Soxanne posted photos of some of her family's Christmas ornaments a few days ago, and I am cheerfully and shamelessly stealing her idea. Feel free to do so yourself -- I'd love to see what y'all hang on your tree. Tell the associated stories, too (voyeur here).
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Thursday morning, 7:55 a.m. (yeah, the clock still thinks it is summer):
My morning adventure; let me tell you it.
Our cars are a bit scrambled. Smokey is driving my car to work every night this week because #2 son has his car because #2's car in in our pole barn awaiting installation of a part. Thursday morning I needed to go to a 9 a.m. meeting; Smokey said I should use Da Yeep (remember Da Yeep*?), just remember to shift it out of 4WD low range -- he had been plowing the driveway -- before I took it on the road. No problem, mon.
I knew that it would probably take me a few extra minutes to get to the meeting (15 minutes away) so I began bundling up 45 minutes early. Plenty of time.
Da Yeep has an annoying habit of draining the battery when it is parked more than a few hours. Smokey has tried unsuccessfully to find the cause and eventually put a switch on the battery to disconnect it when we park Da Yeep. In order to turn the switch on I needed to open the hood. No problem, I have dealt with this switch any number of times.
Oops. I have never attempted to open the hood when the snowplow is on the front of Da Vehicle. I was not strong enough to lift the hood at all when standing in front of the plow. When standing at the side I could -- just barely -- pull the hood latch behind the grill, and I could -- just barely -- lift the corner of the hood closest to me, but that twisted the hood enough to wedge the opposite corner. Grrr.
After several attempts I decided that if I wedged something under the closer edge after I unlatched it, I could then walk around to the other side and finish lifting the hood. The handle of a screwdriver did the trick. Go, me!
Now I am standing at the other front corner of Da Yeep holding up the hood with one hand and thinking, Oh great, I suppose the prop rod to hold it up is on the other side and I can't reach it.
But lo and behold, it was within reach! Yay!
I turned on the switch and pulled out the prop rod to drop the hood. Except that I couldn't pull out the prop rod. I had pushed it too far into the hole in the underside of the hood, thinking that I was being extra safe; visions of the hood dropping and taking off my arm had danced through my head, and I had congratulated myself on my Safety First! attitude.
I tugged and wiggled and cursed at that rod, but it wouldn't come loose. Back into the house (again) and up the stairs (again) for a hammer. Whacked that prop rod a good one and it came loose. ::fist pump::
Da Yeep started, albeit reluctantly, and I started up the driveway.
Oh, wait, gotta take it out of 4WD low range before I drive it at speed.
Shift lever Will.Not.Budge. I tried it in park, with my foot on the brake, with the engine on and with it off. Every combination of above. I may have whacked it with the hammer. Once again, I was not strong enough. Da Yeep is one butch vehicle.
So I drove to the meeting on the shoulder of the highway, max speed of 20 mph, with my four-way emergency flashers on. And was 25 minutes late for the meeting,
But I did get there in time to give a little moral support to a friend who was making a pitch to the county board personnel committee to allow employees to donate to the United Way through payroll deduction, which was my goal. Yay!
I was pretty amazed at my perseverance. When a car doesn't work, I tend to try one or two things and give up. Maybe I am [finally] growing up...
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Before it got so ungodly cold, I was having fun wearing these shoes with handknit socks.
Now I wear anything and everything that seems warm, and plastic shoes ain't it. Next spring...
* If you google "da yeep" I am the first hit. I'm famous!.
