Meds And Gym And Shows And Van

I didn't realise it had been so long since my last post.

I'm still on the meds. No side effects, and the faintest whisper of actual effects. The pharmacist told me straight-up when I filled the prescription that I probably would need to bump up the dose. I did notice slightly less resistance to switching tasks in the beginning, and I have managed to stay on top of the household chores since I started taking it -- this is something that has never happened for longer than two weeks. I had a doctor's appointment on Monday, and we have increased the dose slightly.

I also got a gym membership at the end of January, and have kept it up so far -- I'm literally only using it for access to the dance studio. Tap shoes aren't allowed, but $48 a month is still a MUCH better deal than the $40 PER HOUR that it costs me to rent the local dance studio.

 

We are officially halfway through our current show -- my first show in the major city I've been trying to break into since 2018. My husband is also in this show and he's grown so much already as a person and an actor. It's in a beautiful old venue (over a century old) that's just packed with character and stories. The people have been lovely so far and I'm having a lot of fun.

 

An undercurrent to all this has been vehicle drama.

 

On 15 February, on a routine trip to the grocery store, my van suddenly gave a 'reduced engine power' message and did exactly that. Even pressing the pedal to the floor barely coaxed it up to 40 km/h.

 

I limped it home and my father-in-law (our unofficial mechanic) took it to his garage, where it sat in varying states of disassembly for over a month while he cleaned, fixed, tested, waited for parts, installed, tested again, repeat. In the meantime, he graciously lent us his old truck (which, it should be noted, has SIGNIFICANTLY more kilometres on it than the van does) as I was opening a show the following week and was in rehearsal for two others.

 

This was all well and good until the truck requested an oil change. We returned it to father-in-law's place, where he discovered a bad axle and recommended that we not drive it on the highway.

 

Not a single one of these shows are in the town in which we actually live. The literal only thing I was doing with that truck was highway driving.

 

He gave us this diagnosis on a Saturday afternoon. We had a rehearsal 150 kilometres away in less than 24 hours -- the final rehearsal before tech week, and our first in the performance venue. We couldn't miss that rehearsal. My husband despaired, and I, out of some old dusty reflex, began praying of all things. This is something I have not very seriously done since the night my cousin died -- fast approaching ten years ago.

That same Saturday night, I had been asked to work an event (in town, thankfully) at a performing arts venue I occasionally pick up hours at.

 

My former boss (from my last fast food job) was attending this event, and over the course of conversation, our vehicle troubles and the impending rehearsal came up.

 

"Do you want to borrow a vehicle?" he asked.

 

Arrangements were made, and the next morning he dropped off a very nice GMC (which, I noted, also had a lot more kilometres than the van). We made it to rehearsal and back, and within the week the truck was highway-driveable again (which was more than could be said for the van, which had already been declared repaired and highway tested once only to melt down dramatically again the second I touched it).

 

As I write, my father-in-law has taken the van to two separate repair garages in an attempt to figure out what's wrong, as by this time he's replaced almost every component in the thing with no success. The first garage followed a red herring, but the second garage discovered a catastrophic electrical failure (I'm surprised the van was even turning on at all based on the description I was given) and, at last report, were waiting for a replacement part to come in. We will be on the hook for over $800 by the time that part is installed (and we can only hope that solves the problem). That old prayer reflex kicked in again.

I put out a single plea on my social media, linking to my Ko-fi page. We received a decent donation right away, but then it sat for a week... until I woke up Sunday morning to a $500 donation.

All these years I thought maybe I had misunderstood God's calling -- that I had mistakenly attributed my love for performing to Him when it wasn't from Him at all. But He got us to that rehearsal, against all odds. He has brought us over half of the amount we will need to pay for that repair, and is there really any reason to believe the remainder isn't forthcoming?

And, looking further back -- He has provided not one, but three pairs of tap shoes when I needed them. I have not paid for tap shoes out of pocket since 2012.

I let that stupid 'Christian' college convince that God did not care about my pain and was only interested in my pre-existing happiness. I let the ones who claimed to trust God tell me that my 'talent' was only in my head and that I'd never be any real use to anyone -- in performing or otherwise.

 

This does not mean I'm over my cousin's death. I don't think I ever will be. But maybe I can find a way to live -- albeit differently -- in a world without her.

Why I Can't Get Any Homework Done

Written 21 October 2016.

Me, yesterday: "Tomorrow is pretty busy, but I'll try to get some work done in the afternoon between my dance classes."

Me, today:

10.15: *gets up*

10.20: *dresses/eats breakfast/does hair*

10.50: *goes to dance*

1.13: *goes to post office*

1.20: *makes lunch*

1.35: *eats lunch*

2.00: *practices voice*

3.00: *goes to music department office*

3.15: *heads back to flat*

3.18: *notices flat tire on van*

3.20: *calls dad* (*interrupts funeral*)

3.26: *calls tire shop*

3.27: *calls doctor's office about x-rays*

3.37: *meets tire shop people*

3.41: *calls x-ray place*

3.45: *homework*

4.02: *kills spider*

4.06: *walks two blocks to pick up van*

4.17: *drives back*

4.21: *writes blog post about not getting homework done*

4.35: *makes supper*

4.45: *eats supper*

5.36: *leaves for dance*

6.03: *goes to bank*

6.18: *arrives at dance school after having to cross Main Street, pull a U-turn, and come back because for some bizarre reason you're not allowed to turn left onto Main Street after leaving the bank even though you can turn left onto Main Street at literally every other intersection*

6.45: *pays outstanding dance fees*

7.00: *dance class*

10.20: *leaves dance school*

10.45: *brief detour at friend's bonfire*

11.13: *leaves bonfire*

11.32: *drops friend off at her house*

11.36: *returns to flat*

12.07: *emails mother*

12.36: *checks school email*

12.54: *publishes blog post*

The End Of The Rattletrap

Last Sunday I drove the rattletrap for the last time.

It was only a matter of time. Regular readers of this blog will recall the myriad of posts about its voracious appetite for engine coolant (to be regaled with one such tale, click here). It had no air conditioning to speak of, and the heat only kicked in if the vehicle ran for more than forty consecutive minutes. The door covering the gas cap clung to the side with a lone rusted hinge, flapping like a flag at highway speeds but try as we might, we couldn't pry it off of that last tenacious hinge. The thing was so run-down that I could probably leave it unlocked with the keys on the front seat in downtown Edmonton and nobody would bother to steal it. Somewhere in the back it had a chronic rattle -- hence the name. My mother hated driving it mostly for that reason, but I found that if you turned White Heart and Daniel Amos up loud enough, that usually fixed the problem.

It started out as a family minivan in September 2001, after my mother totaled our green Spirit. After carting around three, then four, then five, then six children, it entered retirement in early 2010 when the family grew too big to fit in its grey bucket seats and a larger van joined the vehicular ranks.

Retirement was temporary though... six months later I totaled my car, and my parents decided to dust off the minivan, rename it 'The Little Van,' and give me one of the keys. I had learnt to drive on this van... my dad would take to me to town and then tell me 'turn at those lights,' 'turn here,' and so on until we somehow magically wound up at Tim Horton's.

And so I become the proud driver of the Little Van, although I privately and affectionately christened it 'The Rattletrap.' It was in the rattletrap that I took the left turn that almost killed me for the first time since that accident, and it was the rattletrap that acted as taxi for my younger friends at church until they got their licenses. I was at the wheel when the odometer hit 200,000 kilometres, and I was also at the wheel this spring when it rolled over 300,000 (as I write, it sits at 307,329).

The rattletrap became a bit of a haven for me. The house is absolutely not soundproof at all, so the only time I felt comfortable enough to sing (something I enjoy but in which I am absolutely not confident in my 'abilities') was alone, in the rattletrap, listening to Petra, White Heart, Prodigal, and in the past year and a half, Daniel Amos. I memorised a ridiculous amount of song lyrics on my one-hour-each-direction commute to dance class and/or dance team every week. The rattletrap had a phenomenal sound system, and believe me, I took full advantage of it. It sounded better than every CD player in our house (trust me... we've got a few), and I grew to love driving. Because driving meant music, and I could pay (almost) undivided attention to the glorious music if the only other thing I had to focus on was driving.

I drove to ballet class, Bible study, and worship team practice most frequently. In fact, the rattletrap and I conquered the drive to the dance school so often that I could put in almost any album I owned and know exactly which part of which song I would be listening to at certain points of the journey. If I got delayed, the music and the scenery would be incongruent. To this day I cannot listen to White Heart's album Don't Wait For The Movie without seeing the city lights, the overpasses and the skyline (and the construction) during Dr Jekyll And Mr Christian. I would often pull up to the dance school exactly as the last notes of How Many Times was fading out. Driving home from Bible study and worship team practice would often have me driving during dusk or early darkness, and I relished every second of it.

But the rattletrap was aging. The aforementioned budget for coolant was growing. Even the faithful and much-used CD player started to get a little bitter and grumpy. At first it simply refused to play the CDs I've burnt on the computer. It was a blow to not be able to listen to my Prodigal albums (I haven't been able to get the new deluxe re-release package yet because of financial constraints -- however, you, dear reader, are in need of this collection), but hey, I still had a few factory-pressed DA albums. So I contented myself with listening to ¡Alarma! all summer long. But then, one day when I returned to the rattletrap to drive home from my grandmother's house, it simply refused to pick up the CD where it had left off. I argued with it for half the drive home and even put in DA's Darn Floor - Big Bite, which it had played without complaint only a few days earlier. It shot me an error message before the disc was even fully loaded in the player, and then refused to return the disc to me. I eventually got the CD back, but I knew the rattletrap was now in its final days.

Two weeks later it started to 'overheat' even with the coolant tank full. We could only drive it for about ten minutes (if that) before the warning light would come on. We could no longer tell whether to heed the warning or ignore it.

It was over.

I cried as I nursed it home for the final time, in silence. It still handles beautifully -- it was almost like a ballroom dance partner. People tell me all the time I'm such a smooth driver, but I think most of it was the rattletrap.

I knew when I first became its primary driver four years ago that its days were numbered, but you're never quite ready for the day when it comes. And now that I'm back at college, I will never see it again; never again share with it a dark magical highway with streetlight-stars and skylines lighting my way to dance, friends, or home.


I miss you already, Little Van. Thank you for the good times, and always for the music.

Our Script

My father and I have this little script we like to rehearse every two weeks or so. We could probably do it in our sleep.
It goes something like this:

EXT. -- A ROAD SOMEWHERE -- DAY
KATE sits in her MINIVAN on the side of the road, holding a phone to her ear. After three rings, the party on the other end answers.


                         KATE'S DAD
                    Hello?


                         KATE
                    Hi Dad. It's Kate.


                         KATE'S DAD
                    (apprehensive)
                    Hi...


                         KATE
                    Um, there's something wrong with the van.


                         KATE'S DAD
                    What do you mean?


                         KATE
                    (gives brief explanation of problem and unsuccessful measures taken to solve it)


                         KATE'S DAD
                     Did you try (such-and-such)?


                         KATE
                     Yes. It didn't help.


                         KATE'S DAD
                     What about (this)?


                         KATE
                     No, not yet. Just a minute.


Kate attempts remedy her father suggested. The problem remains unsolved.


                         KATE
                     That didn't work either.


                         KATE'S DAD
                     (resigned sigh)
                     Where you at?


                         KATE
                     (describes location twenty minutes drive away)


                         KATE'S DAD
                     All right. I just have to finish this up here and I'll probably be out there in half an hour or so.


Thank you Dad for continuing to come to my rescue on the side of the road without complaining. I love you.