Car Finally Fits in the Garage (and other ways I'm finally making peace with my house)

The new car is a 2015 Nissan Versa with all the extras. As Rafael, the auto salesperson, tried to impress me with facts about the engine which I didn't understand, I marveled at the satellite radio and obsessed about the color. And I wondered what it would be like to give up my Altima for a smaller car.

The Altima was bigger and had a smoother ride. But it was scratched and dented because I kept scraping the sides as I drove into my ancient, narrow garage.

I also drove it pretty hard, back and forth to Highlands Ranch every day, so after 120,000 miles, it was time to let go.

As I emptied the old car of personal items for the final time, I thought about getting all teary and sentimental. We had some good times, that car and I. I'll never forget the big road trip to Kentucky, Indiana, and other points east (see blogs of same) in the summer of 2010. There were lots of trips to Nebraska and Wyoming, and scenic drives to state parks all over Colorado.

Lots of good memories.

But as I moved the tire pressure checker thing from the old car to the new, and the can of stuff you spray into a flat tire in an emergency, and the plastic dust pan I use as a shovel when stuck in the snow, I decided that cars are only machines. They don't have souls. They aren't living things.

Unlike my house. which is very much alive and evil and out to get me.

Ok, just to be accurate, I live in one of a bunch of old 1950s multi-unit ranch style condominiums. Mine has a nice patio and garden, but don't let that fool you. It came from Hell to torture me.

I had trouble the minute I moved in (see blogs from the summer of 2013). The furnace kicked on for no reason in the middle of summer. I was inundated with ants. I found out there were people living in the basement that the previous owner failed to disclose. Every time I turned the bedroom light and the TV on at the same time, the power went off. When I removed the window air conditioner unit, swarms of wasps living inside it filled the room.

And speaking of insect life, I sure have learned more than I ever wanted to know about bedbugs.

There was a long, long list of problems that first year. In addition, though I was in the luxurious new position of having an actual garage, it was too narrow for my car. To add insult to injury, there was a bump in the concrete floor which scrapped loudly against the bottom of the vehicle as I drove in and out.

Things with the house have gradually improved. I have a new portable air conditioner. I've adjusted to the odd circumstance of not having any drawers in the kitchen. The furnace now limits itself to winter only, though we regularly have to open the windows while it's snowing because it gets so hot in the living room. And we are bedbug free for over a year.

Best of all, Clyde moved in, making it feel so much more like home. He likes it there. He doesn't think the house is evil.

He also discovered and removed  a huge colony of ants in a planter outside the front door which was the source of the infestation that first summer.

I've made my peace with most of the problems and I'm gradually fixing things up so I can resell my house someday. Some of the little flaws actually add a touch of character. So the front door sticks sometimes and actually makes me worried we'll be trapped in a fire some day. HA HA! Character.

At least now, I can park my car in the garage. It's lighter too, so I don't scrape the bottom any more (unless Clyde is in the passenger seat - he has to get out before I pull in).

I actually almost think I like living in my old house now. Our house, I mean.

Darn it, I think I left all my reusable grocery bags in the old car.

I Think I’d Rather Take the Train

If we are what we drive, what is a person who takes public transportation?

 What we drive says a lot about us. We might be economical and practical, or big and flashy. It seems that guys who take up more than one lane in their huge pick-up trucks are the same ones who take up extra space by spreading their legs when they sit down.

Uh …

What were we talking about? Oh, yes.

I don't know if what I drive says all that much about me. I've always liked trains. When I was a kid, I had lots of toy trains, including an HO gauge model railroad around which I built an entire town with trees and a lake. Now, I get a little thrill when I'm on my way to work and the highway aligns with an RTD light rail train full of commuters.

RTD is the Regional Transportation District - metro Denver's public transportation system.

The irony of admiring the sleek light rail from inside my car isn't lost on me.

I like my car too. I sometimes think of my silver Altima as a high speed bullet train, gliding at super speeds between my home in Denver and my office in Highlands Ranch, with Mount Fuji looming nearby (hey, it's my fantasy). Until, of course, I have to brake for wall of stopped traffic caused by the woman in the left lane who is too busy talking on the phone to pay attention to her speed, or what lane she's in.

When I lived in New York City way back in the previous century, I didn't need a car. I almost always took the subway to get around town. It was fast and cheap. It also smelled like urine and sometimes broke down, but several decades later I choose to remember only the good things.

Early in my Denver days, I sold my car and moved around exclusively by RTD. That was before light rail was on the scene. I saved a bunch of money and lost a lot of time. Unlike NYC subways, the busses in Denver were agonizingly slow. While light rail is faster, it usually doesn't go exactly where I need to.

To get to work on RTD, I either have to drive or take a slow bus to the train, after which I transfer to another bus. It takes an hour and a half, one way. That seems even longer when there's a cold winter wind blowing through my coat while I wait between rides.

Mass transit saves money, is better for the environment, cuts down on traffic, and engenders a sense of community by enabling people to interact. But I'm pretty typical. For all my bluster about riding the rails, 98 percent of the time you'll find me alone in my automobile.

Silver Lining Looking Haggard

Don’t you hate people who name their cars? I call mine The Silver Lining. Not only because it’s silver, at least in its original state, but because it was the consolation prize for having my old car totaled by a reckless SUV driver last spring.

I loved that old car. But the Silver Lining is my dream car. A Nissan Altima hybrid, the design is wonderfully aerodynamic, combining the look of a sleek sporty sedan in the front with the old-fashioned boxy lights in the rear. I’ve always wanted an Altima, and to get a hybrid of this model is quite rare in Colorado. And the name, Silver Lining, reminds me of the golden age of rail travel when the title of the train contributed mightily to the excitement of the journey: The California Zephyr; The 20th Century Limited; The Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe; The “D” – Ok, maybe not that one…

I don’t have a key for my cool, modern car, just a FOB. Don’t ask me what that means. All I know is that if the FOB is in my pocket, I can push the start button and the quiet electric engine will turn on. The little electronic hum is all that you can hear when first accelerating, before the regular gas engine kicks in. One friend said it felt like she was in a space ship. Of course, she was on pain killers at the time.

It feels great to have a car to be proud of, that people are interested in. Of course, I don’t understand how it works at all. When asked how much power it has or how big the engine is, all I can say is, “Look, it’s a pretty silver!”

I’m sure I’m not unusual in that when I first got the car, I vowed to always keep it clean and in good condition for years and years.

There is, however, the matter of my parking space.

The first car I had when I lived at Bowling Green Condominiums, a little 1994 Sentra, zipped right in and out of the assigned space which consists of an overhead roof and two solid rusty brown polls delineating my spot from my neighbor’s. The next car, the one totaled last May, was a 2002 Sentra, slightly bigger, which I had to slowly enter the space so I wouldn’t hit the polls.

The Silver Lining is nice and wide, sizeable enough to seat passengers comfortably in back, and long enough to have a roomy trunk.

But those big rusty polls haven’t moved. I didn’t have the Silver Lining for even a couple weeks before I hit the fender against one of them, adding a dark, rusty finish along the front right bumper.

Being so very careful watching the fender a few weeks later, I scraped and dented the right rear door, chipping off some of the beautiful silver paint.

Ever so careful again, I was pulling in one day, watching so as not to hit the left poll, when the right side mirror got caught. As the car kept moving, that awful sound of the mirror cover crunching caused my insides to wince. My Facebook entry that day: “I just can’t have nice things.”

The Silver Lining was starting to look like a piece of junk.

But there’s more.

I have this habit of pulling up as far as I can into a parking space. Unfortunately, this means I scrape the bottom of the car against those concrete parking space things. The other day as I was flying down the Valley Highway, I heard this kind of flapping sound from underneath. I knew what it was. Sure enough, the “splash guard” was hanging down.

So I’ve decided that my car, which I’ve owned for just over six months, needs to look new again. This week, it’s going in for some cosmetic surgery. Don’t ask me how much it’s going to cost, just be assured that I won’t pay off the loan as quickly as I’d originally planned. But it’s worth driving a beautiful car of which I can be proud.

And I’m going to be so careful from now on. I vow to keep it clean and in good condition for years to come.