Category: Someone’s gotta say it

Car RIP; thanks VIP

by Karen, posted in Someone's gotta say it

RIP to my car, and thanks to VIP in Arundel for killing it on Monday, when I took it in to have the snow tires put on and for a simple oil change.

I dropped it off in the morning for the service, then got the call from them a couple of hours later that it was ready to pick up. My husband and I finished our errands, then went to get my car.

As we were about to pay, they mentioned that there was a belt that was pretty loose and either needed to be tightened or replaced, and that we should do it sooner rather than later. “Just do it now,” we said,  since they already had the car and I had the day off from work.  “Well, I’m not sure if we can just tighten the belt, or if we have to order the part. Hold on for five minutes and we’ll get you the answer.”

We go to the waiting room. We wait ten minutes. He returns with a grim look, saying, “Come with me,” and leads us behind the counter to the garage, where I am now certain, no good news awaits.  My car’s hood is open, guts exposed.

“See this?” the “mechanic”-type person said. “That’s the bolt that was holding the belt on.”  I know enough about cars to have caught the “was” and then I knew we were in trouble. “It snapped in half,” he said. “The bottom line,” the “supervisor”-type person took over, “is that the car is not drivable; you have to get it towed, preferably to the dealer,” he said. “I’m not equipped to deal with this here.”

Funny, I was thinking how my car was drivable ten minutes earlier when I came to get it, and that suddenly, after they “checked the belt”, the bolt was now broken off, and the other end of it was somewhere in the engine (at least, he that was where he thought it was.

Well, to make short a long, sad story, that bolt that mysteriously broke off at VIP and probably cost about two bucks, was (according to Toyota, who called us 21 hours after they received the car) going to cost almost two thousand bucks (not to mention at least three days) to fix. Putting that much money into a car with almost 120,000 miles on it was not an attractive proposition. In other words: Hel-lo, deal-breaker.

Also, heads up to any new car buyers: of course it always pays to do your homework, but especially “nowadays”. We were offered a loan of 0.9 to finance the new car that we ended up deciding to buy when the best rate they were actually advertising online (where we checked the deals and printed them off before heading to the dealership) was actually ZERO percent financing.

Go figure. But hey, we got to meet Ira, so it’s all good.

The rule of tree…I mean three

by Karen, posted in education, friends, Someone's gotta say it, tweens

So, although I’d been complaining in an earlier post about the homework my daughter’s teachers had been assigning to the parents…I mean, the kids… I have to revisit my resentment some in light of the unexpected gifts that one of these assignments has had for us.

The (dreaded) Tree Project is the assignment to which I am referring (any mother who has had a child attending our local junior high school in the past 20 years or so will be familiar with this). After I heard some of the other moms talking about their efforts to help, like: “I spent 2 1/2 hours one Saturday afternoon driving my daughter around to get leaves!” for example (after I’d walked my daughter around the school yard for 15 minutes, got a mosquito bite, and called it a day), I was shamed off the bench and into the woods to help find leaves.

Toward this end, I asked a couple of work colleagues if they had any interesting trees in their yards that they’d be willing to ravage for leaves, nuts (extra credit!), bark, (same!), berries (same!)…you get the idea.

Well. They sure did.

  1. My friend Jody produced Pin Cherry leaves and then took a chance and loaned us a treasured little book, Advice from a Tree by Ilan Shamir. Last weekend we read this book together on the couch (with the TV off!), and talked about what it meant to “Be content with your natural beauty” and to “Let your limbs sway and dance in the breezes“…oh yes, and to “Drink plenty of water“…even trees know this!
  2. My friend Sheri produced a Beech Tree leaf with the coveted beechnut to go along with it. She also sent Izzy and me a copy of the tree poem, which I am planning to read with her this weekend.
  3. My friend Doreen brought leaves from a Quaking Aspen tree.  Izzy now has all of her pages filled in her Leaf Project book, which was her goal. The gathering is done!

So, these are the tree gifts: a book, a poem…and remembering what a great gift good friends are. 🙂

Homework

by Karen, posted in education, family, Someone's gotta say it, tweens

Well, after only the first month of school we’ve already had 4 homework assignments…for the parents.

  1. The first day of school brings the myriad of (redundant) forms that we have to fill out for each child every year, regardless of whether the information has changed even one iota from last year, regardless of whether it is the same for both (or multiple) children, except for their names and dates of birth.  Here’s an idea: Let us do it online! They let us send lunch money online now, and they send us school notices online as well (so that we have to subject our own printers to wear and tear, use our own ink and paper to print out notices and forms. . .but I digress). Why can’t we have our New School Year Forms online, then update only what needs updating and email them to the school? Time saved: approximately 2-5 hours (or more, depending on how many children you have and how complex their medical histories, etc. might be).
  2. The next assignment we got was this:  In a million words or less, write an essay about your child. Enough said.
  3. Then, a Current Events homework assignment came home for the student, which says the parent must assist them in these projects. Weekly. If it can’t be done without the parents’ help, clearly it is too advanced for most 6th graders to undertake. To me, this translates to: Not Appropriate Homework for a Sixth Grader. Am I wrong?
  4. The Leaf Project. Anyone who has lived in my town for the past decade or two (at least) is familiar with this one. Now, I have to be fair: it isn’t explicitly stated that parents have any involvement, but hey, it’s not like the 6th graders can drive themselves around looking for the 20 different types of leaves they need!

How do you feel about getting homework from your tween-agers’ teachers?

Baby tooth

by Karen, posted in health, Someone's gotta say it

Many of you may have had a toothache at some point in your lives.  I certainly have.  Many of you may also know how expensive it can be when something goes wrong with your teeth. Even if you have some dental insurance, even if it’s good insurance, after the procedure is done and the dust has settled, you probably will be left with a huge portion of the bill for your very own.

Because of this, in the past you may have (like me) chosen the path of least resistance (read: least cost) in dealing with equivocal tooth issues, like a root canal. Now, sometimes there is nothing you can do: the tooth needs attention NOW as evidenced by the relentless, screaming 10 (on a scale of 1-10) pain. $1300 to make it stop? A bargain! Have at it!

At other times, however, if the pain eventually subsides, you may decide to take a watchful waiting stance (especially if your budget does not allow for an effortless expenditure for a large, unexpected medical bill that month)…and “baby” your tooth.

This involves trying to remember not to chew on that side, or at least avoiding nuts, seeds, raw carrots, and so forth, avoiding cold and hot foods and liquids (especially cold!!). It probably also involves lots of ibuprofen, and potentially, orajel. Arnica and oil of cloves may also be useful during this denial…er, watchful waiting stage. All are certainly much cheaper in the short-term than a root canal, or even (god forbid) an extraction.

These tactics have helped me “baby” my errant teeth for about 3 years now. Except for one of them, which definitely did not respond to the conservative treatments today, and over the course of 3 hours I decided that it was time to consult the professional.

That would be the one I consulted 3 years ago.  Now, years and years ago (like, more than a decade) when I found myself in a similar situation, the staff at the endodontist’s office that I called (who didn’t know me from a hole in the wall) couldn’t have been more sympathetic and helpful, and had me in the chair that day. So today, I (foolishly, it turned out) expected the same treatment from the (different) provider that I consulted for this tooth (having moved too far away to go back to prior one).

Caring health professionals? NOT! The secretary that took my call couldn’t have been less interested or sympathetic toward my predicament. The best she could do in an emergency was to give me an appointment 2 days from now.

After I hung up the phone, I was pretty disgusted with the way my problem had been handled. I called a different endodontist practice and the secretary was the polar opposite of the first. She was very sympathetic, very concerned about getting me in as soon as I wanted to be seen, fully assuring me that if I couldn’t stand the pain she would get me in immediately.

Need I say which provider I chose? (Hint: not the first one!). After all, if they weren’t concerned about me today, what would be different about Thursday? I didn’t want to support their dental practice in any way (root canals are NOT CHEAP!) so I put my money where my mouth was (literally) and took my business elsewhere.

Sometimes, we can make small choices that make us feel better. It still hurts; it will still cost a lot, but…I do feel better. 🙂

The Man with the Ginormous Head

by Karen, posted in family, local fun, Someone's gotta say it, tweens

I was very excited to go see my daughter in a show at the Ogunquit Playhouse. I bought a ticket for 2 of the 3 shows in advance;  I had not been planning to attend the first show on Saturday. When I saw my daughter’s face as I told her this (“You mean you’re not going??”) , I had a change of heart and bought a ticket for that one as well.

Needless to say, I did not get a front row seat for my last-minute efforts. Now, there really aren’t many bad seats at the Playhouse, so I wasn’t too worried…I got there early. I found my seat. I waited with anticipation for the show to start. All was well, until…enter, the Man with the Ginormous Head.  Oh no! How could this happen?

If you ever find yourself in this position, what would you do? Here are some coping tips from my recent experience:

  1. Reposition yourself frequently. Otherwise, you will have a very large crick in your neck after an hour of tipping your head to the left without a break.
  2. Try not to think too much about how annoying you might be to the people sitting behind you (what with the frequent repositioning and all).
  3. Resist the urge to bludgeon big fat head with the $3 bottle of water you purchased at the concession stand when you arrived.
  4. Entertain the thought of pitching “height requirement for ticket sales” idea to the Playhouse management…under my plan, people 5’2″ (example: me) and under get would get preferential (read: up close) seating.
  5. Decide to be grateful that I am seeing the show two more times, one of which will be from the front row. When all is said and done, I will miss nothing.
  6. Wonder how, when 90% of the audience is under 3 feet tall (read: children), was I so fortunate as to wind up sitting behind the Man with the Ginormous Head.
  7. Pause briefly to further wonder why 4’8″ daughter is positioned behind the 5’8″ cast member wearing the 6″ tall headpiece on the stage…(but I digress).

Above all, remain calm, I reminded myself. Panicking helps no one. Breathe. He keeps moving around; there is no safe place! Now he is gesticulating with his hands (which are also ginormous!) effectively obliterating my tiny window of visibility to the stage!

And just when I think it can’t get any worse…well, it doesn’t. It gets better. The person who was sitting next to me doesn’t return after the intermission. The person sitting in front of her was a very small child who had migrated to his mother’s lap. The view is now completely unobstructed.  Life is good; the show goes on, and…I remember the most important thing:

I am so proud of my daughter. 🙂

Put the ‘oy’ in ‘annoy’

by Karen, posted in Someone's gotta say it

I love the beach. I love it so much, that I live near it. Whenever I have a few moments of free time, I often head to the ocean to say “hi”.

Like yesterday. There was still a little daylight left after I got back home from work so I grabbed a book, a sandwich, and headed for the beach. I was very happy to find a free space. I parked, opened my windows a bit, opened my sandwich, opened my book, and settled in. For just about a minute, all was well.

Well, I forgot that it’s July now, and not April. THEY were there. You know, them: other people. With their unsmiling faces as they walk right out in front of your car to cross the parking lot without looking first.  Smoking. Coughing. Smashing their “man purses” into the front end of  your car as they lumbered by with their dripping ice cream cones. With their unleashed dogs. With their screaming children who drop their drawers and pee right on the sand (you know, where we walk? with our bare feet?). With their malodorous, unwashed bodies (hello? the rooms at the motel do have showers! It doesn’t cost extra to use them!).

Well, after 10 minutes of this, even two of my most favorite things (beach and book) lost their luster. I put up my window. I left. I didn’t look back.

I can’t wait for fall.