Victorius Car Repair

So much for being confounded by the $300 estimate for fixing/replacing the van's jerry-rigged wiring harness. We sat down and put our heads together and decided that if some yahoos who repair cars cheap and on-the-fly can put this fourth-rate wad of wires in and actually get the vehicle to run for who knows how long, then two scientifically educated college grads with umpteen circuits classes can do at least the same. Or better.

Answer is: BETTER. Yay us. Buddy and myself, that is.

As the gofer, the automotive and hardware folks know what to expect when they see me coming. I know my science, theoretically speaking, but I often have to use the word "doohickey" when I mean "crimping tool" or something like that. I know what things look like, but if we're not talking wire, alligator clips, fuses, or electrodes, I have to take one with me and say "I need one of these." At first they would quiz me about what I was doing, suggest other things, blah blah blah, but now they know I know what I'm doing electrically or automotively speaking...I'm just not always up on my terminology unless I've needed it to calculate a physics problem or read a diagram. I understand what the parts do and how they need to work...thank goodness for that. Today took only one trip to the hardware store (wire, splicing clips, and a crimping tool) and one to the automotive store (fuses). This is a record. Still, they DO look at me like I'm going to walk in and request a live pygmy goat one day.

After digging about under the hood and turning the car on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, on, off, and then getting stung by a wasp (a freebie!) we finally finished. Wasp notwithstanding, we all collapsed and relaxed after working through the heat of the afternoon.

In other news, Squib had his first face-plant incident today. He was walking around in his pillow case (yes, he was supervised). He was actually standing stock-still and saying "Where's Squib?" I was playing along. Then, in a move only he could pull off, he face-planted with arms slack at his side. He busted his bottom lip something good and bruised his nose and cheekbones. It was a right bloody mess and he was all wound up in his Dora the Explorer pillow case. By the time I got him undone he looked like a red monster and he'd already decided I was NOT the one to console him. So, he wadded himself up in Buddy's lap and howled like a wounded monkey even past the point when he wanted to--he forced it. He even visited all the other family members to show off his boo-boos and reproduce the howling. Melodrama much? Then, he fell asleep in my lap again--early. What's up with that?

Full day.
Scat