Day 61, Year 8: City Life for a Day
Date: Thursday, January 3, 2013
Weather: Partly Sunny and Cold; Barely Reached 20 degrees F Today
Location: Visiting with Sue and John Reed, Cambridge, MA
It was a disjointed day, going here and there in the city, fighting traffic, shopping for things that just aren’t there, taking the car in for repairs that couldn’t be done today, and on and on. It took us about an hour and 45 minutes to drive the 17 miles into Cambridge this morning. The rush hour traffic was barely moving at times and it made us say our thank yous that we no longer have to commute to work. I always smile when I say or write ‘rush hour.’ Last summer Sam asked me why you call it ‘rush’ when nobody can move very fast. He thought it should be ‘slow hour’ and I agree. We finally got to the garage where we were taking the car, but it garage has moved locations and the personnel has changed. Eddie, the previous owner, just sold the business and will coming to work at the new location in a couple of weeks–but he wasn’t there today. But a guy hooked the car up to the computer system that tells you where the problems are and he immediately confirmed that a switch in the gas line is bad?the same switch that Heather and Jed’s neighbor had told us needed to be replaced. So we told the guy to order the part, but we warned him that the car was built in Canada and that local parts might not do the trick. He just shook his head and said, ?No problem.? So we left to go to Mark’s appointment at Mass General. We arrived two hours early, but they took him in after a very brief waiting time. After the scans were completed, we ate lunch and then returned to the garage. The same guy that we had talked with in the morning lifted the hood with one had while holding the new part in the other. It was the right part, but not the right one for our car. While we stood outside freezing, he kept checking the VIN number and going back inside to talk with someone from Ford to figure out just what the right part would be. When the right part was ordered, he came to me to apologize for not heeding my earlier warning about the car being built in Canada and needing special parts. It will now be tomorrow afternoon before the part arrives, but the installation should be quick. So we’ll return tomorrow afternoon after the new part arrives and hope it is the right one.
Since we didn’t have to wait on the car, we had lots of time to shop. We were looking for something called an Invisible Shield for the Nexus 7 tablet. That was a negative as well. So we finally gave up and ordered this online. We still had time left before we had told Sue and John we would arrived, so drove to place called ?Penzey’s? to buy spices. Finally, something worked.
We had another lovely evening, this time with Sue and John Reed. They have been so wonderful to invite us into their home every time Mark has appointments at Mass General. So thank you, Sue and John. Tomorrow morning we head back to Mass General to get the results of today’s scans and then back to the car garage. I’m sure hoping for good results on both counts so we can get back to the Cape. One day of this city life was enough for both of us.
