Here it is, the eve of the eve of the end of a decade. It seems like just yesterday that Brian put as his Facebook status "16 days off," and it seems like not a day has gone by since where he has not spent hours in his room, presumably doing prep work for his midterms. He has a bit more biology to finish, and then he has math, and then his 20 slide presentation on WWII, and then he will be free to ... go back to school and get more homework! But I'm hoping all of this will help him to study for the midterms, and that they will NOT pile on more work next week. But we'll see. Work is what this school is all about. I hope it pays off in the end!
And obviously I made it to PA and back on Monday. Traffic was a little gnarly on the way home, but I jumped off the turnpike an exit early and found my way to 195. I always get so mad when I decide to take the NJTP instead of one of the free roads, and then come round the bend only to see bumper-to-bumper traffic. Are they going to charge me less in tolls for this inconvenience? Of course not! The more traffic the roads seem to attract, the higher the tolls go. Welcome to New Jersey. Now slow down and pay up!
Kevin and I spent today running around in that lemon I call my Explorer. Two problems now. One is not the car's fault, at least I doubt it. The side view mirror is loose and bounces around, especially at high speeds. That can be fixed, but the question is whether or not the entire assembly needs to be replaced, or just the glass of the mirror. The body shop said the whole thing, and the dealer said it "looks like" just the glass needs to be replaced. The glass alone is $40 but the entire assembly is $240, which is $80 more than it would be if we got it from the body shop.
The dealership experience was bizarre. You go in, and you talk to the man-who-can't-be-bothered, and he gets someone else to come out and look at it. Then he tells the man-who-can't-be-bothered and he tells you the labor charge, but then adds, plus parts. You have to go to parts and ask (yourself) "how much is this part going to be?" Then the nice man in parts will tell you that most people who just replace the glass end up replacing the whole assembly. So Kevin called someone we know from swim team, and he was able to get the part for $100, the whole assembly. And if Kevin can't change it himself, supposedly he has a friend who can.
But the other problem is more annoying. I have peeling paint on the hood. Come to find out through my internet search skills that this is a common problem on many Fords produced during this time period. Apparently they used aluminum to make the hoods so the vehicles would be lighter, and the paint didn't adhere as well. So for years it's been puckering but I never did anything about it. Typically, now that it is a year out of warranty for this type of defect (although I doubt they would admit it was a defect if it were still under warranty) the paint is beginning to chip off. The guy at the body shop said he has done a lot of repair on the Fords for the dealership. Unfortunately, it's a huge job, and can't just be patched. But guess what? I don't care. It's getting patched. The estimate was over $1000!!! Don't think so.
Anyway, in other news, Kevin is going to rise with the birds tomorrow and head out to PA to pick up the swim team luggage. Then he'll go back and rendezvous with everyone at the Y, and bring Megan home. I imagine she will want to shower and then sleep for a few hours and then we have a 5:00 dinner reservation. Of course, I see my favorite restaurant is dropping their own ball at 10, which we could have watched had we not planned this little teenager party - but I guess it's OK anyway, because this way we'll all be home all night. And Kevin's brother flies in on New Years Day for a few days' visit.
Oh, and as a surprise to Megan, I bought her a new mattress pad for her bed. I have all of the mattresses wrapped in hypoallergenic material, but hers was for some reason wrapped in horrible crinkly vinyl. So I took that off and bought a waterproof mattress pad for now. I'll look for one of the softer mattress covers later, but for now she has a nice soft bed that doesn't make all kinds of plastic-y noises every time she moves. I imagine it will feel much better too, but I can't wait to see if she even notices! She might be too tired by the time she gets here, probably not till close to 1!
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