i am the poster child for gps. getting lost is a recurring theme in my life, in more ways then one. you could spend your whole life making your way through the orange and los angeles county sprawling blob of cities. at least LA has a grid. the oc has winding roads whose names change when you leave one city and enter another. i used to drive around with google map printouts worrying about the trees i was sending to the grinder. and when there was a detour for construction in the middle of the night forcing you off the 405 and your way home, talk about scary.
so when mike gave me a garmin nuvi last christmas, i was very happy. it really was a perfect gift, and i have so thoroughly used it every single day since, even when i knew where i was going because you never know when you might be forced to take a different road than the one you planned. the funny thing is that even with the gps, i would still make wrong turns or miss exits. the thing wasn't perfect. unless you clicked on a different view to see your turn by turn directions, you didn't know until right before which way you would need to turn. the great thing though was that emily (the british woman's voice) would say "recalculating" and send you back on track.
last week involved much drama in the midst of a deadline that i was trying to frantically make with spending most of my free time to finish the latest sculpture piece, which for a modicum of brevity, i'll save for another post. tuesday night, i came home late and exhausted to unload my piece into the garage. not sure if i didn't lock my door or didn't close it all the way, but the next day, i discovered that my car had died. at first, i thought maybe the battery on the alarm key had died, and it wasn't until wednesday afternoon that i really knew how bad it was. my car battery was dead. one door was slightly ajar, and for some reason, the hood of my car had been popped open. i decided not to worry about it just yet, and took the bus to knitting, thinking that it was merely my usual absent-mindedness that had gotten me here, and that it would be easily resolved.
thursday morning, mike jump started my car and drove it around the block, but just as it was pulling up to the stop sign by our house it died again, so i called a tow truck. i was going to take it to a local auto shop that had good reviews from yelp, but they were completely booked until monday and recommended i take it to a different auto shop in signal hill. several hours and 86 dollars later, i found out there was nothing wrong with the car. they were able to jump start it and get it driving. it was low on gas, which was why it died after the first jump. i felt like a typical clueless when it comes to cars female when they told me i really shouldn't let my gas level get below a quarter tank since it then sucks up all kinds of crap into the engine, among other things. great. well, if i ever have time, auto shop class is on my list of to dos.
after i brought my car home, i realized the gps was missing. someone had stolen it. i really didn't want to think ill of the auto shop, but all of a sudden, it was a prime suspect. of course, the tow truck guy could have taken it. i was inside getting my shit together when he was hooking up my car. then there could have been any random person in the neighborhood, since my car was left unlocked overnight. i had to wonder that someone would go into my car that was in the driveway and steal the gps. too many episodes of csi was making me want to dust for fingerprints to get to the bottom of all of it.
last night, mike discovered someone had turned the bulbs from the security lights over the driveway that is motion-activated so that they didn't turn on. considering how somewhat paranoid i am, and now even more so, i can't believe i didn't put two and two together. i did notice on wed that the security lights didn't go on when i went down to the garage, but i thought the bulb had burned out. i didn't think that there were two, and the likelihood of two going out was not likely at all.
this whole thing makes me sad. my emily is gone, wrenched from the loving resting place of my dashboard. someone in my neighborhood stole my gps from my car that was sitting in my driveway. the thought of becoming jaded and thinking the worst of people makes me sad. just over a year ago, someone took the opportunity of an open window to climb onto our roof and break into our home, ransack our place and steal money from us then. it was scary, but i figured it was one of those freak things. this is an average neighborhood, even an historical one, with craftsmen homes. sure, there's the occasional drama of drunk raving guy in the middle of the night or helicopter overhead, but there aren't driveby shootings or gang violence. the average home price is in the $400,000s, which even we can't afford. so unsettling to think that we're not safe in our own homes.
