Detour

Last week, you may remember (actually a week ago Saturday), I reported that I got my car back early Friday evening after having to get it towed to my mechanics on Thursday afternoon. It was stalling out at traffic lights, and the starter wasn't getting enough power to make the engine turn over afterward. $585 later, I had new terminals attached to the battery, a new fuel filter and a new fuel pump; and the car was running again.

So guess what the car was doing on the way back from church today. Yeah, that: the same exact thing as before.

A police officer we met in traffic gave us a push into a nearby gas station, where my friend Kevin and I hung out for about an hour, waiting for one of my periodic phone calls home to get picked up by John. He was actually about a quarter mile from us at the time, working out at the gym. Eventually he got home, answered the phone, and came to get us. We dropped Kevin off and returned to the car, which started right up, having had plenty of time by then to recover power. Still, we didn't want me to stall out on a semi-hot day in semi-heavy traffic, so we left the car in the parking lot until nearly sunset. Then I drove it to the garage, mostly on back streets, with John following in case of trouble. We got there, no problem, but I couldn't pull in! They had put down fresh tar in front of the garage, and blocked the driveways for the weekend.

So I drove home, again without incident, but I'm taking no chances. Tomorrow morning it goes back to the shop, where I hope they'll be able to find and fix the intermittent problem(s) more effectively this time. As John reminded me today, I've got John Scalzi's appearance in Phoenix to get to a week from now. I certainly can't drive up there with an unreliable car! I don't know how, of even if, I'll get to work tomorrow. I've never taken a bus in Tucson, in the 21 years we've been here. I don't even know whether there's a good routing between the garage and the office, and I'm not sure I want to find out.

Thanks, Wil and Julie, for the virtual boots in the butt today, and to Sara for her ongoing support and inspiration. She's been working so hard on her novel revision recently that she absolutely shames me by her example. I didn't do anything about querying today, largely because I've done especially badly on the sleep front this weekend. But I did get the Jor and Fayubi scene typed up to a natural stopping point. There's more of it: another two handwritten pages, plus some action I haven't written at all because I haven't decided yet what the antagonist is going to do, or what exactly is about to happen to King Jor. But I think I've reached a scene break. The rest will continue after some other scene that I've also not written yet.

No photos tonight. The blog's been heavy with them recently, so it's time to have mercy, for a change, on my dial-up connection.

Karen

Update, Monday 11 AM: I got the car to the garage without incident, and the guys there have some ideas about what to check next. The Sun Tran bus trip up Craycroft was only minimally stressful, and a co-worker saw me walking between Craycroft and the office, and gave me a ride the rest of the way. So far, so good! - KFB