Looks Like Somebody's Been Readin' Our Blog

Boy, oh, Boy... I swear I didn't draw this cartoon.

I had investigated, online, the symtoms our SUV was having and learned it was probably the clutch fan (???). ( I'll tell ya, I was worried it might be the transmission.) I told the mechanic who was driving the tow truck, that it was probably the clutch fan, but he was a little dubious. When we got to the repair shop, I told the person at the desk, too, that it was most likely that problem. The woman scratched chin and thought about it, and wrote something on a sheet of paper, for the mechanic, who would be working on it, but said she wasn't sure that was the problem. From there I rented a van to use until my vehicle was fixed.

I did some shopping and came home. When I got here, the shop called and the woman said, actually almost sheepishly (but I may be selfishly imagining that she said it sheepishly), "Well...they checked out the problem, thoroughly, and found that it is what you thought it was...the clutch fan..." They'll be working on it today. When I hung up, doncha know I did my John Wayne victory dance; well, the way I imagine John Wayne would do a victory dance, if he'd just made a touch down. I guess my fake moustache, bib overalls and high heels paid off, finally.

And Now My Problems Are Small...Very, Very Small.

This morning our SUV was sitting pretty, riding along, getting a look at the world passing by, from atop a flat-bed tow truck. I was sitting in the cab of the truck engaged in conversation about the mechanical problems I've been having with it, when my cell phone rang. I thought it was Cappy calling, so I answered it, to let him know we were on our way to the repair shop. It was our friend, Veronica, crying and somewhat incoherent.
Veronica, you may remember, is married to Glenn, a towboat captain, whom Cappy has known for several years. I went to their home for Thanksgiving. Their grandbaby, which was due in a week or so, has died, and the dr.'s are inducing labor this evening. They are heartbroken, as you can imagine. Little Bryleigh was going to be the big sister, to her new baby sister, Myleigh Angel. Words escaped me; in a situation like this, all I know to do is to grieve with them, and offer to help in any way I can. We love them so very much. Please keep this family in your prayers, if you would.
Cappy and I just learned that he will not be able to come home this Thursday, as expected, but will stay on the boat another 6 weeks. This may sound pretty bad, but, in light of the fact that one of his crew-mates has just learned he has a lymphoma type cancer, it's not that much of a sacrifice for Cappy to take this very nice man's place while he under-goes the medical battle he is just about to begin. Please, also, if you would, keep Larry and his family in your prayers.
They, and you, are a part of Cappy and Pegody's World. Whenever you need us, we are here, and thank you for the encouragement and care which we receive from you, whether directly or by the prayers, and/or good thoughts you send our way.

Me & My BIG Mouth About the "Fertilizer"

Cappy called this morning to assess the situation with the SUV. It's still not starting at all, so I called to have it towed and taken back to the danged repair guy. I waited all day for the tow truck, which never showed up, but is promised to be here early tomorrow morning. While I was waiting, I went outside and pulled a ton of weeds,and thought about my 'sermon' yesterday. I was calm and handling the situation.Cappy called several more times during the day to make sure I didn't feel as though I were in over my head. He said, "Be calm...doooooon't get upset...just do whatcha gotta do" and reminded me, "You da MAN...you can DO it." Yep, I got it all under control.

Oh, Gosh...Sorry I Waxed Phil O'Sophical Right In Front of Everybody, Back There.

Well,... so, I spend a lot of time by myself when Cappy is out on the tugboat and it is Sunday. It was a good time just to sit and think for a bit, then I went to visit Helen, to talk about a few more things I need to know about church protocol, etc. She and her husband Elic, are main pillars in our church; together, they get an awful lot accomplished. Watching Helen, as I have for the last five years,has been amazing. The woman is a whirlwind! A whirlwind and a pillar, if you can imagine that. When you think of people like Helen and her husband, it's not difficult to guess what they might look like, and you'd most likely be correct. Good adult role models for anyone of any age group. I learned a lot from her today.
I also met another role model today, and by that, learned a lot as well.
I'm always meeting 'angels' right when I need them. I'll bet you do, too. Today, after I left Helen's house, I decided to take our two curlie, white-haired Bichon 'brats' out for lunch. (Cappy doesn't want me taking Raleigh in the SUV, cuz he's shedding something terrible, but I brought him something back to treat him, as well.) Since it was such a gorgeous day, (I'm sorry Taffy...I really am, Honey... Read her posts in the comments) rather than just go to the corner fast food drive-in restaurant and get them their usual grilled sandwich, french fries and soft ice-cream, (yes, indeed, they are spoiled on occasion) I decided to go for a ride with them, about twenty minutes from home to a Wendy's. I hadn't had breakfast or lunch, so the thought of a decadent salad, that I knew I could have, sounded good. All the way there, the engine sounded as though it wasn't in the right gear, and running hard. Hmmm. As I was driving through a 15 mph zone, the speedometer read 60! I drove as slowly as I could imagine 15 mph being, but all the dials on the dashboard were frozen. oh oh. I'll have to look into that later, I thought...not good.
We went through the drive-thru, the girls in the window making over the 'brats', who were 'smiling' back at them merrily, tails wagging, knowing they were going to get their fries and ice cream. (SparkyBear and MarkyBear act that way no matter what drive-thru window we go through; the bank, a toll booth, the ATM. When we go through those places, the dogs are miffed, like, "What??! No fries and ice cream?!?" Lately, MarkyBear has gotten suspicious of places we stop, so he's started to growl at the girls/guys at the windows, who take the money, "...And make sure you bring us those fries, this time!!")
I parked the SUV and we three had a very nice lunch. I decided they would do better to eat their ice cream at home, so I packed everything up and turned the key in the ignition....the BRAND new ignition. Nothing. Clickety clickety click...nothing nothing nothing. I couldn't even get the key out of it. The window was stuck down, too, being electric. I jiggled and wiggled and banged the steering wheel column. I tried moving the gear shift thing around, but it was stuck solid. Tried the key...tried the key. Nothing and nothing some more. No lights would come on...no electricity. Now what. Ol' 'blondie' here, tried to at least get her brain in gear to figure out what to do next.
I made a few phone calls with nobody answering. I was stumped. I don't know anybody from that town. I hated to put anybody out, by having them drive way out there to help me.....and....the DAWGS. Well, for Pete's sake, now what to do? I got out and walked around, with SparkyBear on a leash, because, for sure, him being the mischevious boy he is, there's no way he'd stay in the SUV, with the window hanging wide open. I told Mark to stay there, and he did. I saw a young couple in a car smiling at SparkyBear and kind of waving at him...so I sprang. I approached the girl's side and asked if they thought they could give me a jump. They smiled and said, "Why, sure we will". Sighhhh, I was relieved. When they pulled around in front of my vehicle and got out, I saw that the young fellow was tall, skinny, had a very long, scraggly pony-tail, and had tattoo's crawling all up and down his arms and neck. I told him I'd give him a couple of dollars if he could get it started. This rough-looking guy, looked me politely in the eyes, and said, with some kind of metal piercing in his lip, above his black goatee, "Nooooo, you don't need to do that; I just wanna help." He tried and tried to get my SUV started. The lights all came on, but there was some kind of 'tick-tick-tick' thing going on up near the starter. He went back to his car and came back with a small axe. It shocked me to see him, looking as he did, with an axe, but upon quick inspection, it wasn't a regular-looking axe, either. It looked like some ancient gothic type of axe with some kind of decorative swirls to it. He tapped away, lightly on this and that with that axe, as I'd try, over and over again to get the engine running. They were there for about fifteen minutes trying everything, to no avail, and finally, had to leave. I was still so grateful for their time and efforts, that I tried to give him a few dollars for tying. He gave me the sweetest smile from out of his scary-looking personage, and it was then, that I thought I spotted the angel in him, there in disguise. Again, with the both of them smiling, he said, "No, honestly, I can't take anything for it...I just wanted to help". I sat there thinking about that, after they left. Hmmmm. Well, NOW what do I do. I was still sitting there, deciding who to try calling this time. I know some of our readers don't like it when we talk this way, but this is what happened. I was desperate. I told the Lord, right out loud, "Lord, actually, this is YOUR vehicle. I am YOUR kid, stuck out here by myself and don't know what to do next. Here I am with the dogs, too, to make matters more confusing. YOU SAID we can call on you when we get into sitations like this, so I am. ....Oh, and Thank you, in advance, no matter how it turns out." It was starting to get dark. I sat there after that, trying to figure out who else, again, to call, when I noticed the lights on the dashboard come on. What did that mean? I turned the key and the engine came on. Whew! I drove home as carefully as I could, with no other incidents, other than the fact that the engine is still running 'hard'. When I got into our driveway and turned off the key again, then tried turning it back on....it's back to being dead again. (any ideas mechanical peoples out there?)
Looks like, gulp, I'll have to be paying another visit to my John Wayne closet on the way to the auto mechanic's shop again. Heeeere we go again.

Spring Outa Bed

Well, during this time of year, we are admonished to reflect upon things going on inside ourselves. Usually, there's too much activity and/or noise going on for me to really sit down 'in front of myself', take a good long look and say, "Hi, how are YOU doing?" I guess it might be kind of scarey anyhow; I might not like what I hear from in there. It's just easier to "keep on keepin' on".
But it IS Spring around here, or time to get to thinking about Spring. Time to dig up the old, settled sod, toss out the stones, old useless roots, weeds and junk that's accumulated during the last year. Time to stir up the sod, loosen it up, feed it, and get it ready for regrowth.
I hate being hauled out of bed in the morning. It just seems too jarring. I'd rather stay compfortable in the bed for awhile longer. I can be that way spiritually, as well. I don't wanna be tossed outa my nice, warm bankies. I don't want the pain of having to give up old things I've accumulated; tearing out dead roots of stuff that got in somehow, such as an off-hand remark someone made, which stayed and grew beyond it's intention. Still, tearing out roots, smarts, even if they're useless or not. There's a lot of hard work that has to take place, and then, when I get to the point of being what I think of as pious..."Okay, I give up all that bad stuff and forgive people for the bad stuff they've done to me", and I'm all 'clean' and ready to live life afresh....FERTILIZER! A ton of it!! Whyyyyy??? Why is it we grow so well in ****???( See, now that's why I didn't want to get out of bed in the first place; I knew this would happen.) At times like this, tho', I'm forgetting about the 'crop'. The new growth. We are judged by our 'fruit'...how sweet we are and giving our of abundance to others.
This last year in our yard, we did all the hard work for our fruit trees, and it payed off. Even tho' they were attacked by birds, leaf miners, stinkbugs, and 'whose nose' what all, they were luscious and plenty. Even while there was no fruit in the beginning of the season, the gorgeous smells from the flowers on them promised us that they were lovingly working on our bounty.

I'm thinking. I'm thinking. I'm supposed to be 'reflecting'. Anybody got some Windex I can borrow? Or how 'bout a can of raid for the stinkbugs at least? I know one thing...I need to get out in our yard and start on it, too! Boy, I'm gonna be pulling weeds forever.

But I Can Explain...

Dear 'Yankee' family and friends, "Ohhhhh, ya better watch out; ya better not cry; ya better not pout; I'm tellin' you why....'Springy'-time is already HERE...(practically....in South Louisiana)." It got up to around 80 degrees yesterday and today. Azure blue skies. Just glorious.
Yesterday, I had to take a few things to Cappy, so we got to sit by this bayou, where his boat was parked, along with a myriad of others with their barges, waiting to unload their crude oil. I was only allowed to stay for about ten minutes, then had to head back home. While we were visiting, we noticed across the water, about a dozen turtles, sunning themselves, "bumper-to-bumper", as Cappy said. I watched as he walked across the road to take this picture. As he started across the road, he had, had all his 'ducks' lined up in a row, but most of them spotted him coming, and "umpt in de otty". (That's not Cajun French.)
It reminded me of a little poem my Grandma used to say to me, which her Grandma used to say to her. I, in turn taught it to my kids, and am trying (...laughing here), to teach it to Cappy. It goes:

"Once dere was a witto fwog, sit-tin' on a widdo wog
Eatin' his bwed-ee boe-dee
He cwied tee-oo his tee-oo's wund outa his ee-ooz
Den he umpt in de otty."

This, in turn, reminds me of a saying from Yorkshire, England, which a student from there taught me, which is:

" 'ear all, see all, say nough'. "

What the first little poem is supposed to be read as, and how it's pronounced are two different things. I should have written it thus:

"Once there was a little frog, sitting on a little log,
Eating his bread and butter.
He cried 'til his tears, ran out of his ears,
Then he jumped in the water."

I like hearing it the way my Gramma told it.
The Yorkshire England saying comes back to me often, as good advice. Translated, it is written, "Hear all, See all, Say naught (nothing)".
Gramma used to say that, too, but she'd explain it to her kids, "Keep your ears and eyes open, and your big trap shut".

Mardi Gras means "Fat Tuesday"

One of the first things I noticed when I moved to South Louisiana, was that as soon as the Christmas decorations come down, the purple, green and gold decorations go up; the colors of Mardis Gras. Some of the house decorations are exquisitly gorgeous. Since January, there have been parades 'rolling' in the New Orleans area. From then til now, the parades and festivities have gotten more numerous, growing and spreading to more parts of our state, and culminating, today, in a huge...HUGE party. All the local networks have 'wall-to-wall' coverage. People dress up in costumes over in New Orleans to attend the big parades and parties. The place runs riot til the stroke of midnight, when the season of Lent, reflection and repentance begins until Easter.
Actually, I'm only getting the information about the crazy goings on in the French Quarter in New Orleans, second-hand, from the television, and from folks who have attended the French Quarter Mardis Gras. I've never been to the 'Big Party', and am happy to go watch the family oriented parades in the surrounding areas. Ahhh....I dunno why, but, this year I haven't even done that. I have at least gotten the Gras (Fat) part of it, right. I made a jambalaya today, Tuesday , and have gotten no excercise. I've GOTTA do something, soon! Lately I've had Saturday Gras, Sunday Gras, Monday Gras,...December Gras, January Gras, so I was 'prepared' for Gras today. Sighhh. I like what Mark Twain said in 1884, "New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin". Too danged true.
In case ya'll, especially our Yankee family and friends, would like to take a peek at Mardis Gras, here's a URL for you to click. From that, you can wander around their site looking at live parades on the 'CAMS', or look at pictures of the insane fun, find recipes...everything you can think of New Orleans. (If this link doesn't take you directly there, type it into your fav search engine and take off!
http://www.nola.com/

She's Gonna Killlll Me.

When my sister, Lori, was two years old, our Mom taught her how to write her name: LORI, making sure she dotted her i . Well, she just loved writing her name....everywhere. On the walls, on the cupboards, in her books, on her shoes...everywhere. Mom got disgusted and told her, "Dont' write your name on the walls anymore...just write on paper that I give you." Apparently paper wasn't as much fun to use, so she kept using the walls. Finally, I guess Mom might have threatened to paddle her if she did it again. After two weeks, Mom thought the problem was solved, then one day when she came home from work, she discovered another 'signature' on one of the walls, but this time it read, "MORI", with the i well dotted. Mom scowled at Lori and hollared, "Who did this?? Who wrote this on this wall??" Lori looked up at her innocently and said, "I don't know...some little girl, I don't know what her name is".

The Giant

I told Cappy about the Giant. He's seen it, so now he believes, too. The Giant always shows up in movie theaters, church, ballgames,concerts...wherever I am when I'm out to enjoy myself. Cappy always wants to be early when we are going somewhere to get a good seat, and the only reason I bother anymore is to benefit him. We can pick the most choice seats in the whole place, but as soon as I start enjoying what we came to see, the Giant comes in, late every time, and sits down directly in front of me and suddenly I'm in the dark,staring at the middle of his back. It's gotten to be a game now, with Cappy and me. We wonder, 'well...maybe the Giant won't show up this time; it would be like winning the lottery', but just as we get really interested in the event,the Giant is here blocking my entire view. I nudge Cappy, he looks over, nods his head with me and whispers, "...the Giant", and goes back to watching his show.
To amuse himself and aggravate me further, the Giant has begun taking different forms, but I still recognize him by his dirty trick. One time he was a girl with huge black poofs of hair arranged like Mickey Mouse's ears. I'd lean way over to the right to see around her, and she'd lean her head to the right, in front of me. I'd lean to the left to see what was going on, and she'd lean to the left. Just to prove to myself that it was the Giant, I started to slowly lean to the right way over, and dang if her head didn't move slowly to the right, staying right in front of me, too, so to trip her up, I quickly leaned to the left, but he/she beat me there. Not funny. Not FUNNY.
Recently, we went to a movie and as usual, Cappy picked out two great seats for us, but this time we sat in back of a couple of petite ladies, thinking, "Aha, we have him now". I sat there smirking at our ingenious plan, sipping my soda, 'chonking' on my illicitly delicious hot buttered popcorn, and alternately popping pieces of chocolate into the mixture. Heaven. I had barely noticed a mother and her small children coming up the stairs in the aisle, because, for once, I was enjoying what was occurring on the screen. I didn't even mind when she moved her troop into our row. I did wonder why our row, what with all the other open spaces to sit. She sat a two-year old next to me, but I still didn't 'get it'; he was quiet enough, and aha...AHA! he was not between the screen and me. He sat there munching the snacks his momma dispersed among them, and I sat there watching the movie, thoroughly enjoying each tender morsal of my treats. I began to notice I wasn't relishing the taste so much. I broke my attention away from the movie to reevaluate my surroundings....oh noooo. Apparently the two year old next to me wasn't completely potty-trained. He sat there with an angelic look on his face, staring transfixed on the movie, but still grunting into his diapers or trousers...whatever. I leaned over and whispered to Cappy, "Can't you smell that??" He kept watching the movie and mumbled, "No...not really". I tried to ignore it for a couple more minutes, then gagging, grabbed my stuff and moved over to the seat on the other side of Cappy, whispering on the way by, "It's the Giant...he's over there pooing his pants next to me." Luckily, there were a few empty seats still far over so we moved there and watched the last few minutes of our show.
The next time we saw the Giant was at a high-school football game, where we went to watch Cappy's nephew, Ren play. It was still the same huge guy, surrounded by his group of short folks. It didnt' matter that I sat up on the next bench above him, after he came in late, he still towered way over me. Again, Cappy just looked and nodded in agreement with me, "The Giant"...no big deal now. At least he didn't stink this time.
That brings us to our much longed-for trip to Atlanta's High Art Museum. We did have a wonderful time. We forged ahead in heavy early morning traffic to get there when the doors opened; and we did. We got to see the drawings, paintings, sketches and sculptures we looked forward to seeing. We were impressed and thrilled at seeing history in front of us; not two feet in front of our faces. The works of Rembrandt, Poisson, Raphael; the palace artist's of Louis XIV, XV and XVI. This, the Portrait of Baldessare Castiglione by Raphael, was breathtaking. It looked as though if you could get close enough to blow the fur wrap, you'd see it ruffle. Humungous guards where there to make sure that didn't happen. Being an artist, myself, I love looking at the strokes of the brush or pencil that the masters made to create their pieces of work. To make the visit more wonderful, the museum had headsets for us visitors to wear, attached to small computers we wore around our necks, so that when we got to a painting, or whatever, we could punch in the number shown on the wall next to the artwork, and get an audio description of the artist, his place in history, and a whole bunch of very interesting facts, which brought the piece to life. I felt like a kid in a candy shop, and Cappy, who loves history, did as well. We moved over to a corner to begin our tour. We scanned the surface of each rendering while listening to the explaination in our headsets. (We clicked them on at the same time, so we could hear the same thing at the same time.) We were so engrossed, studying the works, we really didn't notice the jostling around us. I began having trouble hearing what was being said in my headset. I put my hands up and pressed them tighter to my ears, but it still wasn't working. What the heck? I could hear all kinds of racket in the suddenly large crowd around us. As I was about to turn around, a loud,wiggly, winding, caterpillar, consisting of what appeared to be inner-city school kids, all wearing bright red sweatshirts, brushed into us, between us and the works of art, where they parked, so their teacher could explain to them what they were looking at. We made our way around the room, but by then there were 'caterpillars' everywhere. More rambuncuous red ones, boistrous blue ones, taller terrible turquoise ones. And loud...they were loud. Cappy and I finally found one room, which seemed a little more quiet, so we got close to a large painting of a begger boy, and began discussing his feet. Cappy had great insight. He said that the artist had used a model, whose feet were used to wearing shoes, hence his toes were all scrunched together tightly. He said that, had the boy, in fact, been shoeless his whole life, or for a long time, the toes would be more splayed and relaxed. He made a good point. We were studying it more closely, when a line of those noisy students wiggled tightly in, right in front us again. One young man was hollaring that he was bored, stomped his foot and yelled, "BORED!" Other kids were whining about one thing or another. I knew then, that it was useless to try to concentrate on any one composition, so I turned to Cappy and we both nodded and mouthed at the same time, "The Giant", that miserable beast. We should have known going in that morning, when Cappy read a sign that said, "Toddler Thursday", that it was 'him'.

My Hands and Phillips Head

Hi again....finally. I've missed Ya'll, so don't go thinking I didn't. I thought about you, and wanted to blog every single day, but couldn't. I left you hanging about the SUV. It worked out great. I didn't even get to meet the mechanic, tho. I've never seen anything like it. It was an huge place with greeters, computer notebooks in hand, directing a moving car jam neatly into lanes, where each driver disembarked, explained their problem to the greeters, who 'wrote' the information into their computers, then ushered us into a waiting room, much like an hospital waiting room, to sit with other nail-biters, while a nurse or somebody like that drove our 'loved ones' into their respective 'operating' rooms. Next to the open waiting room sat a lady with a large computer screen which had several views of the entire facility. Occasionally her phone would ring and she would call out a name, whereby someone in the silent group of us waiting and pretending to watch television,would get up and go see her. Some of those called, and after conferring with her a minute would let out an huge sigh of relief and head off into the garage to collect their 'patient' and go home. Others would loudly groan, walk outside and pace back and forth talking on their cell phone and eventually disappear. People came and people left. I sat there for three hours. Most of that time I was the lone 'survivor' in the darned place. I paced the tile squares. I worked the cryptogram puzzle book I had brought along with me. I ate the banana I had also brought with me and drank my bottled water. I pottied and was scolded by one of the 'greeters' that she had come to let me know it would be awhile longer, but I had been nowhere in sight. I paced some more, sat and fidgeted. When I thought all hope must be lost, she came back and told me that it was the ignition switch, would be a little more than $200, labor included, and I'd be good to go in about twenty minutes. I let out one of those huge sighs, paid the bill and headed off into the garage area to fetch our SUV. Boy, it was too easy. A lot of good all that practicing with my John Wayne mosey and attitude. I'm thinking I musta intimidated the whole bunch of em going into the place tho', when the greeter mentioned one of my tail light lens being broken, and the light not working. I rolled my shoulders back, stiffened my spine and let 'er know this: " yehh...sniff...I got one ordered...gonna put it on there myself". (Ya think that's what did it??)

So, here it is Valentine's Day. The day of Hearts. Lo! and behold! I've been hankering for chocolate all day. Much to my delight, a delivery truck rolled into the driveway and left me a package with something big and red and shiny in it! I was thrilled. (I still am!) I swaggered outside with it, for all the neighbors to see, and with my own two hands and a phillips head screwdriver, took out the old lens kit and replaced it with the shiny new red one, all by myself, with the Lord and John Wayne looking over my shoulder.

(I took it out for a test drive and got myself a chocolate Snickers Bar to boot.)

The Cost of "Bein' Da MAN" While Cappy is Out on Da Boat.

Boy! I hope it never gets this bad. I took this picture in Newnan (with 3 n's), just south of Atlanta, outside of Hank's BBQ. As you can tell from the bright orange plastic construction netting, the place is getting some kind of overhaul. Apparently somebody with our kind of sense of humor posted the gas prices. I hope we don't EVER have to see them that high. You'd think what with Cappy working in the oil industry, pushing his barges full of it, we'd get some kind of discount, but nooooooo.

Before he leaves the house as he's going to work, he pets his dawgs and tells them, "Okkkkay, boyyyyyyys, ya be good and take care of yer Momma, and watch da house til I git back". He gives me a hug and says, "Yer in charge now...yer 'da Man' til I get back! Yer da Cappy's wife, n'I love ya".

Welllll, let's see what dis 'man' has up her sleeve first thing. (Shudder) This morning the SUV decided it was left out of Cappy's departing encouragements, so it refused to start. We had to slop around in the dark, drizzle-soaked yard, dragging both batteries out of our boat, fumble around in the shed with a flashlight to find the battery charger, then string a myriad of heavy-duty extension cords and jumper cables to persuade it to start. With a warm surge of appreciation it started nicely and drove us to Houma. I didn't turn it off til Cappy got his seabag and everything out of it at his office, and I got it all the way back home. We've noticed that whenever we stop it lately, that the starter has acted kinda pouty, and resets the clock. Now something's been draining the juice outa the new battery. We surmise it's an electrical problem. Perhaps the starter or the alternator or a fuse.

So. I'm 'da man'. Just now I pulled up my sleeves, hitched up my britches, wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, tightened my lips, rocked back and forth on my heels, (if I'da had loins I mighta girded them) and called the place where we bought it about 6 years ago. It's not going to be purdy. I can feel myself slipping into my 'John Wayne mode' again, but somehow I don't think it's going to work very well in a mechanic's garage, where he has home field advantage. I've played this game before and know what I'm in for. Batting my eye-lashes only let the 'opponents' know they could roll right over me, which they did, so that's how I came up with my John Wayne strategy. It didn't work in the mega do-it-yourself home store, I know, I know... (archive story "But I Don't Wanna Be the Cowboy"). But it's all I've got going for me, so I'm goina try it again. Gonna take that SUV to the dealer, stride into the dark mechanic's den, as big as life, with my well-honed John Wayne walk (I think I got it 'down') and try to get a word in edge-wise to tell him what I think is wrong with it, before he gets a load of how I'm walking and tells me, "Oh...the Ladies room is over that way".