I’d meant to buy a dedicated work truck when I got this contract, so I’ve been shopping and researching the hell out of it for the last couple of weeks. I had a good idea of what I wanted to spend, but what did I want to buy with that? And what could I find that would fit those parameters?

I spent most of my time looking at a site with repossessed work trucks. They had a lot to choose from, and most of them looked pretty good on paper, but none of them were exactly what I wanted. Sure, I could have lived with a gas engine, but I wanted a diesel. A diesel may be more expensive to buy and fuel, but they last a lot longer. None of these trucks were quite starting from zero miles. Most of them had at least a hundred thousand on them, typical for a utility vehicle, but that would be about at the end of a gas truck’s life while a diesel would be just getting nicely broken in.

And which motor did I want? The older Fords had a really good one, but after 2002, they went to one that had all sorts of problems. Ford only kept that version around for a few years, but it just so happens that my price range puts most of the trucks available to me right in the middle of those years. Any older, and they’d be closer to used up; any newer and I wouldn’t be able to afford them. Dodge’s Cummins engine gets all sorts of good ratings, as does the Chevy Duramax, but I’m not really a Chevy person. I like my Dodges and Fords, even if I get shit for admitting either one or the other, depending on the time of day.

So when I found a 2004 Dodge that looked like it suited on paper, that sounded good to me. It would be so much easier to have two of the same truck. I know where everything is and lots of the parts would be interchangeable. It even had fewer miles on it than my personal truck, so we went up to West Sacramento on Friday, to an equipment dealer. I’d CarFaxed the thing, and it had more service records available than mine does. It had been a lease and then a work truck, and then repossessed and sold at auction, so I wasn’t expecting anything pristine, and I was prepared to walk away and keep looking if it wasn’t what I wanted.

When we got there, the salesman just handed us the keys and a dealer plate and left us alone to look at and drive it. That was a very good way to handle me; I hate a salesman who breathes down the back of your neck. Another bonus point for these guys was that they were working with me, not Junior. So many car people tend to just talk to the man in a couple, but it wasn’t his truck, it was mine. I’d talked to them on the phone to make sure it was there before we drove that whole way, and they took the hint.

And once we started looking, it was just about what we’d expected. Acceptable, but it’s been used a lot harder than mine. Too bad the last guy was a smoker; it really stunk. And the tires and windshield would have to be replaced right away. We drove it and looked at everything that we could, and I decided that it would do. I didn’t want to come back after they dealt with the minor details, so they knocked off a little money for the things I’d mentioned. Not a whole lot, but I had done my research, and I knew they were at low Blue Book price on it. Of course, I also knew they got it at auction, so I’m quite sure they still made their profit, but that’s OK. I got it at a price that I think was fair.

 

 

Of course, if we’d noticed the rear end whine that only kicks in at 65 or 70, I might have tried a little harder to talk them down some more, or walked away, but that’s one of the risks you take on a used vehicle. I’ll drive it until it gets worse, but first have my mechanic change out all of the fluids and see what kind of wear I’m looking at.

We spent Saturday morning taking care of getting it set up to use. First thing was to put new tires on it, as the sidewall was peeling off of the old ones, they were so poor. And we bought oil and filters and things like that, but as Junior is getting into the engine, he’s finding that things look newly-replaced, so it might have been serviced recently. That’s fine; it’s cheap insurance to do it ourselves now and know where we start with it.

I think the ladder rack is going to come off. It’s kind of beat up and heavy, and I very rarely carry anything that won’t fit in a long bed. I’ll keep it in case I change my mind later. I’ve been cleaning the inside, trying to get the smoker’s grunge off that the detailing missed, and buying stock in Febreeze. It got the pot smell out of my other truck; I sure hope it works on more conventional smoke odors. For now, it smells like a cheap motel.

The similarities are actually catching me more than if I’d bought a different brand. In a Ford, I would be expecting the ground to hit me at a certain point when I got out, because it would feel enough different that I’d know I wasn’t in my own truck. As it is, the ground comes up several inches sooner than I’m used to, since it’s two-wheel-drive, and surprises me every time. It’s a little gutless compared to my chipped engine too; in one that didn’t feel so similar, I wouldn’t unconsciously expect more out of it.

This week is going to be busy with it. The credit union should really know that I’ve bought it, and the insurance agency. I need to get a light put on the top, and I look forward to having one that goes on with the flip of a switch instead of the temporary arrangement that’s served me for the last eight years on the other trucks. I need to move my tools from the other truck, and find a set of general-use tools to keep in that one, because I don’t drive a truck without at least some tools in it. First, I need to clean the grease out of the toolboxes. And find a lock that fits the boxes, and get a key made for the integral locks. I need to have my window stickers made. We still need to change the oil, as we got rained out.

Poor Junior; he’s gone from having his truck to maintain, which he does at the dealership for free, to having to change the oil himself on not one, but two more. He’s a good sport about taking care of me though, and I’ll try not to abuse the privilege.

But most importantly of all, it needs a name. I can’t very well call it “my truck” or “the Dodge.” That doesn’t narrow it down enough. I think it will probably just be the “work truck” and my original one gets to keep all of the names.

My internal scheduling is all jacked up today. This would normally be a weekend where we’d each have the kids, but mine blew me off on Saturday afternoon to go to San Francisco with their father. Since I was free, I went up to Junior’s to hang out with him, but he only had one too, as the other one was sick and wanted her mother.

It is so much easier to have one kid than four, I swear.

 

 So we all went to the trapshoot on Sunday after breakfast, and his oldest and I bonded a little while she bopped between me and her grandma and I took pictures of her daddy, and we both cheered him on from the sidelines. It’s really much easier for me to get to know them one on one, and easier for them too, so it was a good day overall. 

The hangup was, on our way down there, I started having an inexplicable asthma attack. I had no idea why, as none of my usual triggers were anywhere near. Junior took a sniff of his daughter at breakfast though, and asked his mom if she’d put perfume on her. Turns out she had, and while I couldn’t smell it, I seem to be very allergic to it. I was fine out in the wind, and even at the restaurant for dinner that afternoon, but it snuck up on me later. We’d dropped off the daughter and gone to play a game with his folks and some family friends, and I found myself getting quieter and quieter and tighter and tighter in the chest. You’d think that I would have had a clue, having just gone through that in the morning, but sometimes the lack of oxygen to my brain really slows me down. Of course, his mom was still wearing the same perfume, and I didn’t add up all of the pieces until we were about done and out the door, when I fell apart. A few inhaler hits later, and I was just slightly better but shaking like a leaf. I couldn’t decide on anything, whether I wanted to just go home and have Junior follow me, or sit tight, or what. He looked at me, wrapped his arms around me, and told me I was staying there and that was OK with his folks (I hadn’t stayed at their place yet.) He fed me a couple of Benadryl, which turned out to be exactly what I needed, since it was an allergic reaction, put me in his pajamas, and curled up with me on the couch while I got over it. I hate to sleep in strange places, but at least I had some contact lens solution in the truck, and the bed smelled like him, so I was comfortable. Well, and I was pretty doped up from the Benadryl.

I told him later that that’s what I do when I’m getting sick; I clam up and get foggy-brained and can’t make my own decisions very well. I may not even realize that there’s something wrong, but if I’m poker-faced when I should be smiling and laughing, something’s up. It’s good that he knows what to look for now, and it’s good that I can count on someone having my back.

I hope I didn’t offend his mom by being allergic to her perfume; I don’t react to all of them. I wear some myself, actually, that doesn’t bother me at all. But walking through the perfume counter at the department stores has always been really uncomfortable for me, and I guess now I know why. It’s not her personally, but I’m not going to be able to be in an enclosed space with her very long if she wears that one, and I know she likes it a lot. I wonder if she’ll like the brand I use, that I’m not allergic to, and if I can get her some of that?

 

 But anyway, this was by far the worst asthma attack I’ve ever had that wasn’t brought on by a lot of exercise, and now I know what one feels like when it doesn’t start with coughing. I need to update my inhalers, but insurance tangles are going to make that difficult too. I’m just lucky someone was there to recognize that something was going on, and to take care of me. Thank you, baby. 

This weekend was all about celebrating a few things, and letting go of the stress. It took me at least half a day to unwind enough to start to let go, but I think I succeeded in the end. It’s really hard for me to get those wheels to stop turning, but by Sunday, I wasn’t even noticing strange people’s uncovered backflow preventers.

For one weekend we weren’t parents, we didn’t have jobs and businesses, and there weren’t any other weird things hanging over our heads. It all boiled down to he and I, and a small little world with the focus on each other. I would have thought that he would get tired of so much of me, but he didn’t seem to, and I was perfectly happy to spend all of my time and mental energy on him. Of course, that also involved a lot of just turning everything off, of sleeping in and watching TV in the room from the hot tub, a couple of slugs with no muscle tension left at all.

 We did have a few things on our agenda, but not very many. I didn’t care where or when we ate, but what we had was universally very good. I got a crab fix, and had lamb chops one night that rolled my eyes back in a foodgasm.

We went shopping three times to two outdoor stores. One, Cabela’s, was our nominal reason for going to Reno. It’s the closest one to California, and I’ve always wanted to go to one of the stores in person. Lord knows I send them enough money over the internet. I was feeling so mellow that I didn’t even bring the camera to the store, and that’s not like me. We spent half a day in there at the hunter’s toy store, dropping plenty of change, and I walked out with a shiny new pair of binoculars, among other things. I’ve never had a good set before, and that’s something that you really need to try out in person. I could have just kept on shopping, but not being able to buy guns in Nevada (as a California resident) neatly nipped that in the bud.

There was a Sportsman’s Warehouse near our hotel too, which was an unexpected shopping bonus, and we ended up there twice. I’m sort of glad there isn’t one of those closer to us either, as I could see that being a wallet drain too. Having two hunters in the family is no good for checks and balances on the spending; we tend to egg each other on when it comes to our hobby, but that’s OK as long as we keep an eye on the budget. It’s just fine right now; one of the things we were celebrating.

But eventually we had to come home, and I wasn’t ready for the weekend to end. Things I had to do started piling back up into my head, but they’re hanging with more of a dull roar in the back of my head than the screaming and hollering I was hearing before we left. I feel so much better, recharged and ready to handle things. Good thing too, as I’ve got a whole lot coming up, but whatever. I’m not going to worry about things for now, just deal with them as they come up.

It’s kind of a rush, when you once scraped life by with two or three part-time jobs, to walk into your bank and deposit a five-figure check every month. I still can’t get over it. I’m not used to having money to mess with; I’ve lived month-to-month for so long, and on year-to-year jobs too, if I was lucky. I’m trying to strike a balance between using it wisely to further the business and saving miserly so I can either settle down somewhere or cash it all out in dollar bills and roll around naked in it. I haven’t yet decided. They’d have to be clean dollar bills.

I’m moving my personal accounts over to my credit union because I like them so much, and since there wasn’t a line, I took care of some other stuff too.

I checked on the insurance status of my truck loan; it’s right where I wanted it to be, and I’m paying off the principal a little faster than I used to.

I asked for another truck loan please, and she whipped out an approval that would just about cover a brand new one, even though that’s more than I need.

And while I was there, and since they now have a spiffy new sign up announcing that they do home loans, I asked about that too. Might as well take life in big chunks, I figured. That’s a different branch, but I just got off the phone with that loan officer, and things aren’t quite as bleak as I’d thought.

See, the paradox of being self-employed is that now that the money’s finally good enough and my future’s finally stable enough to buy a house, I’m considered a high risk. They only want to lend me massive amounts of money with either three or four years of receipts to show or a fairly good down payment.

I’ll show them though. It turns out that I can probably save more than they need, and in only six months too. Ha! Take that! I can have a mortgage earlier than I thought! (I’d thought it was at least two years regardless of the down, but that’s not so, it turns out.)

So, six more months of saving, six more months of relationship building, and then we can start looking for a house. Or a year, or a year and a half. Whatever. It’s not never any more. Now the trick will be to keep from finding something perfect before we’re ready, but at least I have truck shopping with which to distract myself.

This being the weekend that we both have our kids (except for John, who’s camping with Boy Scouts) we thought that maybe we’d try to get them together for a little longer than the evening or afternoon we’ve done before. No, they would all spend the weekend here. My sweetie (no problem) and all three of the younger, more squirrelly kids.

And I thought I could handle it fine. And I was so wrong.

It doesn’t help that I’m about to be smacked with the hormone fairy’s wand. I’ve never been much of one to be bothered by that, or maybe I just didn’t know it. I lived alone for a long time you know, and if I was easly irritated with no one around to irritate me, how would I know?

It doesn’t help that I’ve had an incredibly stressful week. I didn’t know if I was going to be employed on Friday by as late as Tuesday, and then my health insurance ran out on Thursday. It all got resolved, but I’ve been a little bit of a stress monkey anyway.

It doesn’t help that I like to be alone now and then, and haven’t really got much of that lately, for assorted reasons. It’s fine to not be alone for good reasons, and I do like it and wouldn’t choose otherwise, but the fact is that I’m used to some down time to sort myself out, and I just haven’t had much lately. And when that comes to a head, it gets right up there and makes its presence known.

It really doesn’t help that I’m by no means the most maternal person in the world. I like my life to have some order to it, and maybe not too much noise please. I’ve finally got my kids trained to stop when I tell them they’re about to push my last button, but these other two are not used to me, are younger, and also are girls. Girls seem to shriek, and I’m not used to that. They’re not doing anything wrong, just being kids. It’s just that I don’t handle kids all that very well.

Someone recently told Junior that if he thought his divorce was hard, just wait and see what combining families felt like. I didn’t think it would be easy, no, but I now have a feeling that I’m in for way more than I thought. This will probably be the hardest thing that I’ve ever done.

I’m afraid to fail and afraid to falter at it. I’m not used to failing. I’m used to being able to rely on my own skills to pull myself up and out of wherever I happen to be, without relying on anyone else. I am not in the habit of sharing the load, and frankly, I’m not very good at it. Junior and I talked quite a bit about this today, and for once, I wasn’t afraid to let down the veneer and show him what I was really feeling. I was honestly feeling overwhelmed, and just wanted my quiet house back so I could curl up with my book and regenerate a little. Once I figured out that was where I was at, I told him. I didn’t have to worry that he’d get mad and leave me, as I’ve feared confrontations in the past. It wasn’t even a confrontation; he could see that I was on the edge and wanted to know how he could help me. I am worried that I hurt his feelings, but I’m not scared that a little emotional overload will crash our relationship.

And that makes all the difference to me. This is not only something that I don’t have to do alone, doing it alone doesn’t make any sense at all. We will pull together as a team, and if there are days when I’m weak and he steps up, there will also be days when he needs me to take care of him. But oh man, is this going to be a challenge, and they are still at a point where they like each other. Just wait until they start fighting amongst themselves.

This terrifies me, but may well be the most rewarding thing that I could ever choose to do.