Errands

We came home a day early, but that doesn’t mean we went back to work a day early! Instead we spent Tuesday taking care of odds and ends that we’ve been neglecting (I know, so exciting). So here’s our To Do list:

1) Take the car in. Since we got a used car that’s been passed from grad student to grad student, we’ve been meaning to do this for a while just to have things checked out. But when we lost the belt that controls a/c and, more importantly, power steering during this last trip, this suddenly moved to the top of the list. Fansons - if you thought steering the truck was hard, you ain’t seen nothin’!!

2) Fix the washing machine. The cold water decided it should just come out in a little trickle, which was a really bad idea because it made the machine beep all the time and took FOREVER to do a load of laundry. Luckily, after a little tinkering, we figured out we could swap the hot and cold wires to get it to work. And now we know more about washing machines – and we didn’t even electrocute ourselves!

3) Get the lawn-mower fixed. Apparently, the dollar store is not the place to buy 2-cycle oil. It gave the mower really bad indigestion, but it was still cheaper to fix it than to buy a new mower. And it was worth it just for the experience! The 2 guys at the shop were kind of “Click and Clack”-ish, but not brothers. They greeted us with a jovial “Hey mate, how ya going?” (That’s the standard greeting, here – not “How are you doing?” or “How’s it going?”) Other questions that came up during our conversation included:
-“So do you do all the mowing?” (this question was addressed to Kerry, and was apparently in an attempt to figure out why it took 2 of us to drop off a mower, because it was followed by “…or are you just here to make sure he doesn’t mess this up?” Later, when discussing the decompressor valve, we were told “This is to make the mower easier to start, so the women can do all the mowing while the guys sit back and drink their beer.”)
-“Why don’t they pronounce it CHEE-ka-go?” (when we said we were from Chicago)
-“What do they have in the water over there?” (this was referring to fluoride, and was followed by the comment “You have great teeth” …from a big manly-man with greasy hands)

4) Take Ani to the vet. After a solid year of vet visits in preparation for moving, we thought we were done with vets for a while. But since her vaccines were the first thing we did at the beginning of the year, that means it’s time for her to get vaccinated again. Luckily, the vet is a 20-min walk from our house, and the vet was great.

5) Fix our camping stove. Although gummy, luke-warm pasta was unforgettable, we decided it’s not that addicting. So the stove was dismantled and cleaned, and will hopefully work better next time!