Archive for Family Story
An Interesting Adventure!
Posted by: | CommentsSunday July 15th, I went down to New Mexico for the Sisters of Honua Grandmother’s Summit. I had cleaned all of the accumulated rubbish out of the car, had the oil changed, the fluids checked, bought new tires, got a wash and wax, and filled it up with gas. It was a wonderful (if a little too hot) day, with the clouds rolling across the blue bowl of sky and very light traffic. I love to take long drives with myself and I hadn’t had one in a long time. The road was smooth, the car road like a dream; though my gas got low quicker than usual since I was using the AC.
At Wagon Mound I stopped for gas and filled her up. Putting the trip gauge back to zero to see what kind of mpg I was getting, I wrote the mileage on the slip, and took off. Humming along the highway, going 80 on the 75 mpg road, the miles melted away as I got closer to Rowe, NM. I was going to spend the night at my friend Winnie’s home. She and I had met when I came to build a labyrinth on her land. She and her husband are truely self sufficient, no power lines go to their home. So I was looking forward to being out on their isolated piece of dessert paradise!
Suddenly there was a loud crack, bang noise! I had never heard anything like it before! Instantly I said to myself “You’ve just blown your engine!”. Then my ‘Carbaby’ began to shake and wobble on the road, and it took a lot of strength to keep her going in a straight line while I slowed down as quickly as safety permitted.
“Maybe I blew a tire?!” I said hopefully.
I was shaking, especially inside…a full adrenalin rush going through me. I turned the car off when I was as far off the road as I could get, rolled to a stop and I just sat there limp, gathering my wits. After breathing for a minute or so, and watching the steam lazily spiral out around the edges of the hood, I relaxed a little when that disappeared completely. Having lived in a dessert, the sunshades went up on the windshield immediately. Black topped convertible in 100 degree weather is a bit uncomfortable after awhile.
OK. Call AAA. Any bars on the cell phone?? Yes. Where am I? Oh yes…I’ve gone 14.3 miles south from the Wagon Mound exit. (So grateful I hit the trip button!)
“We’ll have the truck there in two hours or less.” Holy Heat!
I called Winnie so that she could meet me in Las Vegas, NM at the repair place. Then I sat there. Intermittently cars and trucks whizzed by at 80 or so miles per hour, rocking the car. I opened the windows despite the traffic noise to let a breeze in, and prayed for some more clouds to cover me. Sitting there dripping sweat, I realized that because of cell phones, no one stopped anymore for a car with blinkers on beside the road!
Now here’s the surprising thing – I felt no drama. I didn’t go into the future, and every time I started to, up came the “I don’t have enough information yet” statement. Wow! Have I come a long way! Instead of the old thoughts, I found myself saying “Isn’t this interesting! I wonder what will happen next?” I also hoped it would be soon as I was out of water!
An hour and a half later, I was delighted to find out the tow truck was a comfortable roomy double cab with air conditioning! The driver’s wife was with him, and we chatted while he loaded my car up. I snapped pictures of it through the rear window, wondering if she would be leaving my life altogether. I was so glad I’d cleaned her out! Only my camping gear, clothes, and give-aways for the Summit were in the car. We talked about where to take the car, and I voiced my doubt that a transmission place would be where I needed to go. That was the only suggestion AAA had. I went with the suggestion of the tow truck driver and found myself in the suburbs at a talented home mechanic.
He opened the hood and looked in. “I’ve only seen this a few times in my career!” He said. Then he started pulling walnut sized hunks of cast iron block out of the engine and showing me. The rod had punched a hole in the block. I knew that meant a rebuilt engine. Since I liked him immediately, I asked him to do a quote of rebuilt engine vs bluebook value of my car.
Then Winnie took me to her home! Ahhhhh!!! Nothing like relaxing in the wood fired hot tub, gazing up into a clear dark sky filled with a million stars, unclouded by light, haze or smog! I slept well that night.
After we walked the labyrinth in the morning and packed ourselves into Winnie’s jeep for our week at Taa-naash-kaa-da Sanctuary, we returned to the garage in the ‘burbs. James had my figures: bluebook value $2700.00; rebuilt engine and clutch (no sense doing the engine and not doing the clutch) $2700.00. I rounded it up to $3000.00 immediately. Something always comes up. I was pretty sure I wanted to rebuild the engine, and I also decided to think on it for the week I would be at Taa-naash-kaa-da.
Well, I just put 4 new tires on my car, a new battery, a new top…now a new engine and a clutch? Versus what kind of car I could get for the $3000.00? Hummmm…sounds like a no-brainer to me! 150,000 miles? For a Toyota Celica, that’s only half of its expected life! I said “James, fix it!”
My sisters at the Grandmothers Summit offered me four different rides home to Denver! My oldest daughter was also very generous and kind and immediately told me to go ahead and use her car while she was on vacation. However she came home Monday so I really need mine back. Time to ask James how long it will be.
OOPS! I don’t have his number because I had to get a new phone (the screen was not working right), and somehow it wasn’t on the SIM card?? I had called him on my old phone, but that one was gone. After a few attempts to get a message to James, or find the number on line, I finally used the yellow pages to find the tow truck driver. We talked a minute, then he asked if I was Kate Armstrong! When I confirmed this, he gave me his friend James number.
So I am tentatively planning to return to Las Vegas, NM mid month to get my car. The only ‘flies in the ointment’ are no short block available for my car until next week; and there is the Denver County Fair that I’m part of August 9th – 12th, so I can’t get back ‘on the road again’ until after the 13th. In the mean time let’s add winning the Publisher’s Clearing House money to my manifestation list! YAY!!
Robin Redbreast in Distress
Posted by: | CommentsYesterday my neighbor across the street called me up in the middle of the afternoon.
“You want to see something really bizarre? ” he said. “Well, maybe not bizarre…there’s a Robin caught in the apricot tree, would you come over and help me get her loose? She’s tangled up in some string.”
Of course I went right over after making sure I had a clean, soft cotton handkerchief in my pocket.
At first, I couldn’t see Ms Robin. (Yes, both of us called the Robin ‘she’, so…) Underneath the almost ripe apricots hanging here and there from the bowed branch, a large Robin was hanging with one leg hooked around a small dead twig. At first we thought she was pinned to the tree by the twig, her leg pierced at the joint.She was very quiet at the moment, panting heavily, her chest heaving and her eyes looking as if they were slightly bulging.
Then, detecting a new presence, she started to beat her wings as hard as possible, working herself off of the twig until she hung at another odd angle from the branch. Now I could see the very tiny string, more like a thread really, wound around both of her feet at the ankle, and wound around the small branch of the tree. It must have been a plastic fiber because even though it was very slender, she couldn’t free herself. Although no bigger than a decent sized cobweb strand, it just wouldn’t break no matter how hard she struggled.
Maybe we could lop off the branch and then untangle her? As my neighbor went to find pruners or something, I just kept watching Ms Robin, holding the handkerchief in my hand. I wanted to wrap her up in the cloth so that she would stop struggling. If I could hold her around the wings, then we could see what needed to be done without hurting her.
I started doing a little hummy noise under my breath and focused on carefully moving closer while she was trying to untangle herself. She was almost out of her mind already, so I just wanted to sooth her and calm her down. Suddenly she stopped moving and was hanging directly upside down under the branch.
I reached forward quickly with the handkerchief between my hands and surrounded her terrified little body. Her heart was beating like a trip-hammer, but she was quiet. I asked my friend for scissors as I tried to loosen the thread around her tough little ankles with my pinkies while waiting. I kept murmuring to her, hoping it would be a comfort, and praying it wasn’t making it worst.
My friend carefully snipped the tiny bits of super strong thread that held Ms Robin to the branch. Then he clipped what threads he could without cutting the leathery skin on her ankles and finally her feet were free! I walked out from under the overhanging branches of the apricot tree and gently tossed Robin up in the air. She made it to the top of the wooden fence next door in a couple of wing beats.
We watched her sit still, with her beak open, panting from the exertion and fright of being bound to a tree. A dish of water was set out close by, but not so close as to scare her further. After awhile, I went home. She wasn’t moving from that fence until she gathered her strength back and I didn’t want her to worry about my presence.
Blessings Robin! May you live long and prosper!
