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Brian Rekindles His Miatatude

Last Thursday I decided to go test drive a new Miata. I wanted to see if I really wanted a new ND or should go ahead and start trolling Bring A Trailer or Cars & Bids for a low mileage NB. When I got to the dealer and a salesperson greeted me, I said I was interested in new Miata in Grand Touring trim if they had one. They did, it was right out front. I wasn’t going to buy it, but I did want to take it for a spin.

We took a decent little test drive and while I did like the car it three strikes against it. It was white, it was the folding hardtop version and lastly it was an automatic transmission. When I voiced these concerns my sales person said, “We have a used soft-top in Red?” “Go get it, I’ll drive it,” I said. It was a 2016 Club model with less than 16,000 miles on the clock. I was a little rusty with the clutch a couple of times, but driving a stick is like swimming or riding a bike, once you know how to do it, you never forget.

When we got back to the dealership, I thanked Manny for the drives and told him I was a month or so out on buying a car and I’d let him know. When I got back home and sat on the couch, I started justifying me buying that used Miata. Not a fan of red, but I could deal with that. An 8-year-old car averaging 2,000 miles a year, not a problem. The car looked practically and the previous owner had added a sweet sounding RoadsterSport SuperStreet exhaust. Once I had a taste I was hooked. I called Manny and right then and asked, “What time do you get to work on Friday,” his reply was, “It’s my day off.” “Saturday?” “9:00” “Okay,” I said, “See you at 9:30 on Saturday.” So, I drove both cars again, but in reverse order, the exhaust note on the Club was calling me. I was almost ready to pull the trigger on the 2016, but still wanted another spin in the new car.

Echoing in my head is a sentiment that I got from Todd & Paul of Everyday Driver that we enthusiasts almost have an obligation to buy a new sports car if we want manufacturers to keep making and improving sports car. We have to be the market, so that others after us can get their hands on this kind of car. So, for purely altruistic reasons, I told Manny that if he could find a local dealer with a 2024 Grand Touring, a 6-speed and black interior we might could make that work.

They found an Aero Gray one in McMinnville, about an hour and a half away. After doing all the paperwork Manny headed to McMinnville in some car that they were swapping and I headed home to wait for them to call me when the car was ready for me to pick up. I’ve never seen Aero Gray in person and neither had they, so it was going to be all new to all of us. I got tired of waiting around the house so I Ubered over to the dealer and parked myself in their waiting area and watched college football and ate their free snacks.

According to Google Maps the two dealerships are 46 miles apart and the odometer on the car read 52 miles when I got in it for the first time. In spite of my rambling on about the lack of color in today’s car paint spectrum, this color has a strange attraction to me. It is not too dark, nor is it too light, and it looks good with the black soft top and the small black accents on the car. Either way, right now, I don’t want to wrap it a solid real color and nor do I feel I need to put stripes on it to brighten it up.

Now I just have to avoid joining the area’s Miata club or hanging around in the Miata.Net Forums so I can avoid the usual rampant customizing I am prone to doing…

Happy Anniversary To Me

Today would have been our 48th anniversary and if Donna is looking down at me, she is probably a little disappointed in me. Not because I bought another Miata, but more because she really didn’t like the looks of the 4th gen car. And she might even think that taking a loan out on the car was a blunder.

Sorry dear, but I do like the more modern sharper edges design of the ND. And the loan was just a way to not take a huge chunk out of the checking account we use for the non day to day spending. Don’t worry, I can pay off the loan early and in full once State Farm sends me your life insurance payout.

Last night when I picked up the car all I did was drive it home and park it. This morning, I took it out for its initial shakedown cruise. I had no particular destination in mind, I just knew that I would be heading east. First thought was to drive over to the Mt Hood area get some mountain road twisty. I started out down Sandy Blvd and ended up in Troutdale and drove right under the big arched sign reading Gateway To The Gorge. {visible lit light bulb appears over my head} Historic Route 30 runs through the gorge all the way to the most visited waterfall in the state, Multnomah Falls, some 15 or so miles away.

I’d never driven this road before, but was hoping there would be several sections of mountainous turns and boy was I right. It was a narrow road (probably first paved in the 40’s) and there were a lot of twisty sections throughout the drive, all the way to and beyond the falls. I was going to just head home on I-84, but right after I got on the Interstate, I did a Homer Simpson styled head slap and a vocal “Doh!” I got right back off a mile later at the other Multnomah Falls exit and drove that fun road home.

Really?

Made a run to Goodwill today to donate a few things that have been stacked on the futon for a couple months. There were a couple pair of half worn down sneakers, a pair of old towels, two bathmats and several other random things.

When I tried to put the gray cloth bathmat in the women’s bin she shook her head no, so I tossed it back in the car. The very next item I tried to put in the bin was the other bathmat. I figured I get waved off again because this one was a dingy looking rubber one that goes in the tub. But, nope, she let me donate it.

I thought for sure the fabric, because it could be thrown in a washing machine, would have been okay and rubber with suction cups on the bottom would have been rejected.

My Beloved Wife

Being a huge Natalie Merchant fan I was probably aware of her song “Beloved Wife” from her solo debut album, Tigerlily, but I didn’t really connect with it until a couple years ago when the confluence of Donna’s ALS, our fast approaching 50th wedding anniversary and Radio Paradise added it to their rotation brought it to the forefront.

If I was going to have an actual service for Donna this would have been the only song that I would have had played at it. Of course, Donna died a few days short of our 48th wedding anniversary, but this tune would still be a perfect fit because we knew each other a couple of years before we tied the knot.

On a side note, there was another song that was an attention getter for me in Radio Paradise’s mellow mix rotation for the last year or so called Harmony Hall by the group Vampire Weekend. Probably wouldn’t have played it at any service, but there is a line in there that gets repeated about a half a dozen times and it was a little too on point for me, “I don’t wanna live like this, but I don’t wanna die.”

Bye Donna

My wife Donna passed away yesterday morning in the ICU of the VA Hospital here in Portland.

Around the middle of August she started having regular diarrhea at every bowel movement. On Thursday the 5th there was some blood. On Saturday evening she passed a worrying amount of blood. We called the VA Nurse Line and after describing what was going on she recommended going to the Emergency Room. She was admitted and sent to a regular room. On Monday she aspirated just sipping some water and was promptly sent to the ICU. After two days in the ICU she was well enough to go to another regular room.

As if ALS wasn’t enough, what this was, was a severe flareup of her old friend Ulcerative Colitis. Since 2010 it was well managed on the drug called mesalamine. But with the increasing bulbar related symptoms she could no longer swallow that large pill. From there we were given a different formulation that was very small beads in a capsule that once opened and could be mixed into applesauce and other similar foods. Somewhere around the end of June she couldn’t swallow anything but small sips of liquids and those beads could not be administered via the G-Tube.

So, fast forward to September 7 and the fun starts. she was having diarrhea at minimum of 4, but mostly 6 times in a 24-hour period. To make things worse she was in so much belly pain that she had no way to predict when the out flow would start. This necessitated sitting in the poop for several minutes waiting for the nurse to change her bedding and her clothing and wipe everything down with cleaning wipe. To accomplish this, she needed to lean on her side, then roll back to the other side and back again to her side before being able to get settled back in the bed. No matter how much she tried, she (and me too, as I spent almost the days and night with in the room with her) would have to instruct them that she couldn’t be laid flat or her lung secretions would pool and make her susceptible to aspiration.

Well sure enough, midday on Sunday the 22nd she aspirated again during a clean-up. It took the respiratory team about an hour using cough assist and manual percussive pounding to settle her down enough to be moved to the ICU for a second time. Once she was in the bed and the lead doctor came in to outline what they were going to be doing to get her better enough to go back to a regular room she took out het yellow legal pad and wrote, “Please let me die!”

He hemmed and said, “Are you sure?” and she shook her head yes. I explained to him that we had had several conversations on this matter and both Donna and I agreed that we were comfortable with the course of action of letting her go once this because more than she could handle. And she would be fine saying yes about me dying if the shoe was somehow on my foot. They could also see the POLST in file that stated comfort measures only. So that afternoon they gave her some strong pain meds and something for anxiety, basically a low level medically induced coma. Later that day they started a small morphine drip and whenever needed, increasing the amount slightly she got whenever she would grunt and twitch.

Around eleven Monday morning I told Donna that I needed to head home to wash clothes. I was on the second wear of my clothes and need a shower, plus, I needed to get several more days of my prescriptions. She of course didn’t react in any way.

I was just out of the shower at hone and waiting for the clothes to finish in the dryer when my phone rang, the Caller ID read “VA Hospital” and I already knew what it was — Donna was gone. I’m betting she did hear me and gave up then to spare me from having to witness her die while I was in the room holding her hand. She is in a better place and for right now I’m dealing with the loss okay. Ask me again in a couple weeks.

They’re One In A Million

After Tuesday’s loss to the Tampa Bay Rays the Red Sox’s probability to make the playoffs fell to 0.9%. It looked grim, but on Wednesday they beat the Rays and their probability “skyrocketed” to 1.7%! The joy was short lived as they managed to lose the next two games and their change to play in the baseball post season fell to 0.1% or one in thousand.

There are 8 games left in the 2024 season for them and they have to win all of them. That would be the easy part, the four teams in front of them would all have to lose at last 6 (that’s right six) of their last 8 games. One in a thousand sounds optimistic, more like one in a million.

Subaru vs. Volvo

Both Subaru and Volvo tout the safety features of their vehicles. Lots of folks have purchased something from these two manufacturers because of their claims.

My first-hand experiences with drivers of the two makes in traffic is that they believe the safety claims in two totally differently lights. The Subaru drivers drive more cautiously as if they are not sure the safety features will work, while the Volvo drivers drive in manner that they believe they are safe no matter how bone-headed they drive.