Ayn's Multiple World

Turns out we have a Boxy Budget-mobile!

Good morning. It’s just me and we’re only checking in for a SLIM moment. So how are you doing? Fine, fine … you always say that. We’re doing pretty good it’s about 6:50 am and we just paused to take our medicine. We’ve been up for about 2 hours doing stuff. I can’t believe its been that long though … so maybe less. We finished breakfast right before the medicine and we’ve been over at school and we been doing some studying/reading. We’ve got a better idea of how the annotated thing is going to go and we’ve reviewed the study guide for this week, so we’re on our way.

I guess we have been busy! It’s our beloved Saturday morning now … just can’t say enough about the day. I can’t imagine anyone thinking any other day could be better … ESPECIALLY first thing of the day … well, I suppose that can be argued out, but its not in our interest. We’re going to pick-up our reading in a little bit but we wanted to stretch the cobwebs. At least until the medicine kicks in. We have 42 pages of text in front of us and then we have to do another reading in a different book that is about … hmm, only about 6 midget pages. WOOHOOO … But, you know me having to be me … we’ll look for more material to read. Hmm. Just thought …. Maybe I should be doing a video this morning. We haven’t been doing that lately and it’s silly actually.

We started our video and decided it was actually us that were the silly ones. We’re trying to get over that right now. We need to focus again on the thoughts in our mind. That’s another favorite thing to do is to clue the clients into their own thoughts. Because in reality … being in the present means sometimes spilling it out. Case in point … during the last 10 minutes of the thinking group … we thought to interview one of the clients. We’d pretty much finished on the CARF survey questions and this other thought had occurred to me because I had heard from one of the staff that this client went on a cruise with his parents to some foreign type place. Man that is just pretty darn cool. I had so many questions for him … and this once reserved client who had trouble getting out one sentence was standing in front of the group giving out tons of memories … I felt rich in excitement for him and the people that were paying attention. He did a lot of things people usually do and he was especially impressed with all the steak and shrimp dinners! He said he only drank diet coke though. He talked about not being scared of falling over, but had comment on the amount of rocking the ship did. He said he danced and swam, but there was no gambling. It might have been that he missed it because it wasn’t his interest, but being a guy I think that if he saw a machine, he would want to feed it quarters. This person’s story was my highlight of the day, and I’ll be sure to bring it up somehow to the staff … or, maybe at least Sr. She should know just how much excitement there was in the retelling of the story. POSSIBLY, this could even be brought up at the administration meeting.

Ok … calm down. Still leaves me with a smile though … he was so gosh darn happy even though he got a little sun burn. Be only natural!

Anything else in work news? I think I wrote since Dr. M.’s appointment and the staff meeting. So, we’re not going to think in that direction. Our friend came over late last night and we got through some of the uncomfortableness that had gathered from the interactions this week. That was very hard. I think most of that was because we couldn’t figure out where we stood … hmm kind of a power differential. We had done the major wrong thing with the car and he’d done something not good with all the yelling. Though he would ARGUE that he wasn’t yelling. I’m sure theoretically he was right in that he used his INDOOR voice, but when you are beating a person up like that it still counts as yelling. NOOOOOOO he wasn’t actually beating us up … it’s just that at the time it was feeling like that. Have you ever scolded a dog? You know where they hang their head down and will only peek up for brief seconds to see if your still mad. That’s sort of how it felt, but it was much worse … we’d been so scolded that we couldn’t lift our head.

We were in this terrible, terrible place where all there is is a feeling of hopelessness and despair. I think if our friend understood the state he would have stopped.

This is not to say we didn’t need some pretty serious scolding … we most likely deserved what we got, but because we are a multiple system and defensive over the different parts, we need to worry about this safety issue first. It took quite some time after it been established that our friend wanted to lay down with us that we could touch him and it would be ok. The first touches were very slow and blocky and done with the heel of our hand, there were some transformations and talking in between. We had tried to explain that neither of us were in sync and he growled something about what a terrible week he had and it was like YOU had WE HAD … we’re the ones that made the error! Anyway, we can go as far as saying it was a mess that took some serious working out. Maybe about 40-45 minutes before we were comfortable enough to be resting our head on the small of his back stretched out to be rubbing his tired thighs. He had had a game before coming over and that always makes his body achy. Well, of course that leads to other things and so on and so on.

Point being is that this thing whatever hit this week still isn’t over. Even though neither of us really want to talk about it it might be necessary, because it really put some space between us as far as power, control, etc. I think the money thing really hurt the both of us. Really hard to tell who got hit worst, but we’re thinking that it is us that is going to need suffer though lack of the things we were used to getting in the past. Literally, there will be little money left for anything. And, even at that we’ll be living a low-edged life. And, we need to adjust for these differences. One of the first things that we gave up was the appointment to see the dentist for further teeth whitening. We felt that was an extra $350 that was not longer able to be covered. Somehow, I had to make up for the difference of the car AND getting the lesser amount on the tax return. I’m not sure how we’re going to precede next, but yesterday the car salesman called back, I’m sure after the management talked to him about our call. He acted as if he hadn’t heard, but that would be very bad communication if that were the case.

He tried to impress again the value of the vehicle, but this isn’t a person with a lot of imagination and the points he was going over again we’re tiring. But, still we found ourselves in the same washed-over mode. We complained about him having hit us over and over again with the sales pitch when he knew it was obviously over our head as far as trying to figure out a way to pay for things. This isn’t just a one-shot deal, it is going to affect us for at least the next 72 months. We told him about the tax return and only getting $1500 and that the second $900 of that might be coming after the return expected in 8-15 days, because of the error at the accountants place. We won’t go into all that again. He was very sure we could work that out at the time the money was due. That helped a bit, but I’m thinking they’re thinking more payments rather than lowering the amount due … and if he’d been listening he’d hear us say that the extra payments were part of what was killing us. Ok, ok enough of that … we’re going to move on.

The next part then might be the thought of refinancing. Our friend thought he might be able to talk to his personal banker, but he suggested first and we’re following up with our insurance company. I didn’t know that insurance companies did car loans, but it shouldn’t seem surprising. We go with State Farm. We talked to the agent and she said she would have her person call us back on Tuesday. So we’ll wait for that. The interest rate we have now is 15.99%, which is high, but supposedly what we deserve at our credit level. I don’t know have to play it one step at a time.

Before we get back to the real work ahead of us, we would like to give some kind of catch-up as to where we are with this whole thing. You’ve already gotten a general affect that we went through this experience and have had concerns put across us by friendly’s and to some extent we know what we did was wrong and dangerous to our well-being. I can’t tell you that what is happening though isn’t over. Just as far as … we know we’re in financial trouble now and we know we aren’t happy about the purchase. We’re not yet invested in the vehicle although we’re trying to adjust.

It seems like for better or worse we’re going to be making payments on this thing even though we don’t love it like we did our car. We’re not used to the style, and we’ve been trying to figure that all out. When we first saw this boxy thing on the road … we thought how homely could that be. And, then I remember seeing one parked up close and analyzying that the person driving it must not have had a lot of money … but then here we are with the same vehicle. EVEN though … we showed clear distaste for it previously. There was some kind of immediate first impression in that it was a bigger vehicle than a traditional car. Maybe though just in height, because bumper to bumper our Grand am was the bigger car. It was also the better car … The quality inside is apparent and other things frustrate me like the sound of the thinner car doors closing or having to manually lock and unlock. I did talk to the dealership and they are going to look over the problem with the spray for windows and he said that the previous owner came up with the remote locks, so that part is good and should save me about $100. BUT, those are only small things. It is the total that hurts. I’ve also gotten into my head that they should have started with a base price around $14,000, where it was like $16,000 plus, plus. I should have known something was askew when I saw the price torn off the sheet. I think what the car company did was figure out what they thought we could be paying – maximally, and they charged us from that point forward.

I hate the feeling that I’m going to be stuck with a car I dislike for 6 PLUS years.
The only thing I can hope for in that regard is that I become accustomed to it, or that some other opportunity will present itself. When I’d thought a new car … we were thinking ahhh wouldn’t a Honda Accord be nice. I have absolutely no idea and no previous respect for Toyota, though since I’ve heard some good things, Honda has always ridden high in our book. Hmm, just looking at another picture of the vehicle … I gather an impression of shutting the back door and wondering what happened to the back of our vehicle … like where’d it go? There is nothing there! There is also an affect at looking at it compared to others we park next too. One is the size and the other is the over simplicity. Hopefully, we will sooner or later begin to work these “assets” to our favor. There is some fun in parking or zooming in between bigger vehicles. There is an efficiency that I do like. I like the tinted windows and I like only paying $22 to fill my tank. It is a totally new feeling driving and there are good and bad parts about that. I feel somewhat sneakier in that I think people discount us in this small and poor a vehicle so I feel more stealthy … kind of a feeling of blending in and knowing we were more than the sum total our car might present. We’ve been also holding tightly to the feeling of it being a car with attitude. We’ve been working on self-description. So far it comes out like a delivery box with attitude. That’s pretty much because the shape reminds us of a delivery truck and we can’t get over the boxiness. How do you explain to absolutely anyone why this might be appealing? I think people look at it and feel sorry for us. It hasn’t sunk in much that we did get a better car in that it is newer, because underneath it is the lesser car. When the guy told us this week our car had sold … there was almost a double sense of abandonment … one over the guilt we have of giving up on our old car, and then the thought that she could find another owner so quickly. She’s probably all cleaned up and has forgotten about us already.

One thought that holds us together with the security we had found in our other car was that we had taken at last look the faded red crab from the back window and placed that in front of our steering wheel on the new vehicle. This is easy to do because the gauges and such are to the middle of the vehicle leaving the space directly above the steering wheel empty. I’m glad the crab made the transfer with us. She’s been with us since the first week of buying the old car when it was new.

I am thinking again now that it would be a much better thing if we could at least clear out the clutter in the new car that transferred over from the old car. Be a good idea to sense her space as a total. Sometimes when we don’t like our own clutter, we have a tendency to overlook the parts that are being filled-in with what we don’t want to see.

Ok, we’re back again … been talking in IM to sweetie pie. He is due over at 1:30-2 pm this afternoon and he might stay until about 7 pm. He’s going to bring over groceries, and do some cooking and he said that would be a good time to talk … a little about finances, but also he’s going to help me with attitude adjustment toward the new car. He did say that Toyota isn’t as bad as I was thinking, but there wasn’t enough time to talk. I forgot to ask him about the part of helping me clean out the car. It’s just all those up and down the stairs trips … AND he was asked to bring over kitty litter so I can’t imagine he’s going to be in the mood.

Really don’t like my junk hanging out. It was bad enough it was hiding in the trunk, but I don’t want it in my back seat and open hatch. Hmm, that’s one thing that is kinda neat … I like having a hatch back and I like the part of having the back seats that fold down for extra storage if necessary … now we have to work hard at not having it filled with junk! Shoot! One of the salesmans selling points was that the previous owner had gotten an interior light option so there is light in the acceleration/brake area and where the cups are kept. I’m really not sure about that first set, but the cups area is kinda cool it targets the area when your putting something down at night. Heheheh there’s one other perk that is kinda friendly.

When you have the music on (radio) you have a choice of which color you want the background, or you can put on mix … and its like your own private light show. I’d of course like to think that the car has multiple personalities. At times like this, it’s the small stuff.

Ok, now fighting another impulse that’s still running hard. We want our morning sweet rolls! BUT, it means getting dressed and going out. DO WE HAVE THAT MUCH YEARNING!??

Wow! Ok, we’re back but I think the break was long … we did the sweet roll thing brought up some stuff (bag fell apart and dropped stuff all over the back hallway), and have done a sweeping job of looking at reviews of the new vehicle. I think we’ll start calling her our X-box. She’s gotten pretty good reviews and it seems people are pretty confident of it being a Toyota. Apparently, she is built to last the long run. People have mixed ideas of it being a box … some call it a bread box. That’s ok … I can take it. Apparently she has like about 40 options and if you used them all you would double the cost of the wagon. I seem to have a nice assortment of options like fog lights, rear spoiler, cruise control, and cup hole lights. Yes, other people too are saying that she is quirky. There are a lot more of these running around the tight corners of Japan, but about 3 years old now here in the US. The pick-up I think is fun, but they say at high speeds and with a heavy load she doesn’t zoom past people at 70-80 miles per. I suppose I can live without that, though I admit I like traveling at 72. Of course, I’m going to want an I-pod because now I have a place to plug one in. But, it will be a long time until I have more money for those kind of toys.

I think most people after adjust to the looks that they are calling Iconoclastic. Woohoo I guess that means one who is an image breaker. I guess that fits … another name for it was an urban utility wagon. They also call it a cross-over. Ahh found it!!! This was the funniest name … someone called it a Boxy Budget-Mobile! Can’t beat that!

Ok, ok nuf of that moving on … for the record, we did kind of fall asleep for a little nap in there too. So, lets say that is behind us. OHHHHH one more thing? I just got a surprise little note from Sallie Mae the company that holds my son’s student loan that I’m paying … they put it in deferment, and I didn’t even have to ask. Somehow they figured out that we were a student. How major IS THAT??? It saves me $62.50 per month at a time that things are critical!!! Oh man is that sweet. All the more reason to be working hard at school … there are all kinds of perks. Good, good … just wrote our sweetie … he’s going to like that and maybe smile at our new concept car.

Ok, if that doesn’t motivate me toward work, I don’t know what will. NNEEED to get going, because it PAYS to be a student! An Iconoclastic student! See you during the next round.

posted by Ann Marie @ 2/10/2007 11:44:00 AM Comments: 0