November 8, 2022

Daily Diary, Day 798: Well, it was a lovely rainy day, but I did not get to sit quietly and write.

First of all, I was on “stay by the phone” duty while my husband got the dog walked, then took off with the tow truck operator to take the car to the Toyota Dealership. He was walking the couple of blocks to get a rental car after dropping off the Prius. I needed to stay by the phone because I had left a voice mail message for the insurance agent telling him we needed to get authorize for the rental.

This meant I couldn’t get my walk in, or take my shower, etc. so I spent the time first checking my email, then doing the daily dust and clean. Finally, when I never heard back, I texted the information to the agent, and the authorization came through just as my husband was filling out the paperwork for the rental.

One of those reminders that voice mail and email seems to have been replaced by texts as the method of communication that will get the quickest response.

When my husband got back home it was just after 9, I showered, he walked the dog again, and then we took off to a Nissan place to look at cars. We got home around 1:45—almost 4 hours, of sitting, listening to sales talk, and signing papers.

Turns out that there are no new Nissan Leaf’s in the entire city, there were 6 in the pipeline, but all of them were spoken for, and if we wanted a new one—there was little chance we could specify what the package was (we don’t want lots of bells and whistles), and it could 6-8 months before anything more came in that wasn’t already pre-ordered.

However, two used (2019) Leafs had come in yesterday (one was already spoken for as soon as it arrived) so we bought the other one. It is pretty basic, but still very expensive (supply side problems, inflation, general mark-up, and yada yada) but our reaction in such situations is to act, rather than to worry about whether or not if we waited, we could get a better deal. Interestingly we tend to do this with most big decisions (new roof, new water heater, kitchen remodel.)

Every car we have every gotten we would say before we went, “we will not buy today, but look around,” and every time, we took whatever was available that seemed good enough. We didn’t even pretend this time that we would shop around if we found something that seemed good enough

Hey, the last car we bought was in 2007 and was the Prius we exchange (it did get us a little money in trade) for this next car, and we were very happy with it. Much happier than we were with the hideous orange van we got in 1972, the first car we got together. That got us across the country from Ohio to Los Angeles in 1975, where upon we promptly sold it and survived living in So California, then New Mexico, then Texas, without any car until 1983 when our daughter was born and we figured it was time to have a vehicle again.

So, anyway, by Monday, we will be able to pick up our new (for us) used silver Nissan Leaf electric vehicle. (I hope this isn’t boring you all to tears, but instead, making you glad you weren’t out buying a car in the rain today!) Every person we spoke with today had some story about stolen catalytic converters, and how smart we were to go electric.

When we got home, I was exhausted and feeling yucky – in part because I had not been smart and didn’t bring something to eat with me, so it had been almost 8 hours since I last ate. And in addition, of all days, I forgot the morning pill that is the most important one for my well-being. All signs of how distracted this all made me.

Once home, I ate quickly, took my pill, fixed some tea, and spent the couple of hours doing mindless stuff on my to-do list, and not trying to get any writing done. Once this is posted, I will eat dinner and try to find something diverting to watch on TV, rather than look at election coverage, the last thing I need today.

And tomorrow, I will start fresh.

I looked back through my photos and a couple of weeks ago I took a picture of a sunflower, so I’m going to leave you with that cheery image.