Dwarf Planet in Purple

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! If Hanukkah is your holiday, I hope it was a totally happy one.

This month has been fairly busy, with the usual activities. Unevent, the Kingdom of Atlantia's annual business meeting, is permanently online, which means it's easier for people from all parts of the kingdom to attend (the kingdom stretches from Baltimore to Hilton Head Island). Dun Carraig had a baronial investiture at a lovely site on the north bank of the Potomac River; they'll use it again for the 2024 Spring Coronation. I managed to convince R. to attend the Washington Christmas Revels; the parent organization cut back from two weekends to one this year, ostensibly because renting Lisner Auditorium is more expensive than it used to be. I hope the Revels will be around for many years to come.

I also wrapped up the Year of Many Vehicles by purchasing a new-to-me 2011 Subaru Forester. My first Subaru. Remember how I explained that I bought a Hyundai Tucson, but it couldn't ever pass inspection? Yeah, I kept on driving it without renewing the temporary registration and hoped the cops wouldn't catch up to me. Then I brought the Tucson to the Sunoco near where I used to live. I had thought, gee, maybe the first inspection station I used was acting all tight-assed because I'd never patronized them before, and the Sunoco has a good reputation for fair dealing. But the Sunoco fellow told me the exact same thing -- sorry, way too rusted out to pass Maryland inspection, ever. And as this year winds down, having a "23" sticker on my rear license plate instead of "24" or "25" will be a giant clue to the local constabulary. So I went to a *real* dealer and bought a car that PASSED inspection. It's a joy to drive.

(I am calling this the Year of Many Vehicles because I started out with a 1999 Toyota Corolla; then I had a rental Grand Cherokee for one weekend after the Corolla was totaled and taken from me; then I drove the CR-V belonging to my temporary housemates; then I bought the 2008 Tucson; and now I have the Forester. That's five vehicles.)

Despite the new wheels, I've spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day here in Maryland. I haven't heard from any of my Massachusetts cousins, so I guess they have gotten used to my not traveling up there, so they didn't invite me. *sigh*

First of all, Happy Birthday, wookiemonster!!

I'm going to Pennsic! I wrote about it last night on my Lady Patricia blog (http://ladypatriciaoftrakai.blogspot.com/2023/07/pennsic-50-frenzy.html). The writing is not the best because I finished it rather late at night, after the boy toy made me some sort of coconut cocktail.

I also didn't go into detail about my latest vehicular travails. Remember that 2008 Hyundai Tucson I bought to replace my totaled Corolla? When I first got it, I immediately started using it to move into the new apartment/cottage, but of course that was more of a process than an event. And at first I didn't have the money to get it inspected. (If you buy a used car that doesn't already have a Maryland inspection certificate, you get a 30-day temporary registration, but you must get that certificate to acquire the permanent registration.) Finally, at the end of June, I had the money to get the work done and I found an inspection station about a mile from where I now live. The proprietor of that garage, however, informed me that the Tucson's undercarriage was way too rusted out to ever pass Maryland inspection, and that I shouldn't have bought a vehicle with 189K miles on it to begin with. (As if I wouldn't have bought something better if I could have afforded it at the time!) Fortunately, the tag-and-title place gave me a "7" month sticker instead of a "6," so, even though the registration expired on June 11, it looks as if it's registered until the end of July.

Obviously, I am *not* driving this rig to Pennsic, partly because I don't want to drive an unregistered car out of state and partly because I'm going to hit a bump or hole while the thing is fully loaded and really mess up the vehicle. Fortunately, I made alternate plans. I put a call out on Facebook and got a couple of responses and selected one. One of Patches' neighbors is taking her three kids to Pennsic -- first time for all four of them -- so we made arrangements to rent a trailer for her minivan and split the cost.

This will be my 13th Pennsic, but the first to which I am not driving. Should be interesting....

Tonight is the longest night, with the winter solstice occurring early tomorrow morning. My church had a solstice-themed lay-led service this morning, and also this evening. I attended both, via Zoom of course. The evening ritual was up against the monthly barony meeting, but after all the stress our congregation has been through during the past six weeks or so, I thought I should support that community. The Storvik meeting was over by the time the ritual ended -- oh, well, next month.

I am still on Stove #2. Apparently the current owner of Stove #3 isn't as far along with his kitchen renovations as the maintenance guy previously thought. The boy toy will make another inquiry when he goes to drop off a gift basket for the maintenance guy. We don't normally give him stuff, but he has been SO helpful to us this year with all our issues -- the Thanksgiving 2019 leak from upstairs, the January 2020 leak from upstairs, installation of the $25 dishwasher, the disintegrating bathroom-sink plumbing, the disposal of Stove #1, the break-in at our building's common storage area, the attempts to fix Stove #2, the meltdown of the building's hot-water system, etc. Plus, he lives *in* this building, so he is our neighbor.

Speaking of neighbors, I scored another bargain from a different neighbor, the one who is an archer for Bright Hills. She posted on Facebook that she and her husband were looking to rehome their 55-inch Panasonic plasma TV. I messaged her and asked her what she would take for an offer, like $100, and we agreed to that. When the boy toy and I walked over to pick it up, however, she told me that her husband didn't want her to take any money for the 10-year-old TV. I couldn't see doing THAT -- she already gave me $50 worth of dry cat food a couple of months ago, and I know she is getting a new catalytic converter for her aging Pontiac, and those suckers are expensive. I had five $20 bills with me, so I gave her $40 and she accepted. The TV works fine and is a *lot* larger than the flat-screen TV we had been using in the living room, which is probably about a 32-inch model. So we put the 55-inch set in the living room, moved the newer small TV from the living room to the bedroom, and put the older bedroom TV (which is also a 32-incher, more or less) in the spare room in case one of us gets covid-19 and has to isolate. Dances with TVs!

Another reason why I jumped on the new TV: I had a rear bearing replaced on my car, and the work plus the "winter package" (oil change and other routine maintenance) came to only $300. For some reason I had convinced myself that the job would cost $800 to $1000. Maybe I was misremembering something I'd read on Facebook (like the cost of replacing multiple bearings on a truck or SUV). Anyhow, I was relieved.

Finally ... earlier this month, I had been looking forward to my annual science writers' holiday party, which of course was going to be virtual. I realized that nobody's going to care what I wear, for all that will show up on screen are my head and shoulders. So I got my first professional haircut in two years -- yes! -- and then, on the day of the party, I dyed my hair a Color Not Found in Nature! Specifically, a semi-permanent ruby color designed for non-bleached hair (my hair is way too fine and limp for bleaching).



I think it looks right purty, don't you? I wouldn't have done this if I had a job interview or professional presentation coming up, but since nobody is hiring me for anything, and I didn't do any of the fancy punk 1980s hairstyles when I was in my 20s because I wanted to be all grown up and professional back then, well, what do I have to lose?

The local Zipcar is named FamBARD, *not* FamTARD. Stupid me! I know enough bards in the SCA ... how could I have gotten it wrong??

I had a great Pennsic, right up until the end, when Draco the Honda Accord wouldn't start after not running for almost a week. And then I got him started and drove home, only to have him die again Sunday morning when I was driving the boy toy over to our local IHOP for breakfast.

Now I'm waiting for a new radiator and a new alternator. Those fixes will cost me almost as much as the car originally did (and I still haven't even *begun* to pay off the friend who lent me the money to buy it). I guess it's still cheaper than trying to buy yet another car. But I can obviously cancel any hope I have of getting anywhere near the path of totality next Monday.

Ah, well, at least I made it home before the car conked out. I have AAA Plus for 100 miles of free towing, but Pennsic is 300 or so miles from my residence, so I would have had to pay $800 for towing it back to my part of Greenbelt.

And what is it about my Pennsic attendance and violence? Three years ago, the last time I went to Pennsic, we had the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. This year I drove home to greet the news of the white-supremacist rally and ensuing deaths in Charlottesville, Virginia. What is it with me and Pennsic and violence in the streets? Or is this just a sad coincidence? Certainly I deplore the alt-right white-supremacist neo-Nazi crap.

I didn't get the car that I looked at on Sunday afternoon. It was a nice 2003 PT Cruiser, clean and running well, just needed a new O2 sensor. But I said it would have taken me a couple of days to round up the cash, and some guy came by on Sunday evening and said "yes" to the car (and probably whipped out a bunch of C-notes).

So, here I am, planning to get on the Metrobus in the rain to go downtown (i.e., into the District) for my local professional group's annual holiday gala. Nobody knows how to party-hearty like the science writers. Except, perhaps, the Lithuanians. :-)

Yesterday I sweated through some online applications for professional jobs. Tomorrow I'll be back to the classified car ads.

By and large, it's been a rough month, punctuated only by a few better moments.

I hope everyone who celebrated U.S. Thanksgiving a few days ago had an enjoyable holiday. I did -- as I have for the past 15 or so Turkey Days, I went to my friend T.H.'s home, where I joined her extended family. Everybody contributed something, nobody shouted about Trump (we're all LGBT-friendly people, disgusted with the Giant Lying Russian Stooge), and everybody had a good time.

This year, however, I did NOT drive to T.H.'s house in my longtime motor vehicle. Those days are over.

My 1996 Sunfire, a.k.a. "Patty's Pretty Purple Pontiac," a.k.a. "Baby," is destined for the sunset after 20.5 years of mostly faithful service (the transmission failure on the road to Pennsic 40 being a notable exception).

( Details... )

So, what do I do about a new car? I'm pretty sure that I don't qualify for any kind of financing. I certainly wouldn't give *myself* a loan. So I need to buy an older model (beater, jalopy, hoopty, etc.) that will pass Maryland inspection and run for a few years.

What's my budget? I am still figuring it out. As small as possible, but remember that a $700 car that needs $2300 of work to be legally registered under a new owner really costs $3000.
I wish I could just get myself to Carmax, but that place doesn't seem to sell anything under $7000 and I don't see myself being able to afford that anytime soon.

I'm really caught between the proverbial rock and hard place, folks ... without reliable transportation, it's even harder to find temporary or permanent employment, but without an additional source of income, I can't afford wheels. I have no idea what my health insurance costs will be next year ... they are already going up a lot under Obamacare, but I am NOT counting on Obamacare to last past January 20. Seriously.

Gaah, I don't know what to do. First-world problem, I know.

Still waiting for my car to be fixed; the garage is waiting for a part (the new wheel cylinder) to be delivered. The "good" news (for some value of good) is that the repair should cost a bit less than $200 including labor. I was expecting four times that. Maybe I should keep my mouth shut.

So, last night I couldn't get all the way up to Baltimore for Lithuanian dance practice, but tonight I was able to get a ride to Three Left Feet dance practice in College Park (a lot closer). We finally had an excellent turnout: nine dancers, including a woman who used to be a regular until she moved to Colorado some years ago. Thus we could actually do some of the four-couple dances like "Hyde Park" and "Goddesses" that we haven't done in ages. (A word of explanation: most of the dances we do are English country dances that were written for a particular number of couples.)

Anyhow ... If you are new to my journal, here's a link to a short biographical entry that I wrote recently. Please feel free to ask questions in the comments.

Last night's party at the home of CZ, Phoenix and kids was enchanting ... until I discovered I had a flat tire. Apparently I'd picked up a nail or other road debris on the way to the party, and I noticed it only when I tried to drive out of the neighborhood. I turned around and proceeded to the only reasonably level place where I could safely park, which was the very bottom of Boo Manor's steep driveway. CZ came out and set up a bright work light and did the heavy-lifting work of swapping out the flat tire for the spare donut. I drove all the way home on Route 1, where speed limits are lower, because I'm pretty sure the owner's manual (which exists on my hard drive now) says to drive under 45 mph on that tiny spare tire. (The B-W Parkway's speed limit of 55 mph is always exceeded late at night unless there's been an accident.)

So, my plans for today were shot. I might have liked to attend the Ponte Alto event, but after seven days away from the boy toy, I thought I'd keep the home fires burning, so to speak, by going on a foodie excursion with him to Union Market (we've never been there). Guess we'll have to go tomorrow. As it was, I didn't get out of the tire shop -- with two new tires -- until around 4 p.m. So we just stayed home and did laundry.

Big thanks to CZ for the help!!

Tonight, when I went to Baroness Sorcha's house for a while, the car's odometer turned over to the 168,000 mark.

Since I've never owned a car that got past the 130K's, every new thousand miles is a new milestone along the journey. I wonder how much more "oomph" my car has left.