Doonesbury Say What?

"There are no Americans who don't have healthcare. Everybody in this country has access to healthcare."
-- Rep. Virginia Foxx

I guess she's the rep from the State of WTF, or perhaps the State of Denial. Or perhaps she just counts having no insurance and going to the ER being health care.

It never rains but it pours

Today we left Las Cruces heading to Ohio for the burial of Russet's mother's ashes who passed away last month in Maine, that takes place on Saturday. In three weeks I'm going to be leaving Las Cruces and moving back to Cloudcroft. So I thought it would be efficient to pack up a bunch of boxes and take both cars to Cloudcroft as Russ has an Apollo laser run tonight and was going to be working and staying an extra couple of days in Cloudcroft after we got back. I'd take the Subaru back to 'Cruces and go to work, she'd come down a day or two later.

The best laid plans of mice and men.... (gang aft a-gley)

We're heading out of town, me in the Subaru, and the temperature gauge is rising. And rising. We're about to go up the San Augustine Pass, and temperature is almost pegged. I decide I'm turning around and pull off the road. Russ pulls off behind me and we discuss it and decide we're going to leave it at my aunt's while we're gone.

I pull back on the highway, Russet knows where we're going. I call my aunt to confirm that it would be OK, while I'm talking to her the call waiting beeps but for whatever reason, I can't flip my bluetooth headset over to it. I get off the phone with my aunt and call Russet, and it was her, and she says "Did you see me back in to that pipe?"

She'd hit a barrier pipe. Fortunately it was a relatively low speed impact, we might have avoided body or taillight damage. We get to my aunt's. I unload some of the boxes that aren't particularly heat-sensitive, but they're sensitive enough that I don't want them basking in the New Mexico sun for two weeks. Russet arrives a few minutes later, and the bumper doesn't look bad, but I can see it's going to make a lot of noise, so I decide to cut it off. My aunt has a tree limb cutter, and it scissors through the plastic easily enough. We're cooling down in my aunt's house and I reach in my pocket to give her the car keys, and they're not there. I check my fanny pack, they're not there. I go and look at the car's ignition, and there they are: behind locked doors.

I haven't locked my keys in my car in a very long time, perhaps a couple of decades. I guess I could technically still claim that as it was my wife's car.

Last week I signed up for AAA's premier membership. It has a peculiar restriction that the towing benefits don't kick in for seven days, hopefully we won't need them before Thursday. The locksmith service kicks in immediately, but I left our temporary cards at the apartment. So I call AAA, confirm that the locksmith service is good.

The problem is that Russet is losing a member of her crew and needed to interview a potential new hire, so we were on a bit of a schedule. She could do the Apollo run from 'Cruces, but she'd lose the interview opportunity. So we decide to leave the car locked, and we'll get the locksmith out when we get back to town.

This does present a problem in her needing to work August 9, but she should be able to get a ride back to Las Cruces: there are several people who go back and forth from the observatory to 'Cruces.


So we get to the observatory, and there's a message from the guy who is supposed to be on-shift starting tomorrow night. In fact, he's covering Russet's absence. He's very sick, possibly with kidney problems and might not be able to work. He also can't be contacted as he's off to a clinic. There are five people, including Russ, that work the telescope. Russet is supposed to be half-time, one guy is a grad student and he works less than quarter time. He's off in Wyoming. The other two happen to be at the observatory right now. One cannot work as she's moving to Santa Fe and the truck is scheduled this week. So it's entirely possible that Russet will have to work and someone will have to come in Friday so she can fly out to Ohio. In that theoretical possibility I would drive solo to Ohio, pick her up Friday evening, and we'd continue our trip.

But it gets even better! There are no spare vehicles at the observatory! So does this mean that I'd be staying up here while she works, then we both fly, at considerable expense plus the rental, though we'd save a couple hundred off of hotels for the outbound trip.

Still, it could be a major PITB.


The solution? No idea, the night is young.

Stay tuned! Same Bat time, same Bat channel!