After my walk, I did some work around the house before I got ready for church. I was planning to use my new car today, but it was dead as a doornail. I resorted to my Prius. It got me there and back with very little trouble. Queen K looks flat, but there is a slight angle. It was all downhill on the way there; the car ran without a hitch.
On the way home, the car was exhausted when I got to the turn-off for Kaiminani and that steep climb. The car made it up the hill at a steady 11 mph. All I had to do was pull over and let cars pass me.
I checked my phone when I got home; I saw Damon had called, but I wasn't up to calling him back. It was nap time. As I woke up when I heard someone call me from the side door. At first, I thought it was Sandor, but it was Scott. I had texted him and asked him to stop by and open the Prius trunk to get my stuff out and clean it. He had to crawl in through the back seats to reach a latch at the very back of the car on the inside. Once the trunk was open, I took a good look at the latch. It didn't make sense to me; there was nothing I could press to open the hatchback from the outside. I saw a blue strip with a red dot in the middle. When we identified that, we knew where it was; it was easy to hit it to open the trunk from the outside.
Once Scott had my trunk open, he turned his attention to my dead new car. The remote key didn't even open the doors. Fortunately, I had left the front door open. He was able to open a rear door by reaching in and flipping a lock. Then he could reach the electric charger. Plugging it in was the first option. There is a possibility that I left the car on when I got out and ran the battery down. We couldn't get any information on how many batteries there are in the plug-in hybrid. The Prius has two batteries, one starter and one hybrid. Scott was betting on there being no separate starter battery in this Kia. The Kia dealership was closed today; all the car dealerships are closed on Sundays here. I will call tomorrow and find out if there is a starter battery and where it is in the car. The location of the Prius starter motor was a surprise.
Yvette got a phone call from a friend saying that she lost access to the office she was using for her massage. Could she use my house temporarily? Sure.
I called Kea again for the second time today. The first time I got Sariah. I asked her to read through the book I'm using with Kingston and find where the action starts in the Magic Tree House book. Kea's observation that he might be finding the book boring was a good one. I asked Sariah to send me pictures of those pages. I got nothing. When I called, the family was on a hike.
Damon called again. He had called when I was in church. He was walking in Griffith Park, which is near his house. He goes on regular hikes. We mostly talked about his work. He's an executive director on an animated film. He and his team have all been working remotely. He loves it, but it also creates some problems. Damon's good about his phone calls. He always tries to do them when he's driving or walking. That way, he is rarely on the phone when he's around the family. Good man, my step-son.
Elise arrived around 4 pm to check out the space for her massage work. It's clear she doesn't think it's ideal, but it will do for now until she finds another office space. When she left, I checked the car. Nothing. Absolutely dead. I spoke to Sandor earlier. I wanted to tell him that I'm offering tutoring for donations instead of setting a price. I am more interested in helping folks from poor educational backgrounds anyway. In the meantime, I told him about my car buying experience. He said that all car dealerships are a problem. He told me his buying remorse stories. These stories are coming out of the woodwork as I share mine.
I realized that this is the first time in my life I bought a car on my own. The first car I had; I got a hand me down from my mom. That took me through my two years of teaching on Long Island and my five years in Madison, Wisconsin. When I returned to New York City in 1969, I didn't need a car. The next car I got was after Mike, and I moved to Princeton. I did without a car for a while, riding my bike wherever I needed to go. We finally bought a second-hand car from a commercial pilot.
The second car I bought was my Toyota. I loved that car. I finally had to give it up and get another second-hand car. I don't remember if I took a car out to Ohio or not. I remember driving in the car with Mike when we moved. The car was loaded with plants and our dog, Chantey. It must have been my car we took. Mike had been working in Ohio for a year already before we moved. He must have had one car out there, and we drove mine together for our final trip. At some point, we bought my Prius. Mike again did all the negotiations. I even slept while he was doing it. He took care of everything. He never expressed buyer's remorse. He made it seem easy.
Tomorrow I have to call Kia and find out if there is a starter battery as well as the plug-in and the hybrid. If there is a starter battery, I can call roadside assistance to charge the battery once I know where it is in the car. If it's in the trunk as it is with the Prius, someone is going to have to crawl in there again to access it.
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