Having already input today’s report, once, and having lost it to the goddess of electrons, perhaps this will read a bit dis-jointedly. More so than usual. This week has had its joys and its sorrows and all-in-all has been a busy one. Monday morning was Nick’s retirement party at which I was fortunate enough to see several friends of many-years’ standing from work. Sadly, I could only stay for the first 30 minutes as the wife of another friend was being buried that morning. The two had been married for more than 50 years. Fortunately, Larry had retired (after 51 years with the company) in time to spend nearly 2 years at home with Betty. There were several more friends of many-years’ standing in attendance.
Monday afternoon, following our workout at the DRC, Elegant Friend (EF) and I discovered that my car had a problem. At first, I thought that I had flooded the engine—I could smell gasoline; but, we sat in the shade for 10-15 minutes (with a carburetor I know how to speed up the process, but I had no idea what to do with fuel injection!) and it still wouldn’t start. A young friend who works at the DRC volunteered to try to start it for me, to no avail, but when he decided to try to push the car out of the parking slot so that he could push us off down-hill (and I was to pop the clutch to start the engine) he noticed a small amount of gasoline on the pavement at the front end. I called my car guy (Clint—at Davis-Moore) who said that I should call Lincoln’s Roadside Service. Roadside Service said that I needed to get a statement from the fire/police department that it was safe to tow the car. OK. I called the non-emergency number for the fire department and was immediately surrounded by 2 pickups, 1 car, 1 ladder truck (that had arrived with lights blazing and siren sounding), and 5-8 volunteer firement—some of whom knew me and most of whom knew EF. After standing around chatting for a few minutes, they assured me that as long as the fuel pump wasn’t “on”, it would be safe to tow the car. About 45 minutes after I, again, called Roadside Service, a flatbed truck arrived and my poor little LS was ignominiously winched onto the truck bed, ass-end forward. How humiliating for it!
Bright and early Tuesday morning, Clint called to tell me that he was sending a taxi to pick me up (Hunky Husband is working the problems left by Hurricane Charley in the Tampa FL area) so that I could take delivery of my car. They had to pull the wheel and fender skirt out and replace the coupling at the fuel filter. No charge. I had thought that the LS was out of warranty (it will be 4 years old in a couple of weeks), but, it isn’t so far. I got the car in plenty of time to meet Darrel and Ron (who both retired 1 ½ years before I did) and Stacy (still working) for lunch. We caught one another up on what’s happening in our lives.
Wednesday, after our workout at DRC, EF and I made like pioneer women: we canned. Salsa. We made two batches—one mild, one hot—and netted 13 pints apiece. Not bad for 4-5 hours’ work!
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