Marion's Miscellaneous Musings

We got the news Friday about noon that the Mazda has been totalled. We went to a local car place and looked at a 2006 Honda Odyssey with 77,000 miles on it. All the electronics, nice color...but we need to check others out.

We looked at cars.com and found a 2008 for the same price with only 16,000 miles. Called the dealership in Salem, Or and talked to a salesman. Called a cousin in Oregon, made plans to stay with her, and asked why it would still be on the lot? She opined that Oregon has the 5th worst economy in the US and no one is buying. Checked the weather, and there was going to be freezing rain in the gorge that night and Saturday. This was the reason we need to buy a new car in the first place, so we made plans to drive down Sunday night or Monday if the car was still there.

Saturday I started the laundry at 6:30 (just pushed a button and went back to bed.) Discovered there had been no freezing rain anywhere. Got paperwork from the credit union. Called the dealership, the car had not been sold in the last four hours and told them we would probably buy it. And, since we are driving for some 5 hours, could they reserve it for us? Called Enterprise rental and asked about extra charges to leave the rental in Salem. He said he had a car that needed to be driven to the area, give him half an hour and we could switch cars. Plus Jack is coming down with a cold and I wanted him to actually help drive. (He did spend all day Monday on the couch watching TV.)

(We had a basic car for the rental -- no automatic door locks, no clicker, just power steering and power brakes. Really missed all the electronic gewgaws.)

Packed and left. Arrived in Salem about 4:30. The car did not fall apart when we test drove it, so we bought it. Anyone who has ever bought a car knows the time associated with that particular clause is outside of normal time. But I did get to watch part of the Cowboys-Eagles game while waiting. Almost the only football (American, that is) I've been able to watch all year! Even got to see a couple of Dallas TDs. The salesman said that he had been known to stay until midnight to finish a sale. I think he was only about 15 minutes after closing this time. The business manager who finished all the paperwork looks like Jim Carey.

The reason it had not sold was because they had a glut of Odysseys in November and December. They had dropped the price from $24,000 to $18,000 by the time we showed up -- it had been on the lot too long. Plus January is a good time to buy a used car, because people are shopping the clothing sales instead.

We arrived at the cousin's house about 8:00 pm. Had some good talks about the state of Christian music today, which degressed really fast into almost everything else, lasted 3 hours and was fueled by 2 1/2 bottles of wine for 4 of us. Ate breakfast at Sharis, and then left. We had things to do...like stay awake on the drive home. Both of us are into afternoon naps these days, and both of us have colds and were trying not to infect anyone. (Except Tami, who gave them to us!) Plus the laundry is still waiting.

Now we just take care of paperwork with the State of Washington (We still have to pay state sales tax, some $1600!!! They are in dire straights, I hope they don't waste it too badly) and with the insurance agency. They will know by Wednesday if we are covered by uninsured motorist (in which case we pay $15/day for the rental) or if they found the other driver was insured (then we pay nothing).

I LOVE THIS CAR! I think I will name it Patricia.

The lamp post is the one that was missed by a teenage driver whose adventures sliding around in the driveway were described in a previous post. You can also see the trunk of one of the Catalpas that she missed just behind the back bumper.

One of my friends called and asked if I wanted to go look at fabric she found on Craig's List for $3-6 per yard. Do I look like I have any money left? (If it had been $1/yard...)