Car is Fixed

 My car is running again.   

The first replacement power steering pump he got didn't fit.  He got another on Amazon and also a new hydraulic line for it at another parts store.

I went and picked the car up close to midnight on Monday.  I didn't have a ride Tuesday to get over there  so that's why I went that late Monday night.  I was thrilled to get it back and he was thrilled to hand it back over to me fixed, over a holiday weekend no less.

I'd gone up to Portland Monday evening with a friend I hadn't seen in ages, although she lives here in town.   She had tickets to a Journey concert at the Moda center.  She'd thought her son would go with her but he couldn't for some reason and she asked if I wanted to go.   I jumped at it, to get out of town.

It used to be called the Rose Garden and I still call it that because the Moda Center is a stupid name for an iconic venue, where the Trail Blazers play.  Before that they played in the Memorial Coliseum next door and I'd gone there for a Jimmy Buffet concert with my brother decades ago.  

There were iconically named streets we encountered in blundering around attempting to find the parking lot where she had a prepaid pass to park.  Like Drexler St. and Ramsey Way.  Clyde Drexler was my favorite Portland Trailblazer and Jack Ramsey was the coach of the 1977 national championship team.  I had ridden back from Walla Walla WA, where my brother went to college, with  someone who lived in N. Portland when the championship game was won by the Trailblazers and we couldn't get through the streets.  Portland had erupted in celebration.

When the FCCO clinic was on the east side of the river, it wasn't far from the Rose Garden.  I killed time then, while cats were being fixed, on that side of the river.  Now the clinic is on the west side and traffic has made it impossible to do much and get back on time.  But back then, I could jump on I84 and go out to Multnomah Falls and climb up the various trails along the old highway and still get back in time to pick up the cats.  I went to Omsi, along the river, twice too, killing time and was as enthralled with it as when I was a little kid going there playing with their interactive science exhibits.  On the west side, there's not as much fun to do as on the east side.  Well there probably is, just haven't found the spots.  The east side has always been more my type of area.

She couldn't find on her phone where the parking pass was located.  In the end we found a lot opened at a motel nearby, for cheaper than anywhere close around the Moda Center and parked there and walked.  The concert was energetic old style rock with very bad sound.  Half the time it was distorted but didn't seem to matter much to anyone there.  Old time rockers, a new younger lead singer.   Heard later two of the old band members are feuding so their next concert, in Seattle, would be their last.  Drama everywhere.  Can't escape it. They were in Albany a few years ago, playing one of the summer venues here, can't remember which.  I went then with two other old friends.

It was after that I picked up the car.  And paid the man.

I am so happy to have it back.  It runs so smoothly now I realize that bearing was failing for awhile.

Before the big racket at Waldo announced its soon end.

I went to the lake again yesterday from a campsite above the park where I'd stayed the night before.   Lake levels not low anymore, like it was getting the last time I was up there.  I'd spent Tuesday night at the campground up above the lake, mostly sleeping I was so tired out.  No cell service there either so I slept and slept and slept.  It's so nice to have places where there is no service, so no notification dings going off, no cat calls.   I took a book, finished it, put it in the campground little library, and then just slept.

We are having a sudden heat wave, could get to 100 next couple days.  With smokey skies from fires somewhere.  The smoke may reduce the temperature some from what is forecast.

I lost my old gal Starr on Saturday night.   She was never tame enough to pet and didn't want me to give her fluids, although I managed a few times in her last weeks.   That would perk her up for a bit, enough so she'd swat at me if I tried to do it again.   She'd been failing for about a year.  Old age.   I have several others going down that route, due to age, including my beloved bad boy Slinko.   

Starr with Mums in background.  Mums is also gone now.  I think this was from about 5 years ago.

This was taken in 2010, Starr on the right, with Oci, who died many years ago.

It was that sort of weekend, the car broken down stress over that, losing dear Starr, who was such a kind girl, loved by the other cats, had so many friends over the years.  I buried her in the back and planted a start from my Butterfly Bush over her.  The Butterfly bush is the tree of life.  Everything on earth loves it---the bees, the birds, the butterflies.

It seems like a million years ago already that I was up at Waldo, but it was a week ago.  A week ago today, I was paddling almost to the north end of beautiful Waldo Lake.  A week ago today, I was swimming there and watching sunsets from the beach.  My car, with its shrieking pump bearing, sat idle in a campsite and I had no cell service to even cruise sites to figure out what was wrong.  A blessing.   

I got an updated Golden Access pass from the Forest Service office in Sweet Home.  There the woman told me about Judge Waldo as I stood in stunned silence.  I'd never looked up how Waldo Lake got its name.    I hope to find Judge Waldo's diary to read.