Lazy day

A lazy start to the day. It's nearly 10:00, and all I've done is shower, have breakfast (it took #1 about an hour to finish his English muffin egg sandwich), then write a letter with him to Parenting magazing (which by the way is really annoying, because it's 99.3% geared toward mothering, not parenting, as if dads don't count), to say that he really doesn't like the picture on the Mucinex advertisement. I told him we could write them a letter and send it back. I think it's a good way to get him used to the idea of writing, and the power of words to communicate, as well as his ability to act in the world, rather than simply observing.

Next stop, I have to take him to the dentist again, for a follow up visit from the suturing we got done two weeks ago. He said it doesn't hurt anymore, so why do we have to go. I explained that it's a way for the dentist to make a little extra money, so we can help pay for his mortgage. He let it go at that.

Other than that, I've checked my email, and read my regular blogs, and such.

Yesterday was long but mostly uninspiring. I drove the Hyundai to the dealership to get some warranty work done. After about 2 hours at the dealership (where kindly they let me set up my laptop on a desk and do some work) the service manager explained that they couldn't find the problem, which meant it was likely in the transmission, but that would take an entire day to determine, so they couldn't do it then. (It's about 45 minutes drive to the closest dealership!) So I'd have to bring it back and leave it for a day, but possibly 3 days or even a week! And they'd have no loaner for us. I said we'd bring it back over the weekend, and leave it there.

And somehow, although he suspects it's the transmission (which is covered under warranty), in taking that apart, he'd compromise the clutch (only 35,000 miles on it), so he'd recommend replacing that too, which would only cost us about $350 for parts now, or we could replace it down the road for about $750 (including labor). The more he talked, the less I could make sense of it all. At a certain point, you just have to suck it up and trust them. But my wife suggested we check into how long a clutch ought to last (35k miles sounds really short to both of us), and maybe get a second quote from an independent.

Nice thing was I got to have lunch with my wife when I got back to town. Then about 3 hours of sitting in front of the computer. Can't say much of it was work, but some of it counts. I'll plan to be as productive as possible this afternoon. Wish me luck.