Moose Wednesday
Today I had a sick van. I had a feeling that it needed some work, but I had no idea to what extent. You see, it has been having some “steering issues”. You know, the type where you are going down the road and the car just veers off to one side and when you go to correct it, nothing happens. It can get kind of unnerving if you are headed towards a brick wall, or an oncoming car. So yesterday I took the thing in to get an oil change and had them look at the steering system to find out what the problem was. After some time I was informed that the inner tie rods were shot and that I probably needed to have my hubs tightened. I was then informed that after installing the new tie rods, I would have to have an alignment. No big deal, I was expecting the alignment.
Today the car is in the shop getting all it’s little “issues” fixed. After getting the inner tie rods replaced, the hubs tightened, and an alignment, I will still have to go looking for studded tires. Yes, I know, I know. I have been talking about this for quite some time, but I am a professional procrastinator. My motto is, “never do today what you can put off till tomorrow”. It seems to have worked relatively well so far, so I have no plans to change it. I also have another motto. It is, “everything in excess”. Together they make me an extreme procrastinator (I wonder if there is an ultimate sport for procrastinating?). In any case, it seems that we will be getting some snow next week. The snow is really not what bothers me. What is concerning me the most is the fact that the temperatures will be going in and out of the freezing range for several days. That tells me that the snow will be melting and then turning to ice. Ice is bad. I have enough problems steering a top heavy van on wet roads, much less on an ice skating rink without studded tires. So the words for the week are: Get studded tires.
After picking up the now fixed vehicle, I began to drive home. As I was driving I had a little chat with the van. We discussed that although it was an older van, it was very much liked and we wanted to keep it around for a while. To do this we needed to keep it out of the nasty shop where they suck money out of the owners wallets like a Hoover. I discussed the downside of being taken to a used car lot, or worse yet, a junk yard. I explained the process of dismantling and parting out cars, and how easy it was. I think my point was well made. I do not expect any more problems for quite some time.
Upon arriving home, I was happily greeted by Dianne. She informed me that Nick had made some new friends while I was gone. She asked me to guess who they could be. I guessed a tree, a cat, another dog, a ferret, a rabbit with a squirrel on its back riding bike. All wrong. She went on to tell me that while she was laying down reading a book, Nick decided to go out on the porch and began to bark. She told him to “cut it out”, but he just proceeded to bark louder than ever. Not being able to read her book while the dog barked constantly, she got up to see what he was barking at. As she pulled back the curtains, she was greeted with a smiling full grown moose staring her right in the face. She rushed Nick off the porch, and went back out to get a closer look (I think she was only 3 feet away the first time…). As she ventured out on the porch, she noticed that the moose had a baby in tow. She was now close enough that if she wanted to, she could have reached out and touched the mother moose. They both paid her no attention, and went about there quest for tasty leaves and twigs. Thankfully there was a railing between them that kept the moose and Dianne away from each other. All I would need is to come home and find that Dianne had adopted a stray moose and calf. As much as I enjoy walking Nick, I refuse to walk a moose at 3 in the morning.
After reliving a great moment in time that I missed, we decided to go get groceries. Just the normal everyday stuff. What would have taken me 10 minutes, took Dianne 45 (she has shopping issues…). On the way back home, as we were driving past a very small park that is right next to the road, what would we see? Another moose. This time it was a fully grown male with a gorgeous rack. He was just lazily grazing on the tasty tender grass. We went out later that night to see if we could find any more moose, but it seems that they all go to bed by about seven thirty. Either that, or there is a moose bar that I don’t know about…
Today the car is in the shop getting all it’s little “issues” fixed. After getting the inner tie rods replaced, the hubs tightened, and an alignment, I will still have to go looking for studded tires. Yes, I know, I know. I have been talking about this for quite some time, but I am a professional procrastinator. My motto is, “never do today what you can put off till tomorrow”. It seems to have worked relatively well so far, so I have no plans to change it. I also have another motto. It is, “everything in excess”. Together they make me an extreme procrastinator (I wonder if there is an ultimate sport for procrastinating?). In any case, it seems that we will be getting some snow next week. The snow is really not what bothers me. What is concerning me the most is the fact that the temperatures will be going in and out of the freezing range for several days. That tells me that the snow will be melting and then turning to ice. Ice is bad. I have enough problems steering a top heavy van on wet roads, much less on an ice skating rink without studded tires. So the words for the week are: Get studded tires.
After picking up the now fixed vehicle, I began to drive home. As I was driving I had a little chat with the van. We discussed that although it was an older van, it was very much liked and we wanted to keep it around for a while. To do this we needed to keep it out of the nasty shop where they suck money out of the owners wallets like a Hoover. I discussed the downside of being taken to a used car lot, or worse yet, a junk yard. I explained the process of dismantling and parting out cars, and how easy it was. I think my point was well made. I do not expect any more problems for quite some time.
Upon arriving home, I was happily greeted by Dianne. She informed me that Nick had made some new friends while I was gone. She asked me to guess who they could be. I guessed a tree, a cat, another dog, a ferret, a rabbit with a squirrel on its back riding bike. All wrong. She went on to tell me that while she was laying down reading a book, Nick decided to go out on the porch and began to bark. She told him to “cut it out”, but he just proceeded to bark louder than ever. Not being able to read her book while the dog barked constantly, she got up to see what he was barking at. As she pulled back the curtains, she was greeted with a smiling full grown moose staring her right in the face. She rushed Nick off the porch, and went back out to get a closer look (I think she was only 3 feet away the first time…). As she ventured out on the porch, she noticed that the moose had a baby in tow. She was now close enough that if she wanted to, she could have reached out and touched the mother moose. They both paid her no attention, and went about there quest for tasty leaves and twigs. Thankfully there was a railing between them that kept the moose and Dianne away from each other. All I would need is to come home and find that Dianne had adopted a stray moose and calf. As much as I enjoy walking Nick, I refuse to walk a moose at 3 in the morning.
After reliving a great moment in time that I missed, we decided to go get groceries. Just the normal everyday stuff. What would have taken me 10 minutes, took Dianne 45 (she has shopping issues…). On the way back home, as we were driving past a very small park that is right next to the road, what would we see? Another moose. This time it was a fully grown male with a gorgeous rack. He was just lazily grazing on the tasty tender grass. We went out later that night to see if we could find any more moose, but it seems that they all go to bed by about seven thirty. Either that, or there is a moose bar that I don’t know about…
posted by Glenn & Dianne | 11:21 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home