks are not wont to serve the same meat twice in as many Sundays.  So we had those small round stakes and Zesties (spiced french fries).  I took home the usual Easter fare of colored hard-boiled eggs and chocolates.

Yesterday I mowed the lawn for the first time this year.  Whether there was that much to mow depended on what side of the yard.  The west and north side had thick grass.  The side between the house and the court had sparse grass.  The east side between the driveway and the shed had almost no grass at all.  It looks like I will have to resod the backyard.

The car is still at the shop.  I had to pay for another round on the rental car.  It looks like the repair shop has found a rebuilt transmission.  They will install it early this week.  If memory serves me rightly, they did that with the original transmission, which bit the dust shortly after I bought my car.  I am not going to speculate on when I will get my car back; but I know that I will ditch it on the first week of May, when my spring vacation happens, and when I trade it in for the Honda Fit I always wanted.

Tomorrow I take my cat over to the animal hospital in Anderson for a follow-up checkup now the medication regiment ended last week.  Isis is still a purry kitty even if she is not a well one.  But I do want to know if and how we fix her back.

My clothes washer still washed, but would not spin; and it emitted a burning smell to boot.  That clinched it.  This past Saturday I went to the local applicance dealer and bought a new washing machine.  Well, it was a stratch and dent model, meaning that the outer shell is damaged.  But the innards work as good as new, and that is all I care about.  And to top it off, it was cheaper than a new washer.  The store folks delivered and installed the washer, and removed the old one, within an hour of my buying it.  After five loads over two days, the new washing is working just fine.

Addenda

I took the cat to the vet hospital this morning. The vet confirmed that Isis was really achey below her third chest vertebra but the X-rays showed no change. I got some liquid prednisone to give her in the evenings, and was told to report her condition at the end of the week.

The Easter just past was the first sunny Easter in a long while. Usually the day would be cloudy or windy or rainy or even snowy, or some combination of the two. But this Easter was nice and sunny.

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04/05/09
The Car Is Almost Ready, Part II
Filed under: General
Posted by: Andy @ 10:17 pm

still waiting

I had thought that the transmission on my car would be fixed with the arrival of the appropriate part. But it was the wrong part. So the repair shop sent for another part. It turned out to be the right part, but the transmission still does not work in reverse or the higher gears. But the shop ordered another part, and the transmission should be fixed by this coming Tuesday.

I am getting tired of this. I am tired of the rental car, which is costing me seventeen dollars a day. I am tired of parking the rental car in the visitors lot, which costs from five to seven dollars a day depending on whether I have to go anywhere for lunch. I am tired of putting five to six dollars of gas because I was advised to do so and because I do not know when I will have to return the car. But, basically, I am tired of the waiting. I do not want to do anything in that rental car that may damage it or get it dirty. That means any major home or yard work has to wait until I get my car back.

washing machine

Meanwhile, the spin cycle of my washing machine is vanished. The machine can still agitate the water during the wash cycle. It just does not spin. It drains the water, but I have found that I have had to wring the water out of the clothes before putting them in the dryer.

I can still use the washing machine, but without a spin cycle, it will take longer to dry my clothes. I think it is time to buy a new washing machine. There is a appliance store just across the street from the folks, where I bought my air conditioner. I can get a new washing machine there.

I was given a chance to buy an old washing machine that my sister the teacher brought back with her from Bloomington several years ago. I can buy it cheap, but it leaves with two issues that decided me against buying it.

No warranty. My sister’s machine has been in her garage since she came back from Bloomington. There is no telling if it would break down; and if it did, I am out of luck.

Machine disposal. If I buy from the appliance shop, they would swap the current machine for the new one. If I buy from my sister, I would have to dispose of the current machine myself. I have nowhere to put it: I have no garage; my shed is too small; and what neighbors I have left would complain if I stored it outside. And I do not have the time to look for anyplace to take the machine.

But the current machine still works; I have no problem wringing out my washing for awhile. So I am not worried about this yet.

friends dinner

I attended this year’s meeting of the Friends of the Bracken Library last Wednesday. Here it is in reverse order.

This year’s lecture was about Movers and Stakers, a documentary of stories along the Indiana segment of the National Road. It will be broadcast in October after it completes the independent film circuit.

The dinner was a salad, rolls, some kind of chicken and spud mix, and apple crumble. I was seated with the higher-ups and tonight’s speaker until the Friend’s director realized the mistake and reseated me with the other library staff.

The reception is, as it has already been, a bore. I knew nobody there except the attending library staff and the retired archivist whom I once assisted back in my student days in the 1980’s.

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