Sweaty garden love

I've been mucking about in the garden. Despite forecasts threatening still more rain, it's been dry today. So I moved hostas. And ferns. And divided a sedum. They have got to be the easiest plant to divide.

More of my hostas and ferns are now where they'll be happier, in dappled shade, and more of my sun loving plants are now in the sun. I'm looking out at my garden, thinking gee, in 5 years everything but the tree will be in a different place. I'm one of those gardeners - the ones who will dig up an entire bed and replant everything 4" to the left, because it looks better that way.

Gardening is free. This makes me very, very happy, because buying a used Lexus is not free. We signed the papers this morning. Thursday we can pick it up. I've felt slightly ill ever since - borrowing $22K for something that isn't a house is literally painful. Now we need to set up a HELOC so we can pay of the car loan at 8.19% and move it to 3.25% - we only need to keep it at the higher rate for a month.

Rearranging furniture is also free. After I gardened for a few hours, I cleaned our bathrooms. They were revolting. Revolting. That is a fabulous word. Revolting! Fungible! Revolting fungible bathroom! Then I went into our revolting living room, and attempted to make it look lovely by moving things around. Now parts of it look better than they did. And I don't think anything looks worse, so while it won't be in Architectural Digest, it also won't be in Trailer Park Quarterly, the only design mag in comic book format. Heck, too many words in dem other fancy magazines, eh?

Maybe I'll feel better once we actually have a Lexus in the driveway, instead of a much larger than I'd like debt. Note I used a Lexus, not the Lexus - I still don't actually believe we bought it, although the debt feels far too real. My inner Scot was obviously in a coma. Damn. I'll have to grab him and choke him with his sporin.

Learning

Things I didn't know.

This is not an exhaustive list - just a few tidbits of previously unknown unknowns now known, to abuse a truly bad Rumsfeld speech.

1. Hugh is fully capable of spending foolish sums of money on a car

2. Twitter is fun

We haven't actually purchased the Lexus. All the money for it is still in our bank accounts.

I lie.

The money for it is still to be borrowed. If I had $30K kicking around, my underwear wouldn't have holes in it.

Hugh visited Import Car Centre on Tuesday. Eddie was off - eye surgery. Ouch.

Wednesday. He just missed Eddie.

Thursday. Eddie and he chatted, Hugh agreed to go back.

Friday. Hugh returns. Eddie gets him to take the kids for a drive.

Hugh's comment? The steering seems looser. Of course, he's been driving his brother's minivan. A '95 Caravan, on its 4th transmission. The power steering has long since ceased to have any power - turning right is a true workout.

I think a race car's steering is loose in comparison.

Hugh knows this - it was a joke. He really wants that Lexus.

His rationale for today? We haven't looked at any other cars, ergo we must want this one.

He is right. We do. I do. The kids do.

Eddie knows he sold a car with one sentence - humour me - drive a Lexus.

I'm looking at the above post, realizing it seems to consist solely of one sentence paragraphs. Is Twitter changing the way I write? Can I go past 140 characters? Will any thought of substance ever leave my head again?

Can I write an entire post consisting entirely of questions?

If you wish to read the tweets of a new twit, I'm teragram42 on Twitter. If you wish to read the tweets of someone who is at least semi literate, may I recommend Stephen Fry?

car hunt

I decided to get serious about the car hunt. Keep in mind that the term grown up makes me giggle when you consider the term serious.

We went to the nearest Toyota dealer and test drove a 2005 Toyota Sienna minivan, an eminently practical vehicle. We're practical, right?

The steering was loose. Brakes? Soft. Soggy, even. Road feel? Van like. It felt like a minivan, and everyone reviewing them commented on how car like they are. Fucking liers. They were just brainwashed - roadwashed - by the other crappy driving vans they had.

Minivans suck. That's why families turned en masse from them to the SUV, which looks like a truck. And sucks gas like, well, like our current car.

We then headed off to Import Car Centre. located beside XXX adult videos - must be 18 or older to enter. Lovely neighbourhood. We shop in it when we need to buy something at a pawn shop. Imagine my surprise when we saw row upon row of not beaters but beemers. By import car centre, then mean high end imports.

So we asked them about the 2004 Sienna's they had advertised. Sold. So we told him what we wanted, a vehicle that seats 6 or 7. We chatted briefly. He asked us if we'd do him a favour - test drive a Lexus SUV. What can you say when it's put that way? I mean, we're not dumb enough to actually buy a fucking SUV just because some smooth salesguy gets us to drive it.

We drove it.

Hugh raved for 30 minutes, then made me drive it back to the dealership. It's a very nice ride.

We chatted with Eddie, the used car guy. He's the half owner of Import Car Centre. They also have an 8 car garage a few blocks over, and own the land the lot is on. He's been working there for 21 years. I mentioned my concern that an SUV and a sedan don't offer much difference, but an SUV is a lot more money. What happened? Before I could say "must leave, hair needs washing", we were in a Toyota Avalon, winging around Ottawa. We both agreed the suspension just wasn't as nice, the brakes, as firm, the ride, as lovely, as the Lexus.

What to do?

Well, we chatted a while, and left.

Hugh may play the sucker well, but for him to spend nearly $30,000 on a car is not a spur of the moment thing. He buys things on the spur of the moment because they are cheap. Not because he loves them.

But he loves that Lexus.

I am in a very odd, and entirely unexpected space.

I don't really want to spend more than $15,000 on a car. If we do, it means we can't pay off the line of credit until next February, at the earliest, and so we can't replace the kitchen counters. Or my underpants, which meet the maternal criteria of throw out those underwear they're full of holes what if you get in an accident category. DISCLAIMER. They are really comfortable. Like going commando. Not that I would....

So I am in the odd position of trying to convince my stay at home no income husband that he should buy a Lexus. He drives a lot. He doesn't buy himself anything luxurious, or even nice. This is a man who will wear used underwear. I know, too icky to imagine. But I've never seen him love a ride like he loved that Lexus. I want him to have it.

Even though I hate SUVs, and think luxury cars are a silly way to spend too much money on a utility. Would you buy Evian hot water for your shower? High octane gas for your '99 Ford Econoline van? Swarovski crystals for your white trash neighbour? Well, um, no, idiot. Yet I want my husband to buy this car, and feel like he made the right decision every time he drives it.

This is not a place I thought we'd be in our car hunt. I pictured Hugh wanting to buy his friend's 2000 Cadillac Seville, or an old crappy cheap minivan, and me trying to convince him to upgrade to a 2004 Toyota Sienna with 140,000 km and rust.

Life, sometimes, has nice surprises, and this may be one! Some would claim deities. Yet why would a god intervene on something as trivial and humanly controllable as a car, when kids die of entirely preventable causes. Atheism is more reasonable, the more you know about our world. That, and extreme gratitude for the luck of being born in a rich country. Thanks, oh Palframan ancestors, for deciding England/Ireland/Scotland/Wales sucks. Cause Canada doesn't. Even though I still think Pat Buchanan's term, Soviet Canuckistan, is hilarious, we are no 'stan country.

I will, of course, let you know if end up with a Lexus or something more suited to a trailor park.

Car obsessions

I have a tendency to obsess when a task is open.

Witness posts on finishing the basement. It filled most waking thoughts. Now that it's done, I can barely remember we have one.

I remember the last time we "had" to buy a car. My old Tercel had died. Murdered, actually, by a cruel and incompetent owner who failed to check the oil. That would be me. Did you know that a Tercel driven at 100km/hour without oil sounds like a jackhammer? And that if you then put 4 litres of oil in the engine, it sounds like a machine gun is mounted to the roof?

It was the Tercel's premature demise that introduced me to the stress of the car hunt. I lucked in, after a couple of weeks, to baby blue, who I traded for $130 and a bus pass. I still have the bus pass.

So now the green machine is dead, Hugh and I have driven 2 compact hatchbacks, and I've coaxed out of him that he wants something safe, with lots of seats. Minivan! Party on! Excellent!

After learning of my husband's desire for something with many seats, I identified appropriate vehicles. Then he told me he wants to test drive his buddy's old Cadillac. I was revolted. Revolting is a wonderful word. So is fungible. So are ergo and ergot.

I don't want a 10 year old Cadillac. I don't want a Cadillac of any age. The thought makes me ill. Clearly this is not rational, but to me a Cadillac represents stupidity and ostentatious displays of wealth and old men that smell a little bit like pee. I don't want to own one. I will not drive one. I have told Hugh he's more than welcome to try it out, but he better not buy it. I didn't tell him about my negative Cadillac associations, he'd probably suggest therapy. I did my boring old gas mileage whine.

Tomorrow, if all goes according to my nefarious plan, we'll head out to Stittsville, where #1 son has his drum lessons. There is a used car dealer there that has a few Odysseys and Siennas. Might as well drive one, and see if we hate them or not. Of course, the nefariousness of my plan is negated somewhat by the fact that I told Hugh my plan, test driving old cars isn't illegal, and it's actually quite convenient to make the trip to Stittsville count twice.

I will try not to bore the world with my car hunt. I will succeed, if only because most of the world is completely unaware of my existence. This is a good thing. I like being able to garden in orange crocs and purple gloves and dirty clothing without seeing my picture at the grocery store checkout counter.