The Singing Suzuki

We-e-e-l you-all (You have to talk slowly around here.) Ah drove up the road a piece and found some folk to hep me with mah tin lizzie. They's purdy nahice in these here parts. Can yuh believe that it was a little ol' gal what got mah car all fixed up? Ah jes don' no what a man's to do any more here in McQuarrie County. Time wus -- men wuz men and wimmin was wimmin! Ah I declare ah figger it mus be them Buckeyes comin on down and changin' everythin'. Them Buckeyes from Ohio don't know nothin' about nothin' Never mind, mah car's all singin' purdy agin and mebbe that little ol' gal up yondah knows a thang or two after all. (Apologies to the people of McCreary County, almost all of whom speak just the way we do with the exception of a few flattened and drawn out vowels!)

Happy Day! Although I am $125 poorer than I was when I woke up this morning, my little car is fine. The problem all had to do with the air conditioning. Apparently, the hose to the A/C got clogged with debris which caused a freezing blockage -- thus the water under the dashboard and the noise that sounded like a rainstick. I guess it was particles moving around, so it really was a type of rainstick -- or perhaps an ice pellet debris stick. They had to take out the A/C blower motor, blow out the hose, and reconnect and check. I paid for labor only; no parts. Haydn said it was the A/C. What a man!

As I sat in the waiting room at the repair shop, I connected with Lois via Skype and we began the process of doing all the end of the month tasks for DR LEARNING. We got to a place where Lois could carry on for about 45 minutes while I drove back down to Pine Knot where we reconnected through Mary Ann's computer. My laptop was out of battery power and my car was almost out of gas! After another couple of hours and several excel files e-mailed back and forth, everything is ready to go: cheques written; invoices ready to mail; next month's attendance program updated for October -- and we did it all between Somerset, Pine Knot, and Port Coquitlam! Ain't technology something?

We've been keeping tabs on a new house being built across the street from Mary Ann. It's the son of her next door neighbor (the people who built MA's house), so Mary Ann knows they will be nice neighbors. We can't figure out where the garage is to go -- Sue and I will need to be kept up to date when we get home.

Mary Ann also signed papers today that all but transfer her Slavans house to a new family. It is really quite a lovely place in Slavans, but just too far out of town and too large for one person. It is a young family -- twins due within the next few days to join a 17 month old -- who are buying the house and some acreage around it. Mary Ann will still have the log house and a plenty of the farm left. Here's what the Slavans house looks like -- the yard needs some TLC after having been neglected for a couple of years, but perhaps you can see how nice it is.

Actually, this last picture is taken from the Yamacraw Bridge. Those of you know know McCreary County will be shocked to see how low the water is. Yamacraw Bridge and Yamacraw River are on the way to Slavans from Pine Knot.