Monday, February 04, 2013

Rear Main


My car is leaking oil still.  Rear main seal.  Let it leak, is what I say.  My brother advises that also.  The car has over 216,000 miles on it, almost all cat miles, from transporting cats, mainly to and from spay neuter surgery clinics.  My angelic car has probably transported over 7000 cats to be fixed.  And it smells like it has.

It isn't worth the high cost of replacing a rear main seal.  Unfortunately, nowadays, cars are built hard to work on and to replace the rear main on my type of car comes with a hefty "get to the part" labor bill.  Either the cars engine or trans axle thingy has to be pulled.  The mechanic told me even the sub frame, whatever that is, would first have to come off.

It's a grand or more in good cold cash.

Yikes!  On a car that may start money pitting me with other failures due to its mileage age.

I love that car.  I want buried in it.  I can't bring myself to speak of its "diagnosis" anywhere near it.  It might "know".  The car has a soul, I think.   Because it has been faithful and true to me and rallied beyond its Toyota given capacity for me.  I'm in awe.

Far cry from the cars I had before this one.  I had to carry survival gear, food, water, tools (lots of them), repair manuals and be prepared for a breakdown anywhere.  I broke down everywhere in my former cars.  None were reliable.  Until this car took charge. This car has carried me places I never dreamed I would go.

The car loves cats.  The car has heart.  The car bleeds courage.

What's not to admire?

I've drug it's rear bumper down the street and when I heard the scraping noise, leaped out and popped it back into place.  I've done the same with the front bumper.  I turned down streets in the dark to avoid high water, in last years flooding here, only to find myself in higher water, water so high my car should have sucked it in and drowned itself.  But it didn't.  Did my car hold its breath until I could drive up onto a sidewalk?  How did it survive that plunge?

How I love that car!  I knocked the electronic mirror silly on the edge of the garage backing out. It broke.  I taped it back together.  One night, sitting in a dark parking lot at an apartment complex, a guy comes out and is messing with a pickup right beside my trap.  I sit back, watching, hoping he doesn't notice the trap, from the other side of the parking lot . He finally does.  I have to yell at him to please leave the trap alone.  He comes over to my car window.  It's after midnight.  I know I have to be a good talker because it's not a good complex, full of drama, full of people whose lives are hard with big huge issues.  He finally wants to give me his number, in case I know of work he can do.  He claims he's a certified union carpenter and mason.  He writes his number on the back of one of my cat fixing business cards.

A few months later, I'm in Mill City trying to put up fliers to promote a Corvallis FCCO clinic.  I stop in at the sheriff office and give him one.  He says he's glad to know there are programs.  I talk about what I do, personally, and he asks if I have a card.  I give him one.  He looks at it, then turns it over.  On the back he sees the name of that guy and his number.  His face turns a funny color.  I didn't remember I hadn't thrown out that card with that guys name and number from the parking lot.

The deputy asks how I know this guy.  He starts talking about when he arrested him and where and for what. "Oh shit," I think. I'm frazzled and suddenly nervous, not wanting the deputy to think that me and the guy in the parking lot, who was obviously a criminal, are friends in any way.  I'm scared of cops.  I try not to be, but I am.  It's the time I spent in Corvallis, in the mental system, getting hauled away by them, the stunts they pulled on me, as someone nobody gave a shit about.  Some of them understood well they could get away with anything on people nobody gave a shit about.  Sport hunting.  Me a prey animal.  Worthless.

 I tell the deputy how I came to get the guys number.  I just want to get out of there now, away.  I tell him about trapping in the Albany complex and that the guy claimed he was taking photos of a pickup he and his brother bought to fix up and sell and how he asked me, there after midnight, in a dark parking lot, if I wanted to buy that pickup cheap or how about a BMW.  He took me for either an idiot or someone who wouldn't mind taking advantage of a cheap car likely stolen.  Opportunity knocking!

I said to him if he's so good at fixing cars, how about fixing my side mirror then right then and there.  He messed around with it a few minutes, after which it dropped and hung and I thanked him and grabbed my trap and got the hell out of there.  It was after that encounter, when the guy truly finished off that mirror, so there was no hope of fixing it, that I ordered another from ebay motors.   And installed it myself.  For $30.  That's all it cost.  An entire new mirror with housing and wiring.

I got out of Mill City too, after giving the deputy by accident the card with the car thief's name number on the back.  My whole feel good thing, handing out and putting up fliers, trying to drum up cats to be fixed for the Corvallis FCCO student coordinators, now had turned into a feeling of unease, a feeling the deputy now thought I too was a criminal and not helping cats at all.

Off I went, my car reliable, sure, windows down, stereo blasting, making everything ok, laughing.

The rock of ages.  The one sure thing.  The connector of all things.

Let my little car leak.  I'll clean up after it in its old age.  I won't even tell it it's dribbling.

Now, let's switch to cats!!!  I still have two of the eight nursery abandoned cats here.  They need a home, somewhere nice and loving!  Come on now.  I know there is someone who needs them like they need you, somewhere out there.  It's a matter of finding you.  For now, I've named them Mitzy and Colors, but I'm not set on those names.  Waiting for them to tell me their names, if you know what I mean.






Blueberry is still in my bathroom.  Her last day on metronizadole for gut bacteria overgrowth is today.  Her stools are still loose, however, and I hope she "solidifies".  I finally fixed my clippers so I could clip some of her long fine fur. I'd accidentally clipped the cord itself, resulting in interesting sparks when the bare spot of wire touched the floor.  I bought a cheap plug, cut off the cord  before the damaged section and put the new plug on the wire.   I'm not much good with the clippers.  Blueberry's fur mats in the undercoat, like Hairy's fur does.

Blueberry, back now cut shorter.  She is very patient with my clipping.

Stiletto, of the Business Nine, looking cute.
Since Gretal had all her teeth pulled, a year ago, she has gained weight and made friends.
Sam and Buffy are long time friends, but sometimes Sam pushes the limits.



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