Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

So I spent an hour or so at a protest against Tesla (read: Elon Musk) at the Tesla dealership in central Seattle this morning. I'm glad they had a sign for me to wave because I didn't bring one of my own. There were a couple of hundred attendees; lots of hars honking in support, even one Tesla; no counter-protesters. Out of the couple hundred I was one of at least three trans people. Go us!

One of those trans people told me she'd looked into Tesla's financials. I'd heard that Tesla is the only one of Musk's businesses that makes money (except perhaps those dependent on goverment contracts), but here was the interesting thing: the only part of Tesla that's making money is service. Since Tesla is vertically integrated, a Tesla dealership is the only place you can get one serviced without voiding the warranty if at all. That sounds like an excellent opportunity for someone to hack a car.

But seriously, selling Teslas or Tesla stock is the best way to screw Musk. I need to look into whether I own any TSLA indirectly. Since the insiders have started dumping it, I'm betting that I don't, at least not anymore.

I rode my bike to the protest and back, stopping at PCC to stuff my messenger bag full of groceries on the way home (uphill, uff da). I felt so Seattle it hurt.

I have grand plans tonight. The Devil Girl shall ride again.

Edited to add: I just checked, and if I indirectly hold any TSLA, it isn't much. Never mind the other scummy companies I have an interest in.

My insurer has declared my car a total loss. Given what various people involved told me weeks ago, I find this as surprising as the sunrise. I neither need nor want another one. Ex is copacetic, and if my son isn't, well, he shouldn't have wrecked the damn thing, now should he?

In the middle of typing this entry, I called the shop that has the car and released it to the insurer.

I think my ice scraper is still in the car. That's the only thing in there I might someday miss, and I sure won't miss it much with no car to scrape.

I could really use the cash right now because I have a mortgage these days, and boy howdy, do I have bills. I certainly wasn't keen on spending any more on that car or on insurance for it. And I wanted the Wendling to learn that life without a car can actually be worthwhile. You know, this could work out pretty well.

When we last left our heroine, her car had been impounded.

I called the body shop that was supposed to get my car from in front of my place. and they said to find out what the fees were and get the car released. Curiously, neither the towing company that had the car (Lincoln, for you locals) nor the local fuzz answered the phone! Luckily, the relevant info was on the web.

I needed to show some documentation to get the car released – title & driver's license did the trick – so that meant a trip up Aurora* to the impound lot. As I was dreading the prospect of forking over $$$ to free my car, I mentioned that the body shop was coming to get the thing. The lady behind the counter said, in essence, "Why didn't you say so?" So no fee for me, at least not yet. Hallelujah!

And I just called the body shop. They have my poor little car.

You know, violations of the 72-hour rule are surely routine all over the city. They certainly were near the old place. I have a nasty suspicion that one of my yuppie-ass neighbors narc'd on me. The irony there is that my old neighborhood was more expensive, at least to buy in, than my new one.



*Auroura Ave. N, AKA WA SR 99, is basically the twenty-mile-long armpit of the Seattle metropolitan area. It's a low-rent, poorly-aged, strip-mall, car-culture horror show. Sex workers have been prominent there for decades.

The big, hairy work project that ate my last month and loomed over my week off is done. Now I get to find out about the next big, hairy work project.

I paid over $300 for two months' worth of utilities. That may well be the worst of the home heating this winter. I sure hope it is. My electric usage was triple the previous two months and the Wendling's was quadruple. That said, though, I think I'm paying less for juice per square foot at the new place than at the old, which is what you'd expect with a heat pump.

My car has disappeared from the street in front of my house. I'm pretty sure it wasn't stolen.

I look forward to a gathering of the coven this weekend. And a date with the Tickler in a couple of weeks. And to seeing Lady K and friends at That Place With No Liquor License a week after that. And to the end of winter.

Lately, Tuesday is when the Wendling shows up for dinner and his three days a week in the apartment under the Devil Girl House. It snowed yesterday and today, enough to make driving on side streets in Seattle a questionable idea.

He has a cold. He needed tissues with lotion, he said. He missed the turn for an arterial to get off Phinney Ridge. He took a side street.

In other words, he tried to drive down Phinney Ridge. In the snow. In a Prius, which you can't even put chains on.

He lost control of the car and crashed it into the low brick wall of a raised bed. He's fine, if rattled. AAA has towed the car to the Devil Girl House, where it's being lowered into a parking space as I type.

The owner of the raised bed told him not to worry about it, and said his wife hated the plants therein. But that's the least of my worries. The car's front bumper is gone. At least one tire is blown. And I don't know how bad the rest of the damage is. It isn't driveable. Even if the car is repairable, it'll take weeks.

The tow truck driver says cars with damage that looks less severe have been declared totaled. I believe him, because I've seen it happen. The driver also warned us that the air bags could deploy at any time if we turn the car on.

Welp, I always wanted my son to commute on the bus for several reasons, and I guess he's going to now, unless his mother is awfully generous with her car.

One real problem, though, is Ex's stepmother way out in the 'burbs. She doesn't move around too well, and the Wendling has been driving to her place once or twice a week to walk her dog and otherwise step and fetch.

Honestly, I'm too agog at the idiocy to yell at him very much. It's also near freezing and I don't want to bother getting dressed for that. And I'm a little cheesed off at Ex for sending him across town in the first place. Yeah, she needs a break from him, I get that, but this is too much to pay for one.

Edited to add: I was wrong about where he was going when he crashed. He'd already gotten the tissues. He was headed to PCC for a copy of The Economist.

At one point as I was making dinner for us, he asked me to stop laughing at him. "Oh wait," he said. "This is crazy laughing, isn't it?"
I nodded as I teared up.

Left work, i.e. home, early yesterday in my car, which my son had to drive to the Devil Girl Pad.
Took it to get oil changed, tires rotated, the usual.
Wait the usual hour or so.
Sez the mechanics, you need new rear brake pads like whoa, and you'll need to leave it overnight for that. Seeing as how I've got a road trip planned next weekend with my anxiety-prone son, I agree to it. They say they should be done by late this morning. Foreshadowing!

[The sun sets on yesterday and rises on today.]

No text or call happens all morning long.
I call the around 1300 and leave a message as directed.
No one returns my message. I get through to a human around 1330. She seems to be helpful and know what she's doing, but she's not actually someone who can tell me whether my car's ready or when that might happen.
Around 1500 I say fuggit and jump on a bus.
Showing up around 1600 gets results. 45 minutes and $350 later, I have my car.
By 1700 it's too late for my son to use to drive to work, so I drive to his place of employment, tell him where I parked, and hop the train & bus home.

Sometimes adulting seems like more work than it needs to be, you know?

Apropos of nothing, I've started reading Homestuck again. It's the Proust or Joyce of webcomics. What on earth has gotten into me? I mostly don't miss the Flash animations; they've been transferred to video.

As it turns out, Progressive never did declare my Sanctimobile "insurance destroyed" because I had neither comprehensive nor collision coverage on that car. Given its mileage — about 110K — and how banged up it was, that sounds exactly like something I would have done. (I don't have the old insurance docs online, and I just put my paper file away.)

So I paid the damn towing bill. Ex told me to negotiate, but I wasn't willing to risk any damage to my credit rating; I'd like to buy housing someday. Besides, I have the money to Make This Go Away. I hope that's the end of it. I've kept the receipt, natch.

I called my current insurance company about my towing bill for the car that got totaled in '16. They weren't my insurer then, but they called the WA DOL and found out that I indeed did not own the car when it was towed recently, and that "NOOOO [I] don't owe them a dime!"

What I need to do is request the vehicle record - done - and then send a copy to the people billing me. Over the phone they said, "Somebody forgot to file something." I don't think it was me, but jeez, it was nearly four years ago.

The idiot light in my car came on a couple of weeks ago. That usually means it's time to get its oil changed. I might be tempted to wait until the end of shelter in place, but no one knows for sure how long that's going to be, and at least a month is likely. Do I really want to defer maintenance on a car that my anxiety-prone, Hero of Socialist Groceries son drives most of the time? No.

Since he and the car were at Ex's as usual, that meant a bus and train trip, one that I've made many times, but never before during a pandemic. So I put on an outfit that said, "Stay at least 6' away from me." Shallow Fashion Details: high-necked, mutton leg black blouse, bird skull brooch, ankle-length black appliqué skirt from Mishu, black Ariat cowboy boots. Oh, and an N95 mask that I bought for Burning Man who knows when.

I didn't know that the local transit agencies had suspended fare collection. That's mighty decent of them. It's certainly not an incentive and it isn't meant to be. People did their best at social distancing on the bus, and I was one of at least three people I saw wearing a mask out of maybe twenty on the 60' coach.

And now, a little background for you non-locals: there used to be a viaduct along Seattle's waterfront that was built in the late '40s. The 2001 earthquake damaged it so badly that it needed to come down*. There was a cut-and-cover tunnel at the north end of the viaduct, and the entrance to this tunnel is on my bus route to the office. I've watch them fill it in, pave, add signals and bus stops, and plant plants. They're nearly done after more than a year, but I'm guessing they have to pause because of the 'rona.

So I got downtown and transferred to a train at a station that I thought might be less crowded than the first and fastest one I could have used. Crowded? There were three people in the whole station including me, and one of them was staff. The trains are running every 14 minutes instead of the usual 10, said the announcement.

I got off at Ex's station, and grabbed a tofu banh mi & a latte from Le's Bakery on the corner. I figure, hey, a Vietnamese-owned business could use my patronage. Good sandwich, too.

I got my banged-up mint-green Prius and took it to the dealership. Do I want to deal with those recommended maintenance items I've been putting off? Yeah, I have the time and the money for now, and as I said, my son is driving the car. Well then, Ms. Nun, you'll have to come back Monday because we're closing at 1500 today. Le sigh. I guess I'll be picking up my son Monday night and getting takeout again.

Getting back from the dealership was the hair-raising part: the nearest bus route is the 124, and there were a lot of people who weren't exactly well off at the stop. I think that's stop's near a thrift store. Social distance? Not happening. I was one of a few people in masks hunkered down against the germs. I could have walked half a mile to the nearest train station.

On my usual bus home, there was a major fire right next to the bus route, with plenty of billowing smoke. The street highway that my bus normally takes was closed for a few blocks in both directions. No biggie: the driver just detoured a little, and that stretch doesn't even have any stops. Still, I couldn't help but observe the irony that I was already wearing a mask and in a situation for which it was intended.

How insane was this? I'm honestly not sure.



*It's been replaced at huge expense and with facepalming accidents and delays with a mighty spiffy new tunnel. The old viaduct offered stunning views, but it was an eyesore, a noise & pollution hazard, scary to drive on, and so worrisome to the engineers after the quake that they shut it down for two days of inspections every six months.

I went out with the Tickler last night to see Cut Copy at the Neptune. But first, eetz: Since she really needs something gluten free, we went to Bol on 64th - the Tickler says not to go to the nearby test kitchen because it sucks several ways. Bol is a pho joint as conceived by hipsters: a simple, fairly ordinary menu with choice ingredients; good alcohol, appetizers, & dessert; higher prices; annoyingly hip utensils; and a smoking hot waitress with queer hair. Sure, would nom again, and not just because of the waitress, who the Tickler assures me is monogamously partnered up.

Minor problem: Bol is on 64th. The Neptune is on 45th. The Tickler resolved to drive us despite the pain that is parking in the U District. We were just a block from the Neptune in the fading twilight when she pulled over to let an ambulance by. As she was starting to get into the left lane, we got sideswiped by a black Nissan Leaf. I'm pretty sure it was speeding in the wake of the ambulance because its airbag deployed. Oh by the way, we hit an Uber in front of us, no thanks to Newtonian mechanics.

We're fine. In fact, ibuprofen last night was all it took for me. The Tickler may be shaken up a little worse, but she didn't do too badly either. She mulled seeing a doctor today, but I don't think I need to.

We spent most of the concert dealing with insurance & police, sometimes with me holding my umbrella over the Tickler. (Fun fact: the first cop on the scene, a UW officer, said he couldn't handle the case because the Leaf driver is a UW employee. Appearances, you know.) Once the Tickler's car, which isn't drivable but doesn't look that bad, got towed away, we walked one block to the Neptune in time to catch Cut Copy's encore. I'd planned to meet up with R & J there, but we never got closer than a text message. I got the Tickler a much needed whiskey, we peed, and we went back to her place. It occurred to both of us that our usual shenanigans were medically contraindicated; cuddles ensued.

I really did say this morning, "I had a lovely time crashing with you last night." How could I not?