We’re trying to figure out how to use our new car. That is taking a while because we aren’t driving very much. The dealer was OK. We got a good price with little hassle. But picking the car up was painfully slow. After making an appointment at a time the salesman recommended, we spent hours sitting in the showroom waiting to actually take delivery. To add insult to injury, our salesman was deathly afraid we would ask a question about the car. The dealership has a little script the salesman is supposed to go through to introduce us to the features. Our salesman gave us a copy of the script buried in the other paperwork so we wouldn’t see it until after we left the dealership. Almost a week later, I finally figured out the car was delivered with many of the safety features turned off. The dealership sent us an Email invitation to write a review. I decided the dealership really didn’t want to see my review online.

Last week I was bemoaning the lack of a CD player. I was dreaming up all kinds of complicated and expensive solutions. But I received some excellent advice from a retired high school art teacher — convert the CDs to MP3 files. (Thanks, Duane). As soon as Duane said it, I knew it was the obvious solution. I already have a CD-ROM drive, so the only cost was my time. Thanks to some sloppy weather, I had plenty of that. I spent 3 days “ripping” CDs. I found I was working the CD-ROM drive too hard. After a while, it refused to rip disks and I had to give it a break. But I converted the music and loaded it onto my phone. Now I can play music anywhere. If I’m on the porch, I can connect my phone to our Bluetooth speaker to get a great sound. If I’m in the car, the phone plays music over the car’s radio. Technology is amazing.

We’re scheduled to get our second vaccination shot tomorrow. In two weeks, we will be free to move about the country. We’re super excited. We have our calendar cleared for two days in case we get a reaction. After that, the next several weeks are planned out. There are fancy deserts and restaurant meals in our future. I also have plenty of doctor visits.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.