The Track

I’m on track to get back to travelling, but it’s going to be a long road to get there. For the past two weeks I’ve been carpooling with Alejandro. It’s been a little exhausting. At the end of April I began noticing that my tires were squealing in turns where they shouldn’t squeal. Alejandro thought it might be the alignment seeing as how I have never knowingly had an alignment service performed on my car. Deep down though, I thought it might be something else.

Sure enough, it was something else. I took my little Mia, the Kia Optima, to the doctor and found out that the “subframe” was rusted out and on the verge of splitting in two. It was just a tad dangerous to drive, even though the doctor is not “authorized” to use that word. To be honest, I don’t quite know what a “subframe” is, but I do know that a picture frame is pretty much a square and protects the structure of a picture. So, it’s a pretty good guess that a “subframe” is pretty vital to the well-being of a car.

Seeing as how my little Mia has been through so many accidents since she was born in 2001 I thought it might be time to put her to rest. But, I’m not quite willing to add a car payment to my list of monthly bills. So, we googled the “Kia Optima Subframe” and voila, we have a used part and a doctor who is willing to perform transplant surgery. After shipping the subframe to Indy and acquiring a couple other parts I should have Mia back by the middle of next week I hope.

In the meantime, I must suffer the strain of getting up before dawn to travel with Alejandro to work before going to my job for a long ten hour work day. My body aches from lack of sleep and I’m grumpy because I am working extra hard to get major projects off the ground at the library. Stay tuned for more venting ….

The List

About a week ago I remembered a list I had made long ago of the things that I wanted to do before I died. I found it. It’s a bit amusing to be honest. I made the list while still a virgin and most likely fresh out of high school or soon to be.

I wrote that I wanted to do such things as naturally, have sex (as all teens want to do), but also I wrote down simple, less complicated things like riding a roller coaster or go to Jazzfest. I’ve done all of those things now, but there are still several that I still want to do and a few that I don’t have an interest in anymore.

My list looks a little bit like this now:

Run the Mini-Marathon
Skydive
White Water Raft
Scuba Dive
Go Sailing
Fly A Plane
Make Photographs in a Dark Room
Kayak or Canoe Alone
Go Dancing with Alejandro
Go on Picnics
Travel to Many Places
Learn Gardening with Patience
Learn to Cook with Patience
Go to Disneyworld
Take Part in Mardi Gras
Go to the Theatre
Experience a Hurricane
Go Storm Chasing
Drive Across Country
Experience Weightlessness
Ride the Bicycle Again
Write a Newspaper Article
Learn A Self Defense Philosophy
Get Married
Buy A House
Have Babies
Adopt Children
Adopt More Animals
Start A Business
Write in Different Formats
Learn Spanish and Italian
Learn How to Make Pottery
Learn How to Make Baskets
Paint
Knit Scarves

It’s a long list, but I know I’m not done adding things to it. I don’t know why I am alive or why I will some day die, but I do know that I will make the best of the life that I have.