Car Shopping - A Used Car is Suggested.

This weekend, RQS and I went car shopping.  And I'm still not sure if I want to drop the hammer on this car, a 2020 Hyundai Sonata.  The car is nicer than the Elantra I wanted to buy, but it has 2 years of mileage on it.  As I started to write this, it's a flip of the coin that I will buy this car of not.  And if I don't, I'll likely spend the money to put new tires and brakes on my old car, and keep it on the road for at least another year.

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Both of us felt a positive vibe when we entered the salesroom.  Our salesman was eager to see us, and noted that the car we wanted wasn't in stock.  However, this conflicts with the ad I saw online, but I digress...  He asked if I was willing to look at a gently used car, and I said yes.  Within 5 minutes, RQS and I were out on local roads taking a test drive.

Of course, the salesman knew he had a good product and a potential customer.  In some ways, the car could sell itself.  But, given that I am going to reduce my income for the short term when I leave my job, I am a little leery on taking on debt for a used car I am not fully sold on. So I think I will pass on the deal and see if other dealerships for other brands have something I'd like.

Drag Queen Bingo - Much less than I thought it would be.

 

The other day, I went with a meetup group to see "Drag Queen Bingo".  Although it was a pleasant diversion, something was lacking for me.  No, it is not because I am a biological male wearing a dress.  But it's likely to be caused by the humor not entertaining me.

As I get older, it's much harder to get me to laugh.  For the most part, it's a case of none of these jokes seeming fresh.  I get a bigger kick out of old Borscht Belt humor in "Old Jews Telling Jokes." Several years ago, a former girlfriend (not XGFJ) and I saw an Off-Broadway presentation of this humor, and had a great time.  Most of these jokes are timeless, and they still can make people laugh with their whole bodies. (And I'll bet that some people peed themselves laughing....)

Sometime soon, I plan to take RQS to see a regional presentation of these jokes, and expect these jokes will make us laugh as much as they did for our parents' generation.  Much better than seeing a Drag Queen make forgettable jokes - even if the Drag Queen is very friendly.

Headaches in buying a new car - dealership issues....

 

There are precious few people who enjoy buying a new car.  I'm not one of them.  I hate the tactics used to extract money from my picket and out it in their till.  But then, we are a capitalist society, and the automobile market is not a transparent one.  Without having access to as much information as the car dealer, the consumer is bound to make a less than optimal deal.

In my case, I did some research, and was willing to settle on one of the two cars I wanted, but not in the color I wanted.  I can learn to live with a sub optimal color, but not a sub optimal deal.  And I had to send the following message to the dealer to get its attention:


I went to your dealership last Saturday, and asked for internet sales as you directed. However, the man who came to assist us had no idea that I was coming, nor did he initially want to sell the car at the price you and I talked about before some spirited haggling. (This should not have happened - they should have been aware I would be there at mid afternoon, and ready to sell the car at the price you and I discussed. This almost made me walk away to make a deal elsewhere - at another dealership I found who could/would sell the Elantra at MSRP.)

After the haggling and discussion over dinner, I thought we had the basics of a deal laid out. However, after a short email exchange with John J on Monday, I haven't heard anything back from him, and it is information I need to proceed any further with any deal.

1. When do they expect the car to be delivered to the dealership?
2. What interest rate is to be used for your financing? Is there a 36 month option available?
3. What paperwork will I need to pick up the car? (e.g: insurance cards, certified/bank check, etc.)
4. For my trade, I have the original title and the release of lien. Is that enough for you to work with?
5. Specifically what are the doc fees and non tax fees? (I'm pretty sure of what the doc fees should be, but what are the non tax fees?)

Most important, the line item called "<dealer-name> Complete" seems to be padding to add to your firm's bottom line, as there are no details on what this is. I need more information, as I wanted a car at MSRP, and not $977 more than the price should be. (Asking for almost $1000 extra without a good and acceptable explanation of what this covers would be a deal breaker for me.)

Can you help get me the information I need?

Now, I am not in love with this car, and it's a good thing  I don't have to have this car, and can easily do without it.  Additionally, there is another dealer closer to me that says it's willing to do a deal at MSRP.  Part of me wants for my current deal to fall through.  But I am willing to go through with it if my concerns are adequately addressed.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Meetups

 

The above picture is from last year's FTF Prom Meetup.  It's a good group to hang out with, but one from which I am drifting away.  Lately, my weekends are filled with time spent with RQS.  And that's a good thing.  Unlike my previous relationship, RQS is comfortable with me as Marian, though she prefers to see Mario.  This is not a problem for me, as we are learning where each other's limits are in this and other areas of life.

Although I will still go to Yonkers game nights, my heart isn't in the games anymore.  Instead, my heart is into being with people who accept me for who and what I am.  Other meetup groups have mostly fallen by the wayside, as I don't have the interest in spending that much time in these groups, nor do I have the need to use meetups as a way of being with people.

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Tonight, I attended a small meetup at a local craft brewery which held a few games of bingo hosted by a drag queen.  It was interesting to hear the Queen mention an old, now closed, gay bar - "It's been a long while since I've seen you at the B Lounge."  That's one person who had me pegged.  But I had a good time, even though I still have to deal with issues related to buying a new car, getting all parts of Medicare insurance set up (A, B, D, & G), and getting my laundry done before RQS comes here for the weekend.  Will I go to tomorrow's food truck meetup?  Maybe.  But I need to have everything ready to go for laundry to make that happen....

A quick note about my office

Two women I know are likely to have delivered their babies by the end of the week.  One of them is my former student voice clinician, and the other is the office gofer.  It is the second woman I want to talk about today.

The gofer is visibly pregnant (how could I have doubted it for an instant?) and is working at the office into her last week of pregnancy.  From what she says, there is no one designated to take on any of her responsibilities when she goes on leave.  We're already seeing what happens when she is not in the office, as K-Cups, paper coffee cups, paper towels, etc are not being replenished in the break room. Given the way my office works, I doubt they will do much of anything to deal with her absence until she's been gone a few days.

Before leaving, she complained about how this firm brings on new hires.  First, a person works for an employment agency (think of "Kelly Girls" and the like) for the first 3 months, and then another 3 months for the firm itself without benefits.  (This may have changed since new management took over the firm, but I digress.)  This woman's employment start date is listed as some time early this year, and her position is protected for only 6 weeks.  If she desires to come back, she will not be too happy leaving her baby in care of someone else.  If she desires to leave, we will have a 6 week gap until we can find a new worker to replace her.

No matter what, I have a feeling that this may be a factor in when I choose to retire....

Sleep Problems

 

 

Lately, I've been waking up in the middle of a sleep cycle for no good reason.  So, I feel tired when I go in to work, and my productivity is down until lunch time.  It doesn't help that I am naturally awake late in the evening, and the effects of sleep deprivation have set in.

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When I was dating XGFJ, I always had problems with her nestling in my arm in bed.  It is not a romantic problem - it's an issue with RQS as well, but she accepts that I will need to shift my body now and then to keep comfortable.  The difference is simple - we communicate better now.  My previous relationship failed because of poor communication, and I wish it had ended earlier, so that we could have stayed close friends. 

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Going away for a short trip has its own problems.  In my case, if I don't bring my CPAP machine with me, I will fall back to having my sleep apnea cause me problems. When I was with XGFJ, she noted that the machine trained my subconscious to keep my airways unobstructed.  RQS notices that I sleep better with the machine, and has no problem with my use of the machine.  

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Even when all things are going right, there's a part of me that's restless.  If no one is with me, this is not an issue.  But, if someone is staying over, I can't just get up and put my thoughts into this blog.  Yet, I have less and less to say on a regular basis, and I am thinking of giving this blog a break for a while.  (I'll bet that FCP will be happy with that, as it was my previous blog that caused our rift (and, according to FCP, signaled the end of our relationship to XGFJ.))

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Luckily, I can get my sleep on weekends.  It's not enough.  But it will have to do until I retire.

A thought on an angry ex friend

One reaps what one sows.  This is so true in many ways.  I lost a friend by revealing too much about her inner thoughts, and I will not be forgiven.  But now, I have an answer to a question that's been bothering me for a while....

FCP contacted me today, commenting on events that happened in the past.  In her anger, she supplied clarification about a conversation we had, communications between her and my ex-girlfriend, and her thoughts on my ex's feelings.  I don't believe that I said anything recently about FCP that she should have taken offense to, but one never knows what goes on in a person who feels she has been betrayed, and what she will do to feel she has gotten her payback.

Part of today's communication had pictures of FCP's family, FCP commenting that these are people I'd never see again.  Well, I know she's sending these pictures out of anger, trying to rub in what I lost.  But I discounted the possibility of seeing her son, daughter in law, and now their baby long ago, as FCP doesn't have it in herself to let her anger go and consider forgiveness.  Forgiveness benefits the forgiver much more than the person being forgiven, as it releases any control that the repressed anger has on you.  Some of what FCP said hints at a former over dependence on daily conversations with me. And yes, I had a dependence on these communications as well.  I grew from our friendship ending, and I hope she has done so as well.

Now, I did not tell the ex-girlfriend that I had my earlier conversation with FCP.  FCP had said that she's get in trouble if I said anything, so I kept my mouth shut.  But... FCP opened her mouth to the ex, as I'd bet that she needed to know if I said anything about the conversation.  It's not worth stirring things up with the ex, and FCP has been a lost cause for the past 2 1/2 years.

What I find curious is that FCP found my blog interesting and discussed it often with the ex.  I guess that FCP still found me interesting enough to follow, even though I had little to say about her anymore.   I also find it interesting that FCP has soured on communicating with the ex, as without me being a topic, the ex has nothing to talk about that FCP finds interesting.  

FCP claims that she has blocked me.  Who knows?  She is an angry woman who gets upset when she doesn't get the results she wants.  For me, she is finally out of my life, and leaving my mind quickly. I only wonder if she has/or will go back to some of the habits she used to have when I once knew her. I hope not - she has done a few things in the past 2 1/2 years which I feel she should be proud of.

 

 

PS: The ex-girlfriend sent me an interesting message shortly after I received the communication from FCP.  I will not go into the content, save to mention that FCP had no right to put words into the ex-girlfriend's mouth.