Update on the Pokemon Go thing--today I've had much more luck getting the game to work. I was finally able to finish the tutorial and choose my "nickname".
Sadly, pretty much everything I could think of was taken. Which somehow led to me getting stuck with the nickname of "mmcboise", which sounds like some kind of DJ name but is actually an abbreviation of the name of the company I work for.
I then discovered that you can catch a decent number of Pokemon just hanging out in your room:
I also figured out how to take photos of the Pokemon, so here, have an awkward photo of a "Rhyhorn" sitting on my lap.
This one is called an "eevee". Whatever it is, it's my new favorite--look how cute!
Geeze my room is depressing with everything packed up. Adding the Pokemon is kind of an improvement.
I then took my new game skills out on the road for a test run, heading towards Ann Morrison Park. While there, I saw a few people who maybe could have been playing? Maybe? But the only other person who was playing for sure was a guy who passed me in the park and asked me if I'd been finding anything good. I pointed him towards a section of sidewalk where I'd found a "Graveler" and felt like I was one of the cool kids.
This early in the game, it's pretty easy. Mostly I'm catching lots of "Pidgeys", pigeon looking things which I use to make my new geeky hobby even geekier by giving them names like "Shuu", "Yuuya", "Sakuya", and "Okosan". (If you got those references, you might have a problem.) But I did meet my first real challenge with a cephalopod looking thing called a Tentacool:
Do you see those beady eyes? Those are the eyes of a jerk.
I used up about twelve Pokeballs trying to catch that thing, and crashed the app twice and my phone once. It even jumped back out of the Pokeball when I caught it-- something no one had told me was even possible! I had been planning on giving it an awesome name, like "Cthulhu", but after all that, I took revenge on the thing by naming it "Squidworth" instead. And I don't even like Spongebob Squarepants.
When I got back to my apartment, I'd walked 3.5 kilometers, had taken an hour longer than I'd anticipated, had completely worn out my phone's battery, and had caught fifteen Pokemon. Not a bad start.
My roommates think it's hilarious that I'm playing this game, but so far it's kind of fun.
I put a lot of time into finding apartments to check out for this newest batch of apartment hunting. My previous experiences helped a lot in avoiding the kinds of places that you needed to meet a certain poverty level to get or that had a three-year waiting list, and with so many places to look at, I was pretty confident I'd find somewhere in my budget.
House Hunting Stage One!
I knew I wanted to stay in Boise--I've kind of fallen in love with this town, with the Greenbelt and all the interesting places to go and the beautiful trees everywhere-- but I was willing to move to another part of town if I had to. My first day of in-person apartment hunting was July 12th since I wasn't working that day and could dedicate the entire day to apartment hunting.
I started out in the North End. I was delighted for an opportunity to drive around there-- a lot of beautiful old houses in wonderful condition are in that part of town. This was not one of them.
I chalked this one up in the "maybe" column of my list and continued on.
The next few places seemed nice enough but didn't actually have any openings until well after I needed to vacate my current premises. Then I found a place that stopped me cold-- a beautiful sky-blue house on a fancy street. How the heck did something like that make it onto my list?
Well, I quickly figured out that it was the basement that was for rent, which explained a lot.
After walking out of there, I immediately called the company to see if I could turn in an application. Turns out someone bought the lease the day before I got there.
The rest of the day was filled with disappointment. Everywhere I went either had no available apartments or had apartments more expensive than I'd anticipated. Though I'd scheduled an entire day's worth of visits, by 2PM I was physically and emotionally exhausted and wasn't sure whether I was more likely to fall asleep at the wheel or start crying. I decided the wisest course of action was to go home and take a nap.
After I had recovered a bit, I wised up and started making phone calls to places instead, crossing off everywhere that I couldn't afford or that didn't have openings. I did make it out to one more lock box showing that evening.
I wasn't encouraged.
Now, meanwhile, my roommate was doing some searching of her own. She was determined to move to Meridian, since it's closer to her work, and was doing her best to persuade both me and the third roommate (the one who's lease is still good until May) to move with her. She very quickly found and fell in love with a townhome out there and turned in an application, willing to take the risk of paying the full rent if she couldn't convince two people to move in with her. I didn't really want to move to this place-- not because of any bad feelings towards her, but because of the fact that I had no desire at all to live in Meridian-- but I thought it was nice to have that as a backup if my efforts in Boise failed.
Well, the owner of the townhome called back to say that this house had a limit on unmarried adults who could live in it and they were wanting to rent it to a family. So, too bad about the $40 application fee.
Back to my apartment hunting in Boise-- while my first day was a disappointment, I did not give up. I decided that I needed to raise my budget for potential rent by $100, which made me wince since that meant looking at places that cost more than half of my current income. But I am supposed to be getting more hours as the year goes on, I could survive a couple of lean months until then.
House Hunting Stage Two--with an increased budget
I didn't end up visiting most of those places. Phone calls eliminated them quickly. But I scrounged up a few more apartments that had just gone on the market and were for sure available still.
House Hunting Stage Three--and I'm getting a little concerned at how short this list is
Alas, I found that all of these places were very run-down and not really anything I felt appropriate to pay more than half my income to live in.
In retrospect, using a clear pin as a reference point for my current apartment isn't super helpful
The above is a slight exaggeration; there were a few places I hadn't quite wiped off my list yet (like the apartment in the first video). But I was certainly feeling discouraged. Still, I came up with a few more places I could call, a few more listings I hadn't tried. Maybe a few of the more pricey (but not too much more) places were worth considering.
And then my one roommate fell in love with another place out in Meridian.
There's another girl in the ward who needs a place, so the two of them worked together to find The Franklin at Ten Mile--this fancy new place that's still under construction and features a website where all the "photos" are obvious computer renderings of the hoped for final project interspersed with random photos of people smiling. No, seriously, check out their website.
And while there are two bedroom apartments, getting three roommates would make a considerable difference in rent (putting the rent we'd each pay well below even my original budget). So my roommate proceeded to turn every conversation into an opportunity to try to convince me to move in with them. To her credit, it wasn't only the reduction in rent--we are friends, and she knew I was still looking. Still, I dug my heels in. After all, Meridian is not Boise, and has less trees and less biking areas and adds 20 minutes to many of my commute distances each way.
That itty bitty half a centimeter on this side of the map is about ten miles in real life
It got to the point where I was avoiding my roommate a bit. But despite my stubborn refusal, I wasn't sure I'd get a choice. Could I really afford to live where I wanted to live?
Now, I usually try to keep things pretty light here. But sometimes bigger issues have to be addressed, like it or not, and depression is one of them.
Depression has been a part of my life for a long time, though it's only in the last couple of years I've been able to admit to myself that I needed help and start getting treatment. And I'm actually doing quite well, perhaps the best I have in a long time, at managing my symptoms. I take medicine that helps, and I've been learning more and more about figuring out which of my thoughts are rational or irrational and how to manage them.
Still, I get "moods", times where nothing is OK and about me least of all, and all of the stress and pressure I was under threw me into one. I spent some time crying in my room, unable to sleep until very late at night.
But I felt much better when I woke up the next morning. I sat in bed for a while, taking my time about getting up. I took a look at my notebook where I've been writing down all the addresses and phone numbers and rent and details.
And I realized I needed to move to Meridian.
It wasn't, understand, simply a matter of running out of options in Boise. I still had places to try. But that night of feeling broken put some things into perspective for me.
When I'd been so upset and angry the night before, the idea of accepting the offer to move to Meridian had felt like admitting defeat. Thinking about it more, I could see that I was getting attached to the idea of romanticized independence-- that's what adults do, right? They get their own place and they pay for it themselves and they find it themselves and they keep it running themselves and they don't need help ever because no needing help means that you are strong and successful. Right?
Yeah, no, that was being irrational.
And my roommate's persuasions had triggered some of my knee jerk reaction too. Now's not the time to get into that story (maybe later, this person will certainly show up in other stories), but there was a person who put me through a lot of emotional manipulation and abuse. I didn't recognize how much she had hurt me until after she was out of my life, but I did learn that I am susceptible to that kind of thing. So when a repeated argument focuses less on the logical reasons I should do something and more on how the desired action relates to my relationship with another person-- I get a bad taste in my mouth. It reminds me too much of what happens when those tactics go too far.
When I stepped away from my more irrational thoughts and feelings and considered my choice from that saner standpoint, I saw the one vital reason that I couldn't stay in Boise.
If I stayed in Boise, I'd be alone.
I mean, I'd make friends, of course. I've made some friends in my ward in the short time I've been here. But at night, after a long day, when I'm most susceptible to the demons that live in my brain, I'd be alone in my room every time.
I'm an introvert with social anxiety, so it's very easy for me to be a "hermit". Don't get me wrong, some time alone is good for you. But too much is like a very weird drug; you hate it but you can't figure out how to stop. Being alone at home seems so much easier because there's no one to judge or reject you.
But dealing with mental illness sometimes means recognizing that the person who rejects you the most and judges you the most harshly is, well, you.
In college, I had a lot of lousy roommates. And a handful of absolutely wonderful ones. But during my first year of school, I was alone. The structure of the apartment meant I never saw my "roommates" unless we passed each other on the way to the bathroom. And that was the year when I went through the worst depressive period of my life. I just... I couldn't handle being that alone. I needed other people around to pull me out of my brain. Even lousy roommates were better than that lonely year had been. And when I had good roommates, that support system made a huge difference.
So, through that lens, my choice was pretty clear. I could spend a year living all alone in Boise, in a lousy apartment for a price I could barely afford. Or I could spend a year living with two girls I actually liked in Meridian, in a nice apartment for a price I could definitely afford.
So I swallowed my pride and asked if they'd still let me move in with them to Meridian.
I still haven't seen the place in person. We had an interesting time with the application process-- computer errors, it turned out, so it took them longer than expected to tell us and we still haven't signed the lease. But the application was accepted, and somehow (if we can manage to get everything up the stairs) we're going to move into this new place on Saturday.
Maybe in the future, I'll move back to Boise. With more time to anticipate the move, I could find roommates there and struggle less with the fact that a two-week window does not leave a lot of available apartments. But that's a good way into the future. For now, I have a place to live, and people to share it with. Maybe it isn't perfect, but it's enough.
In case you haven't noticed, there's a crazy popular mobile game right now that is taking the country by storm. And that game is Frogger.
OK, no, it's Pokemon Go. If you are uninformed about the game enough that you took the previous paragraph seriously, I'd better explain what the deal is. If you already know, feel free to skip the next paragraph.
Basically, it's a game you play on your phone, where you catch imaginary monsters called "Pokemon" and then train them and make them fight each other. The game has been around in one incarnation or another for a long time--I was well aware of the Pokemon craze back in the 1990's when I was in elementary school-- but this new version has added an interesting twist. In order to catch Pokemon, you have to walk to a real world location where the Pokemon is hiding. The game uses GPS to figure out where you are in relation to these Pokemon, and gives you hints about how far you need to walk to find them. The idea of the game is to get the players to actually get up and walk around outside.
Now, understand that as far as Pokemon go, I am a definite ignoramus. Back in the 90's when everyone else my age was in a Pokemon craze, I had only a vague awareness of what the game actually was. You see, I was not allowed to play Pokemon. (Well, that's what I believed at the time. I also believed I was not allowed to own any video games. But more recently I found out that this was never an actual rule; my parents just never bought us any because we never asked for them, and my siblings and I just assumed it was a rule because my parents never bought us any. So, likely as not, I interpreted my parents making some comments about how unimpressed they were with the snippets they'd seen of the anime as a household rule that never actually existed.) So as an adult, I have no particular nostalgia for the game. I don't even know what more than a couple of the little critters are called, I've never seen an episode of the Anime, and the closest I've come to interacting with Pokemon in the past was when a friend insisted on calling me "Jiggly Puff" for a week in what I could only assume was a crack about my weight.
So I was not one of the people that went crazy when the game came out--what is it, now, two or three weeks ago?
But I couldn't help hearing about it all over the Internet. And while I don't care much about Pokemon, there is a certain appeal to me in having a game based on walking around and exploring the area around you.
More than that, though, I've been drawn to the community. You see, the stories that come back from those playing the game-- players can identify each other easily because of the way you walk and hold your phone when you are playing the game, and so what's happening all over the country is complete strangers of different ages, races, backgrounds, and cultures are striking up friendly conversations and having friendly interactions in the street all over this Pokemon game. And I'd like to live in the kind of world where that happens. So, finally, I gave into curiosity and downloaded the app onto my phone.
It is a free app, so if you would like to try it yourself-- go do that. But if not, sit back and let me experience the adventure for you.
I opened the app. It crashed.
I tried again. This time, I got a picture of an old man, who proceeded to ask me if I wanted to help him catch Pokemon. Well, obviously, that's why I'm here, right? So after choosing my "style" (read, hair and shirt color for the little person who walks around on the screen), I began my adventures as a Pokemon trainer.
I immediately found one (later I figured out it was so fast because I was still in the tutorial), a little blue turtle thingy called a "Squirtle". It popped up on my camera screen, bobbing cheerfully in the street in front of my apartment building.
Well, to capture the Squirtle, you "throw" a Pokeball at it. This much I knew from hearing so much about the game. The problem-- how to throw? I kind of figured that actually throwing my phone was not a great idea.
(Yes, this video is a spoof made by a comedian)
Well, I spent about five minutes tapping my screen, sliding my fingers around my screen, and waving my phone in the air. Nothing happened, and the Squirtle just sat there and mocked me.
So I gave up and went back to my apartment.
After doing some research (turns out you need to gently "flick" a finger across the screen, and that if you disable the camera thing it's easier), I opened the game up (let it crash three times, restarted my phone, and then finally got it working) and tried again.
This time, there was an orange lizard hanging out in my bedroom. Using what I'd learned, I "threw" the Pokeball--and, success! I caught the charzar or whatever the heck it's called. I was a real life honest to goodness Poketrainer! (That is the word, right?
((Blogger's Note: An update on housing will be coming today or tomorrow. In the meantime, I hope you'll enjoy an older post I never got around to finishing at the time about some embarrassing moments at a talent show.)
There are two things you need to know to understand what made the stake talent show so memorable.
The first is the fact that we were in the stake talent show at all.
This was back in Spring of 2015, and my roommates and I (and our next door neighbor who was practically our roommate), being musically inclined, decided to put together a song for the upcoming ward talent show. The song that my roommates selected, however, ended up being from the Land Before Time movie. It was actually my very favorite song as a kid, which made me feel as self conscious as a teenager to be performing it in public. But they were going to have me sing. Despite the fact that performing makes me shake like an aspen tree in a wind storm, I secretly ALWAYS want people to ask me to sing a solo. (I guess putting this here makes it slightly less secret, but only slightly since I'm directly related to 80% of the people reading this.) In fact, one of the truly pathetic things about me is that to me one of the perks of being a music therapist is that I can sing to people all the time whether they want me to or not. Anyway, being asked to sing always makes me feel very flattered, so despite feeling self conscious about the song choice I readily agreed.
But which song am I talking about, do you ask? Diana Ross, take it away.
We had a pretty nice arrangement; piano, cello, and flute, and it did sound rather pretty. We called ourselves "Avocet 2 and 3/4", as a nod to the fact that we were sort of all roommates. (Another name considered but quickly discarded was "Older men in loincloths", an in-joke from a comment someone made while watching Tarzan.)
Apparently our ward agreed, because much to my shock and surprise our talent was one of two that were asked to perform in the stake talent show a couple of weeks later.
The second thing you need to understand is that the guy I had a crush on at the time was in my stake.
He was an old friend that I had recently discovered lived about a block away from me, but I almost never saw him. As a matter of fact, part of me was starting to wonder if he was avoiding me. So I was well aware of the fact that he might be in the audience when we performed in the stake talent show.
The stake talent show was a lot of fun. Some of the talents were skilled musicians or dancers. And then there was a couple that sang "That's All I Ask of You" from the Phantom of the Opera while doing the corniest dance moves you could imagine, (complete with a girl randomly running behind them waving an American flag), only to reveal at the end that behind the curtain were the real singers and our performers had just been lip syncing. My description isn't doing it justice, it was hilarious.
Then it was our turn. Stepping onto the stage, I felt terrified and embarrassed about the song choice. One of my roommates, recalling my lousy introduction during the ward talent show, stepped up to the microphone and invited the audience to tune into their childhood nostalgia before listening to the song. Then we began.
Now, we had three mikes. One for the piano, one shared between the cello and flute, and one for me. So I was standing a bit in front of the others, meaning that they didn't find out what happened until afterward.
As I sang, I gradually became aware of the fact that the microphone was getting farther and farther away from me. At the start of the song the microphone was about the same height as my face. But as the song continued, the insufficiently tightened hinge on the mike stand continued to lower little by little until the microphone was pointing at my belly button. At first I just tried to lean forward and sing louder, panicking a little (and the sound guy in the back of the room was desperately trying to adjust as needed), but when it started to dip below my waist I yanked the microphone back up to face height. The sudden increase in volume was painfully loud, and I got more than a few sniggers. Still, I did my best to maintain my composure until the end of the song.
Most of the people who spoke to us afterward were kind and polite, of course. But I was soon distracted by seeing a familiar form across the crowded parking lot on our way out of the building-- they guy I liked. My roommates, who knew of the situation, encouraged me to go talk to him--and I didn't need much encouragement since he was someone I already knew well--and had been trying to talk to for a while. He was not going to get out of talking to me tonight. After all, he had to have seen my performance, so he knew I was there.
As I walked over, though, I heard one of my roommates shout, "Jen! Jen! Jen!" I spun around, ready to deal with some sort of crisis--only to discover that one of my roommates, slow on the uptake, wanted to tell me to go talk to that guy. Some facepalms ensued, but I assured her it was fine, I could still-- and then I turned around to discover that he had vanished into the crowd.
Needless to say, my roommate was pretty embarrassed by the whole thing. In retrospect, I'm not too upset about it--I found out later he was already dating a girl, and the two of them are actually engaged right now. (*cough cough facebook stalking cough*). So it was probably just as well, no matter how much Katrina wailed about single-handedly ruining my love life on the way back home.
Besides. It was kind of nice not to be the only one embarrassing myself that night.
Despite some stressors, and the fact that I visited a place called "The Village", today was not a horror movie. Mostly.
First of all, today I had my board exams. AKA the test that I have to pass to get my music therapy licence so that, you know, I can legally keep my job and be a music therapist and all that. It was a doozy of a test, despite the fact that it was all very familiar material. Lots and lots of questions with multiple potentially correct answers.
But I passed! And, with one less thing to worry about in my currently very crazy life (Stress? Stress? I'm not stressed, what made you think I was stressed? I havenothingto bestressed outabout. Ha. Ha. Ha... Excuse me while I go throw up) I decided that it was worth celebrating. Since I had to take my test all the way out in Meridian anyway, I thought I'd go check out the taco place my roommate had mentioned to me in The Village ...at Meridian.
I'd noticed the outside before while driving between appointments, mainly because it's got an anachronistically old-world European charm (at least to my admittedly untrained eye), but this was my first time actually visiting.
Basically, it's a big fancy mall. Now, understand, malls have never been my wheelhouse, but I do have a bit of a fascination with outdoor malls. And this one really is quite lovely; the flower gardens alone are worth a visit if you're in the area:
And there are some very pretty buildings:
In the center is an area with lots of nice seating, a performing stage, and some mini Bellagio-type fountains.
They sync up with the music that's played throughout the area.
Also, statues of butterflies turning into books and vice versa:
Anyway, I got my taco:
And then I took some time to go exploring. I was actually pretty excited to have one of the kinds of adventures that I happen to instead of that happen to me this week.
I fell in love a little bit with this fancy stationary store:
The reflection kind of spoils this, but the store is called "Paperie + Pen" and behind that is a wedding dress made of paper.
I might need this notebook...
I had also heard that there was a pretty cool candy store here, so I took a look.
The outside:
Did not adequately prepare me for the inside:
AGGH! My EYES! My cellphone camera can not do justice to the neons.
My middle school self would have loved it but I found it a little overstimulating. They do have an excellent selection if you're into gummy candy, but I didn't end up buying anything.
All in all, I had a very pleasant time wandering around at the village.
Perhaps a little too pleasant.
You see, as I stepped out of one shop with a frozen yogurt in hand, I glanced down at my cell phone to realize that I only had forty-five minutes until my next work appointment. Barely enough time to run to my erstwhile apartment for my guitar and then get there on time.
Note, also, that this session is with a client that I still haven't officially added to my caseload yet. I'm supposed to meet him once or twice with his previous music therapist first. But last time, I got lost and ended up not arriving until the last fifteen minutes of the appointment. So you can understand how I felt stressed when it looked like I was just a hair's breadth from being late. Again.
And there was much skedaddling.
Well, that was the intent, anyway. But I got stuck in some nasty rush hour traffic. And then there was a problem with the elevator, which made me regret my guess that the elevator might be a few seconds faster than the stairs. (But also left me dreaming with some fondness for the day not long from now when I will live somewhere that isn't on the fourth floor). Then, on my way back into the car, I somehow managed to set off the alarm.
Cue five minutes of me trying to figure out how to make the sound stop and get the lights to stop flashing in my brand new car that I am still figuring out what all the buttons do. And I don't have an owner's manual because it's a used car.
I texted the other music therapist to let her know I was going to be late (because at this point I was) and alluded to some car problems. Then I took off, rushing as fast as was legally permissible-- right into the very worst of Boise's rush hour traffic. Inching down Chinden Boulevard, I watched the estimated arrival time on my GPS unit go from "a little bit late" to "a lot bit late" to "Wow, this family is going to hate me and not want me to work with their child", to "Wow, I kind of hate me and probably shouldn't work with their child", to "Yeah, no, at this rate I'll miss the entire session." So I gave up and turned around to go back to my apartment. And promptly got lost. In a familiar neighborhood.
Lessons learned:
1) Pay attention to the time while going on adventures.
2) I'm kind of an idiot
3) I opened this up with the wrong kind of village references.
Anyway, tomorrow I dive into the legwork part of apartment hunting, so that's where the real horror story begins.
Don't believe me? Check out this map I poked lots of holes into just so I could show you how many places I'm going tomorrow.
Well, my very angry roommate just had a very angry conversation with the office, in which she found out that the lease renewal date is 60 days before the end of the lease. In other words, a week before I moved in.
I'm not as upset about this as my roommate who hadn't even bought the lease at that time and has only been living here for two weeks (meaning that she is getting kicked out with no warning from them after passing two month 'so rent for less than a month of actually living here) but the insistence of the office staff that they are in no way to blame for not saying anything is currently grating on the less forgiving part of my nature.
Look, I typically avoid naming anyone that I dislike or disagree with in this blog because that's a petty and unprofessional thing to do which does no one any good. But I am currently fighting the urge to say some truly nasty things about the incompetence and apathy of the employees here. I will restrain myself and only say that if you, anonymous reader, happen to be looking to move to Boise, don't go to Vista Apartments. They are not worth your money, or the headaches they'll give you.
For those of you who don't speak millennial, "to adult" means to be successful at doing the things your parents took care of when you were a child. Such tasks include cooking, canning, arranging furniture, paying bills on time, and getting the oil changed on your car.
There's been a lot of adulting going on in my apartment this last week. We are all finally unpacked. I now have a beautifully arranged and organized bookshelf. Our shared living space has a pantry with shelves, a table and chairs (and a table runner!), a couch, and a nice stand for a television. We've been very proud of ourselves and our adulting, even branching out into such tasks as freezing fruit and baking patriotic-though-burnt pies.
But sometimes, our best efforts at adulting just aren't enough.
On Wednesday morning, I noticed an email from the office of my apartment building reminding residents that if they had not renewed their leases they needed to move out by 7/25 at noon.
Now, here's the thing. I'd bought my lease from a previous resident with only a couple of months left on the lease. Naively perhaps, I'd assumed that the office would contact me when it was time to renew this lease. So I found this email somewhat concerning and decided to stop by the office to find out what the process of renewing the lease was.
Well, upon entering the office I was informed that I'd already missed my chance and that after July 25th someone was already set up to move into my room.
The best I can figure out from contextual cues is that the window of time during which I could renew the lease ended just about the time that I actually moved into the apartment. No one in the office told me so at the time-- I'll let you decide whether that was due to absent-mindedness, lack of interest, or incompetence. And now, even if I wanted to move into another room at the same price, all of the four bedroom apartments are completely full starting in August.
Apparently, there is some possibility of my moving into one of the three-bedroom or studio apartments in the same building. However, those options are more expensive. And I can barely afford this apartment (read: I've been considering donating plasma to make ends meet until I get more clients, and you know how well that usually goes) as is. Not to mention, after dealing with a few messy pieces of red tape from this apartment complex I'm pretty certain I don't want to pay more money to keep receiving this high level of service.
So apparently I get to go apartment hunting. Again.
At least I had the thought to go to the office; this would have been a nasty surprise to receive on July 25th.
I broke the news to my roommates with ice cream. One of my roommates was sad on my behalf, noted with relief that her contract ends in May of next year, and offered to help in whatever way possible. The other roommate is furious, and only got angrier when she found out that she is almost certainly in the same boat as me.
As for me, I'm sort of bouncing between the extremes of angry-stressed-frustrated and optimistic-and-this-is-kind-of-hilarious. But I've got a few people to contact and about two weeks to find something, so hopefully this works out alright.
You've heard some things already, but I'm going to give you a bit of background: My car is 19 years old. It belonged to my grandparents, then was used interchangeably by my siblings and cousins and myself before my Mom just bought the thing and let me use it for the past few years for school and work.
For such an old car, it's served me well. There have been a few odd repairs needed here and there, and the car definitely has its quirks, but it was more than usable and I've come to like it a great deal. I've even given it a name--Perseus, or Percy for short.
Back in May, however, trouble began.
Well, actually I suppose you can look back to February to see the seeds of ruin. Back in February, the engine started to short out randomly while I was driving. My dad, despite his skill as a former diesel mechanic, was unable to fix it and it ended up going to a shop for a couple of days.
That week, both of my parents got influenza. My dad got dehydrated and passed out while standing in the bathroom, breaking several ribs, and then got pneumonia. Being the caretaker of my sick parents, it wasn't a surprise to anyone when I got the flu myself a few days later. So February was a fun month for all parties. But, by the time the plague that swept through my house had ended, my car was fixed and back to normal.
When the check engine light came back on in May, I was concerned--but my car was still working just fine. I got the engine light checked out, and didn't understand a word of the results, but my Dad said it was probably a problem with the gas cap (which had been replaced during the February repairs by a generic gas cap.). I got a new gas cap from the dealer and then went on my merry way.
The engine light came back on, though.
Now Dad was worried about something involving a vacuum seal (is it obvious that I don't know much about cars?) and did some repairs. The engine light stayed on.
When I was moving up to Idaho, I took my car and my parents took the minivan. When we stopped for gas, my Dad noticed something concerning--after I filled up on gas, gas was leaking from the bottom of my car. After a cursory examination (during which the leaking stop) he said to not fill the tank up quite all the way and to regularly check to see if it got any worse. He'd do a more thorough investigation next time I visited home.
And everything went smoothly, despite the continuous presence of the check engine light, until a couple of weeks ago. On my way to an appointment with a client living out in Eagle, Idaho, as I took my foot off of the break to enter a green-lit intersection, my engine shuddered and my car came to a stop.
I tried to restart the engine, but still the engine sounded like it was struggling and my car wouldn't move. Cars behind me were starting to honk. Quickly I said a prayer, asking Heavenly Father to help me get safely to and from this appointment, whatever else I had to manage in the future. I didn't know anyone who could pick me up or come to my rescue if I was stranded up here, so far from the mechanical expertise of my father and brother-in-law, and this was too far from my apartment to walk.
After finishing my prayer, I started the engine one more time. This time, it roared to life, and I was able to continue driving without incident. In fact, for the rest of the week and the coming weeks, my car didn't have any obvious problems at all, other than a bit of sluggishness when I first ignited the engine. Still, I told my Dad about what had happened, and he planned to take a look when I next visited home for the fourth of July weekend. He said it sounded like something was wrong with the gas tank, so he advised me to try to arrive in Salt Lake with a quarter tank of gas so that he'd have an easier time taking my car apart.
So, on Saturday, July 2nd, I packed my overnight bag and headed out to spend a nice weekend at home with my family and hopefully get the needed repairs on my car. I had no doubt that my temporary lack of problems was due to some divine intervention in response to my prayer, so I still tried to be cautious and pay close attention to what the engine was doing as I hit the road.
The trouble started as I passed through the small town of Eden, Idaho. I'd been speeding along with my car on cruise control when I noticed the sound of the engine getting louder and faster. I looked to see a dial that I think is called a tachymeter (maybe?) heading into the red section that means the engine is working too hard. I tapped the breaks and the engine calmed back down--but every time I touched the gas the engine would speed up again and the car would only continue to slow down. I ended up coasting down the exit ramp and parking in the closest parking spot I could find.
Back in February when I'd had car problems, the car would work again after a bit of a break. So I turned the engine off and took a second to check my map. Then I started the car again--and, success. I pulled back onto the freeway and continued on my merry way.
Until I had to slow down suddenly upon entering some road construction near Burley, ID. As I hit the breaks, the engine began to chug like a 5k runner attempting a marathon, and again every attempt at pressing the gas only led to the engine speeding up again.
(If and when Dad reads this, he will probably wince at my inaccurate descriptions of what was happening, but I'm calling it the way I saw it at the time).
I coasted onto the next exit ramp, where my car stopped entirely in the middle of the road. I gave it a minute then restarted it--nothing. Except, I heard a grinding sound and smelled something burning. Opening up my windows, I realized that it was my engine making that terrible sound, even though the ignition was off.
Now getting very worried, I tried calling my parents. But it turns out that they were still on their fishing trip, and so didn't answer the phone. I waved some cars to go around after they lined up behind me, then sat in growing anxiety. If I were closer to the Utah border I could maybe call on my sister to come give me a lift or give my parents a chance to come get me. But this far away, I wasn't sure I could do anything but call a tow truck. I've never done that before, but I've heard it's expensive, and as I frequently mention--I'm about broke. Not to mention, would a tow truck get me as far as home or just take me back to Boise where no one I knew could fix my car?
I looked out at the cornfield next to where I had stalled, then I said a prayer. I expressed gratitude that I'd been helped so much already, but I didn't know what to do now. I asked if I could be helped a little further, at least until I was close enough to home that my parents could potentially come and get me after their fishing trip was over.
I turned the key again, and the engine roared to life.
The rest of the trip was long and boring. It seemed like the engine worked best at a consistent speed, so I chose one that I wouldn't have to change for the rest of the trip-- twenty miles per hour slower than the current speed limit. It was agonizing driving so slowly when I knew it would add two hours to an already overlong trip, but I wanted to be cautious and not push this miracle engine too far. The engine gave me trouble a few more times, but each time I was able to pull over, wait a minute, then restart the engine and get back on the road.
It's a good thing that I made it all the way home myself because my parents had some issues with the boat and didn't make it home until an hour after I did. That evening, as I related my experiences, Dad grew concerned. He said that it sounded like there might be something catastrophically wrong with my transmission.
Catastrophic is a very descriptive word. It is not a word you like to hear in reference to your car unless someone is saying your ride is "catastrophically awesome." But I don't think anyone actually says that.
Well, early on Monday morning (July 4th), Dad came and knocked on my bedroom door, waking me up. He told me, "You need to get your knees and thank Heavenly Father that you made it here safely because that should not have been possible."
Now, I know absolutely nothing about car engines, so I'm going to let Eric The Car Guy tell you about something called a Torque Converter. According to my Dad, he got most of it right except for talking about the stator.
The short version--the thing he called a "pump", that gear looking thing--that's what was broken. As a matter of fact, that grinding sound I heard when I turned the engine off back in Burley was the pump tearing itself into shreds. Also, that lubricant fluid you can see in the video is kind of red--mine was black and smelled burnt. My Dad helpfully translated these facts into layman-speak by telling me the following: "These are bad signs. I don't know how you got that car started again."
The damaged parts are too expensive to replace in a 19-year-old car, so we really didn't have much choice but to spend our Fourth of July car shopping.
Although I came along for my ride, my parents were the ones paying for this and so they were the ones making all of the choices. We were helped by a very kind older gentleman who has this awesome conspiracy theory that ever since they started using the hadron collider, lines in books printed years and years ago have been changing. He gave some examples from the Bible. The whole thing was as nutty as a fruitcake, and he mostly cornered my Dad with it, leaving Mom and I free to giggle over Dad's "I-am-too-polite-to-tell-you-that-you-are-insane-and-I-don't-know-how-to-escape-this-conversation" tone of voice.
Anyway, we got a used car, and I don't even want to think about how all we're paying for it (this is actually the first time my parents have ever taken out a loan to pay for a car) and sold poor old Percy for a grand total of $300 so that it can get converted to scrap.
Goodbye, Percy. :(
While I was sad to see the old car go, I couldn't help but be pleased with the car my parents decided on:
Meet my new car, Sheila. So. Shiny.
No, they do not let you keep the ribbon. As soon as they give you the keys, the ribbon goes into a big Tupperware of them on the side of the room.
Sheila runs very differently from my previous car. Percy was, to be quite frank, a boat. That car made wide turns and skimmed over bumps like they weren't even there. Sheila makes tighter turns, which makes parking much easier. My new car also lets me feel every single bump in the road and shakes if I'm driving slower than 30 mph. Pros and Cons, I guess.
Driving back up to Boise tonight was fairly uneventful, other than me taking a wrong turn and ending up in Idaho Falls. I wasn't too sad about the detour, though, since it gave me a chance to check out this:
To give you a sense of scale, that little blue speck in the river is a woman in a kayak. That slightly bigger white speck in the river is two guys in a canoe.
According to my roommate, who used to live in Idaho Falls, people come from all over the world to jump off this bridge with a parachute. Unfortunately, there's been a few known cases where the parachutes malfunctioned with fatal consequences. But I didn't see any such daredevils today, just some people enjoying the river below.
Anyway, this weekend was a little more eventful than I expected. But now I'm safe in Boise with reliable transportation, so I'm content.
Also, it really goes to show that God answers prayers in amazing ways. Getting my car to start felt like a small but wonderful miracle at the time. After seeing my car unable to move five feet without coming to a stop and after hearing my Dad's explanation of exactly what went wrong, I'm awestruck. I really shouldn't have been able to drive away from Burley. With the condition my car was in, it should have been physically impossible. I can't think of a better way to close out this entry than with Matthew 19:26.
But Jesus beheld them, and said unto them, With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.
