Watch out world, I've got a Fiat, and I'm not afraid.
I'm just going to skip ahead of what all has been going on in May. May was a stupid month anyhow.
This past weekend I went to the land of the Hoosier. Yes, that's right: cornfields, truck stops, 24 hour diners, used cars, cheap booze, crazy churches, rivers, taquerias, and shopping malls... Indiana, you wonderful state full of loonies. (Maybe that's just my family and friends there, but they do make up a large percentage of the population.) I took the Fiat. This was the longest trip the Fiat has successfully gone on yet.
I left around 4AM in the morning, dead exhausted from a long night at work, and after recovering from the couple recovery from work drinks that I had had after said long night at work. After packing and grabbing the Fiat, we started on the long road to Indiana.
Now mind you, I was so tired that I kept having to stop to smack myself awake. I also only drive the Fiat between 65 and 70 miles an hour, so the trip was not overwhelmingly speedy. Around 8AM, I stopped at a gas station in Eastern Ontario and took an hour or so nap in the parking lot. The Fiat is less comfortable for this sort of thing than you might not think.
Eventually I was on my merry way again, in the sweltering heat and humidity that was June 5th. It occurred to me to stop in Windsor and acquire LOTS of sunscreen. That was probably my only sensible thought all day.
Eventually, I arrived at my mon's house sometime around 3-4pm. No one was there specifically, so I took a shower, and crashed for about an hour in hopes that I could recover enough to make the trip to Chicago to grab Joy and Elizabeth from the airport in Joy's car. (The Fiat will not seat three people.) Katie came by, and I was still so bleeding exhausted that I called Joy to beg them to take the train back instead of me having to get them. However, it turned out that Elizabeth's flight was delayed due to t-storms and tornado warnings across Illinoise, so it was unclear if she'd get in in time for a train, so I agreed to come if it was going to look that way.
Instead of getting more sleep, I sensible went with Katie to Between the Buns (a burger joint and pub over by our house) for tasty burgers and ice cold cherry coke. Wow, I miss having fountain cherry coke. With real, non watery ice. And real hamburgers. And Fried mushrooms. And good prices for everything. It was lovely.
Eventually, we got the word that Elizabeth's plane was set to arrive around 11:30, so I headed out towards Chicago in Joy's Honda. As I came in closer to the city, it became clear that Elizabeth's plane was not the only one to have been delayed until 11:30. They all had been. Every singly bleeding flight coming into Chicago from all around the planet was arrive around the same time. Now Chicago traffic sucks normally. This was really sucky. And don't get me started on the airport traffic. I was nearly ready to vomit from exhaustion. I am rarely that tired. But eventually the sisters were acquired. I feel into the back seat and fell so soundly asleep that no one could wake me up when they got home until around 4:00AM when Joy practically drug me out of the car so I wouldn't sleep all night in the driveway in the backseat of a Honda, which is only slightly more comfortable than sleeping in a 2-seater 850 Fiat Spider.
There was no rest for the wicked, however. I was woken up at the indecent hour of 8AM by Katie who was calling on behalf of my mom, to demand that I wake up Joy so that she could do Mom's makeup after she got back from the hairdresser's. Oh the joy of being the oldest. Here's the breakdown:
Me : September, 1979
Joy: June, 1981
Elizabeth: February, 1983
Katie: July, 1987 (I think)
Don't even get me started on the massive quantities of half sisters, ex-step sisters, step sisters, and people who are convinced they are my sister in Africa and the Butler family that I have.
Anyhow, I wake Joy up, make multiple cups of Earl Grey, and get ready for the wedding. We all manage to make it to the wedding in our various individual cars. It was the park behind 100 Center, this funky old factory turned eclectic shopping and dining area in Mishawaka down by the river. The extremely small wedding of only close personal family and friends seemed to me to include at least 50 people. It was a very nice ceremony. A few of Chuck's friends even came by on kayak to send their well wishes.
I then followed behind Mom and Chuck in their rental car with a chain of cars tooting away (as is dictated strictly by Midwestern wedding tradition) and then went back to the house to grab Katie, supplies for decorating their car, and mom's garter. We acquired various suggestively shaped balloons, condoms, paint sticks, and such at the drug store, and then headed back to Chuck's parents mansion on the other side of the river for potato salad, sandwiches, and so forth. Us girls spent a great deal of the time decorating the car (I think we did a fine job) and I made sure that a bottle of champaigne was lodged into the cooler in the trunk.
Eventually Mom and Chuck were sent off with a great deal more honking toward the Smokey Mountains, for their Honeymoon, with O'Cow along for the adventure. (My stuffed cow has been on at least 5 honeymoons now.)
We all headed home for a nap, but then I decided I really should get in some shopping instead, as Saturday was really my only day to get it done, and I wanted to take advantage of the radically different economy while I could. Katie tagged along with me, and I acquired socks, beads, towels, a nice bread knife, an anodized aluminum cookpot, a dress, a shirt, and random funky glasses. The glasses were given to me by the cashier at Express, who had decided that they were definitely destined to be on my face, rather than that of whomever had left them in their store. Bonus.
On the way home from the mall, I hit a huge pothole in the road, and the car began to behave as though I had blown a tire. I pulled over, but much to my surprise, the tires all appeared to be fine. I tried to start the car, but to no avail. It was dark at this point, and all we had was our cell phones to try to inspect the engine compartment, but nothing obvious appeared to be awry. This was odd, because usually if the Fiat breaks, whatever is broken is glaringly obvious. It is a pretty simple engine. I checked the plugs and wires, the distributor, etc.
Finally we called Elizabeth, who groggily informed us she wasn't leaving the bed. Ever.
We called Joy, who tried to pull the same story as Elizabeth, but after a great deal of begging and pleading, she came over to assist. We started by trying to give the car a jump, just to see if that would help. It didn't. Then Joy's hood latch became stuck in such a way that she could not close the hood to the car. I was tempted to keep calling people and see how many of us could all get broken down in the same spot, but managed to not do that. We thought there was a slight chance that maybe the car had run out of gas around the same time as it went over the bump, so Joy and Katie went off to grab some gas (after Joy kind-of got the latch almost closed) and I stayed around and entertained the owners of the Fireworks store that we were parked by. The one guy actually used to do Fiat service work, back when they were still in Indiana, which was surprising.
Eventually the gas was tried, to no avail. We also tried roll starting the sucker, but there was also very little luck. So it was decided we'd leave it there to go look at in the light of day on Sunday (the day I needed to leave) and that if worse came to worse that Joy'd just drive me back up to Toronto and hang out for the Music festival, etc. So the whole thing was pretty low stress. Plus, I knew the Fiat would break down at some point, that is just what it does. I didn't think it was that major either, as all the major components seemed to be functioning. It was very mysterious, which did annoy me. I didn't lose any sleep over it, however.
The next morning Joy had to return Elizabeth to Chicago at some ungodly early hour of the morning, but I slept in until 9ish. I was pretty relaxed, knowing that Joy could always just take me back to Toronto, worst case scenario. I decided after making lots more tea, that I should go on down to look over the Fiat. No one was at home, but Katie's car was in the drive, so I gave her a ring to see if I could borrow it. Upon talking to to Katie, I remembered that nothing having to do with organization of life with my family is ever simple. You see, Katie, as the fates would have it, was currently in Chicago with my mom's car, having just rescued Joy from a windshield that was shattered by her hood flying off the car. So there went that brilliant plan. She also hadn't left her car keys there, but offered me the use of her bicycle. Joy!
So I headed off on the bike, stopped by to have some photos and marvel at how much more technologically advanced the US is in general, when it comes to basic things like photo labs in drug stores, payment methods, and such. Really, Canada is at least 10 years behind the average small midwestern town. At least. Having done that, I biked over to the Fiat, and took a good look at it in the daylight.
It still looked like a Fiat.
So that was good, but, "What next?" I thought. I checked for my tools (I had at least brought with me some pliers and a screw driver from Mom's garage, but that was all I had found.) I couldn't find my Fiat tool kit. That was annoying. Not surprising I'd failed to bring it given the state I was in when I left, but still annoying. I mean, I knew before leaving I would need it. Anyhow, I went on to examine things, and again could not find any obvious problem that would be causing the car not to start. The engine was cranking fine, the distributor contacts were good, it was getting gas from the fuel pump, etc. I did notice that the water pump belt was about to wear out entirely, so I decided I might as well fix that to start with, until I had a better idea of what to do.
After determining that I didn't have the right tools to remove the water pump belt, I borrowed a pair of scissors from a person on the street, cut the belt off, and biked off to the Auto Zone half a mile down the road. (Handy breaking down near one of those, eh?)
At Auto Zone, I acquired a socket set and a belt that looked suspiciously too wide, but the guy assured me it was the closest he could get. So I biked back out to the Fiat, unbolted thingies, got the belt on there, and then was sad to note that the belt they'd given me was way too tight and there was no way it was going to let me tension the oil pump belt properly. After this discovery, I decided perhaps it would be for the best if I just pushed the Fiat over to the Auto Zone parking lot, so I could be close to parts as I needed them.
So I did. It was hot and miserable, but I pushed that sucker, Katie's bike haphazardly piled into the area behind the seats and all, about half a mile up a major street to Auto Zone. One thing I really love about the Fiat is that it is small enough that a single person can push it about if necessary. It's a lot of work, but it can be done. This is a good feature to have on a vehicle that breaks down whenever it feels like it.
At the Autozone, many things fell together. I managed to get a narrow belt, I managed to discover a loose wire from the distributor that was going to the coil, and after a bit of staring at a wire diagram, and calling Jo for his opinion, decided that it was supposed to go to the ground terminal on the coil. Connected that sucker up, and she was good to go again. Everyone at the Auto Zone was really impressed. I was really dirty.
I drove on home, and managed to just barely get Katie's bike inside when a massive thunderstorm hit. I enjoyed another pint of delightful hoppy wheat beer by Three Floyds and a smoke in the Fiat in the rain, just as Joy and Katie pulled back in from Chicago.
I oohed and aahed at Joy's new gold lame bikini, and then we all went off to the taqueria for some parting burritos.
And then I headed home.
It was a lovely drive back. When I got to Detroit, however, my happy mood was somewhat displaced by this evil woman at customs who gave me a really hard time, and was extremely rude to me. She basically called me a freak and asked me why I was dressed the way I was. I hardly knew what to say. Ok, sure I have purple dreadlocks and funky glasses, but that's no reason to get all rude. I thought maybe she meant the overalls covered in grease, and explained that I was working on my car earlier. She referred me over to be searched.
The guys searching me were a lot nicer. They basically took apart the whole car, and went through all my stuff, pockets, etc. This was bad as I was way over my legal limit for stuff coming in. I had a 1.750L of Vodka, a .750 of Tequila, a bottle of Champaigne, a carton of Marlboros, two pouches of American Spirit Organic tobacco, and all the stuff that I'd bought at the mall.
Then the guys says, "Ok, you can go now."
I'm like, "Er, do I need to do anything else?"
And he says, "Nope, go ahead."
So I didn't have to pay duty on any of it. Score. So I suppose it could have been worse.
Now, Detroit being Detroit, they had once again re-routed traffic in the most illogical ways possible to get too and from the bridge. I cross that bridge a lot. I have never taken the same path once. It is always insane. Like they're trying to weed out the not so smart rats or something.
That being said, I got turned around and stuck in traffic in the wrong direction leaving, such that I went back across the bridge into the US entirely by accident. I eventually turned around, went back to that same evil lady again, who made more snarky comments about my hand rolled cigarrette, but let me go in the end. (She was convinced I was smoking a joint.)
The rest of the trip proceeded slowly, but without further incident.
All in all, it was a great weekend, and I was really happy to get out of town for a bit. I also noticed that my perpetual sinus trouble and sore throat went away for the entire time I was out of town, leading me to conclude that I am allergic to Toronto.
Yay! I will post photos soon after the last set is developed. In the US, I can get a disposable camera developed in an hour, along with a photo CD burnt for $9. Here I pay $20 and have to wait until Wednesday. Thank goodness for my economic stimulus check of $300.
This past weekend I went to the land of the Hoosier. Yes, that's right: cornfields, truck stops, 24 hour diners, used cars, cheap booze, crazy churches, rivers, taquerias, and shopping malls... Indiana, you wonderful state full of loonies. (Maybe that's just my family and friends there, but they do make up a large percentage of the population.) I took the Fiat. This was the longest trip the Fiat has successfully gone on yet.
I left around 4AM in the morning, dead exhausted from a long night at work, and after recovering from the couple recovery from work drinks that I had had after said long night at work. After packing and grabbing the Fiat, we started on the long road to Indiana.
Now mind you, I was so tired that I kept having to stop to smack myself awake. I also only drive the Fiat between 65 and 70 miles an hour, so the trip was not overwhelmingly speedy. Around 8AM, I stopped at a gas station in Eastern Ontario and took an hour or so nap in the parking lot. The Fiat is less comfortable for this sort of thing than you might not think.
Eventually I was on my merry way again, in the sweltering heat and humidity that was June 5th. It occurred to me to stop in Windsor and acquire LOTS of sunscreen. That was probably my only sensible thought all day.
Eventually, I arrived at my mon's house sometime around 3-4pm. No one was there specifically, so I took a shower, and crashed for about an hour in hopes that I could recover enough to make the trip to Chicago to grab Joy and Elizabeth from the airport in Joy's car. (The Fiat will not seat three people.) Katie came by, and I was still so bleeding exhausted that I called Joy to beg them to take the train back instead of me having to get them. However, it turned out that Elizabeth's flight was delayed due to t-storms and tornado warnings across Illinoise, so it was unclear if she'd get in in time for a train, so I agreed to come if it was going to look that way.
Instead of getting more sleep, I sensible went with Katie to Between the Buns (a burger joint and pub over by our house) for tasty burgers and ice cold cherry coke. Wow, I miss having fountain cherry coke. With real, non watery ice. And real hamburgers. And Fried mushrooms. And good prices for everything. It was lovely.
Eventually, we got the word that Elizabeth's plane was set to arrive around 11:30, so I headed out towards Chicago in Joy's Honda. As I came in closer to the city, it became clear that Elizabeth's plane was not the only one to have been delayed until 11:30. They all had been. Every singly bleeding flight coming into Chicago from all around the planet was arrive around the same time. Now Chicago traffic sucks normally. This was really sucky. And don't get me started on the airport traffic. I was nearly ready to vomit from exhaustion. I am rarely that tired. But eventually the sisters were acquired. I feel into the back seat and fell so soundly asleep that no one could wake me up when they got home until around 4:00AM when Joy practically drug me out of the car so I wouldn't sleep all night in the driveway in the backseat of a Honda, which is only slightly more comfortable than sleeping in a 2-seater 850 Fiat Spider.
There was no rest for the wicked, however. I was woken up at the indecent hour of 8AM by Katie who was calling on behalf of my mom, to demand that I wake up Joy so that she could do Mom's makeup after she got back from the hairdresser's. Oh the joy of being the oldest. Here's the breakdown:
Me : September, 1979
Joy: June, 1981
Elizabeth: February, 1983
Katie: July, 1987 (I think)
Don't even get me started on the massive quantities of half sisters, ex-step sisters, step sisters, and people who are convinced they are my sister in Africa and the Butler family that I have.
Anyhow, I wake Joy up, make multiple cups of Earl Grey, and get ready for the wedding. We all manage to make it to the wedding in our various individual cars. It was the park behind 100 Center, this funky old factory turned eclectic shopping and dining area in Mishawaka down by the river. The extremely small wedding of only close personal family and friends seemed to me to include at least 50 people. It was a very nice ceremony. A few of Chuck's friends even came by on kayak to send their well wishes.
I then followed behind Mom and Chuck in their rental car with a chain of cars tooting away (as is dictated strictly by Midwestern wedding tradition) and then went back to the house to grab Katie, supplies for decorating their car, and mom's garter. We acquired various suggestively shaped balloons, condoms, paint sticks, and such at the drug store, and then headed back to Chuck's parents mansion on the other side of the river for potato salad, sandwiches, and so forth. Us girls spent a great deal of the time decorating the car (I think we did a fine job) and I made sure that a bottle of champaigne was lodged into the cooler in the trunk.
Eventually Mom and Chuck were sent off with a great deal more honking toward the Smokey Mountains, for their Honeymoon, with O'Cow along for the adventure. (My stuffed cow has been on at least 5 honeymoons now.)
We all headed home for a nap, but then I decided I really should get in some shopping instead, as Saturday was really my only day to get it done, and I wanted to take advantage of the radically different economy while I could. Katie tagged along with me, and I acquired socks, beads, towels, a nice bread knife, an anodized aluminum cookpot, a dress, a shirt, and random funky glasses. The glasses were given to me by the cashier at Express, who had decided that they were definitely destined to be on my face, rather than that of whomever had left them in their store. Bonus.
On the way home from the mall, I hit a huge pothole in the road, and the car began to behave as though I had blown a tire. I pulled over, but much to my surprise, the tires all appeared to be fine. I tried to start the car, but to no avail. It was dark at this point, and all we had was our cell phones to try to inspect the engine compartment, but nothing obvious appeared to be awry. This was odd, because usually if the Fiat breaks, whatever is broken is glaringly obvious. It is a pretty simple engine. I checked the plugs and wires, the distributor, etc.
Finally we called Elizabeth, who groggily informed us she wasn't leaving the bed. Ever.
We called Joy, who tried to pull the same story as Elizabeth, but after a great deal of begging and pleading, she came over to assist. We started by trying to give the car a jump, just to see if that would help. It didn't. Then Joy's hood latch became stuck in such a way that she could not close the hood to the car. I was tempted to keep calling people and see how many of us could all get broken down in the same spot, but managed to not do that. We thought there was a slight chance that maybe the car had run out of gas around the same time as it went over the bump, so Joy and Katie went off to grab some gas (after Joy kind-of got the latch almost closed) and I stayed around and entertained the owners of the Fireworks store that we were parked by. The one guy actually used to do Fiat service work, back when they were still in Indiana, which was surprising.
Eventually the gas was tried, to no avail. We also tried roll starting the sucker, but there was also very little luck. So it was decided we'd leave it there to go look at in the light of day on Sunday (the day I needed to leave) and that if worse came to worse that Joy'd just drive me back up to Toronto and hang out for the Music festival, etc. So the whole thing was pretty low stress. Plus, I knew the Fiat would break down at some point, that is just what it does. I didn't think it was that major either, as all the major components seemed to be functioning. It was very mysterious, which did annoy me. I didn't lose any sleep over it, however.
The next morning Joy had to return Elizabeth to Chicago at some ungodly early hour of the morning, but I slept in until 9ish. I was pretty relaxed, knowing that Joy could always just take me back to Toronto, worst case scenario. I decided after making lots more tea, that I should go on down to look over the Fiat. No one was at home, but Katie's car was in the drive, so I gave her a ring to see if I could borrow it. Upon talking to to Katie, I remembered that nothing having to do with organization of life with my family is ever simple. You see, Katie, as the fates would have it, was currently in Chicago with my mom's car, having just rescued Joy from a windshield that was shattered by her hood flying off the car. So there went that brilliant plan. She also hadn't left her car keys there, but offered me the use of her bicycle. Joy!
So I headed off on the bike, stopped by to have some photos and marvel at how much more technologically advanced the US is in general, when it comes to basic things like photo labs in drug stores, payment methods, and such. Really, Canada is at least 10 years behind the average small midwestern town. At least. Having done that, I biked over to the Fiat, and took a good look at it in the daylight.
It still looked like a Fiat.
So that was good, but, "What next?" I thought. I checked for my tools (I had at least brought with me some pliers and a screw driver from Mom's garage, but that was all I had found.) I couldn't find my Fiat tool kit. That was annoying. Not surprising I'd failed to bring it given the state I was in when I left, but still annoying. I mean, I knew before leaving I would need it. Anyhow, I went on to examine things, and again could not find any obvious problem that would be causing the car not to start. The engine was cranking fine, the distributor contacts were good, it was getting gas from the fuel pump, etc. I did notice that the water pump belt was about to wear out entirely, so I decided I might as well fix that to start with, until I had a better idea of what to do.
After determining that I didn't have the right tools to remove the water pump belt, I borrowed a pair of scissors from a person on the street, cut the belt off, and biked off to the Auto Zone half a mile down the road. (Handy breaking down near one of those, eh?)
At Auto Zone, I acquired a socket set and a belt that looked suspiciously too wide, but the guy assured me it was the closest he could get. So I biked back out to the Fiat, unbolted thingies, got the belt on there, and then was sad to note that the belt they'd given me was way too tight and there was no way it was going to let me tension the oil pump belt properly. After this discovery, I decided perhaps it would be for the best if I just pushed the Fiat over to the Auto Zone parking lot, so I could be close to parts as I needed them.
So I did. It was hot and miserable, but I pushed that sucker, Katie's bike haphazardly piled into the area behind the seats and all, about half a mile up a major street to Auto Zone. One thing I really love about the Fiat is that it is small enough that a single person can push it about if necessary. It's a lot of work, but it can be done. This is a good feature to have on a vehicle that breaks down whenever it feels like it.
At the Autozone, many things fell together. I managed to get a narrow belt, I managed to discover a loose wire from the distributor that was going to the coil, and after a bit of staring at a wire diagram, and calling Jo for his opinion, decided that it was supposed to go to the ground terminal on the coil. Connected that sucker up, and she was good to go again. Everyone at the Auto Zone was really impressed. I was really dirty.
I drove on home, and managed to just barely get Katie's bike inside when a massive thunderstorm hit. I enjoyed another pint of delightful hoppy wheat beer by Three Floyds and a smoke in the Fiat in the rain, just as Joy and Katie pulled back in from Chicago.
I oohed and aahed at Joy's new gold lame bikini, and then we all went off to the taqueria for some parting burritos.
And then I headed home.
It was a lovely drive back. When I got to Detroit, however, my happy mood was somewhat displaced by this evil woman at customs who gave me a really hard time, and was extremely rude to me. She basically called me a freak and asked me why I was dressed the way I was. I hardly knew what to say. Ok, sure I have purple dreadlocks and funky glasses, but that's no reason to get all rude. I thought maybe she meant the overalls covered in grease, and explained that I was working on my car earlier. She referred me over to be searched.
The guys searching me were a lot nicer. They basically took apart the whole car, and went through all my stuff, pockets, etc. This was bad as I was way over my legal limit for stuff coming in. I had a 1.750L of Vodka, a .750 of Tequila, a bottle of Champaigne, a carton of Marlboros, two pouches of American Spirit Organic tobacco, and all the stuff that I'd bought at the mall.
Then the guys says, "Ok, you can go now."
I'm like, "Er, do I need to do anything else?"
And he says, "Nope, go ahead."
So I didn't have to pay duty on any of it. Score. So I suppose it could have been worse.
Now, Detroit being Detroit, they had once again re-routed traffic in the most illogical ways possible to get too and from the bridge. I cross that bridge a lot. I have never taken the same path once. It is always insane. Like they're trying to weed out the not so smart rats or something.
That being said, I got turned around and stuck in traffic in the wrong direction leaving, such that I went back across the bridge into the US entirely by accident. I eventually turned around, went back to that same evil lady again, who made more snarky comments about my hand rolled cigarrette, but let me go in the end. (She was convinced I was smoking a joint.)
The rest of the trip proceeded slowly, but without further incident.
All in all, it was a great weekend, and I was really happy to get out of town for a bit. I also noticed that my perpetual sinus trouble and sore throat went away for the entire time I was out of town, leading me to conclude that I am allergic to Toronto.
Yay! I will post photos soon after the last set is developed. In the US, I can get a disposable camera developed in an hour, along with a photo CD burnt for $9. Here I pay $20 and have to wait until Wednesday. Thank goodness for my economic stimulus check of $300.