Of sick cars and a lyin', thievin' drunk of a grandma

Let's bring the funny on first.

My dad, grandmother and I are, for the moment, sharing bigbro's house with one of J1's and bigbro's friends, who is supposed to be living here, taking care of the house while they're away living the high life in West Hartford. It's not the most convenient or comfortable situation for any of us, but we're all managing just fine.

Housesitter is a collector of wines, and boxes of the stuff are scattered around the house.

Last night, my grandmother made some beef. And during dinner, she said, "Hey! Do you want some wine with this? You have to have alcohol when you eat beef." This was not a tongue-in-cheek way to get loaded; it's actually a bit of a tradition in Korea. Perhaps it stems back from the days when beef rarely made its way onto the table and such an occasion called for celebration. Or maybe it's thought that alcohol makes the beef go down better -- I dunno. Point is, she asked my dad if he wanted some wine with the beef, and he indicates he's down with that.

So my grandmother went into the kitchen and came out with a half empty bottle of 2005 Beaujolais and three glasses, and starts pouring the wine.

I have no idea if this is a good wine. All I know is that it's not our wine. So I protest. "This isn't ours," I said. "It's Housesitter's."

"Eh," my grandmother said. "So what? There's lots of bottles around the house. He won't miss it."

I sort of understood. In Korea too, if an older person were to ask you for something, you wouldn't question her, you'd just give it over. There's a sense of community ownership about most things in a house. "But," I thought out loud, "we don't know if he was keeping it for a special reason or what. He said he bought a box of something a couple years ago and was slowly drinking it."

"Eh," my grandmother said again, pouring out the third glass. "We'll finish it and then he won't even notice! He'll think he finished it and forgot about it."

I looked at my dad. "Dad, I really don't think we should drink Housesitter's wine."

Finally, my dad weighs in, telling my grandmother, "These kids, they don't really know our ways. And he's a collector, so we don't know what he's keeping this stuff for. See, he even has a special wine fridge. That's how into it he is."

"All right, all right," my grandmother relented. "Let's pour it back."

"We need something with a spout," my dad said. We all went into the kitchen. "Oh, we can just use a rolled up piece of paper," my grandmother suggested. "No, no, we should use... -- this!" my dad found a small sake bottle in the cupboard. And he poured the wine from the glasses into the sake bottle and back into the Beaujolais bottle, which went back into the kitchen with no one wiser. Until now.

The really funny thing? Tonight, sitting down to more beef, my grandmother said, "Hey, you know how you scolded me for the wine last night? Well, there's lots of beer in the fridge! We could have had that! Want some now?"

Some cultural differences just can't be explained.
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Now for the slightly sad and tired-making part.

This morning, I took Elizabeth II to the transmission guy, a non-descript, friendly dude with the unlikely name of Reece. Reece took a look and called me in the afternoon with the news I had been fearing: the transmission fluid level was fine. It was a more major problem -- the pistons in the transmission were worn out. To fix it, he would have to take out the entire transmission and go through all the parts as well, to make sure it wasn't something else. Starting price? $2495.95. (He was very specific about it, which was kinda funny.) But it could go up as high as $3,800. Elizabeth II's Blue Book value is, at best, $3700.

Bad, bad news. Reece said we'd be crazy to drive across the country with the Jetta in its current state -- it might keep working for 200 miles more, or 2,000 miles more, but then it would leave us stranded. So either I plunk down the money and wait up to 5 business days for it to get fixed, or I find another car to drive.

Sigh. I just don't know.

More tired-making things: The other thing we did today, besides dealing with Elizabeth II's ailment, was get furniture for the "dorm" that my dad is providing for the Korean students he's bringing over. I found a going-out-of-business sale on Craig's List with a bunch of IKEA furniture, and we bought a slew of tables, chairs and other equipment for about half the list price. Good show.

But when we got to the house, I realized the magnitude of the task. The house needs to be cleaned and painted and completely furnished: beds, dressers, washer/dryer, desks, lamps bookcases, computers, etc., not to mention all the accoutrements of daily life like food and toilet paper. I have no idea how my dad thought he'd do this in a few days. It looks like a good week's worth of work to me, especially since so far it's just me, him, and my grandmother -- all three of us with bad backs, 1 with almost no ability to move large items (grandma) and another with bad enough RSI to also limit her ability to move heavy things (me). The owner of the house will probably get it painted and hopefully cleaned, but who's going to move all the crap we bought today?

Sigh. I want to help, and I'm glad to help, but sometimes all I can do is sigh.