Out with the Old and In with the … Slightly Used

My dad’s mother always used to say “honey, I am not taking all this with me. There is only so much you can fit in between 4 wooden boards!”. Ever since I can remember, her words have haunted me! You work, you buy, you buy some more, you accumulate, and then … it’s all left behind. Like a used sheet of paper in an old notebook, tear it out of the binding and leave it in a trash bin, only for the wind to come and pick it up … Wasted. Your life.

This ephemeral nature of things never prevents me from being attached to some of the possessions I have. My friends surely remember the psychosis I went through when I got rid of my “blue couch” and replaced it with a brand new one, in my then new condo. Yeah, I am a softy when it comes to saying “good bye” to things.

You might remember my teary departure from my Echo. I then replaced it a used Prius. And it’s time now, to say good bye to the Prius – only after 2 years. Although I had signed my soul out to Toyota, the Prius pretty much made me fall out of love with the make. Unlike other people, I am not really picking cars based on power, mileage, finishes, interior perks. I am mostly picking a car like I pick a house: does it feel like “home” in there? Do I feel like the chairs embrace me when I sit down and can I sit on them, safely, for many hours on end? America is a huge country, so road trips are commonplace. I need to feel like I “belong” there more than anything.

The Prius was never “my home”. It was fast. It was reliable (when I could quiet down the nerves about the key battery going dead on me!). It was “too fancy”, with all the digital screens, beeps and flashy lights on it. But it was never “home”.

I still remember way before I ever considered a Prius, watching an interview with Meryl Streep and they were asking her if she really has no appointed chauffeur. She said with a shrug: “Oh, no! I just love driving my Prius!” (can you picture her batting her eyelashes on that comment?!). I loved driving the Prius, too, but I got the discern feeling that the Prius didn’t love me back. The leather chairs were every bit as uncomfortable as I initially thought they would be, and it smelled. It constantly smelled like gas in there, although there was nothing “mechanically” wrong with it.

Faults and all, we did make a couple of memories in it. We took it to Valley of the Gods and Bluff, which were eye opening experiences, for me, and we did tour Utah, Arizona and Nevada in it when my mom visited us, two years ago. My first road trip in it was to Vegas, to meet my girlfriends who have flown from NC to see me, after some years. I will always hold that trip dear, and the Prius took me to and brought me safely back from Vegas, despite my nerves about being alone in the desert with a car I didn’t yet know.

But more than anything, it will forever be my nervous wreck car! Even in worry, I still got attached, as I constantly thought about it, and what beep will it invent next?! And I still leave it with a bitter-sweet taste, as I still want to love Toyotas.

Several events in the family and several (motor) decisions later, although I owed more money on it than it was worth, we decided to give the Prius back to “the dealer”. It has now been replaced by my husband’s ex-car, a Honda Fit. That’s right – not a Toyota, this time. It’s not a car I chose, but it’ll do the job. It’ll stay with me as long as it will work. It’s comfortable, small (which is my requirement, of course), low maintenance and no frills, except for the power windows.

We started building memories in it since 2010 when I moved to Utah, so it’s more than just a “new car to me”, at this point. It was our honeymoon road trip car, when we drove to Napa Valley. We’ve been building onto that and we will continue to do so, I am sure. Several weeks ago, I had my first “accident” in it, when I hit a mattress laying on the highway which got me stuck on the HOV lane. Oh, the drama. Yesterday, a bookcase (yeah, you read it right) flew out of the bed of a pickup truck into the highway again, and again, almost hit me, and sent me speeding over to the HOV lane to escape the hit. The Fit handled the sudden veer to the left quite well, at 80 mph. But I hope I’ll have some happy trips in it, too. And as usual, I will get attached. 

 

My not so new car: around Lake Tahoe, CA - September 2010 

Cars are so much part of our daily routine now. And as I said, America is the ultimate road trip country. A car is your vessel to explore and grow and grow old in and with. I will form a connection with the Honda, too, as one naturally does. And, to some extent, I will think seldom of the Prius, as well, and of what Toyota could still offer me.

When it comes to my car, I am still yet looking for a home.  

 

One of the Prius's first road trips: on a peak in Valley of the Gods - Bluff, UT - early spring 2013.

The Road Too Much Traveled

When Jim Morrison wrote his lyrics about how “The West is the best”, he was not thinking of I-15, I can tell you that much! He was not thinking of all the people pulling guns against cops for not particular reason, or just against random people at the mall, fighting for a sale, or of the horribly polluted air between the canyons, either. These, and many others, are random truths you find for yourself once you move and live here.

The one truth I found in probably my first month of living here, is that the main Interstate that goes by my house and is virtually the only access way to anywhere here, I-15, is surely a death trap! I wrote many times about how the speed limit here is anywhere above 25+ mph higher than what the road signs say, and how there are no rules, or, ahem, there are the Wild West Rules, meaning, every man for himself, into himself, however they deem fit!

I have nightmares occasionally about dying hit by a car on I-15. Because, I am telling you, one day of commuting on that thing could cure you of driving for life!

And I commute, an hour every day, at least. You can’t tune out life, because at any given second some idiot does something stupid that you must avoid – cuts you off, switches lanes with no signal, straddles the lanes, runs you into the wall of the HOV lane, you name it.

Well, tonight was my unlucky (and amazingly lucky, too) night of hitting a flying full size mattress in the fastest lane. You read right: a mattress. There was no way to avoid it – cars flying by me to my left and my right, so the only choice I had was “let” it settle down and drive over it. At 70 mph! And so I did. The liner, of course, came unraveled, and spun around and around and around my front wheel, making sure that the foam was securely tight under my tires.

Luckily, I could pull into the HOV lane, and beyond, on that lane’s shoulder, and also amazingly luckily, a Utah Highway patrolman was parked across the street from me. He zoomed over to my lane and after jacking the car up, taking the wheel completely off and cutting the liner from around my wheel axle, he freed me up to be able to drive off towards my house!

My disgust for people who don’t use common sense when they haul things, light things, that can fly away from a bed of a truck, was only surpassed by my gratitude for this patrolman, who was so kind, so patient, so collected and hesitated none at getting himself dirty, taking the flaming hot lug nuts off my wheel, handling the huge and disgustingly dirty mattress, to get me back to safety.

There are good people in the world, everywhere. I just wanted to stop a spell and be grateful today, when they showed up for me, to rescue me from the death trap of I-15.

Throughout the whole ordeal of being stuck on the shoulder of the fastest lane with cars zooming by at 90+ mph, I had to think of something to keep my sanity – and that was this:

 

Be safe, everyone. And whatever you do – tie that sucker down when you move it to your kid’s dorm! 

 

Mattress under car, liner around the wheel and officer trying to jack the car up

 

Mattress stuck in the front shield of the car

 

Free at least! Check out the size of that thing! 

That May when Utah Valley Moved to Portland

I have lived in the high Utah Desert for five years now. Sheesh! That used to be my deadline max! “I give it 3-5 years”, I used to say when we first moved here. Funny how time just sneaks up on you like a pair of wild wrinkles around your eyes.

I have lived through snow dumps and icy roads, through high winds that pick up furniture and large trash containers and carry them down the street, as an unwelcome present to your neighbors. I have seen bigger hail than ever before, and even bigger rainbows than ever before, too.

But never in five years have I seen so much rain for this long in this Valley! We have had nothing but daily rain for the past three weeks. Some days, I even forgot the count of time since last I saw the sun in the sky! For three weeks, I keep telling myself: “This weekend is the weekend I am putting my garden in”. And for three weeks, I have been putting it off, because there is nothing but a mud pit out there and no break in the skies, and colder than cold temps, too.

To the many laughs and chuckles of my East Coast and Romanian family, I even threatened I would go out and buy some rubber rain boots, just so I can sink myself freely in the mud and plant my tomatoes, nonetheless! “Rubber rain boots in the desert?!” – they smiled dubiously. And I am glad it didn’t come to that!

This past Saturday, I found a window of sunshine in the sky to finally plant my garden. It’s not a big one, as usual, but we did have to move a raspberry bush, and add new soil to the veggies, which made for a pretty decent workout. Now, it would be grand time for the rain to come back and nourish what is finally in the ground, as opposed to all the weeds that have gobbled up all the water so far! But if only rain (and weather) would listen to me!

 

The veggie beds before: ... a pile of weeds and nothing besides, really ... 

 

... and the veggie beds after: new veggies lined up like ready little soldiers, planted firmly in the new compost soil.

 

Our strawberries are sugar sweet this year! I thought, like grapes, they'll be sour from so much rain, but not these: they're a handful of sweetness with fresh, clean mountain air mixed in. 

 

This is easily the greenest I have ever seen this yard.

I am done threatening the skies and just glad and grateful  that we have a green and fresh yard to look at this Memorial Day weekend. And the tomatoes, peppers, beans, eggplants and cucumbers are glad for finding a home, finally too! They had mold in their containers from this much water! Now, they’re happily feeding off of the new compost. Life begins a new cycle!