Today's adventures

Suzanne and I had an adventure last night and a good day today.

Last night's adventure centered on me running the diesel Passat out of gas out on Interstate 95... while I found somewhere I could walk to to get a couple of gallons of No. 2 diesel, I burned the starter motor out cranking it to start. AAA showed up, and once they figured out the thing wasn't going to start, looked puzzled.

"Do you have a push bar on the truck? Just push-start me, it'll be fine," I told the young guy.

"Uh... no," he said. I guess that meant that not screwing up the paint on the bumper on his tow truck was more important than helping me out.

"Thanks for coming by," I told him, getting in the car.

"Uh... don't you want this towed?" he asked.

"No, I want it started!" I told him. He drove off, probably figuring, "yeah, whatever."

Suzanne showed up with her Impala, and she push-started me in about a hundred yards. We got dinner at a truckstop in Perryville, Maryland, and went back to her house on a tankful of inexpensive diesel. For the record, diesel in southern New Jersey is $2.77 this week. Regular gas in Maryland is $3.07.

We had a nice evening after that, and got up this morning and went off looking for things with which to repair the Volkswagen. Found them all, and got the spare starter checked -- it tested out fine -- and in less than an hour I swapped starters and the TDI lit up as if it meant to all along, it just wanted to see if I cared. We also went out shopping, mostly for Suzanne-stuff: a couple of pairs of work heels and two really nice on-sale suits from Macy's. She is going to look amazing this fall.

Fast forward to this evening, where we just put another batch of beef jerky in the dehydrator and are making plans to go off to dinner in Hightstown. Suzanne is in the other room ironing an off-white skirt for dinner, and in a moment I am going to go wash my hands so they don't smell like beef jerky.

She just found a feather in the weave of her stockings. She must have last worn them at my house, where the "featherproof" linings of the pillows shed more feathers than a goose in heat.

Life is good. And it starts when you turn the key.