Home Alone

Mike's off in Detroit Rock City for a few days, so it's just me and the cats right now. I'm going to indulge my inner nerd-I netflixed the new Battlestar Galactica. I heard it was pretty good, and I don't have any baggage about the original show, so what the heck? Word of advice if you do the same-get the miniseries first and then get disc 1, etc., because the miniseries is really disc 1 and disc 1 is disc 2. Huh??!!???

Got my car back yesterday, and she's 90% fixed. She's still missing a running board (it'll take them a couple of days to get it), and the open door sensor is permanently on (will be fixed when running board is installed). It felt really good to drive it again. I liked the Jeep, but it felt really big and it was kind of a gas hog. The best feature was the way the seats folded down-one tug on a strap and done! Much easier than taking out the headreasts, pushing the seat out, and folding the back down.

Temporary Wheels

A few weeks ago I was in a car accident. I was going down Springfield Avenue in the left lane and a girl in the right lane sideswiped me to avoid hitting the car that supposedly stopped suddenly in front of her. I didn't see anything, only felt and heard the impact of my passenger side being hit. We both pulled over at a nearby parking lot and I called the police. Champaign's a small enough town that if you tell someone "I'm in front of Pia's on Springfield Ave", they should understand. Not the dispatcher at the police department. He kept asking for an exact street address or the cross street. This is on a stretch that's probably a good three blocks long with no cross street, and we were smack dab in the middle of it. He finally got it figured out. If I would have told him we were in front of Carmella's Donuts someone would have been there in five minutes!

The girl who hit me got a ticket for improper lane usage (DUH!), and we were both sent on our merry way.

Like I said, it really wasn't too bad. Neither one of us were hurt, just shook up a little.


Her insurance agent turned out to be very helpful and nice. I just had to take my car in for an estimate and have the shop send it to them, and once they approved it I could make arrangements to get my car fixed. They also offered me use of a rental car if I needed it, which I do! Mike and I have had enough of sharing a car! So I spent my lunch hour one day getting an estimate, and before you know it the insurance company got back to me and gave me the okay. About 10 minutes after talking to the insurance agent, someone from Enterprise called me wanting to know when I had the repairs scheduled-he had an SUV ready that day if I needed it! So I called the repair shop, and got an appointment for today. I called Enterprise back, and in the small world it is, found out I was dealing with the husband of someone who works at one of the Bloomington branches whom I've worked with many times on customer issues. Nice to know he'll probably take good care of me! Plus, the insurance agent had already mailed out the check for repairs, so it's sitting in the savings account earning a whopping 1/2% interest for the next week.

So I dropped the car off this morning and Enterprise picked me up at the repair shop. How awesome is that? Ever notice that all those guys who drive the courtesy vans for the dealerships are retired? Same with Enterprise. Sure beats working at Walmart! So this gentleman picks me up in a silver Jeep Cherokee Laredo, which sure enough, turns out to be what I am now driving for the next week. I think it's a little excessive-I would have been happy with anything, but I'm not paying for it! And truthfully, it's not too much bigger than the Tribute, it just seems like it. It has a very nice ride and is pretty quick to accelerate. And it's four wheel drive, so if I get the urge to go off-roading I'll be ready!