Overheating

Found out today (or was it yesterday already?) my Subaru has blown a head gasket.

I had a pretty good idea that was the case when I came home last Wednesday night to find coolant leaking out the front. I threw a bucket under it and this is what I got.

That’s a lot more brown/black than the green it should be. The cost to fix it is probably about the same as the value of the car, but then again, that’s significantly cheaper than a new car.

I swear I hit every red light driving it to the mechanic. When I finally rolled into the parking lot with the heat blowing at max, there was a fundraiser car wash taking place. The nice folks (i.e. jackasses) tried telling me I needed a car wash and should roll into their slot.

Yeah. A car wash will fix things right up for me.

Go away.

To insure we ourselves didn’t suffer a similar fate as my car, Jen, Abigail, Gretchen and I headed out to the pool for the afternoon. Abigail had it made in the shade – literally.

She got the shadiest spot and we setup a fan blowing indirectly at her (is that really possible?) for cooler air.

But that just wasn’t enough (actually it was). After watching Gretchen, Jen and myself have all the fun in the pool, Abigail had to join.

It was a short swim. Though the water was 84°F, it’s still a little cold for a 4 month old who can’t regulate her own body temp.

So it was out, dried off and cuddle time in Mommy’s lap to get warmed up again.

Then Mark and his son Clay came over for a swim. Now things got really exciting. There was so much for Abigail to watch. While Mark and I tried to break the diving board, Clay became best swimming friends with Gretchen.

I was pretty anxious at first (probably the entire time). Gretchen has a tendency to think you need rescue and will swim up to you to save you. What she ends up doing is just scratching the hell out of you, but Clay figured it out and had her swimming all over the place chasing toys to keep her away from him.

All in all a decent day sort of. Hot and relaxing with little worry. The past couple of nights we’ve even managed to sit out on the deck, after Abigail goes to sleep, watching the lightening bugs electrify the night. That’s really nice when it’s warm and clear.

Ok. Time to get back to sleep. I’ve been up since my 2:30am shift with Abigail and should get some kind of sleep before she’s up for the day.

So much for little worry.

– b