Current-ishes in shiny things

I’ve been trying to make an entry for AGES, to no avail - but it’s slow at work, and I’ve got time to do it, so no more avoiding. And as I have a total mishmash of topics, a Currents it is. Well, a lot of it is probably not going to be all that current, but whatever.

Current Surroundings:
I’m in my office, which has finally reached the balmy {sarcasm alert} temperature of 70 degrees. It’s been FIFTY EIGHT when I get here in the mornings. Yes, that is insane. It’s like working in a meat locker. Even with my supposedly-illegal-but-nobody-cares space heater running all day it usually tops out at about 70. Which, to cold-natured me, is unfit for human habitation. My fingers stay blue and numb and icy. It is gorgeous outside, though- cloudless blue skies, and 68, which I also think is quite chilly but at least it’s NOT INSIDE.

I can see bumper to bumper cars outside and hear screams and screeches. It’s Homecoming. Yippie. We got an email earlier today from our new and enthusiastic Communications Director saying “Thank you for being a part of our Homecoming Parade Group! See you at 5:45!” Then there’s a list of goings-on, my favorite being: “We have Smarties to hand out (candy can not be thrown)” She did at least ask everyone who IS coming to respond, which was a little at odds with the “of course you’re coming!!!” tone of the email. So I didn’t have to email back saying something along the lines of “ummmm.... yeah… NO.” With a few laughing-till-crying emojis. I hate football, I don’t care for crowds, I hate screaming and screeching, I am over the spoiled and pampered Golden Athletics Department, and I’m sick to death of college students. I’m going home and having a beer.

There have been several rounds of VERY VERY low-flying military-looking helicopters circling as well. I hope this is something to do with homecoming, and not that we’re under attack. Which honestly would NOT surprise me.

Current excitement:
LOL, it’s clearly NOT the Homecoming Festivities this evening!!

NO, it’s something that happened a little over a month ago - but is still quite exciting:

We got a new car!!!! A Fit!!! This is a real thrill, as we’ve been having some serious trouble with cars for the last few years. Our good car, also a Fit, is seven years old now. It’s a wonderful car and the only thing we’ve had to do to it other than routine maintenance is replacing the fan motor a few months ago. But it’s got well over 100,000 miles now. Our second car is a 20 year old Civic, that USED to be a great car but now is an ancient car that keeps having more and more and more really expensive… issues. We’ve actually been parking it every summer for the last three or four years and borrowing various Summer Cars from my dad - his also-ancient but well-cared-for Buick a couple of summers (the one that was totaled last year when a kid ran a stop sign and hit me) and then we drove his beloved little Nissan truck this past summer, after he passed away. He’d specifically said he wanted my great-nephew to have that truck, though, so we couldn’t just keep it. It’s also a gas guzzler, seemed really huge (it’s a Frontier, on the small side for a truck but bigger than what we’re used to) and an automatic, so we didn’t want to buy it from the great-nephew either.

I’ve been saying we need to buy another car for years, and Baker B keeps agreeing, then wants to get ONE MORE WINTER out of the Civic. It’s a really good snow car, and also is so old and beat up it’s not a big deal if it gets banged around even more during the winter. And I have to admit that has ended up working out really well, annoying as it’s been to only have one really reliable car all this time, since we have saved a fortune by not having a car payment for years. Well, not exactly a fortune, but we saved enough to just buy the new car outright. SO, Baker B’s insistence on clinging to his Civic for all these years paid off. Literally.

We also got a trip at the same time we got the new car… because we went all the way to Charleston to buy it. Which probably sounds insane, but we wanted a manual and… NOBODY HAS MANUALS anymore. Everyone drives automatics! We also had pretty much settled on another Fit since we’ve loved our grey one. We considered a few others but for the price a Fit is the way to go. But it was shockingly difficult to find a manual anywhere near us. We used CarFax and Edmunds both, and were looking at new ones and fairly new ones. And they were in, like, OHIO. Or Florida.

To try and make a long story a LITTLE shorter, this one popped up on CarFax, in North Charleston. It’s a 2017, but, bizarrely (and kind of red-flagish to me) only had 2,400 miles on it. Yes, it had just barely been driven. So we took an impromptu trip to Charleston, fell in love, and came home with a basically brand-new car, for a ridiculously good price, that still has a bumper to bumper warranty for I think two more years- it sat on their lot as a new car for nearly a year before First Owner bought it. Yay for nobody wanting a manual anymore! Boo though since this may well be our last one, as hard as it was to find.

It’s a Fit EX, which is the fancy-smancy Fit with all the stuff . It has a touch screen and a backup camera and a push button starter which is kind of weird but I’m getting used to it, and it unlocks itself when you walk up to it. (However, the black Fit EX that someone in my building drives does NOT unlock itself when I walk up to it. Not that I’ve done that. More than once.) Our First Fit is very basic, although I’m so used to clunkers that I was thrilled with being able to plug in my iPod and play it though the stereo system. (LOL, just realized my iPod is at least four or five years older than the first FIt. Yikes.) This is by far the fanciest car I have ever owned - thank you, Person Who Didn’t Like Driving a Manual After All!

SO, New Car and Trip To Charleston were both very exciting. We hadn’t been to Charleston in nearly two years thanks to Parental Drama and hurricanes.

AAAANNNNDDD.. it’s no longer Friday afternoon, but is Sunday night and I really need to go to bed. I do have one more Current Anticipation, though, which is getting to meet a longtime OD/PB/FB friend tomorrow! And if I can figure out how to post a picture using my iPad, which I have definitely done before but don’t remember how and Flickr is always changing the rules, I’ll post Current Adorableness:

Well, fine, it’s not working at all and I can’t even seem to link to a Facebook photo now, so I’ll just have to come back later to post a picture of The Adorable Phillip. If I would make more posts, I might be able to figure these things out.