Cars & driving » Hip to be Mom

A little drama

Jun 172011

It’s been a bit of a dramatic week though dramatic is not a word you would normally associate with us and our mundane lives in the city.

First, there was an earthquake (what earthquake? I never felt a thing!) which sent Raine and her entire college scuttling down 6 floors when pencil cases fell to the floor and the college kids, Raine included, felt a sudden dizziness. I’d barely dropped her off at college an hour earlier when she called to have me pick her up as classes had been cancelled for the day.

This week, we saw 2 accidents on the highway within 5 minutes’ drive of each other. This morning, on the way to the gym, I almost hit a car that was making a turn when it wasn’t his turn. I honked, he glared and drove on despite our vehicles being inches from each other. Driving gives me high blood pressure these days. Flying lessons are definitely on my to-do list.

On a brighter note, I’m just done painting my nails. Aah, that was therapeutic! And now that the weekend is here, I’m just going to kick off my shoes… so I can paint my toenails . What’s therapeutic for you?

And if I thought we were going to slide smoothly into the weekend, there was just no way! It’s been a czary day (how do you spell crazy again? did I get it right?) from sunrise to sunset.

After dropping Skye off at school around 7:oo am, Raine and I headed straight to the gym. I tweeted about hoping the gym wouldn’t be crowded so we could get a really good workout before the weekend. I should’ve known. Everyone else wants to exercise on a Friday so they can pig out guilt-free over the weekend.

Just 30 minutes in, it got claustrophobic. So we left. At any rate, I needed to get my car to the mechanic’s. Something had been leaking since I got my air-conditioning ‘fixed’ last week. Somehow it’s impossible to associate my mechanic with the word ‘fix’. He never fixes anything, he just creates a whole other problem!

We got into the workshop super-early. In fact, we were there when the first of his mechanics started strolling in to work. That’s how early! Long story short, we wasted an entire morning waiting, only to be told at around noontime that my car wasn’t going to be ready and that Mr Mechanic would generously loan me his bone shaker to do my afternoon errands!

That left me an hour to get home and get out of our aromatic gym clothes and have a shower. Raine had a lunch date with her friends from high school and she was already late. So I dropped her off at the mall before picking Skye up from school.

I was starving. There was no time to cook lunch. So Skye and I headed back to the mall (since I was going to have to pick up Raine there later) for a quick lunch and grocery run. Later we met up with Raine at The Face Shop to pick out the nail polish colors she’d been hankering after.

Turned out this was the highlight of our day!

I called Mr Mechanic while the girls were in the store (I knew he certainly wasn’t going to call me!) and apparently my car was ready. Really? Wow! I was so ready to get rid of that old bone shaker. A few more bumpy rides in that thing and I’d have to sign us up for chiropractic school to learn how to fix our poor rickety shook-up bones!

We made it to the workshop in one piece before the daily late-afternoon storm hit and man, was it good to climb into my minivan! Enough of sitting in that bone-shaker of a car that’s so low we could practically jam our feet into the floor and start peddling, like the Flintstones!

On the way home, we decided to stop and pick up some KFC. Not a fave of ours but it’s conveniently on the way and we had a $10 coupon to waste. Obviously I’d forgotten how oily the Colonel’s chicken can be. So I ended up having a bowl of oatmeal for dinner. How’s that for a last supper before the Apocalypse hits today?

You know what? I can’t believe I actually washed my minivan. For the first time in ages. First off, can you see me jumping up and down trying to reach all the way across the roof of my minivan trying to clean it? I’ve even tried standing on a low stool. It wasn’t pretty!

Then too, I’m not one of those lucky women who can expect to wake up every Monday morning to a freshly cleaned car. Thirdly, between the torrential rains and the scorching sun, I found it pointless to even bother .

But today after picking up my minivan from the mechanic’s (read what happened when I tried to find a new mechanic), I felt a sudden inclination to give my baby the bath she so badly needs.

Well, actually I sat in the car and snapped this picture while the car wash guys were hosing my baby down and giving her a good scrub. It was hard work but I didn’t have to lift a finger. Not even when it came time to vacuum and wipe the interior! What a grand life!

When I got home, I gave the seats a once-over with my beloved scented antiseptic spray and my baby was smelling like roses. Skye said it all when she stepped in from school and went “OMG, Mom, you washed the car!” True, that doesn’t happen very often but now that I know how completely effortless it is, I think I’m going to do it more often .

The air-conditioning in my minivan isn’t working and if it’s one thing that really stresses me out is where to get my car problems fixed. I’ve got a regular mechanic but since the old man stepped back and allowed his son to run the business, it hasn’t been the most honest business in town.

I only continue to go back there because the old man has been my dad’s friend since they were young men, and we’ve traditionally been patronizing his shop for all our car repairs. The old man was a pretty good mechanic. His son is not.

His son fixes problems by trial and error. When he’s clueless about what’s wrong with the car, he will get his men to start swapping parts. Sometimes even after swapping several parts, the problem is still not solved. And with each part he swaps, he continues to make us pay through our noses till he gets it right!! See the problem here?

So I decided maybe it’s time to find another mechanic. I called my dad, the go-to person for car repair advice, and asked if he knew of anyone else who could do the job. The cell phone reception in my area is pretty bad and I don’t have a home cell booster. So to cut the conversation short, I agreed to meet him at the workshop he suggested.

I arrived ahead of him and started briefing Mr AirCon about my problem, even as Mr AirCon’s friend strolled up to join us. When Mr AirCon stepped away to retrieve his tools, his friend (whoever he is!) started telling me how expensive repairs are, yadda yadda. I listened and merely nodded.

Then when Mr AirCon came back over, his friend started criticizing my car and I mean, totally running it down. Completely from out of the blue.

It’s not a good car!! (Yeah, so? My minivan is 10 years old and it’s still serving me well except for the occasional aging problem!)

The parts are expensive! (Yeah, so? Like I’m asking you to pay for them!)

He even went on to say that when he wanted to buy one, thank goodness his friend talked him out of it!!! And he just went on and on!

Er, he-llo? Who are you again and who asked you?

It takes all sorts to make the world go round. I don’t even know this guy, never seen him in my life! I could’ve told him off and I probably would’ve if my dad hadn’t been there. But I didn’t! Seeing as Mr AirCon is an old friend of my dad’s and this guy looks to be a friend of Mr AirCon’s, I thought it only polite to ignore him and let someone else teach him a lesson.

What would you have done?

So we start a new chapter in the Hip Book of Historical Events. Raine, my 17-year-old princess, is officially a college freshman today.

Her Royal Highness doesn’t have a driver’s license yet so she will be riding the Royal Coach to college each morning chauffeured by the Queen herself (that would be me, ahem!).

Lucky me, college is clear across town smack in the middle of the rush-est of rush hour traffic insanity !

I’m not complaining though I can’t say sitting in traffic can be considered a favorite pastime of mine. That said, any commute with my teens is a priceless opportunity for bonding, still lovin’ it after all these years.

And here is my interview with Raine when I picked her up from her first day at college today. Her answers, in her own very words:

Me: So what do you think of college?

Raine: I think I’ll be homesick every day that I’m in college.

Me: Did you meet anyone you know?

Raine: I don’t think they recognize me which is good because I like being under the radar.

Me: What was the� most exciting thing that happened today?

Raine: The fact that I looked at my Chuck and Taylor Converse sneakers and realized that they were the nicest pair of sneakers in the room.

Me: I bet you’re pretty excited about college then, huh?

Raine: Maybe it’s too early to tell but…

The night before we left for Disneyland, we were having dinner at our friends’ place and someone mentioned it might snow on the Grapevine. It had been cold and rainy, yes but snow?

My 3 teens were somewhat thrilled but I was a little concerned, least of all that I’d opted for the cheapest auto insurance. More so that I’ve never driven in snow before and I wondered if we might need chains. But our friends assured us we’d be okay and to just be careful.

So off we drove into the grayness the next morning, all packed and ready for our Disneyland adventure. This is the turn-off to the Grapevine from Highway 99. Hauntingly beautiful!

Once we got on the Grapevine itself, the hills rose up around us. With each turn came more hills and valleys. It was beautiful in an eerie sort of way but beautiful nonetheless, so different from any highway views I’ve ever experienced in my travels.

The view of this lake was breathtakingly surreal. I slowed down to have a better look. We almost expected the Loch Ness monster to raise its legendary head from the murky mist.

I think I’ve used the word “beautiful” about 5 times in this post. There was certainly no sleeping through views like these. Everyone was wide awake and snapping pictures left and right.

So there, we made it through the Grapevine, for miles through the incessant rain, murky mist and gusty winds. But heck, no snow (whew!).