This is what the mechanic discovered when she checked the cabin air filter in my pickup truck. The lack of shiny bottle caps and spiny cholla balls indicates something other than a pack rat; we’re guessing a garden-variety mouse … more likely, a family of them. Pack rats, mice, and rabbits have damaged our cars before, but those were cars we parked outdoors. I never worried much about the truck because we park it in the garage, which is dumb because mice and pack rats love our garage. Happily, this time whatever crawled up into the engine compartment didn’t chew the wiring: cabin air filters are a lot cheaper and easier to replace.
It’s possible the damage was done a while ago. We caught several garage mice over the period of a few days last year, using a humane trap and releasing them in a dry wash a mile or two up the road. The trap stayed empty for a long time afterward, so maybe we got ’em all. Nevertheless, the trap is baited and positioned in the garage once again.
When I brought the truck in a couple of days ago, I asked them to check the air conditioning, because it’s seemed weak lately and we have a road trip coming up. Well, here’s your problem, as they say … the chewed-up air filter was clogging the venting behind the dashboard, and now that it’s cleaned out the AC works like new, ready for that road trip.
Speaking of which, we’ve mapped out a route from Tucson to Truth or Consequences NM (with an en route stop to buy fresh chiles in Hatch), on to Taos (and another brief stop in Santa Fe to see the cathedral Archbishop Lamy built … can you tell I just finished Willa Cather’s famous novel Death Comes or the Archbishop?), then to Ouray CO where we’ll stay with friends a couple of nights. Home via Moab UT, then a couple of nights with the kids in Vegas, and on the last leg a stop at the new Buc-ee’s in Phoenix. Eight fun-filled days, and since the dogs will be boarding with a friend, the only thing we have to worry about is Polly burning the house down while we’re away. And early snow, maybe, in Colorado.
Our son Gregory’s coming to visit this weekend. He has business in Phoenix, so he’s renting a car for the drive down to Tucson. I’m planning a shrimp boil for tomorrow and Donna’s going to Costco for ingredients today. I must have said something about it in the presence of an iPhone because TikTok is awash in ads for Costco’s prepackaged shrimp & crab boil. I’m tempted, but will stick with my own recipe for now.
I had another basal cell carcinoma removed last week, this one on my right temple. Here I am at the clinic in the middle of a Mohs procedure (it took the doctor two tries to get it all) and again a couple of days afterward … you can see the steristrip on my temple if you look close; there are self-dissolving sutures underneath. I have to go back next week to have another one removed from my left earlobe.
 |
 |
Will I celebrate these mechanical and medical milestones with a new watch? Watch this space!