I am one of those people who can get into any car and figure out how it works within a few minutes, which is an increasingly rare skill because if people see a manual transmission, their brains bluescreen and they nope out. I prefer to drive with an automatic transmission and adaptive cruise control, but that doesn’t mean I cannot make it work in a 1980 Ford F‑250 with a granny‑low 4‑speed.
And in fact, if money were no object, I would buy a current F-250. I can afford the truck, but I cannot afford the gas and maintenance. So this is just a thought exercise, and not what’s currently in the works. An F-250 with all the technology adaptations my current Fusion has would change our lives. It would make the Airstream a breeze to tow because the most current Fords have adaptive cruise control that works even when the Airstream is attached. I also want CarPlay if I’m going to be towing, because the map needs to be front and center.
Tiina, my first wife got lost on the way to the “Get Out the Map” tour. It’s a guiding principle in life.
It’s also something I would trust 16yo to drive, because he physically cannot be a speed demon in it. However, I do not want to join the fight as to which one of us is going to pay for 16yo’s insurance. I wish I had enough money to buy 16yo his own beater and teach him to wrench, because I don’t know much…. but what I do know, I want to pass on. I do not remember if Brian is a car guy or not, so if he is, the more the merrier. I am ready to learn more about cars, too. It’s a very autistic approach- buy a car and a manual and search every YouTube video ever on the subject.
I said this the other day that I was trying to find a way to plug in to the family that would be useful, and having the farm truck is useful. But having a farm truck and having a truck capable of towing the Airstream are two separate things. It also doesn’t necessarily make sense to buy two trucks, either. So it’s just another dilemma that will sit in my head until Tiina tells me what I should think. 😉
I would love an old 5-speed just to cruise around Stafford. I can picture myself in Shirley, the truck I drove in Portland. It was a 1989 Nissan Pickup. Volfe and I fixed her up as well as we could, but it still looked like a 16yo’s truck at the end of the day. Teaching my own 16yo how to take a beater and make it his own would be so much fun. Plus, we have all that space at the farm to take the doors off and do custom paint, etc.
He needs basic technology in his truck. I don’t want him driving around without Bluetooth, because being able to control the radio and take calls with your voice is essential. It would be better even we went a few model years newer so that the microphone was already wired into the infrastructure of the truck. But even if it’s not, that’s a day’s wiring job. The thing about old trucks is that there’s nothing computerized to get in the way and you can do what you want with sound. Factory is absolute dogshit, but you can put decent speakers in the doors without breaking the bank.
I would feel safer if 16yo had Android Auto, but those trucks are built for classic-style radios. It doesn’t make sense to glue a tablet onto the dash. It does make sense to get him a dash mount for his phone and a stereo that will run the audio. And if we’re being really fancy, let’s upgrade the rearview mirror as well so that 16yo has less accidental bumps with a backup camera….. especially important if we choose “long bed.”
But the thing is, all of these are dreams for 16yo and not reality because he’s the one that needs to show his parents, and me by extension, that he is responsible enough to handle a vehicle while he’s alone. All of my dreams of teaching him to drive a stick shift may be for naught, because he has to decide what’s important in life before we start thinking “manual or automatic?”
I have also told him that I cannot wait until he can drive because then he can be the chauffer while I sit in the back and watch YouTube videos (this is a running joke- I am always jealous that during car rides, there could be a fire right next to us and the kids wouldn’t notice because they were lost in Binging Babish…. or whatever it is that kids watch. I do not know. I’m in the front.
That is my area, much like the Pepsi machine.
I was lamenting to Tiina that I did not know what a girlfriend to a straight woman was even supposed to do right now. Like, I know what I would do if my definition of a girlfriend’s daughter was having a baby. That role is scripted. But the way Tiina says “girlfriend” is the way that straight women have referred to their besties for eons. WHOLE different ball of wax. I am not trying to fit Tiina into my definition of girlfriend, I am trying to learn hers….. or as I said, “I don’t have any other straight girlfriends. What do I even feed her?”
She said, “Ha. Be happy. Be ready.”
Oh, I am all of those things. I am thinking about Tiina and the whole system constantly. Waiting for the baby’s arrival has made me rethink a lot of things, including where I live. It’s trying to find every possible loophole that would allow me to move to Virginia and finding none, so thinking that Rockville is my next best landing place. When my body fails, I want Sinai and my Cognitive Behavioral Health group. Neither of those managed care organizations have managed care in Virginia.
My options get sparser in Louisa, which is why it’s better for me to maintain a Maryland residence. I can get enough medication to be able to be gone for three or four days at a time without incidence. I don’t just live in Maryland “on a technicality.” I’m here enough during the week that it is one of the places I live, just not the only place I live.
Tiina jokes all the time that I’m just going to have to buy an air conditioner for the attic and they’ll put down some boards. Honestly, I’m not even sure that she’s joking…. but when I think about merging lives, I can think about it right up until it means moving in. Changing my address from Maryland to Virginia would be a disaster for me, and I cannot do that to myself.
Brian and Tiina have protections through work insurance that will never be available to me, so I have to be clear on what I need out of the state. But what is attractive is thinking of all the scaffolding I would have if we did live together. I would be one member of a team and not having to carry every little thing by myself. I also don’t see myself moving in with a romantic partner again, because I don’t want my romantic interest to be tied to my living situation. That has never worked out for me in the past.
If Tiina and Brian move out to the lake, it just means more road trips as I look forward to the laws in Virginia getting more progressive. My car loves the route from Baltimore to Louisa, and I am constantly entertained with audiobooks. Some of them are about autism. Some of them are about racism. Some of them are fiction. And a good bit of them are BBC Radio Dramas by John Le Carre.
My car is the inanimate object love of my life. It’s a 2019 Ford Fusion, which is exactly why I want to upgrade to another Ford in truck form. Sync 3 is perfect and I just like the layout. The steering wheel controls and the driver experience are both just insane. The one thing I would lose is good gas mileage, so I’m holding off on the idea that I need to be the one to buy the farm truck until I’m there more than a few days a week.
The good part is that all of this feels settled and solid. I am not overreaching when I say “my kids” and “my grandkid” because I do not mean it like “my pencil.” I mean it like “my neighborhood.” Tiina is the biological grandmother. Brian is the step-grandfather. I am the one who runs errands for both. I do not have a baby, but I have taken stock in a baby. 😉
I am just doing for Ay Ay what I would do for any of Brian and Tiina’s other kids…. love them.
I think that things are changing and we are all adjusting for the better.
It makes me smile when Tiina calls me “babe.”
I’m guessing she read yesterday’s entry.
Awkward.
😉
Stories That Are All True 