I wasn't even thinking about it being Saint Patricks day until I was looking for something to wear to the dentist office and then realized it needed to be green!
Ever since my last visit to the dentist I have felt as though something wasn't right with the healing process. My gums feel lumpy and sore and even though I can't see the spot where it hurts, I mentally pictured it as being exactly like when Haley broke his collar bone- which was a sharp piece of broken bone poking against the skin with such force that it is a wonder it didn't split open. Yep.. that's how my mouth felt, but on a smaller scale than the collar bone incident.
Yesterday I called the dentist and he actually called me back so I could explain my situation with great detail and accuracy which enabled him to fit me in today to have a look at the problem.
About one minute into the visit he hit the sore spot with that pricker thing they use and after my flinching stopped I got a double whammy of lidocaine. A lot more pricking went on, but then I didn't care. It turned out that I did indeed have a bone fragment trying to protrude through my gums and that has been what's irritating me, well, irritating my mouth.
So I sat there while he sliced up my gums, tried to scrape out the offending bone chip but it would not budge. He said that many times just tearing up the skin as much as he did will make a some scar tissue that will cover up the sharp bone so that its not an irritant, but if that doesn't happen in a week or so to come back and he will shoot me up again, slice open the whole gum and then get in there, file down the bone and stitch it back together. I reminded him that I needed my mouth to be intact for the severe gluttony I have scheduled when I go to Disney and he attempted to assure me that I would be fine in 17 days.
As for right this minute, the lidocaine is wearing off and I am going to need something to make my mouth stop throbbing in pain. Since I spent all of my daily allowance on gas to get to the dentist I won't be able to numb myself with green beer so I am very glad that I did not take all of my Tylenol 3 after my first appointment concerning this tooth.
Luckily I had nothing to do today but housework and go to the dump and I am happy to put both of those things off and go back to bed and maybe miss most of this jagged, cut up gum skin as it attempts to form it's scar over my protruding jaw bone fragment.
Good-night.
We have lost track of how many casts Audrey has had to have to try to correct her talipes equinovarus (I use the technical term here because whenever we say "club foot" people automatically assume we mean "pigeon toed", which we do not.)
Her first casts were tiny little plaster things that went from toe to thigh on both legs when she was but a week old. We had to go to Bangor every week to have them soaked off and then the foot manipulated into another position and the casts reapplied. Then after several weeks she had surgery on both feet to stretch the tendons so that her feet could move out like they needed to, and then more casts to keep them there. Once she started to want to crawl the casts were no longer an option as to not impede her natural development, but she had to wear a brace across both of feet, first all of the time, and then just at night.
In time she outgrew the shoes that attach to the brace and before a refitting her doctor, Doctor Turi, assessed her and decided her left foot needed to be manipulated some more and again be in a cast. Again this would be a weekly procedure, he felt as though three times would be sufficient, plus a new kind of leg brace and new shoes for her feet brace.
When Audrey was a baby she didn't know any different and having her legs in casts was sad for us, but it didn't matter much to her. Now that she is one, we were more concerned with how she would take to having that toe to thigh cast, and now they need to be fibreglass for durability... we prepared for the worst.
Well... her first cast was hot pink and she slept through the entire process of it's application. The next week during it's removal was not so pleasant for anyone involved, but she left with a fancy flower colored cast. The week after was highlighter yellow* and it was supposed to be the last one- however doctor Turi decided one more week would not hurt so she now has a purple cast picked about by Travis, the technician that puts them on and takes them off. (He picked purple in honor of my hair! I also need to add that Travis is wonderful- when she had the pink cast taken off I forgot to take it with me and he realized it, bagged it, wrote our name on it and remembered to give it to us the next week (: )
Anyway... Audrey has not slowed down because of the casts. She misses her playtime in the tub but other than that she pays no attention to the cast. She gets around as well as she ever did and I really applaud her for that. I am pretty sure if it were me........ I would not be so pleasant! Hopefully this Friday the purple cast will come off and allegedly no more will go on- Doctor Turi promised we would be castless by the time we left for Disney World so if he did chose to do one more- so be it, but hopefully not.
Moving on to my * about the highlighter yellow cast.... for the most part, Audreys cast is not especially noticeable. It's winter, she wears pants over it, all that shows is her foot and most of the time people just overlook it. That changed when she got the highlighter yellow cast though. People stared. Some asked what happened to her but most tried awkwardly to act like they never saw it. Little kids tugged on their parents and pointed and the parents acted mortified. Some little kids came right up and asked and the parents apologized. One pathetic woman in a restaurant gave Audrey and her mom the stink eye like she just KNEW that Audrey had been abused... I almost got up and said something to her but didn't want to make a scene... so the point is this, well two actually- I don't recommend the highlighter yellow cast on a child, and if you see a child in a cast or a brace or a wheelchair and you find it impossible not to gawk or sneer, than at least ask the parent what happened if you feel it is your business. Don't jump to a conclusion that the child has been abused... and if your little kids are tugging at you and pointing, it's OK to let them ask what happened. None of us have been insulted over that- we are insulted over the unwarranted, incorrect and pompous presumptions that are made by the uncouth.
I wanted to make a video of Audrey and for her too, cause she will never remember this time in her life- and how delightful she is, and how well adjusted she is to her situation- So this is for you Audball, your perseverance is to be commended and in 17 days... we will be at Disney and your leg will be free to play, and swim, and whatever else your tough little spirit wants it to do! You are much loved.
"Afghan officials say a suicide bomber has killed more than 33 people at an Afghan army recruiting center." This was what was scrolling beneath some of the pictures of the devastation that is now Japan while I was watching CNN on Sunday.
I watched the pictures stream by of the people in Japan wandering dazed, looking for loved ones or any trace of the life they once had and thought of how much they were suffering through no fault of their own- and then thought of all of the war torn parts of the world that keep on fighting, destroying and killing by choice and it just seemed ludicrous. It's comparable to one person barely holding onto life and a healthy person committing suicide. One person throwing away food while another one starves- it just doesn't make sense.
I started writing this a few days ago and I didn't quite know where to go with it so I put it off. Today I was trying again to find a direction other than the obvious being irony, so I looked up out of curiosity how many countries on this planet are at war in one way or another and now I am even more baffled.
We hear a lot about Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and the other high profile war zones, but smaller ones, like The Ivory Coast sort of get swallowed up and forgotten, at least by part time payers of attention like me. However according to Wikipedia, in this century alone, 6 major wars have been started and 11 other conflicts. (major wars are those resulting in 10,000 + deaths per year and other conflicts are less than 10,000 deaths per year)
So I sit here still scratching my head wondering where my point is, and all I can think is, I'm pretty sure that the countries that have been bombarded with natural disasters in recent years, had so many lives lost and the land left in utter chaos, would have preferred not to have had such suffering. Then I am forced to wonder why the countries that bring it upon themselves to kill and leave their land in chaos can't realize how lucky they really are to not be burdened with nature being so destructive and subsequently figure out a way to end their conflict.
I guess what it really boils down to is I am just too simple minded to understand these things, and maybe I am better off staying that way.
What's left when we run out of words like appalling, mind boggling, deplorable, despicable, unconscionable, unethical and immoral? That's a question I have been asking myself most of this afternoon after I received some very unsettling news.
My daughter-in-law, Casey, her mother has a friend who early last winter (2010) was diagnosed with a late stage cancer. I don't know the details other than it's a tumor on his spine. Since his diagnoses, Casey's mother has been this mans Florence Nightingale. She has gone way out of her way to take care of him, transporting him to all of his appointments, never leaving his side and being the kind of friend that everyone would want to have in his situation.
Again, I don't know many details of this mans cancer. I have met him twice, once at Christmas when he appeared frail, and again at Audrey's birthday party when he appeared much worse. I do know that in the six weeks or so between those meetings he had undergone chemotherapy. I also know that he has been preparing for surgery to try to remove the tumor, and also, apparently, there is a narrow window of opportunity for this surgery after the chemotherapy, but what I didn't know until today is that his surgery has been postponed- twice.
I didn't know about the first scheduled (and subsequently postponed) surgery, but I did know that this Tuesday (tomorrow) he was due to have the tumor removed, then Casey told me this afternoon that the surgery had been postponed. The more Casey told me about the ordeal of his surgery, the more outraged I became. Here is a person who is essentially a stranger to me yet I was coming to realize the severity of the emotional roller coaster he is on, and that his circumstances could happen to anyone. Here is the story:
It seems that this man has essentially made all of his final arrangements fearing he would not survive this surgery. His family from out of state had come to Maine to be at his side, Caseys mom had taken several days off of work and he spent all day today at the hospital having last minute tests and preregistering and whatever else he needed to do pre surgery tomorrow. He has been worried and scared for weeks and trying his best to have the strength just to go on with life until his surgery, however, when he got home from the tests etc today, he had a message stating that the doctor who was performing the surgery was not going to be able to make it. No explaination was given, just some voice saying that they would schedule him an appointment, in two weeks, to schedule another surgey. Now, if that is not bad enough, this is the second time this has happened and the narrow window of time between the chemo and the surgery is running out.
I think anyone in this situation would be outraged, if they had the strength to be. I don't think this man does. Luckily he does has Casey's mom to fight for him but since she is not family and does not have power of attorney etc she is limited as to what she can do.
If all of this isn't bad enough, the story went on to include that this man has never been comfortable with his doctor. He asked to see someone else and for what ever reason he wasn't able to. When the first surgery was postponed he asked that another surgeon perform it and he was told that "doctors don't clean up other doctors messes". I wonder, where, is that statement in their code of ethics? Unbelievable.
I realize that I have only heard what Casey has told me, and I realize that Casey has only heard what her mom has told her, and maybe there is a lot more to the story but regardless, the bottom line is that a man is dying, his window is expiring, and he appears to have a very callous doctor who is doing more harm than good. I know that Caseys mom will do all she can to help. I know that he is trying to find alternatives, resources and advocates to help him with with his issues and urgency. What I don't know is why in the world in the greatest country on Earth, something like this even happens. Plus, if it happens to someone in my very small circle of acquaintances I shudder to think of the actual magnitude of the problem. It's scary.
Warning: this is long and not well written- I can't face working on it anymore but I started it, and I needed to finish it.
I can't. I just can't.
Back in 2007 the love of my life wandered back in and to say the least I was grateful. We had known each other for 23 years but we were never single at the same time- not until 2007 when he called me out of the blue.
There are no words that can express the emotions I went through over the next few months, I went from literally being on top of the world to the depths of hell and things will never be the same for me.
Rick and I went back a long long way. We met when I moved to Texas in 1984. I was a young dispatcher, he was a young policeman. He had just gotten married, I got married shortly there after- in the years that followed we wished we had met each other sooner. Rick and I didn't have an affair. It was more than that. It was a deep emotionally rooted connection and taboo friendship filled with what if's and fantasies. Eventually we began to meet on the sly, we loved each other, we talked for hours and hours on the phone, but we never once touched each other. That was a boundary we just never felt we needed to cross, our relationship and commitments to our families meant more than that.
It was right before Haley and Casey's wedding when he called and as soon as I heard his voice I was immediately back in love with him. I felt as though the time lords had picked that moment because anything sooner wouldn't have given me the independence that I was about to have. We spent many, many hours on the phone reminiscing about the past, dreaming about the future, grateful for the present.
Once the wedding was over, I worked non stop overtime to be able to fly to Austin to see him. It had been 8 years since I had seen him last and I still recognized him, from even a distance just from the way he walked. We were for once, allowed to be in love. My days in Austin were wonderful. We spent most of our time at his house, talking, catching up- being as though this was the first time we had ever known each other as single people, and I had never been where he lived before, and I wasn't in Austin to be entertained, I just wanted to be with him. Being there was a little weird, but comfortable too, at long last I was content, just to be.
I did want to see Jenny while I was in Texas though, so we made plans to meet her and Xavier at the Riverwalk in San Antonio to eat and hang out. Rick was short on cash so I gave him $100 so he could pay and not feel like a yutz. I didn't think anything about it. No big deal.
I was only with Rick for about 3 days yet the thought of leaving was overwhelmingly sad. I remembering sitting across from him staring at him, and telling him I was trying to memorize everything about him because the thought of leaving and not being with him anymore was just killing me. Finally, I suggested that I go home long enough to work some more OT and then come back in a month or so. We mutually agreed, and that's exactly what I did. I think during that time in the spring of 2007, was the first in my life that I have ever been accused of glowing.
Rick and I talked on the phone daily and after a few weeks, we were talking about him moving to Maine to be with me. I had no desire to move back to Texas permanently, plus I had a house and he didn't, so it seemed the best option and he was all for it. Additionally, he is retired and makes a good sum of money, so it didn't really matter where he lived. I felt as though all of my years of various suffering and hell were about to be repaid with a wonderful future and he sid he felt the same way.
One day during our phone call he said that he was a bit embarrassed for me to come back to Texas because he was broke and he needed to register his car and get new tires for it. He said after he did that he would have no money to spend on me during my visit. I assured him that I didn't need to be entertained, that I was content just to be there, but he said he still felt bad about it. Well, I had already bought the plane ticket, plus, I would be devastated not to return to Austin so he said if I would loan him $600, he could get his car taken care of and then pay me back later in the month. I didn't even hesitate, I sent him a check on May 4th, he cashed it on May 7th.
By the end of May I was back in Austin. I think I was there for 4 days. We spent three of those days shopping for wedding rings and making plans to get married. I did not have one single second thought about that except that he seemed like he was a little too preoccupied by his ex wife sometimes- I asked him about it though and he assured me he wanted nothing to do with her, so I let it go.. and while it was a big step to be planning to get married, it wasn't like he was a stranger, or even a new relationship, he was someone I had known for years and had quietly been waiting for, for most of my life. It was very exciting!
Since we were planning on this life commitment, I thought I should at least meet his grown son while I was in Texas. The Spurs happened to be having a play off game in San Antonio and we decided that would be a fun thing for all of us to do, plus I wanted to see Jenny and Xavier again too so we all agreed to go. The tickets cost me over $350, and I gave Rick another $100 in cash so he wouldn't feel like a yutz and he could buy us dinner afterward.
In any other situation I would never have been so free with my money. After all it took a lot of overtime to earn it, but I trusted him completely and the fact that he had half of his apartment packed by the time I had returned back to Austin was a good indication that he really was planning to move to Maine to be with me. We talked about that extensively. We knew how hard the adjustment would be for everyone, but we were so happy to have the chance to be together that we were willing to do whatever it took.
I left Austin in late May, and for the first time I didn't cry when I got on the plane. I left another check for $600 in his car so he could pick up our rings that we had ordered from James Avery. The plan was that in a month I would return back to Texas and we would drive to Maine together with his stuff, so I knew I wasn't saying good bye for very long! The plans we had made were going to make life fantastic! Plus, I was going to be very busy in between these trips. I had taken pictures of all of his furniture and things he planned to bring to Maine just so I could start making room for them when I got home! The time was going to fly.
Once home, a day or two went by when he didn't call. I wasn't even concerned with that- I trusted him unconditionally and figured he was just as busy as I was. But in a matter of days the phone calls became fewer, shorter, and less enthusiastic. I asked him over and over again what was wrong. All he would say is that he was having second thoughts about moving and as much as I didn't like to hear that, I did understand it. It was a big, big step. I told him we could slow down- we could just go back and forth for visits, I encouraged him to come to Maine to visit before making the commitment but nothing seemed to console him. We went emotionally back and forth and had ups and downs over the next few weeks. When it came time for me to make a third trip to Texas it was obvious that he did not want me to. I was completely devastated.
I couldn't understand anything anymore. It was all I could do to make it to work everyday, I was beyond being able to even function. I had no idea how things had managed to change so rapidly and he wasn't telling me anything. One day I saw he was on line, I emailed him and then started chatting with him but he was not writing back. Then I got a chat message "I just got another one, I have to get moved FAST" I questioned what that meant and demanded he answer me. He made up some idiotic explanation, but I knew what it meant. I knew the "I just got another one" was referring to the email I had sent and the "I have to get moved FAST" meant he was in fact moving from his apartment, but it was not to come to Maine - or to be with me at all. The chat message he had sent me was a mistake, it was intended for... his ex wife. Then he changed his messenger avatar to a picture of him and her.
A part of my soul withered up and died that day. I realized, at least deep on the inside, that for some reason all of this had been a game to him. Just a game. I wrote a lot of poetry about it. I made myself a written plan of how to survive it, and I put a stop payment on the last check I had given him. Within a week or so I wrote him a letter asking for the repayment of the original $600 I had sent him. I mailed a copy of the canceled check with it. It was returned to me as "moved left no address". It was then that I decided that all of the other things I had done financially, buying plane tickets and all of the other expenses associated with traveling, the yutz money I had given him- all of that was my own choice, but the $600 he had asked me for and said would be paid back, was a mutual agreement. I told myself I would not rest until I had that money back.
I have done somethings that I am not proud of in the attempts to get that money back, including writing this blog. But here it is going on 4 years later and I still don't have it. And it's not like Rick and I have not talked during the last 4 years! Every few months he will call and tell me how much of a mistake he made by going back to his ex wife,(it only lasted a couple of months) how he has always loved me, how he will make things right between us. Each time he calls or emails he asks if he can come and live with me and at first I told him that we had way too many issues to work out before an arrangement like that could be made, but in time, I just decided to play along with him- after-all, it's easy to make a promise that you know you will never have to keep.
However, all along, in the back of my head, all I wanted was that $600 back and I would stop at nothing to get it..if it meant playing the game, then so be it. By December of 2010 we were talking on line quite often and on the phone sometimes. It honestly still hurt me to hear his voice, to face what could have been- mostly it hurt me that all of my fantasies of him that amounted to more than half of my life were all proven to be a lie, but by January he agreed to pay back the $600. The next day he changed it to February. Actually, I didn't care, I just wanted it in writing. (Prior to that he had claimed he had no recollection of ever having borrowed the money, or that he never cashed the check. He still had the ring check I had put a stop payment on and used that as evidence to back his story that he had never cashed it. He was unwilling to admit that there were 2 different checks)
By the end of January, we were on the outs again, be it karma or something subliminal I sent him by accident a message intended for someone else saying that he had finally agreed to pay back the money. We have not spoken since then except for a chat message that was beyond comprehension and ended with him writing BRB on January 27. Needless to say, it is mid March and I still don't have the money and I am getting ruthless.
In my life, I have lost a lot of loves. Some I never think of, some I still mourn, but Rick is the only one I can say I truly hate. I hate what we became, I hate what my memory of him became and I hate myself for what I became because of him. It's not even about the money- the money is just the fuel of the flames, what feeds the hatred- I want to have no feelings for him whatsoever but I have it programmed into my entire being that I can never be free of him as long as he owes me that $600.
I am not trying to hold on to him- I am trying to rid myself of him and in my mind, him returning that money is the only way I will be free. I wonder to myself all of the time, was $600 really worth it to him to cause so much pain, to lie to me and steal from me and use me? Me? Someone he had known for more than two decades? More importantly, I wonder to myself if $600 is really worth it to me to continue to have to dwell on his betrayal? I know that answer, I just don't know how to move on.
I have on the low ceiling that runs the length of my stairs, a chalk board. It's actually chalkboard paint and people leave messages there sometimes but mostly I use it for a countdown to our next Disney trip. It now reads 23 days,
With things being as they were, a brand new grand baby and me being unemployed, life and finances haven't allowed us to go since September of 2009 when we went for Halloween and let me say that we are all feeling way overdue. So it was sometime last summer that we decided to set our sights for April 2011, after we had our taxes back and to be at Disney World for Haley and Casey's 4th anniversary.
As it turned out, we had been able to accumulate enough points to use our Disney time share and procured reservations at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, a resort that we have not been too before. The countdown on the chalkboard had begun!
Now, unless you have traveled with me, read my blogs from a couple of years ago or sat next to me while I made plans, you have no idea how much effort I put into our Disney vacations. It may seem a bit overdone, but a Disney World vacation is not a fly by the seat of your pants type of event for me. Restaurant reservations fill up months in advance, and the park hours aren't always the same, Extra Magic Hours are a fringe benefit for staying on Disney property and need to be taken advantage of- all of that on top of picking the perfect plane reservations and making sure we have travel arrangements to get to the resort from the airport- well, someone has to do it.
I work on these details for months, and once everything is in line I print off little cheat cards for all of us attending so that we know where we are eating each day, and when, and at what park, and I make sure all of those times coordinate with the Extra Magic Hours which I of course highlight with the park hours... I also make sure everyone has a copy of our reservation information, our airline information and reservations, and phone numbers ... and I even print off copies of the menu's of the places we are eating so we can look them over on the plane! OK, the menu thing is just for fun but the other stuff is necessary information- the only thing not necessary seems to be making everyone else a copy because inevitably, every single day, someone asks, where are we eating? What time are we eating? When are the Extra Magic Hours? What park are we going to today? What time does the plane leave? Oh well, makes me feel needed!
Of course all of that planning and organization is just the beginning. I, for myself anyway, have to make sure I have enough money left for the $12 a day it costs to park at the airport... and the $10 a day for the kennel Sid will have to stay in.. but all of this is clearly labeled in my special Disney wallet in separate little compartments, with tabs that say things like: tips, misc, spending, gas....
Packing is something I also take very seriously. I am not a day before the vacation packer. I am a months before the vacation packer- when it comes to Disney, I unpack and repack to make sure I have absolutely everything I might need (though I admit, I have whittled down how many pairs of shoes I take now!) But I am the one that everyone is going to ask... did you bring any __________ and most likely I am able to retrieve it, be it nail clippers, AA batteries, bandaids... whatever, I am the one to have it.
So, as you can imagine, with only 23 days to go I am feeling the excitement and the fatigue of crossing the last minute things to do off of my list. It drives me crazy that I can't pack my cell phone charger till the last minute, or my camera, and to make it even worse, I ordered an anniversary present for the kids and it isn't here yet so I have to keep a spot open in my suitcase for when ever it gets here! (and if you dare wonder about things a toothbrush, shampoo, etc- I have travel sizes of that stuff- it has been packed for a over a month along with a can of coffee, coffee filters, sugar and creamer)
Maybe I do overdue it, maybe I do live up to my self description that I have to plan to be spontaneous, but I'll tell you what... we are never the ones standing in front of a restaurant waiting for hours because we don't have a reservation and when everyone else says "we aren't going to need an umbrella" luckily, I have brought several.
23 days, 12 hours now!
Once upon a time, when I was very first using the internet in 1998 or so, I took a quiz promising to match me up with the perfect car to suit my needs. The answer was the Isuzu Amigo.
The Amigo really did have it all. It's a convertible, but it's also capable of towing small trailers and especially, a small camper. I took the internet quiz just for fun, but I never forgot the result.
Several years later one of the officers at work showed up with his new to him, Isuzu Amigo. It was a 1998 and I told him from day one that if he ever wanted to sell it to give me first dibs. It was many, many years later when he did. Luckily for me it was the exact same time that I had parked the rolling terrarium and was pretty much relying on borrowing cars to get to work and back. I scooped it up immediately. That was in 2005.
By 2005 Jenny had already come to live with me and was on her way to moving back to Texas, Casey was already living with Haley and I, and her and Haley were graduating from high school. Being a 2 door that rides like a truck the Amigo may not have been a perfect family car, but at the stage of my life I was in it was perfect for me.
The Amigo came with very little problems. The A/C needed to be recharged and the 02 sensor needed to be replaced, but other than that it was perfect. The top wasn't electric like I was used to, and it required some effort to put up and down. The Amigo had few frills, no electric windows or door locks (thank God!) but heck, it was a good multi purpose vehicle that wasn't a piece of crap and I was happy to have it.
Naturally I got it vanity plates right away and for my birthday my parents bought me the trailer hitch, so as far as I was concerned I was vehicularly contented. Until winter came. It drove terribly in the snow. I got stuck everywhere I went even while hauling around a couple of hundred pound bags of sand in the back. However, by the next winter I had scored a good deal on some brand new studded snow tires and then my one complaint with the Amigo was resolved.
The Amigo has not been 100% trouble free. It has needed exhaust work several times and as an Isuzu exhaust is expensive, mine keeps getting pieced back together at least until there is nothing left to piece anymore. The headlights abruptly quit on it one night too and it needed a switch replaced which involved dismantling a whole bunch of stuff (the radio has not worked since??) to repair them. Oh, and one time while someone else was driving it, one of the windows was not secured properly and it blew away never to be seen again. (Haley and Casey bought me a new top for it for my birthday as it was cheaper to buy a new top than just the one window!) AND, lets not forget the windshield wiper issue. They quit working in 2009 during the time I was traveling 100 miles a week to the doctors office and coincidentally the rainiest spring ever, anywhere! But I have to say that all of that was over the span of 4 years and really, I never had anything to legitimately complain about.
The worst it has suffered though was when it made contact with some ass darting across the road in a snowmobile and I hit him. Yes, I am glad I didn't kill the guy, but it did so much damage to the Amigo that the insurance company wanted to declare it totaled. I declined that suggestion and subsequently I drove around with the bumper hanging off until I finally finished it off with a Sawzall. It also received a couple of dents so it's not completely perfectly pretty anymore, but- it's all I have. Almost.
Last fall it started making a new noise and it worried me that something was about to go horribly wrong. By now I was transporting Audrey somewhat and I was concerned about the reliability of the Amigo. Luckily mom and dad had just acquired a Chevy Tracker and they were leaving for the winter anyway, so they let me take the Tracker and I have been driving it ever since. I parked the Amigo across the street from my house in a public lot (for plowing purposes) and reluctantly (and with zero effort) put a for sale sign on it. It was a really hard decision. The thing is, I still like the Amigo! I feel bad that it is sitting across the street and as much as a brand new car would be wonderful, it's not realistic and honestly, I would just as soon have the Amigo.
So, the for sale sign is still on it but only because I have not gone over to remove it. It is covered with snow anyway. I have decided that if I were to sell it before I was able to buy something new and comparable (it could only be a Jeep Cherokee or a Chevy SSR !) I would end up regretting it like I do selling the Geo Metro so many years ago. They don't make the Isuzu Amigo anymore either and all and all it has been a good car, the problems it has had are not far fetched for something 13 years old. Plus, I am not planning on driving across country like I used to do, so I am leaning toward sinking about a thousand dollars into it to fix it's noise (turned out to be another exhaust break) do some body work, get a new radio, finally charge the A/C and maybe get a new O2 sensor, and it needs a really good cleaning- then hopefully I can keep it for another _____ years.
The Isuzu Amigo, the convertible that can tow a camper, voted the perfect car for me by the 1998 internet survey. Who am I to argue with that?
So this was what I bought to replace the Geo Metro convertible. It is a 1994 Z24 and aside from it being a Chevy and a 6 cylinder, it was identical to the blue Pontiac Sunbird that had started my convertible obsession.
This car was beautiful, when the top was down. However being 9 years old or so when I bought it, it was surely due for a new top and had I had it longer than I did I would have bought it one. This car though, was nothing but trouble.
Oh it looked good alright and when people unfamiliar with it drove it they always squealed the tires because it had way more power than they expected it to- but it was a piece of shit from day 31 of owning it. Why day 31? Because it had a 30 day warranty on it, of course.
On day 31 of my ownership of the Z24, I found I had very limited gears. As I recall, first, fourth and reverse were the only ones left working. The place I had bought the car from agreed to split the cost of a new transmission with me 50/50 and while not happy with the offer, I decided it was better than 0/100. Unfortunately, the new transmission lacked a few gears too and they ended up installing yet another one. I think I was without my new car for at least a couple of weeks...
Not long after the transmission was replaced I found out that the car needed significant front end work. I can't even remember what it was but I remember the cost of it being over $700. Every time I sunk money into the car I tried to convince myself that I was finally over a hump and the car would be good to go from that point on. I never reached that point. The farthest I ever drove the car was to Salem, Massachusetts for Haunted Happenings in 2003 and 2004. I would not have trusted it to go any more distance than that.
I did decorate it cute though- since it was a Cavalier I had graphics made for it of Don Quixote and I had vanity plates that read DULCNEA, but that was really the best part of the car.
Haley got his drivers license while I owned the Z24 and he somehow managed to get the front fender hung up on something and semi detached it from the car..... and he had a couple of experiences in it that involved law enforcement, but I won't go into those details. As for me, I developed a substantial pet peeve with the malfunctioning automatic door locks. I recall one day getting locked out of the car, having to go to Waterville to the Chevy dealer to have a spare key made, coming home and getting into the car, only to leave the spare key in there and get locked out of it AGAIN. Plus, it had LoJack on it and if for instance the battery died in the disarm button... well, you could not start the car. Oh, and sometimes even with a fresh battery you still couldn't start the car- it was a massive inconvenience to say the least.
It was early summer of 2005 that the car met a new demise. It was a convertible that had an actual glass rear window and an obstruction while putting the top down caused that window to shatter into at least a gazillion pieces. Since that window was fabricated into the top, it was going to be an unfathomable amount of money to fix it. Naturally I didn't have any left for that car, and resorted to velcro and clear plastic to solve the problem. However it leaked so badly when it rained that there isn't even a word to describe it, and with a leather interior, the car began turning into a rolling terrarium.
All things considered and with more and more mechanical problems creeping up everyday, and a good opportunity to buy something better, I parked the Z24 in my parents yard and covered it with a tarp for the winter intent on making a decision about it the following year. When spring came and the tarp was removed from the car, there was an entire new eco system growing inside it. The white leather was green and fuzzy, it smelled like a dirty swimming pool. I recall trying to scrape moss off of the steering wheel with my debit card before actually touching it- and when one of Haleys friends offered a hundred bucks for it, I was happy to see it removed before it became an official bio hazard.
Hasta la vista, baby.
After moving back to Maine in 1997 and working about 45 miles from home, I was finding that my mini van was using more gas every month than a car payment, so I started thinking about getting a commuter car.
As luck would have it, one winter day I checked the autos for sale section in the paper and found one of the dealers in Waterville was having a sale (ending that day naturally) and one of the cars they had advertised was none other than a 1990 Geo Metro convertible. It was $1995 if I bought it right that second and since I happened to be in possession of my moms credit card... well, she had to come over and sign something but other than that I was finally getting the Geo Metro I had wanted 7 years earlier!
This little 2 seater turned out to be an excellent car and Haley and I had many adventures in it, and at 50 MPG why not? It was 1999 or maybe 2000 when we drove it to Kentucky for a whopping $20 in gas. (At the time gas was .99 a gallon but to be able to say we drove from Maine to Kentucky for $20 is just plain impressive!) We drove it to Pennsylvania too, and to Niagara Falls, and all over Vermont... we even got to sleep in it at the Brattleboro, VT police department parking lot because Motel 6 had screwed up our reservation and there were no rooms available anywhere! It wasn't exactly comfortable to sleep in, after all it was Haley, me and our little poodle/lhasa apso, Winnie, plus a couple of weeks worth of clothing and the necessities necessary for an over packer like me... but the point is, it was a great commuter car and a great traveling car and it was cute and troublefree!
I don't remember exactly what year it was when I first found a Hot Wheels Mazda Miata with graphics all over it resembling a pace car, but I knew I wanted to duplicate it on my Geo Metro. I spent hours and hours designing graphics, studying that Hot Wheel, and ordering from one company after another until I got everything just right. Eventually my car took on the persona of the Hot Wheel and it was definitely an attention grabber, and I needed that at the time.
That poor Geo had it's share of mishaps during my ownership unfortunately. One winter a couple of co workers borrowed it and put the top down which broke the plastic rear window- the winter of 2000 it was parked too close (apparently) to the end of my driveway and the plows banked snow all over it and it froze to the driveway. It was spring before I could move it. I really can't recall how it got the huge crease in the drivers side door and can't remember exactly when I came home from work and found the note "Dear Mom, By now you have seen the Geo..." It must have been in 2002? Maybe? But it seems a certain son of mine had been messing around in the driveway on his 4 wheeler and long story short, it was somehow launched onto the hood of the Geo causing advanced damage. With the inspection about to expire and no money for a new hood, I never really drove the Geo after that. Luckily, I still had the mini van. (incidentally, owning a mini van and a tiny convertible prompted people to say I went from one extreme to another... which prompted me to get vanity plates, the van had 1XTREME and the Geo had 2ANOTHR, they only made sense to people who knew me or when they were parked side by side!)
After a few months of it sitting with a smashed up hood me trying to replace it myself, my brother did take it to his house/autobody shop and after a year it had a new hood, but somehow while there, the frame for the top ended up getting broken. I don't know how it happened- no one ever confessed but someone had tried to screw a couple of pieces of it back together and I noticed it right away. Plus after a year of no use, it needed new tires, and to be registered and inspected and frankly, I had needed another car to drive during it's down time so around 2003 I replaced the decals on the new hood and put a for sale sign on it. It sold right away to a guy passing by who had a pocket full of cash from having just sold a cow.
I try not to have a lot of regrets in my life, I do what I have to do at the time, but selling the Geo is something that I have never been content with. Mechanically it was perfect and in retrospect it would have cost me a lot less money to put it back on the road than it did to maintain the new car I had bought. They only made those little convertibles for 2 years I think, I very rarely ever see one anymore and last year it would have been 20 years old. So yeah, I have often said I wish I still had it.... but.... I hope I at least did something pleasant with the money I got from selling it. Sniff.
I wasn't even thinking about it being Saint Patricks day until I was looking for something to wear to the dentist office and then realized it needed to be green!
