Two Snafus

Hey folks, I am writing early tonight, and from home, just to let you know that the internet service is down at Pearl's once again. It has been down since yesterday morning, and this time it's her whole phone line that's out of service. We seem to have a problem with it every year. ATT is coming over tomorrow to look at it. Hopefully they can fix the problem in less than the six days it took them last time.

To add to the recent snafus, today I took Pearl's car to the Subaru dealership in Van Nuys to get the airbag replaced. You may have heard there has been a recall on the airbags in certain cars, but anyway, they fixed it, but when I went to start the car to drive home, the key wouldn't turn in the ignition. It figured it had to do with the removal of the dashboard for the airbag replacement. When you take a dashboard off, when you put it back on things are never lined up exactly as they were before. Everything looked fine as far as the dash was concerned, but I could see that now, after the airbag replacement, there was slight movement with the ignition cylinder in it's plastic housing, when the steering wheel was turned, whereas before, it was set firmly in the housing with no motion whatsoever. Anyhow, at the dealership I jiggled the wheel a little bit and the key eventually turned and I drove home. A little while later it turned again with no problem when I drove back to Pearl's.

But a little while ago, when it was time for my evening break, I went out to the car and the key wouldn't turn again. So once again I jiggled the steering wheel a little bit, and this time the wheel locked up too. I tried the usual trick to get the steering lock undone, where you turn the key as you put pressure on the wheel, but the key wouldn't budge. After 15 minutes of trying I gave up and walked home, 3 1/4 miles from Pearl's. Good thing I'm in shape cause I've gotta walk back in a little while.

I would've just stayed at Pearl's for the evening, but I wanted to Google the situation with the steering and ignition locks, to see if anyone had a solution. There are lots of good "car guys" on the Internet who know all the tricks, and I really wanna avoid having to go all the way back to the dealer, which would require having the car towed. I wouldn't be able to do that until Friday, anyway, because tomorrow I have to wait all day for the ATT repairman to arrive. So I walked home tonight because I needed to Google the car repair, because I couldn't Google at Pearl's because of the ATT repair.

Or something like that.  :)

Well, anyway, I'm still flying high on the Paul McCartney concert, so as long as all of these hassles get fixed by tomorrow or Friday I'll not be too aggrieved.

I'm just glad the ignition didn't lock up, say, at the store with groceries sitting in a hot car, or far worse, with Pearl in the car. That would not have been good.

So, right now I am gonna continue my Google search, and if I have time I might watch a Tim Holt Western. I have finished reading Robert Heinlein's "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" (one of the best novels I've ever read, highly recommended for sci-fi fans) and I am now beginning "The Assassination Of James Forrestal" by David Martin. James Forrestal was the nation's first Secretary Of Defense. If you are unfamiliar with his story you can Google it.

That's all for tonight. Hopefully by this time tomorrow, both the ATT problem and the ignition thing will be history. Keep your fingers crossed and have a good evening.

Tons of love.  xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo  :):)