Daily Archives: January 5, 2010

It’s always a treat to get packages in the mail, especially when it usually contains bills. That said, I can’t wait to open up “Save The Deli” by David Sax. It is supposed to contain information on the best delis nearly everywhere, and I’ve missed Katz’ so much, their hot pastrami and latkes. For Christmas I asked Jim to get me something little, and he couldn’t come up with anything so I suggested Rise Up Singing, that also came in today and I look forward to perusing.

I didn’t have time to look at any of those or the Volvo manual sent by the dealer, that Jim is thankful to receive. We’re selling our Honda, Jim’s Honda that he bought two years before we met and he picked me up in for our first date. He spent an hour this evening cleaning it out because it will be sold tomorrow. I spent this morning downtown buying dog food and having lunch with Jim, then spent the afternoon running errands and looking up all the paperwork we need to sell a car (sale, insurance, etc) and will spend the morning getting it detailed so the new owners will be happy owning this mainstay to our lives for over eight years. She’s a great car, and will be missed.

It finally occurred to me that I’ve never sold a car privately. Now I’d never list online and have strangers coming to the house. But I’ve a litany of failures. My parents gave me a ten year-old car for college graduation, a station wagon. When I cracked the block on that one (I followed expert advice) I asked an old boyfriend to help me find a car and ended up with a real dud, a pea-green VW bug with rustoleum, semi-automatic transmission and fuel injection. A recipe for disaster, and that it was. I went out for an hour on New Years’ Eve, drove home, parked on the street and ten cars on that street were damaged by a drunk driver that night but mine, with no collision, was totaled, wheel sheared off the axle and other collateral damage. The wagon was towed away. I did see someone driving it a couple of weeks later. The bug was towed as an abandoned vehicle, and shouldn’t have been.

So I bought my mother’s Honda Accord, a car I would become comfortable with over many years. In the snow, with salt and sand the front end rusted out and I gave that one to charity. Then for a while I had nothing. I borrowed a scooter and made do. Then I bought my only new car, a Jeep. Red and shiny. I kept it for ten years and sold it to pay our way across the country, to a dealer.

Over the past year we’ve bought two used cars, both AWD for the snow and ice, both from other locales. For mine, we traveled to Austin TX. For Jim’s, which arrived two weeks ago, we had it shipped from Minnesota. There are very few cars that fit him, he’s very tall, and even fewer that have AWD and other safety features for snowy weather. So we’re selling our “first date” car, when he opened my door and took my hand and never let go. He’s the physicist and I’m the artsy, emotional one but this sale might hurt him as much as it does me, as he’s overly analytical on the outside but a really good guy inside.

Farewell, Silver Cloud. Serve your new family well. Dee, Jim and Zoe