“Keep Calm and Carry On”

Tank was supposed to be ready by noon yesterday. I heard nothing from the garage. Attila called them when he got back from work, and they said they just had to check it out to make sure everything worked, wanted us to come get it the next day, Friday. Attila told them his wife would like it today, Thursday, and that we would be at the garage at 5 p.m. to pick up Tank.

When we got to the garage it was very busy, and Tank was nowhere to be seen. We greeted the desk staff, who said that it wouldn’t be long. Then we saw Tank arrive back from the test drive. We waited patiently. We watched as Tank was driven off the lot again, alerted by the terrible noise she was making as she drove away, she sounded like a diesel truck. Tank does not have a diesel engine. Not good. They explained something about two cylinders not working, they were working when she came to the garage, now they are not working. Not good. The fellow told us Tank will be ready today.

When we were there I decided to take charge of the interactions, after all I am here during the day, so I can call them. Actually I am the “bad cop” when we approach situations like this, a role I can easily assume. I pleasantly but firmly told the fellow that if Tank were not ready by Monday morning, they would HAVE to provide me with a courtesy car. I asked that I be called today to let me know what is going on with the vehicle. It was just after 1:00 p.m. and I hadn’t heard from them yet, so I called them. They are ordering parts directly from the dealer he said. No word on when the vehicle will be ready. They will call me this afternoon to keep me up to date on how things are going. At least no empty promises were made.

It is hard to remain optimistic about this situation. These guys are clearly in over their heads with this repair. I think they will try to make it right, but my GOD this is getting ridiculous. I had a very bad experience with a garage when I was doing research for my PhD and needed a vehicle. The garage was awful, wanted a fortune to return the vehicle, not having fixed it. I took them to small claims court and won, and since they were a franchise I called the mother company. I did not let that one lie. That garage lost their franchise, and I didn’t feel in the least bit sad about that. The consequences of the lost vehicle were catastrophic for me. It wasn’t until this morning that the bad feelings about that past fiasco resurfaced. This situation is going on way too long for comfort.

Feeling so tense, so irritable, what to do!

Why can of course!

I had saved all the apple peels from the 26 Northern Spy Apples that I used to make and can applesauce. They had been boiled until transparent, then strained. The liquid sat all day yesterday, I was too distraught to function in the kitchen. I did boil it for five minutes though, since it was sitting on the range for the day. This morning I made Applescrap Jelly with it. It is so good! I used the Apple Jelly with no pectin recipe from the National Centre for Home Preservation, and included the lemon juice. When the liquid was first strained there were eight cups, which were boiled down to four cups. The jelly had to cook for around twenty minutes to reach the sheeting stage, and it seemed as if it was not going to jell, but finally it did. The yield was small, but oh so good!

Two 500 ml jars of jelly.
Applescrap Jelly made with no pectin. Thank goodness for the new steam canner, which makes canning this wee bit of jelly perfectly viable. Both jars sealed as soon as I took them out of the canner. The partially full jar will go into the refrigerator to be used right away.

Worldly

Weather

4°C
Date: 1:00 PM EDT Friday 26 October 2018
Condition: Cloudy
Pressure: 102.1 kPa
Tendency: Falling
Temperature: 3.6°C
Dew point: -4.3°C
Humidity: 56%
Wind: E 10 km/h
Visibility: 24 km

Quote

“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose.”
Lyndon B. Johnson
1908 – 1973

11 Comments
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Birdie

You have been far more patient than I would have been. I hope Tank gets back to you soon.

meriset

That is terrible that it is taking so very long for that truck to get fixed! You should have a courtesy car so you don’t have to cancel appointments. We wait so long just for appointments that waiting some more for this truck is…. ridiculous! —-Joan

Teri

Excellent advice in your title for us, too. Here it is almost midnight and after changing a battery on our thermostat we’re realizing the problem wasn’t the battery. Our heat is coming on only a few minutes at a time and not maintaining the set temp. We had it set at 74 and just now saw it was at 69.

Too late to call anyone. Fortunately, we set the night temp at 68 – although I’m sure it won’t be maintaining that, either. Good thing DH is a furnace at night. Keeping the bedroom door closed, we should be reasonably warm tonight.

Hope you get your car back quickly and in good shape, Maggie.

Teri

Hahahahaha! They have to order a part.

Teri

The furnace may be able to maintain a lower temp of 70, the furnace guy says, so that’s what we get to set it at for now.

I’m wondering about the cost as he was here for an hour and half on a Saturday (and still didn’t fix it) and now we’ll get to pay for new time and a part with no guarantee that it will fix the problem.

Teri

You might need to discern what your mechanic is capable of doing, ie work that is basic parts vs work that requires specialized tools for computerized components.

The furnace wasn’t able to maintain the temp for the night, it went down to 66. The bedroom was warmer than that because the door was closed, though. We’re finding we can fool the furnace into running by things like opening and closing the cover of the thermostat, though, so we can fool it into coming on multiple times thus eventually raising the temp.

It’ll be a good day to do some baking to raise the temp, too.