We drive a 2004 Pathfinder. The R50 series. The model changed to the R51 in 2005 and became less robust and less useful. The older Nissan Pathys were/are great. But 2004 is 16 years old. It is starting to lose some of it’s ‘zip’ and sex appeal. Not yet losing it’s ‘reliability’, but there have been hints that is coming (like the incident on the trip up island with the moho) and I have recently heard something faint in the front end…..
The moho we are living in is parked on my friend’s front lawn. He is a retired front end mechanic. “Let’s have a look at that noise” (which is weird grammatically but we MEN know what we mean). And, so we do. The wheel I suspected turned out to be good. So, I said, “That’s good. I only felt it after a long downhill brake. Must be my imagination. Let’s quit.” “No. We are here. So is the car. Let’s look at the other wheel.” And, so we did. “This side is 100% gone. Totally worn. It’s done!”
Lordco delivered the parts while we had tea. Half an hour later, J had them installed. “You just dodged a bullet. I have not seen a brake pad so worn and had not yet harmed the rotor. It is as if your last braking coming in here rubbed off the last pad residue. Your timing was immaculate.”
I tell this story partly because we have been hemorrhaging money living on the lawn this month. You know….? Restaurants, comfort-foods and ‘because-we-are-here’ purchases, costs we didn’t expect (the repairs to cars and pumps-from-home) and such. I would estimate an extra $3,000 extra all in. And yet….in weird ways, it is ‘coming back’. We have been unexpectedly lucky. A surprise cheque ($335) from Canadian libraries for the books we wrote. The brake job was done for the cost of parts ($1000 savings). The installation of my new bush-bar (using J’s garage and his assistance – probably $500+ savings). It is just kinda weird……..a whole month of totally disrupted spending and yet, in the end, there will not be much difference in the big picture….
……funny how that works.
Back to the car/men. I needed to install a bush-bar because, as I age and become less sexy and lose my ‘zip’, my vision at night is also not as good. My eyesight is still reliable but, you know, it is getting older. The newer models of modern men, however, are not much better. Way, way less reliable! The old ones are built much better (even with creaky joints and odd noises).
Anyway, the bush-bar is a really just a place to mount more lights. And, on the old logging road, at night, more lights are needed otherwise you might/will hit a deer.
I hit a little fawn last year. It is no more. Adding lights might save lives.
So? The point of the story? This has been the month for repairs, I guess. Sally repairs. Pump repairs. Moho repairs. Several Pathfinder repairs and, yes, you guessed it, I am getting an eye repair a couple of weeks from now.
This has also been a month of ‘lucky breaks’ from the kindness of Craig at Comox Fountain Tire to the love and support of my friends J&J while on their lawn to even the Canada Council for the Arts.
Life, eh?
Our Off the Grid Home 
‘All good things come to those of weight!’ or something like that.
It SOUNDS as if you’ve been blessed!
LikeLike
Truly, you are my doppelganger on the other side of the planet, except, you know, you have extra bits. I was really sad when I ran over that poor magpie lark. I can’t use big lights in town though.
Are you having cataract surgery? I had it about 20 years ago. Bastard opthamalogist gave me an asstygamatism with choice of lenses for me. If so, make sure they give you lenses of the same focal length. I’ve had other surgery recently associated with being in the sun too much. Pain in the behind and the eye. Good luck. It sucks getting old.
LikeLike
No. I had cataract surgery a couple of years ago and the results were absolutely eye-opening! Bloody marvelous. White paper looked white again, not faded yellow. Fabulous. But, over the last year or so one eye seemed to be ‘out of whack’ and so I closed it when reading. Then i stopped reading as much. But I then started reading more on this weird symptom and the literature (and a friend) said that the surgeons don’t actually get all of the old lens out when they operate. They leave the ‘base of the old lens’ in and put the new one on top of that. but, but, but….sometimes the base continues to deteriorate and clouds up thus fogging up a bit of the new lens put in on top. I went to see him, told him what I thought. He looked and said, “You are right. That is exactly what it is. I’ll just go in and laser that off in a minute or two. Book a time.” And that is the coming next repair.
LikeLike
Ah yes, I had that laser. I have to go back again for another zap, once my left eye settles down from the pterygium surgery.
LikeLike
I think it goes “All things cometh to he who waiteth, if he worketh like hell, while he waiteth.”
LikeLike
You might also say lucky “brakes”.
LikeLike
John Milton said, ‘’They also serve who only stand and wait.” ‘The readiness is all.’
LikeLike
So…? There is a place for me, regardless? And, I’d better be ready to die? Sid…..? Do you know something I do not?
LikeLike
It is the readiness to ‘drink life to the leas.’ Do I know something that you do not? Since I do not know what you know I’m in no positions to answer that. My belief is that you have many skills evident and some yet to be revealed. I like the quotation, “to strive, to seek but not to yield.’’ by Tennyson. Victorian era optimism, ‘Everyday in every way we are getting better and better.’’ It was a motto that was not experienced by the average person. In practice it was deeply ironic with children working in mines and in some cases the entire families working to make ends meet. Petty criminals transported to Australia. Men picked up on the street and press ganged into the navy. Still Victorians were optimistic but many Canadians think that Canada is failing. How so?
LikeLike