Several Things Remembered, One Forgotten.

Probably well-timed forgetfulness, though. It’s the biggest of my current problems but it could’ve been a lot bigger if it happened in a different way.  More on that later.

My only entry so far this week has been a review of a few things I have watched. Life has gone on in the days before and since, some with some really strange signs:

Like this pair of them. I saw these on the wall of a clerk’s  office while filing a case:

So, take a picture of the code on this sign next to the sign telling you not to take pictures. Schrödinger’s courthouse, it would appear.

That was one of my last stops on a very busy Monday, when I met with clients in two places to finalize signing up their bankruptcy cases, filed that state court case in front of the contradictory signs, made a little progress on the bigger bankruptcy one that is still largely in limbo- but still got home at a decent hour, just in time to see another odd sign.

The intersection of the mainline 90 Thruway and its 290 spur that goes near our house has long been a crash-catcher. It is horribly designed and there’s  little room to make it any better. So what they’ve done in the past few years is carve out some off-road designated areas to pull over when you do get hit. (I did not get hit.) These are marked with big blue CRASH INVESTIGATION SITE signs.

When I pulled off the 290 at the end of the day Monday, I saw that someone had crashed into one of the CRASH INVESTIGATION SITE signs. Fortunately, it was back up when we went by it again on our way back from poetry last night. I guess they were able to investigate after all.

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Poetry was one of the two events we went to together in the past five nights. The first was at an old converted church in the nearby village which now hosts occasional musical or theatrical performances on a small stage. A folk vocalist from the Midwest named Peter Mulvey was on tour in this area, and a friend of mine booked him for a Sunday night show at the Meeting House, the night after both Peter and another friend of mine from here played a show at a similar venue I’ve previously been to in Rochester.  Buffalonian Davey was quite pleased with the crowd and the facilities at the Rochester Saturday night show, even posting a picture from it of his green room. Our venue barely has a place for anyone to pee, but their show was well attended and much appreciated. I did not get any pictures of Davey during his opening set, but by the time the main act came on, Davey joined his companion in the row in front of me, so here's a picture of Peter and the back of Davey's head:



I'd seen yet another friend, who's now on the board of the Buffalo Friends of Folk which runs these shows, running around taking pictures of his own. Tyler got much better shots of Davey O-



- of Peter-



- and of the two of them at the merch table-



Alas, the merch table did not have the merch I wanted: we already have Davey's latest and some older stuff on CD, and Peter's inventory got cleaned out at the Rochester show the night before. So I headed to Ye Olde Bandcamppe site to find one digital and one digital plus actual hardcopy disk that will get here sometime this month-

They're quite good. Even though they don't include our favorite song of his from the event:

Watch on YouTube

That's from seven years ago. There are a lot more guns now and a lot less Jesus, sadly for us. And for Him.

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Something else from seven years ago caused most of my aggravation from the past not-quite 24 hours. That would be my little red car.

JARVIS was due for its state inspection and snow tire addon earlier this week. Da Damages came well within our budget estimate for the job, as the front tires will live another six months at least and the rear snows (which barely have 10,000 miles on them from previous COVIDy winters) should last through this one and next.  One thing they don't check on inspections, though? The battery. Mine is original to the car from 2016 and has never given me any trouble, other than the seeming annual event of me leaving my lights on when it's raining or snowing during the day.

There are two main reasons for these brain farts. Eleanor's car has an AUTO setting on its headlights that makes them come on automatically when it gets dark enough and turns them off just as automatically, so we never have to turn them on or off. My Smart car has no such setting, and its nag tone for leaving them on is virtually a whisper, compared to the FASTEN SEAT BELT or DOOR OPEN YOU MIGHT FALL OUT AND DIE sounds it makes for those eventualities.  On the odd occasion I've done it and the battery has drained, I've just called the handy dandy 800 Mercedes roadside number and they've been there within an hour, free of charge, to jump the car. I am certain this happened at least once in the past twelve months, well after paying off that car at the end of 2022 and long since its warranty ran out.

Since both Eleanor and I had this benefit through our car manufacturers, we let our AAA membership go a few years back. Yesterday was that deadly combination of rain, snow and slush throughout the morning that led me to put the headlights on during midday errands and not turn them off around 1. I had appointments a little after 3, but those two hours were apparently enough to drain the battery. Well, almost all of it. The mileage and time display was still on when I put the key in, and I fiddled with it in hopes it would crank. That, it turned out, only made it worse, with the transmission getting stuck in neutral and the key stuck in the ignition. Fortunately, I was parked, safely in my own office lot, and my free MercedesBenzschcacht roadside assistance would save the day, right?

Nein.

Carol in the south of this country somewhere was happy to help me, but not for free. Apparently the roadside service expired three years ago. Nobody told me that, certainly not when I used it at some point in late 2022 or earlier this year.  But for a $75 charge to a credit card, they could still send someone out. "Someone" was not a guy in a tow truck or pickup with batteries onboard like AAA does it, but a Mercedes dealership employee with a portable charger about the size of this laptop.  He could not get the car started, the shifter back into park or the key out. He did diagnose the battery to be dead beyond the point of his puny charger being able to revive it. Options on offer included a tow to the dealer, to do more diagnostics on it. The dreaded f-word- "firmware" was mentioned. Visions of four-figure repair bills danced in my head.  I resolved to leave things be until morning. Eleanor came and got me and we resolved to go out to the poetry event we'd planned on, which I will mostly save for a later report, but it was one we both needed and appreciated as a diversion from distractions we've each had in the past week or so.

Sitting in my mailbox at home was a PRIORITY REINSTATEMENT notice from AAA. Our Prodigal Cars would both be welcomed back for an annual charge of 80 bucks. I paid that online and we went to our event, not needing any road service or CRASH INVESTIGATIONS there or back. I did, however, almost park in front of an Allentown dive bar called "Tow-Away Zone," but caught the sign before going into our place across the street. I wound up round the corner in front of a sign much more suited to two hours of poets:



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By lunchtime today, all was well.  The call to AAA using my freshly-minted membership got an actual truck with batteries there within 45 minutes. It took one more round trip home in Eleanor's car to be ready for it, as I thought I'd brought my wallet with me but it turned out to be my stash of (empty) poop bags from walking the dog right before I left. Apparently this is not accepted as a form of payment.  Ultimately, though, there was no payment. The AAA guys fiddled with things a bit, but using a much stronger charger and doing some actual labor, they got the car started and the gearshift and keys unstuck. What they didn't have was my fairly particular battery. They recommended I not run the risk of this beast stalling out on me, so I called our regular mechanic, and after one more round of Pick Up Sticks Wife to get it to them and me from them, the new battery is installed and will likely outlive the car and possibly me.  Including the $75 to Mercedes, the AAA membership and the $300 the new power pack is running, the whole thing came to about my worst-case imagined cost for just getting the car through inspection last week. Most of all, I feel incredibly blessed to have found out about this worn-out part now, and here, and not in the middle of the night on some back road halfway between Nowhere and Worsewhere.  Eleanor's car goes for its inspection in February, and you can be sure that we'll be having hers tested even though that isn't on the list of things they need to check for the car to pass.

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A final memory from yesterday: December 7 is the day I proposed to that incredibly wonderful, understanding and patient woman.  My remark about that was It was 37 years ago today that Eleanor said yes to the mess. And that was before all of this car stuff made things even messier.  But we made it through, as we always have. It's the for-worses that make you appreciate the for-betters all the more.  Such as spending two hours with poets, which will be here next time, hopefully with less of a mess.

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ETA. One odd little coda to the story of the car repair I was reminded to add when a friend posted this photo:



I take two state highways to get to my office. One is a four lane 45 mph (but really 55) commercial strip, but Harlem Road, most of the way to my office, is two lane, 35 mph and double yellow lined with a park and a school along that stretch. It’s otherwise all residential along there, and I, and most people, respect the 35.

On the morning just now when  I was driving home during one of our three rounds of Musical Cars to get my battery replaced, Speedy McTailgate gets up on my ass just past the school and a construction slowdown. I give him a half-second brakecheck. He jumps the double yellow line and zoomies past me. Of course I get right back behind him when he slows to pull into a car park at the far end of Harlem, and I consider following him in to ask if I can speed like that down HIS residential street. Then I see he’s pulled in front of Buffalo Psychiatry Associates.

Hard unsafe pass.