Sold

This is all that remains of the Green Dragon.

For Sale: '99 Chrysler Sebring--low miles!

(The guts.)

(The very small working area.)

(The finished product.)

Day Two of Larry and Michelle's Extravaganza of Fun.

The Green Dragon's exterior driver-side door handle has finally been replaced, nearly a year after it broke off. I'm embarrassed it took so long. It makes you think about what people can put up with, adjust to, and/or make peace with. For me, it was climbing over the passenger seat, despite laughter from others.

We consulted these instructions. But only at the start. Four steps in, when my dad was completing the steps quicker than I could read, we decided to blaze our own handle-installation trail, and do it ourselves. And by "ourselves," I of course mean my dad. I think his thirty-one years as a dentist--in which he'd worked on third molars and in other inscrutably tiny spaces--were practice for snapping that white clip back onto the rod.

The whole process took an hour and a half. Which isn't bad considering the instruction's author took five hours his first time.

The car will be on Craig's List shortly. Any takers?

Flying Front Kick

Our Mini Cooper is not only my first brand-new car, but my first car with a manual transmission. Bryan has been teaching me how to drive a stick shift on his car these past few months. But it wasn't until Friday that I first drove on a freeway.

I'd expected Bryan to be in the passenger seat for the drive home from the dealership to give me advice. Except they offered us a paltry sum for the Green Dragon (it may not having a lot going for it, but it has low miles!), so Bryan drove it home while I took the Mini. I drove seventy miles by myself, including stop-and-go freeway traffic.

Two days earlier, I'd met with Lelani, the head of United Through Reading's Transitions Program. At one point, she showed me pictures of her two sons, and mentioned that they participate in martial arts. She said it was great for their confidence and self-reliance, saying her younger son had become much more outgoing and assertive after beginning Taekwondo.

Today, Bryan and I zipped all over San Diego in the Mini, with me at the wheel. It was like I was going for a black belt, and performing all the skills.

Technical Difficulties

I know. I can't believe I'm going to give up this car in three weeks, either.

A Mini Victory

One half of this marriage was supposed to go to Central America this weekend. Instead, we stayed together and bought a car.

Stay tuned these next seven weeks as I track the building of our Mini and gradually say goodbye to the Green Dragon.

Ninety-eight

(My Grandpa, at the spring-chicken age of 94, looking at patent designs he'd mailed to himself fifty years ago to prove idea proprietorship.)

My family likes to brag that my grandpa put an addition on his ranch at age 80. That it wasn't until 92 that he gave up driving (and gave me his car). And that he's totally stuck it to The Man with his Lockheed and Chrysler pensions.

Bryan, Mark, and I are going to celebrate with him tomorrow. And it'll be nice. We'll take him out to lunch, and he'll insist that he isn't hungry, but will then clean his plate and whatever overgrown dessert we order for him against his protest, saying he only has to eat as much as he wants. Then we'll go back to his place, and try to tease the secret of longevity out of him. I'm hoping his answer will include:

A) good family and friends

B) hard work

C) love

D) charity

E) periodic moments to exhale

F) ice cream

At the Rental Car Counter

The agent who helped me brought up my reservation and asked where my last name was from. I said Czechoslovakia. She said that in Tagalog, it means "to go upstairs."

I think it's pretty cool that it's an action verb. Whenever I think of my last name, I think of my grandpa as a child in Bratislava. I've heard his stories (how he tells stories!) about the house that had seemed so big to him. And the window he wasn't tall enough to look through, but and had to boost himself up with a chair if he wanted to see what was happening on that side of the neighborhood.

I don't know why people ridicule rental cars. Working door handles, non-leaking sunroof, shiny paint. All this and customer service with some etymological trivia served up with a smile and a wonderful Filipino laugh. What's not to love?

See the USA (Well, the Parts Between Detroit and DC) in Your Chevrolet

I'm not suggesting that execs from the big three read this blog, all I'm saying is that everyone once in a long while, I have a decent idea.

Waterlogged

In tonight's ESL class at Grossmont that I've been helping out with, I brainstormed the beginning of a blog post. The class had talked about Thanksgiving, and the teacher then had them interrogate me about my turkey day plans by using present progressive questions. (It was good stuff, Paniks and O'Neill).

So like I said I was going to blog about this, until I got in my car after class and found rainwater on my seat. Yes, my sunroof leaks. I sighed, wiped off the seat, and figured I'd just have to carry a towel with me on days that call for precipitation. (Which, in San Diego, are thankfully few.) But after I'd pulled out of the parking space and accelerated, water poured down on me.

And..it...just...started to pour here in San Diego as I type this. I hope my car has an emergency drain hole, like a bathroom sink.

Can Artists Get Bailouts, Too?

I don't think the irony of automaker execs flying to DC on private jets so they can beg for a bailout is lost on anyone. It's two-faced to extend one hand for money, when the other behind your back is sporting a Rolex.

But perhaps the bigger issue with these jets is that after they'd transported execs to DC so they could ask for handouts, the execs blamed their low sales numbers on the underachieving US economy. Maybe if they'd travelled from Detroit to DC in one of these cars they produce, they'd realize the reason Americans aren't buying their cars isn't because of the economy, but because they're terrible, terrible cars.

Dukes of Hazard Car

For anyone keeping track, the driver-side door handle on my car recently stopped working. It has now broken off completely. So I've begun simply opening the passenger door and climbing over. I'm nimble.

I really should just leave the windows down and climb through the driver side's. Not like anyone would steal the car. The only reason keeping the windows down gives me pause is because it would make it easy for would-be thieves to steal my Orbit gum. And I really like Orbit gum, especially the Sangria Fresca.

The Green Dragon

People often poke fun at my car. It's American-made, has a front bumper that sometimes drags, and the clear-coat is coming off. The windshield wiper pump broke, and I never open the sunroof for fear it won't close.

But my grandpa very graciously gave it to me in 2003 (when he decided, at age 92, that maybe he shouldn't drive anymore). Since then, I haven't had a car payment. And also since then, my insurance rate keeps dropping. Just last Sunday, I was telling my brother Mark that the insurance "is like $400 for six months." The new bill just came in the mail, and it turns out I was wrong. The cost for the privilege of driving my fine automobile around town for the next six months? $250.

The chipping clear coat is looking more like a "custom finish"--like sponge-painting in a bathroom--than a fault.