Life of Wry

Yesterday, following my breakfast/lunch with John and Elliot, I headed to Pleasanton to see Aunt Joy and Heidi. This was kind of a big deal, as it had been a few years since I’d seen Aunt Joy.. a major figure in my life from the time I was a wee child (when she married Uncle Vic), until relatively recently. I have no real idea what got between us, but something seemed to. As mysteriously as that apparent rift arose, so did it vanish when she called me last week and we set up a time to have dinner. It was as though those non-communicating years didn’t happen. Grateful for that.

Aunt Joy and I had about an hour to visit, then Heidi dropped in. Conversation and catch up continued, we ordered dinner in (from De La Torre’s) and had a great evening.

Hard to believe.. Aunt Joy’s going to be 90 in October. Who’da thunk?

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I took off about 8:00. Just as I’d gotten onto the 680 heading north, I pulled off again in order to set up a podcast to listen to on the way home. I was making my way back to the freeway and at an intersection when my car totally died. Like one moment it was running and I was listening to Pod Save America (those guys keep me sane), the next it was radio silence (so to speak). Nothing worked. Dead.

Long story short: I immediately called AAA. As I was doing that, a police officer saw me and came around to provide a buffer so I wouldn’t get hit from behind (my hazards didn’t work either). AAA arrived about an hour later and couldn’t jump my car, so called a tow truck. Another hour went by. Jason the tow truck driver arrived, loaded my car, then we headed to another part of Pleasanton to pick up another stranded driver (a mariachi musician from Sacramento). Such an odd happenstance.. two broken down vehicles in Pleasanton at the same time both needing tows all the way to Davis and Sac. I rode back in the cab, the musician rode back with a friend who’d come down to rescue him. Everyone was nice and cheerful. Jason dropped me at Hoffman’s (we still call it that, even though it’s now just AAA Automotive of Davis), Jim was there to pick me up, and we got home about 12:30.

Postscript: we learned the next day that the problem was a loose battery cable and once reattached and the battery recharged, I was good to go. Just 94 bucks to figure all that out. Jim’s embarrassed because he was the one who bought a replacement battery a few months ago and installed it himself.. and was thus the one who neglected to tighten adequately the cables. But I don’t blame him one bit. I’m just glad the car’s okay and I’m home. And also glad I had dinner with Aunt Joy (and Heidi, who I do see more regularly). All’s well that ends well, right? On so many fronts.

Here’s my car, quietly sitting at a red light (many red lights over the course of a couple hours), as the sun set on a lovely day!

Here’s the police officer, and then the backup Community Service Officer who took over for him when he needed to get back on his beat:

Here’s my car getting hauled up on the tow truck bed (almost two hours later):

And here’s the other truck that we pulled behind us… quite the rig.