Since my sister has recounted her side of our misadventure, I won’t go into those details again. But I was really looking forward to the road trip even though the Police aren’t one of my favorite bands. I’d rather have seen any number of artists who’ve been to L.A. since I moved here. Sting…seen him. Andy Summers…not wild about him. The other guy…can’t even remember his name. So, yeah.

Seeing a show at Dodger Stadium…ok, I can get into that. Seeing it with my sister…mondo fun. So much for a smooth segue…

This is my second Saturn VUE, my first having been purchased back in 2002 when the model debuted. The original was also a stick, and I drove it for three years before trading it in for my 2006 onyx beauty. Since my first one had served me so well, why would I worry about the newer, improved version?

I should’ve known there’d be trouble when it took four days for the dealer to fix the stupid stereo.

After we’d lunched at Oggi’s, and as we were getting really close to our destination, I noticed the clutch was kind of soft. Not soft in the “I’m leaking” sort of way, but a soft, “this is different” kind of way. I’m a clutch-rider, always have been. Yet as we were inching our way toward Dodger, I couldn’t help but flash back on decades of driving sticks, never having quite felt anything like this. The ’ster chided me for riding the clutch. That was fine, as long as it wasn’t the clutch. Can’t drive a stick without a clutch…

What worried me most was getting them home after the concert, because if I were stranded in L.A. by myself it wouldn’t be a big deal. But there were guests in my car. I was responsible for getting them home.

We were part of that painful crush of last-minute commuters angling for a parking space in the crowded stadium. As the clutch kept softening I kept thinking that the car was too new to be gasping its last breath, too new to be giving me any kind of trouble at all. We made our way up the final hill to Dodger, through the main gate - the one that roams around the hill to the parking area above the stadium. I paid the $20 parking fee, and suddenly there was no clutch. Push, stomp, STOMP…no clutch. My car was still rolling forward UP the hill, but it wasn’t in any gear. This was so monstrously bizarre.

Archonix had mentioned smoke. I didn’t see any. It was kind of hard to tell if it was my cigarette (ahem) or my engine. But as the car came to a stop, huge billows of white smoke erupted from under the hood. My sister beat a hasty exit from the car. And all I could think was, “It’s a good thing I started the Zoloft this week.”

Fortunately, I’d had the presence of mind (which is truly rare) to continue my On-Star subscription past the trial period. I dismissed the sister and Archonix so they could go to the show, hit the emergency button on my On-Star dashboard, and got a tow truck on its way. I then called my buddy Keala, who helped with shuttles, rental car arrangements, and hotel names. The rest of the story is pretty much what the ’ster has chronicled, with me waiting at the Bonaventure Hotel, sipping soda and watching CNN until they finally caught up with me hours later.

Ah, well. I didn’t really want to see the Police anyway. But wouldn’t you know it, my car was stalled in just the right spot for me to not have seen Dodger Stadium, either.

Dammit!

I’ve been so gosh-darned wrapped up in things that I haven’t posted anything interesting in…well, in 20 years. But lest I get caught up in that bit of melancholy, I have pictures to share! On Flickr, of course. Taken with my crappy phone, because I keep forgetting to find the adapter for the charger for the batteries for my digital camera, for cripe’s sake.

Go here!

At some times, more than others, I’m convinced that God wants me to do some serious suffering. Like when I find myself bouncing my rent check because some other items came in that were in the budget, albeit not timed too well. The interesting thing: these times no longer defeat me, they merely annoy me. I have reached a comfort zone with my lack of personal financial savvy. Do I know what my credit score is? Let’s just say it isn’t pretty.

I have never been able to balance my checkbook, not since I was in my teens. It is ironic that my former job required me to do double-down depreciations, trial balances, and financial audits nearly every day. As their C.F.O., among other things, I was required to stay on top of the ebb and flow of funds, to find ways to get us through the tough times and find ways to make the good times even more prosperous. I was really good at it, too. Not necessarily at all the paper-tracking, but my head could figure out things that sometimes astounded the people around me. Bankers and lawyers would peer at me across conference tables and say things like, “yeah, that could work,” or “I hadn’t thought of it that way,” and I would twirl my pigtails, plop my Ked-clad feet upon a chair and smile with all the charm of a Harvard graduate. But balance my own checkbook? Find a way to deal with my own financial hell? Encourage myself to become solvent and secure? I have no bloody idea how that works.

I am missing some nest-egg gene that my richer and more organized pals seem to have. The millionaires I know and the poor-like-me folk I know…they can do this whole compound-interest thing that I just can’t seem to wrap my paycheck around. I can think up minor miracles for the pocketbooks around me, but am at a complete loss on how to think one up for myself. So when it comes to the math in my life…what-the-fuck?

I need a money manager. Someone who’s strong enough to wrestle my earnings into a plausible retirement plan. Someone who can sweet-talk numbers into bending to their will so that my kid can go to college. “There is no deficit,” they will say, and the numbers will pirouette into place. “She needs a manicure,” they will say, and the numbers will beg to add the tip. This someone will flirt with them, caress them, murmur in their ears, and all my universal credits and debits will pledge their fidelity to their dying day…

Hey, I can dream, can’t I?