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Except it’s not Easter. Easter isn’t until the day after my birthday. Huh and huh...
Phone call from Ben at 5:30 this morning – 7:30 Oklahoma time because that’s where he was calling from. The RV had broken down once again.
He thought maybe it was the alternator.
This is why you need money, I thought to myself. So you never have to make phone calls at 5:30 in the morning when you’re stuck on the side of the road in the pouring rain ten miles outside of Lawton, Oklahoma.
I’d been up for hours anyway.
I searched the Internet – auto parts, Lawton, Oklahoma – to see what might be open on Sunday, and of that “what” which might carry an alternator for a 1972 Chevy van w/350 engine automatic transmission. Bingo! My very first call was answered by the excellent Randy who had the part in stock, who was concerned enough when I described my husband’s plight to ask, “Does he have any way of getting into town?”
I am hoping this Randy is a church going man. I am hoping this Randy understands that God guided me to make this phone call, that it is God’s will that Randy hang a “Back In 15 Minutes” sign on his door, drive out to pick Ben up. Who’s gonna beat a path to the door of an auto supply store in Lawton, Oklahoma on a rainy Sunday at 8 in the morning anyway?
I don’t know what Ben will do otherwise. The circus mechanic is in McAllen, Texas running illegal carburators over the border – or maybe they’re timing belts, or maybe they’re guns. Mechanic is not due back on the show till Wednesday, and of course the show must go on, and that “on” is a town seventy miles away.
And also of course, it’s quite possible Ben misdiagnosed his automotive woes, that it’s not the alternator.
Whenever I think of alternators, I always remember a night thirty years ago driving in the mountains just outside of Cloverdale with the Love of My Life. We’d spent the afternoon at the Geysers. Except that there were no geysers, instead there was a sleeping volcano exhaling geothermic steam and feral hippies with speed-addled eyes squatting amidst the ruins of a resort. Anyway, as we were driving along, the stars seemed to get brighter and brighter. But it was really the car’s headlights getting dimmer and dimmer. Finally the car stalled.
“It’s the alternator,” said Steve, closing the hood of the car in a daze.
And there was nothing to it but to hike back into town. An incalcuable distance. And it was cold. And the stars just kept getting brighter and brighter and brighter...
I did virtually nothing yesterday but draw rather insipid pictures of Easter lillies and read Simisola, Ruth Rendell’s take – disguised (as all Rendell’s books are) as a murder mystery – on racism in the English suburbs In the evening I had dinner with Max and Molly, who were driving down to visit the Tustin brood and go camping at Joshua Tree. We had a jolly meal, I quite like Molly who is not a vegetarian by the way. It’s very odd but every time I talk to Max on the phone I come away from the conversation feeling unloved and disapproved of, but every time I see him in person I feel entirely appreciated, loved and supported. Here’s the postprandial trio – note that Max is the only one not blinded by the light. Note too the older I get, the more I look like my mother.
Update: GuyZ back on the road. I am packing. Simisola got generally bad reviews. Odd... I like it quite the best of the Inspector Wexford series. None of the Freecyclers want Uncle Miltie's Ant Farm even though it comes with a stock certificate for Real Live ANTS. I hate to throw it out.
Phone call from Ben at 5:30 this morning – 7:30 Oklahoma time because that’s where he was calling from. The RV had broken down once again.
He thought maybe it was the alternator.
This is why you need money, I thought to myself. So you never have to make phone calls at 5:30 in the morning when you’re stuck on the side of the road in the pouring rain ten miles outside of Lawton, Oklahoma.
I’d been up for hours anyway.
I searched the Internet – auto parts, Lawton, Oklahoma – to see what might be open on Sunday, and of that “what” which might carry an alternator for a 1972 Chevy van w/350 engine automatic transmission. Bingo! My very first call was answered by the excellent Randy who had the part in stock, who was concerned enough when I described my husband’s plight to ask, “Does he have any way of getting into town?”
I am hoping this Randy is a church going man. I am hoping this Randy understands that God guided me to make this phone call, that it is God’s will that Randy hang a “Back In 15 Minutes” sign on his door, drive out to pick Ben up. Who’s gonna beat a path to the door of an auto supply store in Lawton, Oklahoma on a rainy Sunday at 8 in the morning anyway?
I don’t know what Ben will do otherwise. The circus mechanic is in McAllen, Texas running illegal carburators over the border – or maybe they’re timing belts, or maybe they’re guns. Mechanic is not due back on the show till Wednesday, and of course the show must go on, and that “on” is a town seventy miles away.
And also of course, it’s quite possible Ben misdiagnosed his automotive woes, that it’s not the alternator.
Whenever I think of alternators, I always remember a night thirty years ago driving in the mountains just outside of Cloverdale with the Love of My Life. We’d spent the afternoon at the Geysers. Except that there were no geysers, instead there was a sleeping volcano exhaling geothermic steam and feral hippies with speed-addled eyes squatting amidst the ruins of a resort. Anyway, as we were driving along, the stars seemed to get brighter and brighter. But it was really the car’s headlights getting dimmer and dimmer. Finally the car stalled.
“It’s the alternator,” said Steve, closing the hood of the car in a daze.
And there was nothing to it but to hike back into town. An incalcuable distance. And it was cold. And the stars just kept getting brighter and brighter and brighter...
I did virtually nothing yesterday but draw rather insipid pictures of Easter lillies and read Simisola, Ruth Rendell’s take – disguised (as all Rendell’s books are) as a murder mystery – on racism in the English suburbs In the evening I had dinner with Max and Molly, who were driving down to visit the Tustin brood and go camping at Joshua Tree. We had a jolly meal, I quite like Molly who is not a vegetarian by the way. It’s very odd but every time I talk to Max on the phone I come away from the conversation feeling unloved and disapproved of, but every time I see him in person I feel entirely appreciated, loved and supported. Here’s the postprandial trio – note that Max is the only one not blinded by the light. Note too the older I get, the more I look like my mother.
Update: GuyZ back on the road. I am packing. Simisola got generally bad reviews. Odd... I like it quite the best of the Inspector Wexford series. None of the Freecyclers want Uncle Miltie's Ant Farm even though it comes with a stock certificate for Real Live ANTS. I hate to throw it out.
