bullet point mania

• I'm moving soon - moving back in wiz mum. We're going to find a nice big house with no or few steps (Claire, you'll be pleased to know that at the moment am fixated on Stanmore) with a space for me to write in and where I can get a cat!
• Mum has to have a knee replacement (part of the reason we're going to live together again and why the house has to have few or no steps), and it is becoming more urgent that she have the surgery and it's a Really Big Scary Thing. Also expensive.
• To that end, we have had an incredible windfall. My dad is coming through and giving/lending (not sure which yet) us a considerable amount of money so mum can have the surgery and we can move as soon as possible. Yay dad!
• Some lovely friends who may not wish to be named (not Voldemort) are going overseas and have come to an arrangement whereby mum and I can buy their car from them and take a year to pay for it! Hooooray.
  
• God rocks. When he answers prayer, he really answers it.

This was going to be a longer post with all sorts of things in it, but I think that's enough for now. Lots of good stuff.

things for a rainy Monday

• Almost had a car accident this morning as I was pulling out of my parking space. Checked that there was no one coming and as I pulled out, there was suddenly this black Lexus right behind me, beeping me and glaring at me as he overtook me. Either he had his cloaking device activated, or very effective camouflage because I seriously didn't see him. And who drives a black car without their headlights on in thunderstorm weather like this? Huh? Grr.
  
  
• It's absolutely pouring here, and hailing intermittently. I love it.
  
  
• Mum is organising a group from our church to go to Women's Convention in September and the original house she was going to book has fallen through, but she found somewhere that looks much nicer. I said we ought to make it a spoily women's weekend away so that we have the wonderful talks from the convention but also get to eat lots of chocolate and lovely food and have spas and all that. So I might start thinking of yummy things to cook...I'm quite looking forward to it! The only thing I think is ironic is that we'll be staying in somewhere called 'Bodhi Grove' whilst going to a Christian convention. But as 'bodhi' simply means enlightenment I reckon we can commandeer it and have an enlightening weekend in a non-Buddhist way :)
  
  
• Jess was very sweet and bought me a croissant this morning because I had been too disorganised to eat breakfast before I left the house. Also I haven't done groceries for about three weeks now so there's not much in the way of readily edible food (requiring little preparation, I mean).
  
  
• I need more coffee.
  

the lights come on for a reason

The more I think about it, the more shocked I am at the fact that the car had no brake fluid. When I told Angelo at the garage that I'd driven to Katoomba in the Kitty Kar his face dropped and he looked absolutely appalled.

Dad loaned me this car in December and said it had recently been serviced (I now realise he said this probably just to appease me and not because it was actually true or anything). There was a dashboard light that said 'brake' that was permanently on; when I questioned him about it he said, "Oh, that doesn't mean anything, it's just an old car." YES IT DID MEAN SOMETHING!!! IT MEANT THE BRAKES WEREN'T WORKING!!!!!

When I think about how close to death I've been this whole time I just breathe a prayer of thanks and a sigh of relief...it's obvious I'm still meant to be around!

the slow inexorable demise of the kitty car

So the NRMA guy came yesterday and discovered there were more serious problems than a flat battery, "which was probably cos you left something on" (I hadn't, but he obviously felt, as a male mechanic, it was in his job description to patronise me). There is a leak in the radiator cooling system and a loose alternator belt, so the car is in danger of overheating at any given moment and also the battery isn't charging properly.

So I took it to Angelo at Kingsford Garage this morning and he promptly fixed those problems. But when he rang to tell me he'd fixed them, he said "I've just discovered something even more serious - you have no brake fluid." Apparently there is also a leak in the brake-fluid-containment-thingy. Which is going to cost a few hundred dollars to fix.

I knew there was a reason I didn't own a car...they are money-suckers. But in actual fact, if I had bought a car for myself, I probably would have done a bit of research and bought something that was made in the last decade that would be unlikely to have all these kind of old-age problems.

I'm just grateful the car held out while I was up at Katoomba and I didn't get stranded on a highway somewhere!

Kitty Kar

i forgot to say - i have a car! well, kind of. dad bought an old bomb while he was in town recently rather than renting a car (as you do), and when he left he entrusted it into my care.

here is the 1984 nissan skyline i am now tooling around in - it's 8 years younger than me!


(actually on the back it says datsun nissan skyline so either they were in the middle of a name change or they couldn't make up their minds)

it has a top of the line sound system and interior detailing:


i enquired as to whether it was worth getting the air conditioning repaired. the auto electrician told me that the coolant used by these cars was banned in 1994 and it would cost at least $295 to convert the system. i decided fresh air is a wonderful thing.

but the best feature by far of this car is its seat covers:




it also takes leaded petrol, which is, of course, banned. so you have to fill it up with unleaded and then add this lead substitute or something to the tank. the wheel alignment seems a bit dodgy and my father warned me to take it easy in the wet because the back wheels have a tendency to spin out and the car goes sideways. by all rights this car probably shouldn't be allowed to exist.

but i am once again mobile! watch out, world!