A Flat Tire and A Roller Skate

After arriving home from Dream Dinners (with Rachel) last night around 9:00 PM, I parked in front of my house and started taking my cooler out of the back of my car, then I heard a ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss noise. Here is what I saw:


That's right, a massive leak in my tire and everything was already closed for the night, so I knew that it would look like this by morning (yep, it did):

I have a slight panic attack and BBM KFuj because she's usually pretty creative and knows the area we live in better than I. Her FABULOUS solution? Loaning me her "roller skate" (as she affectionately refers to her Focus), so that I can get to work Friday morning and deal with the flat on Saturday. (Special Thank you to Brent - her renter - who postponed trading in his second car, so that all of us would have a mode of transportation today.) How awesome are they?!


So glad that I am mobile (and mobiley), I stop for my morning Starbucks and am BBMing my gratitude to KFuj for filling up her roller skate with a full tank before bringing it over to me, when she notices that I am the car behind her in the drive thru. (It's a Small World after all...)
THANK YOU KFUJ's AND BRENT!!! YOU GUYS ROCK!!!! I AM SO GLAD WE ARE NEIGHBORS AND FRIENDS!!!!

Dodge Ball on the Freeway

Further proof that the Lexus was possessed by the devil:

The hubby was driving on the freeway last night when a piece of debris bounced up in front of him. Rather than fly towards the car and cause significant damage as it would have to the Lexus, it flew off to the side AWAY from the Altima! Ahhhh, how wonderful is that?!

The Exorcism

Say goodbye to the demon possessed car and HELLO! to our new Altima!!

It has all of the same features as the Lexus except for navigation and defrosters on the side mirrors, but it has more cup holders and rides more quiet and smooth! And we're saving money!!!! YIPPEE!!!!
Take special note of what I call the "retard sticker"placed on the trunk:
It reads: "Trunk Release Button Location - Sticker to be removed by customer after purchase."
You see the car has keyless entry and retards might not be able to figure out how to open the trunk without the sticker! I shouldn't really make fun of this...we had to be shown by the dealer the first time we bought the keyless car. :)

Demon Possessed Car - Take 2

One of my very first blogs was about the demon possessed Lexus and all that has happened to it in the very short time we've owned it.

Yesterday, the hubby called me while en route to his bowling tournament and informed me that yet ANOTHER rock had hit the windshield and that this time the crack was spreading across the windshield. Please keep in mind that we've had the car less than a year and a half. Sigh...

I love my Pilot!

We got a new Honda Pilot last Wednesday and I LOVE IT!!!! The hubby got all of the bells and whistles installed after-market and once they are all 100% working and my windows are tinted and the tow hitch is on, I will be ECSTATIC.

The last two days have pretty much sealed the deal that I love my Pilot even more than I loved my Accord (2003 EX white coupe, tan interior). Yesterday morning I'm on the freeway going about 70 mph when all of a sudden there is a ladder laying in my lane (the car in front of me swerved at the last minute narrowly missing it). Knowing that I'm in a SUV and could roll easily and that I was fairly high up, I do not swerve as wildly as I would have in my low to the ground, demon possessed Lexus. I run over the ladder with my front driver's side tire. No loud noises and no severe jarring...basically it felt like I drove over a speed bump. HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! Imagine what would have happened in the Lexus?!

This morning there was a motorcycle accident that caused the 91 to be down to a single lane at Pierce. My kick ass navigation system also has XM Traffic Alert. It paid for itself today. Typically when there's an accident reported I play phone a friend to determine where traffic breaks up and where I can get back on the freeway. Navi does this for me! Not only does it shade my route (extremely accurately) in either green, yellow, or red for the average speed of travel, but it puts an alert button at the place of the accident and at the place traffic begins flowing freely. If I click on the button I get details of the accident/point of free flow. How AMAZING is that?! It will also tell me the average speed for a particular stretch of freeway. I'm in love.

This brings up another topic - motorcycle accidents on the 91. Seriously, with all of the carnage I've seen/sat through over the last few years, I don't see how anyone could see the benefit of zipping through traffic to be worth the substantially increased risk of becoming road kill. I know someone that was killed on a motorcycle within 5 miles of his house and someone that was killed by a drunk driver late at night riding home from work, but rush hour motorcycle riders are IDIOTS!! I still can't get the image of the guy that ended up on top of a semi trailer out of my head.

My car is possessed by the Devil 12/29

In case you didn't know, we got a Lexus IS250 in April of 2006. Will desparately wanted the car and even prepared a report containing all of the reasons that we HAD to buy it. Keep in mind that at the time we were still carpooling to and from work together. I liked the idea of Bluetooth and the iPod connection. He swore that I'd love the navigation system too. He was doing the driving so I caved and traded in my precious Accord.

It took us almost two weeks to actually get the car (the first sign of things to come). Official date we got the car April 19, 2006.

Less than a week after getting the car, we decide to stop at Carl's Jr. on the way home from dance practice. Will's driving up to the window when we hear the sound of our precious little rim grinding along the concrete of a random curve that jutts out from the side of the building for the sole purpose of ruining rims. Will is devastated, I shockingly am not (much in the same way I wasn't devastated when he lost his wedding band on our honeymoon in the ocean - it's just part of his charm :) ).

Will was travelling for work so I was driving to work by myself on May 15th in FasTrack. As I was getting on the freeway, the FasTrack transponder went flying off of the dash and ended up somewhere unreachable under the seat. I figured it wasn't a big deal, the sensor would still read the little sucker since it always managed to do so when I had attempted to hide a second transponder under the seat to avoid getting charged twice. Mind you, we had the car for less than a month and only had paper plates. I drive through the toll plaza the transponder doesn't beep and low and behold for the FIRST time in the THREE AND A HALF years I'd been driving FasTrack a CHP officer is at the toll plaza waiting for criminals like myself. Of course he pulls me over and lectures me about how the transponder should have been velcroed to the windshield and inquiring as to why I didn't yet have my plates that had been mailed out exactly 2 days earlier from Sacramento. Long story short, he let me go without ticket.
On July 19th, I'm again driving to work, this time on the 91 right past the 15 when I barely rear-end the guy in front of me. Mind you I'm working half a day, then flying out of LAX to go to Denver to do a training the next morning, only to fly back just in time for Bianka and John's rehearsal & dinner that night. I was maybe going 5-10 miles per hour so there should have been virtually zero damage thanks to the fancy bumpers that absorb impact right? WRONG. The SUV had a tow hitch that punctured my bumper. Zero damage to the car I hit, signifcant damage to my car. The alleged-legal mexican that was driving the car I hit that he didn't own, neither he or the owner had insurance. So of course I called my friends at the CHP so that little bastard that ruined my morning would at least get a ticket for not having insurance. We get the car fixed after the Sutton wedding hoopla - thank goodness for a $500 deductible - total damages: $1,200.

Literally, a few weeks AFTER we get the car back from getting repaired (sometime in late August) we are driving on the 60 when a big chunk of wood comes flying at us (Will's driving this time). He swerves to avoid it and of course the wood chunk swerves as well hitting the car in the EXACT spot we had just had repaired. We get off the freeway to survey the damage and all I can do is laugh at our misfortune. We get back on the freeway and LITERALLY within 10 minutes, a rock flies up and takes a chunk out of our windshield. Thankfully it has not yet spread. We decide that another insurance claim within a month probably isn't a good idea and figure something else will probably happen if we get it fixed. We'll just wait a year or so and then get EVERYTHING fixed all at once.

After a few quiet months I stop referring to the car as "demon possessed" and subconsciously think that the bad luck must be over.

Then December 15th comes. We have an appointment to pick out the flooring for our new house. I need to leave work early because their "evening" appointment was 3:00 PM. I walk out to my car and see that the left rear tire is FLAT. It's 2:15 and it will probably take me 45 minutes to get to Savi Ranch in Yorba Linda/Anaheim Hills. Thankfully my compassionate and generous friend Rachel lets me borrow her car. I toss my keys to the demon possessed Lexus and Matt and ask him to change my tire should be not want to work on that Friday afternoon, otherwise I would just call AAA when I got back. I love Rachel, I love that she has a practical little Civic, I HATE that I have become a car snob. After remembering how to start a car that requires me to insert a KEY into the ignition and adjusting only the rearview mirror so that my vertically challenged friend would not curse me for adjusting all her mirrors, I'm off to the appointment. I have to HOLD my cell phone to my ear and let Will know that I'm in certain Hell. I call Margot my venting buddy and we have a mutual venting fest which prevents us both from bursting into tears for our various reasons. I turn on the radio/CD player to find Mariah Carey, Merry Christmas blaring from the speakers. HEAVEN!!! I have been searching for this CD for days, Will has been searching for it as well. We couldn't find it. My absolute FAVORITE Christmas song is Mariah's version of O Holy Night. I don't know why, it just is. I figure out how to set the track on repeat and sing along the whole way to the appointment. I'm there 45 minutes, a record apparently as the girl congratulates me on knowing what I'm doing. Will was late getting there despite his having 4 full tires and being off that day. He follows me back to my office where I return Rachel's life saver with a full tank much to her protest. Matt had graciously put on the spare which was a bright yellow rim. WHY?! I pay $35k for a freaking LEXUS and they have to paint the rim YELLOW?! We go to the dealer and of course they are "swamped" and need to keep the car overnight.

That was the last disaster with the car I originally called our "Precious" but I'm sure it won't be our last...stay tuned...