Category Archives: Automotive

2026, Automotive, Business, Food, Mysteries, Travel

Backwards

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On the way home from St. Louis, YA were debating about what we should pick up for lunch and she told me that she had noticed a sign (when we were still in St. Louis) that Steak `n Shake was offering an Orange Dreamsicle Freeze.  I don’t know if I’ve whined about S`nS dumping their original Orange Freeze – but they let go of it at the same time they dropped the grilled cheese.  I haven’t been there since then – about 6 years.

But the new offering sounded good so we decided that fries and a freeze would be an ok lunch.  YA found the closest S`nS and we let GPS get us there.  As we were waiting in the drive-thru line, we noticed several posters in the windows of the eatery touting their all new beef-tallow.  These are their exact words “return to tallow is part of a broader trend to revive traditional cooking methods and highlight authentic flavors.”  Snort.  I asked the person taking the order if it were true that the fries were now being fried in beef tallow.  When he said yes, we cancelled the fries and just got the Freezes. 

When I became a vegetarian in the early 70s, it was the end of French fries for me as all the fast-food places used animal fats for frying.  Burger King was the first to switch over; for many years I got a whooper with no meat (yes, that’s just a glorified cheese sandwich) and fries.  Then Wendys switched, then S`nS, and eventually even McDonalds gave it up and moved to vegetable oils.  So this move back to beef tallow doesn’t make much sense to me.  I don’t know the science about the health benefits (although RFK touting beef tallow makes me wonder…) but from a planetary point of view, I don’t think we need more cows eating way more grains than it takes to feed humans.  My cynical side says S`nS is grasping at straws trying to deal with their currently financial struggles and think this might be a way to differentiate themselves from the pack.

Regardless, YA and I ended up at Subway for our lunch to go with our Orange Dreamsicle Freezes, which unfortunately weren’t all that great.  I can’t imagine I’ll ever go back to a Steak `n Shake again.

Fries?  Shoestring, curly, seasoned, sweet potato?  Or just pass the tater tots?

2026, Automotive, Kids, Travel, Uncategorized

My Way

30 Comments

Sometimes I think maybe I should have gone back to school to get a PhD in family manipulation.  I got my Masters training from the master – my mother.  Even when I could feel her working her magic on me, I succumbed time and time again. 

The inheritance of this talent is a two-edged sword.  It certainly works wonders sometimes but then I occasionally feel guilty.  I should probably feel badly that I don’t feel THAT guilty.  Some things are a slam dunk… if I ask YA to clean in the bathroom directly, she might or might not.  But if I leave a wet wash cloth on the edge of the tub or some hair from my brush on the counter – voila!  Bathroom cleaned in no time.  In the dining room (where she works from home on Mondays and Fridays), if I spread all her stuff (bills, junk mail, computer mouse, keys, etc) all over the table, then she cleans it up lickety split.  If I just organize it into a pile myself, the pile will sit there forever.  I never ask her to come help me with yardwork but if I ask for one thing – like moving a bag of mulch from the back to the front, she almost always stays to work.  My latest discovery is that if I just rinse out the kitty fountain and mention that I’ve done it, she will take the fountain apart and do an extremely thorough cleaning.  The funniest thing about all this is that if you saw her room or the sink after she’s been working in the kitchen, you couldn’t imagine she would have any cleanliness streaks in her.

We had two weeks between my mom’s passing and when we went down to St. Louis to clean the condo and have her service.  During that time, YA had two trips, one long work trip to Cancun and another for-fun trip to Washington DC to see the cherry blossoms.  She had planned it a couple of months back and was scheduled to get home on Sunday night and we were leaving very early on Monday morning for St. Louis.

A few days before she left for Washington DC, she told me that I should get the car washed and vacuumed before our trip.  Luckily I was on my game at that moment so I said “well, I’ll try but I have a lot to do for the service and getting ready for the trip.”  Three hours later, I looked out the back window and found her vacuuming my car – see the header photo.  Heaven forbid she should have to travel to Missouri and back in what she considers to be a health hazard.  (Brekke is NOT a health hazard unless you compare her to YA’s car, which is clean enough that you could eat off the seats!)  After she was done, I volunteered to run the car through the little car wash down on 54th while she was in DC. 

Win/win, right?  What chores do you prefer to outsource?

2026, Automotive, books, Family, Mysteries, Travel

Road Trip Reading

35 Comments

I’m rarely without a book at hand.  I always have a CD in the car, CD player also in my studio.  Libby on my laptop.  Libby on my phone.  STACKS of books in my bedroom (library books in one place, my unread titles in another).  Even when traveling, books come with me; my packing list on the computer has books as a box to tick.

Even though I didn’t think I’d have any time for reading on this trip, I brought books.  No books on CD in the car with YA but I had my laptop with Libby, had my phone.  STILL brought books with me. I did make a conscious effort to bring things on the lighter side…

    • The Mysterious Affair at Styles (CD) by Agatha Christie. I’ve read this before but all my BritBox the past two months stirred up a desire to read a few of her early works again.  I’m actually almost done with this.  Maybe I can do an errand by myself today to finish it up!
    • Serial Killer Support Group (Book) by Saratoga Schaefer. I haven’t started this yet but it’s called a “dark, witty debut” about a young woman trying to solve the mystery of her younger sister’s murder.  Hopefully the “witty” is true.
    • Family of Spies (Libby) by Christine Kuehn. This is non-fiction; written by the author when she discovered her dark family roots. I’m about half way through this one; although it’s not a feel-good subject (spies during WWII), it’s written pretty much as a straight-forward history.  I think the author was putting some emotional distance between herself and the story.
    • Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective (Book) by Leslie Thomas. I also haven’t started this one yet but I have seen the first three episode of the TV series thanks to BritBox.  The TV series was a little on the lighter side so I suppose the book could swing either way.
    • A History of the World in 12 Shipwrecks (Book) by David Gibbins. This is the last of the “listicles” books that I picked up for Blevins Book Club.  I was trying to cram it in two weeks ago and then the snowstorm happened, so I haven’t picked it up since.  I’m about 1/3 of the way through.  It’s not nearly as good as I was hoping.  Writing is a bit dry and I was hoping for much more interesting photographs.

Of course, the chances I’ll finish any of these (well, maybe the Christie) is pretty slim, but where reading is concerned, hope springs eternal.  A bit like the cat and the grocery bag from Duck’s Breath Mystery Theater!

What do you like to read when you’re traveling?

2026, Automotive, dreams, Travel, Weather

Hawaii Bound?

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It was cloudy here a couple of weeks back for the latest lunar eclipse.  I knew it was cloudy but I set my alarm for 3 a.m., just in case.  Crickets.  I re-set the alarm again for 4:30. Hope springs eternal.

Before that alarm went off my dream world went a little crazy.  For some reason in my dream the alarm had gone off and when I got up, instead of looking out the window to the southwest, I put on my slippers, got into my car and set my GPS for the Big Island of Hawaii.  Unlike reality, in which my GPS says there are no directions available between my house and Honolulu, in my dream the directions were going right there.  If you figure not stopping to eat or sleep, I could get to San Fran in about 30 hours.  If I could drive from San Fran to Honolulu (snort), it would take me another 60 hours; guessing the eclipse would be over by then.

If there was a reason that I was driving to Honolulu, other than to see the eclipse, it wasn’t clear upon waking up.  Why I couldn’t just look out my window, I don’t know.  And it certainly wasn’t clear why I thought I could drive my little Honda Insight across the Pacific Ocean. 

The capper was, of course, that when the alarm went off at 4:30, it was still completely overcast.  Guess Hawaii was second best?

What’s the longest distance you’ve driven?  Any good ferry stories?

2026, Automotive, home, Medicine, Uncategorized

Just Like That!

29 Comments

I continue to be amazed by the speed at which we can access goods and services here. Our town in ND was 20,000 people. Our current town is about 4,900 people. You would think it would be easier to get things done in a bigger town, but that has not been the case.

A couple of weeks ago I finally had it with the front right tire on my van losing air with sudden temperature changes. This has been going on for a couple of years. No one in ND had offered a solution. We randomly chose a tire shop here to deal with the matter. The nice young mechanic/owner explained how he would fix it, and then told us he could probably squeeze it in that afternoon. What? I didn’t have to bring it in the following week? Well, he fixed it in a couple of hours. There was a leaky pressure sensor that needed to be replaced. I then figured out from his last name that his grandmother and my mother had been members of the same sewing club, that his parents lived across the street from us, and that I graduated from high school with his aunt. The tire has behaved admirably ever since.

Wednesday I was feeling awful with a flare-up of diverticulitis. I phoned the medical clinic at 9:50 am. They said they had an appointment for me at 10:15. I took it. This was the actual clinic, not Urgent Care. There is no Urgent Care here. The clinic is a 3 minute drive from our home. By afternoon I was feeling better.

The wired-in smoke detectors on our new home were all a faded, aged yellow. They looked original to the home, which was built in 1998. They should be replaced every 10 years. When our son tried to brown the Thanksgiving turkey at 500°, the upstairs was filled with smoke yet none of the smoke detectors went off. Yesterday at 12:15 pm I phoned an electrician to get them replaced. He told me he could come over that afternoon. He was at the house by 12:40 pm, and by 1:10 pm all seven of them had been replaced. They are white, not yellowed.

What are the wait times for you to get goods and services? How are your smoke detectors? What is the longest you had to wait for a medical appointment?

2026, Automotive, Fantasy, Mysteries, Weather

Mystery Car

36 Comments

As I was backing out of my parking space at Michaels yesterday afternoon, another car, two spots up starting backing out at the same time.  I looked toward the driver to make sure that they had seen me and was startled to see NO ONE.  No body in the driver’s seat, no body in the passenger seat. 

You can imagine, I’m sure, that this completely freaked me out.  It also caused me to doubt myself.  I had just mis-seen that, right?  The mystery car was behind me at this point so I drove very very slowly toward the exit lane.  From my rear view mirror, it really didn’t look like there was anyone driving. 

YA will tell you that I know nothing about cars, but I would have bet money that cars couldn’t drive themselves.  Even Teslas have to have somebody IN the car, don’t they?  And, of course, I can’t tell you what kind of car it was – I really am hopeless in this area.

As I pulled into the exit lane, I kept my speed slow – barely moving slow.  I saw the mystery car pull over to the front of the Michaels and saw a man and a woman leave the store and jump in the car.  At that point, I decided I couldn’t just sit there with them coming up behind me, so I headed home.

Here’s my real conundrum about this.  This car was four parking spaces away from the store.  And it was 13 degrees, not 13 below.  Cars that you can warm up seem weird enough to me, but having a car that drives 4 parking spaces to pick you up doorside is just too too bizarre for me. 

When hover-cars are invented, will you get one?

2026, Automotive, Kids, Technology

When They Roamed

40 Comments

My car (Honda Insight) is 12 years old.  She has held up remarkably well but I wasn’t overly surprised when a couple of weeks ago, I had to push my key fob repeatedly to open the car.  But it only happened twice, so then I forgot about it.

Then three days ago, the key fob quit locking.  It would unlock but not lock.  I tried the old key fob – that one was deader than dead.  A quick trip to the hardware store and two new batteries didn’t fix the problem; the internet search listed about 10 possible causes, only one of which was something I could fix on my own.  And that fix didn’t work.  *&#^^%@$.

With YA coming home Sunday night, I was worried that if I messed around too much, locking the car the old fashioned way, that I might not then be able to open it.  Since I needed the car to pick up YA and also needed the car to take a friend downtown yesterday morning, I didn’t want an issue.

Then I made my big mistake; I texted YA about the situation.  What I really wanted to know was where her keys were, in case I needed to use her car to pick her up.

What I got was:

  • Directions on how to change to batteries in the fob. (Thanks, did that on my own already)
  • You know you have the old fob in the drawer? (Yep, been there, done that)
  • Why don’t you leave it until I get home. (Really, you don’t trust me to drive your car to the airport and back?)
  • You know, you can lock the car with your key. There’s a key hole on the door.  (I am not making this up).

Fortunately, the fob is now working intermittently so the short-term issue is on hold although I’m sure I’m going to have to deal with this in the coming month.  Not sure how to let YA know that back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, the ONLY way to lock a car was with the key in the door!

Did you know how to drive a stick-shift?  Did you learn on it or teach yourself later?

2026, Automotive, Mysteries, Stories

The Early Bird… is just early.

35 Comments

Guesstimating how long a task will take is not one of my long suits. 

Bad estimates happen often when I’m trying to give myself enough time to get somewhere.  Don’t get me wrong – when I’m going from one place straight to another, then I’m pretty accurate.  I like to arrive with a few minutes to spare and this usually works out.  It’s when I add errands to a trip; the more errands, the worse I guess.  Two weeks ago, I had a knee therapy appointment at 7:30 a.m.  At that time of day I know it takes about 15 minutes to go straight there.  I added stopping for gas and estimated 10 minutes for that, then 5 minutes to swing by the post office, 10 minutes for Dunkin Donuts.  Figuring 10 minutes to check in and cough up my co-pay, I decided I should leave the house at 6:30.

Got all my errands done and showed up at my therapy place at 6:50.  My car was warmed up at that point so I sat in the parking lot for 20 minutes listening to my book on CD.  That still left me 20 minutes (of which the check-in/co-pay took 3 minutes…sigh). Good thing I’m a morning person.

The other time this problem rears its ugly head is when I have some chore that I’m not too excited about.  A 10-minute job becomes an hour in my mind, a 20-minute chore becomes an afternoon.  Then the procrastination kicks in.  I found this meme last year on Facebook; I even printed it out and pasted it in my journal.  Whenever I’m putting something off, I TRY to remind myself of this silliness in my nature.  Occasionally it helps

I’m hoping that showing up 40 minutes early for my therapy will be a learning experience but I’m not exactly holding my breath.  You know – that old dog/new tricks problem.

Do you have a good relationship with time-keeping?  Any procrastination problems?

2025, Automotive, books, holidays, Technology

Park at Your Peril

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When you have fifteen kinds of cookies on the front porch during the holidays, you’re always open to ways to spread the wealth.  I usually make cookie platters for my local library, my vet and my hardware store guys.  It’s fun and between assembling the platters and delivering, it takes less than an hour, as all the recipients are very close by.

This past year, I really tested the Inter-Library Loan department of the library system so I decided that I should provide some holiday cheer for them.  I found out that ILL works out of the downtown library (not much of a surprise) and do a straightforward 9-5 schedule. 

I spent several weeks waffling about how to get the cookies downtown as I detest driving downtown and I detest paying a fortune for parking even more.  As of Monday afternoon, my plan was to take the bus.  A long trip two ways but only $2 out of my pocket and the bus stops literally at the front entrance door of the library.  I even went to the bank to get a few one dollar bills.

As Monday afternoon wore on, I wavered more and more about this plan.  I checked online and found that the library parking is only $4 for the first hour.  I even called the library; the librarian confirmed that this was true and that you could park near the elevators and come right up to the atrium.  She also said that if you were in and out in 15 minutes, there was no charge.

Of course, yesterday when the GPS got me to the library, that particular lot was full.  I went around a two block area about five times – no on-street parking open and all but one ramp had their “FULL” lights lit up.  Grrrr.  I considered just going home and dismantling the platter but I figured, I’d come this far….    At this point, I was pretty stressed.  There were two machines at the entrance of the only open ramp near the library and it took me a bit to figure out how to get a ticket.  Found a parking spot near an elevator but when I pushed the door open to the outside world, there was a small sign saying you needed the QR code from your parking ticket to get back in.  Luckily I hadn’t let that door shut, so I went back to my car to grab the ticket.

Delivery went really well but when I exited the parking ramp (about 20 minutes later), they charged me $17.  OUTRAGEOUS.  At this point, I just wanted to get home but my GSP wouldn’t open until I was actually out of the ramp.  More stress.  The fortunate part was that once I got going in the right direction downtown, I did know how to get home.  Even being directionally-challenged.

It’s all I can do to no look up “parking-induced anxiety” on the internet.  Not sure if it would make me feel better to know I’m in good company or if it would make me feel any more weird. And we’ll have to wait to see if ILL ever gets holiday cookies from me again.  Please don’t hold your breath.

Any directionally-challenged issues or parking anxiety for you this month?

2025, Automotive, Mysteries, Science, Technology, Theatre, Uncategorized, work

RANDOM THOUGHTS for an OCTOBER DAY

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I’m sure I’ve mentioned before how I alternate between hating people and enjoying people. I’m in my hating people phase. Seriously, is everyone an idiot driver? I feel like my driving karma has been off for about a month. One morning, a car at an intersection sat there missing options to go. I honked. They looked in their mirror and said something to me. Without finger gestures. And then at another intersection, I got the green arrow and someone from my right made a LEFT HAND TURN ACROSS ME on his RED light! I honked. He honked back. Jeepers.

Idiots.

If it’s related, making me one of those idiots, I’m having a heck of a time parking correctly lately. I pull in, then have to back up and straighten out and pull in again to get in there straight. I’m not sure if the lanes and spaces have gotten smaller or the car is bigger, or my depth perception is off. But parking seems like it used to be easier. Just another first world problem.

I threw away a cardboard box the other day. Packing material and everything that was in it. There was a shipping label on the side from August of 2007. I threw away that box, one of two identical boxes, so I could save a different box complete with it’s packing materials. And I chuckled to myself and told myself I’d only have to save this new box for a few years. Full disclosure, they’re boxes that moving lights came in for the college. Of the four lights I got in 2007, they’re old enough now, if one does need repair, I’ll just put it in the back of the car and take it to a place in the cities for repair. And once the new one gets through it’s warranty period, I really could throw that box out too. But will I?

HAVE YOU STOPPED SAVING CARDBOARD BOXES?

IT’S VENTING DAY. WHAT’S MAKING YOU GRUMPY? (and not the feds; The orange menace is a gimme. We can do better.)