Maddening Mis-Diagnosis

It's no secret that our Camry has suffered some seriously bad carma since we bought it a few years back.  Hitting a deer, rammed by a shopping cart, gouged by the garage door, spilled milk in the trunk, I could go on and on...  Thankfully all mutilations and manhandling this dang car seems to have attracted have all been fixed, cleaned, painted and patched, and only the high insurance premiums remain.

Everything except for the loose screw in my dashboard.

Mark has taken the dashboard off twice looking for the source of that mischievous and elusive clink-clank that rolls with each left and right turn, but it's never been found. It's like driving around a stinkin' Plinko board without a chance of ever winning anything.

Mark drove the Camry yesterday and I think he'd finally had enough. I could tell by the desperate scene I came upon...

I happened to look out the window towards our driveway and saw a car driving up.  It looked like our Camry but it didn't turn into the garage.  It drove right past and kept going around our circle drive. I assumed it was someone who'd erroneously turned up our driveway by mistake.  But then the car circled around again.
And again.
And Again.

At first I thought maybe Connor and his buddy Sev had decided to take the Camry for a joy ride.  Alarmed that a couple of criminally bored 13-year olds might be at the helm of my car, I stepped closer to the window and gave the scene a more discriminating look.  It wasn't Connor after all, it was Mark. But what the heck was he doing??

What he was doing was trying to once-and-for-all locate the loose screw!  After ten minutes of circling the drive, he finally pulled up and headed for the tools.  Never a good sign.  Once again he pulls the dash off and goes searching.  And, no surprise, comes up with nothing.

Then he goes back to circling the drive.  This time with poor Connor precariously perched half in the passenger seat and half way under the driver's side dash.  They're veering and zig-zagging the car around the driveway while the faint echo of the seat belt alarm was ding-ding-dinging from the scant parts left on the dashboard.

They finally pull back into the garage and Mark puts the dash back together and the proceeds to take out the front drivers seat:

After Connor spent time secluded under the car's dash in what I can only imagine was some freakish circus pose to lodge himself under there while his dad drove like a madman around our drive, he was totally convinced that whatever the loose thing was, he was certain it was not in the dash at all.  He decided it was somewhere in the seat.

 So out came the seat.  They were leaving no stone, dash, or seat unturned.

And look what Mark found...

Our loose screw turned out to be this stinkin' marble which had rolled under the seat, underneath the carpet, and lodged itself in a slot for the driver's seat!  Ahhhhhhhh!


Another ban has now been instituted at the Skillman house.  

NO MARBLES. Ever.

and now, peace at last in the Camry. 


...Except suddenly the "service required" light is now on.  I'm betting that what is required is that the dash to be put back on correctly by an authorized mechanic.


There's no winning with this Camry!

Unconventional Fatherly Wisdom

Ahhh, Father's Day. A time to reflect on your dad and appreciate all the great stuff he taught you over the years. Usually you make a phone call and send a card to tell your dad how much you love him.  But in my case, my dad is, shall we say, a little too elusive 
for phone calls and sappy cards. One never really finds my dad, it is he that finds you.  He shows up or calls out of the blue and you never know exactly when.  He never wears a watch and doesn't always have a phone nearby.  So you just wait for him to appear.  It's the way he's always been. 

Here's a photo of my dad from my early years

sporting that Dennis Hopper Easy Rider look.

As you can see, my dad is quite an unconventional guy and therefore it's not hard to imagine that he cast out a lot of unconventional pearls of wisdom to his kids over the years.

So for Father's Day, I figured that if I couldn't send a cheesy card or call him on the phone, I'd remember him by jotting down a
random sample of things my dad taught me:

1. Fry everything, it tastes better.  (Practically a family creed.)
2. You don't have to turn off the power at the breaker box to install a new light fixture. Just don't touch anything you shouldn't when you switch it out and you won't get hurt.  Simple as that. (still the way I do it too.)
3. When you're walking in a parking lot, car windows make excellent reflectors so you can watch for people sneaking up behind you.
4. Obey your mom or you'll be sorry.
5. If someone asks for the shirt off your back, offer them your shoes too.  
6. Education doesn't necessarily come from a classroom.
7. Any boy who brings you home way past curfew will have a loaded weapon pointed directly at them.  (Sorry Dane!)
8. When other boys hear about said loaded weapon, very few of them will ever want to attempt to date a girl with a crazy father.
9. Never let a dog sense your fear, even if it has its jaws firmly lodged into your neck and is shaking you like a rag doll.  
10. Read. Read. Read. And then read some more.
11. Even a twelve year old girl can install wood flooring.  She can also frame a wall for that matter too.
12. Always sit where you can see everything going on in a room.
13. "Paint Your Wagon" is the best musical ever.
14. It's never a good idea to let your dad remove your cast with hedge clippers. (yep, I learned that one the hard way.)
15. Even if it looks like you need stitches, you might get away with using just a band-aid.
16. If the sun is in your eyes and you're at a stop light, you can usually see the reflection of the traffic lights on the hood of your car. (My dad owned a lot of dark colored cars.)
17. Don't be afraid to drive three states away to pick up your sister.  It's worth the trip.
18. Never volunteer your social security number.
19. Even if your mom is cooking dinner, there's always time to sneak away and get some ice cream.
20. Firm faith can never be shaken.

...and that's just the wisdom I can share.  Imagine the stuff I can't.  Just a little insight into why I may have turned out a smidge unconventional myself.

Happy Father's Day Dad!  "Kei te aroha au ki a koe"

I Believe I Can Fly

Summer just started and from the looks of things I'm gonna need to get a Costco-sized box of Band-aids...

Seriously kid, that does NOT look very aerodynamic.  But I'm glad you've strapped a safety flag on--you can never be too safe when you're got a sliver-ridden hunk of plywood strapped to your back!

Summer just started...I'm now thinking that not enrolling the kid in a slew of summer camps was a grievous error.

You're Welcome...and I'm Sorry

No good deed goes unpunished.

The good deed being that I decided to do a little mowing for Mark while he was out of town.  This, by the way, is an epic and most generous thing for me to do.  One, because I never mow.
And two, because when I do mow, my allergies cause me to swell up like a puffer-fish which makes things like seeing and breathing near impossible.

But since Mark's been out of town a lot and the grass has been growing like crazy, I thought I'd surprise him by catching up on the mowing he'd have to do when he got back.  I started along the driveway so that when he arrived home he'd be greeted by mowed perfection.

Sounds nice right?  Unfortunately for Mark,  my vast inexperience with lawn mowing didn't turn out to be quite the generous and kind gesture I intended it to be.

To my credit, the driveway did look nice and perfect from his homecoming...

But on closer inspection you'll see a massive problem...
I mowed right over the irrigation lines for his trees!  Oops!

...see how I neatly stacked the shredded pipe?
I thought it might soften this eventual and traumatic discovery.

I'd like to blame the whole catastrophe on being swelled up and visually impaired, but that wasn't the case.  I was simply determined to avoid any required weed whacking-because that, I really don't do.   So I began mowing extra extra close to the fence. 

And now I know why Mark doesn't get extra extra close to the fence and uses the weed whacker in the tight spots--there's irrigation lines there and they don't take too kindly to a mower.  But it's a little late for that memo, the damage is done.

The bad news is that the look of wonder and surprise on Mark's face when he arrived home was most likely NOT because the driveway looked good. (Though he was kind and sweet enough to fain appreciation!)

However, the good news is that I'll probably get banned from the John Deere.  Which means my puffer-fish days are behind me.

You're welcome honey...and uhhhh, sorry!

 [sheepish grin]

 

Visa, Mastercard, or Quesadilla?

Baby Kendra came for a short visit but even though our grand baby's stay was just a few hours, she left us cheesy mementos all over the house.

I left my purse on the floor and discovered she'd left a quesadilla inside next to my wallet:

Can you imagine going to pay for something and reaching in your purse for your debit card and finding a cheesy quesadilla instead?  Not sure there's a pin number for that.

A day later we noticed she left another inside Mark's mud boots!  Which might be a real energy booster when you're out mowing six acres.  One gets kinda hungry doing farm chores.

She was here just long enough to be busy and thoughtful!

Orthodontics is No Laughing Matter

I've been banned from going to the Orthodontist.  Seriously.  No pun intended.

This most solemn of dental decrees was pronounced by Chloe as she and I were walking out of the office from her last visit to the orthodontist.

Her edict came in a conversation that went like this...

"Mom, you can't come in to my appointments anymore.  You need to stay in the car and wait for me there."

"Why's that?" I say.

"Because you make everybody laugh.  And your loud voice can be heard all the way in the back too.  The ladies that work on me end up laughing so much that I'm afraid their hand is shaking so hard that they're gonna poke me with something sharp when they're inside my mouth." Chloe rambles.


[I'm laughing.] 

"This is serious mom!"  she says with a stern voice.  "It's really scary, if I get poked it'll be all your fault.  You can't come in anymore."

Then she adds, "...or you just need to talk quieter...but we both know that'll never happen." 


"Yep," I agree out loud.  "That'll probably never happen.  I'll try to stay outside."


[but you know that'll never happen either.  The poor girl is gonna get poked...and badly.  It's inevitable.]