Thank you, Chris, for fixing my car

My darling Christopher fixes my car, a '93 Honda Accord station wagon and I am very grateful. Christopher just replaced my valve cover seal gasket, and he did it without complaining while I was out driving his car, and eating peach pie and lasagne and making clever chatter with my literary pals. A few weeks ago, he replaced my driver's side door seal so now I can wash my car without taking a bath.

When we first got my car, Christopher replaced front coil springs, front shocks, ball joints, tie rod ends, brake rotors, wheel bearrings, alternator and air conditioning belts, and the oil pressure switch.

When my check engine light came on recently, he spent hours locating my diagnostic module (it had somehow gotten shoved into the heater vent) and discovered the problem was something to do with an exhaust sensor--he's looking into it, but it doesn't seem urgent.

Coming soon will be the throttle control sensor. I love my husband. I think I will make him polish sausage and perogi for dinner tonight, or whatever he wants.

Hash Bash 2008

Well, I bought this big can of corned beef hash at Comstock Discount Store, because it seemed like a funny thing to do, but then I realized it might sit in the cupboard forever if I didn't rally some support. So we had a big breakfast this Saturday. Christopher made some quiches and GinaB brought some cheesy potatoes and Shawn Wagner brought fresh squeezed grapefruit juice that made a fabulous cocktail when mixed with the champagne that guests generously supplied. We got bread from MacKenzie's and ate it with Susanna's blackcap raspberry preserves, and then Mary Szpur and her 90-year old mother showed up from Chicago with bottles of wine, and we kept eating. Mike & Eva Hughes brought us a quart of homemade hard cider, and Susan Ramsey provided a pound cake that was highly favored. Christopher created an icicle sculpture in one of our bird baths, and we pretty much finished off this big can of hash.

Owl at Dusk

While eating dinner yesterday, I saw some long wings flapping over the yard and then a creature the size of our gray cat settled itself in a tall poplar across the road. I could see in the silhouette its pointy ear tufts and identified it as a great horned owl. Chris says you can easily distinguish a flying owl from a flying hawk of similar size because the owl looks like a "tether ball with wings." Upon later consideration, he thought maybe a rugby ball would be more accurate.

We used to have great horned owls (hoot owls) here all the time, as well as screech owls with their eerie horse-whinny cries and barred owls with their long song, "Who who, who cooks for you?" but after the West Nile virus came here some five years ago, they disappeared.

This morning Christopher found a birds-worth of reddish feathers splashed on the snow-covered road. "A female cardinal," I said. "Or a house finch," he said hopefully. "Definitely a cardinal," I said and knelt down and pointed at an orangy-red beak with some skin and downy feathers stuck to it. Actually, just a half beak, and not a spot of blood in the snow.

At York's Salvage Yard

John Weaver stood beneath the raised belly of an Olds Eighty-Eight, from which he was extracting the starter, the radiator, the catalytic converter and the tires so that his cousin Don York could take it to the shredder. You can see him with a reciprocating saw in the photo Christopher took this morning, out in the wintry cold. "I hate cars," Weaver said. He used to be a machinist but that sort of employment has dried up around here, and Weaver's been working for York for fifteen years or so, parting out cars and putting tires on and off rims. He doesn't wear gloves, says he can't work with gloves on. He's had some of that hard-hitting flu that's been going around, but he doesn't get paid for staying home. He picked up a sledge hammer, and before he bashed the wheels loose from the axles of the car, he said, “I’m getting too old for this kind of work."

Over the last couple weeks, I’ve been spending a lot of time at the salvage yard, asking questions and trying to get the story about Don York and his assault in 2002. I've also been watching the 2004 trial on video tapes, feeling kind of grateful they aren't showing the grisly photos that the defense lawyer keeps objecting to. This week I hope to finish my preliminary essay, “Crimes Against a Tow Truck Driver,” but there are an awful lot of stories here.