The Old Year

The Old Year’s gone away
    To nothingness and night:
We cannot find him all the day
    Nor hear him in the night:
He left no footstep, mark or place
    In either shade or sun:
The last year he’d a neighbour’s face,
    In this he’s known by none.

All nothing everywhere:
    Mists we on mornings see
Have more of substance when they’re here
    And more of form than he.
He was a friend by every fire,
    In every cot and hall–
A guest to every heart’s desire,
    And now he’s nought at all.

Old papers thrown away,
    Old garments cast aside,
The talk of yesterday,
    Are things identified;
But time once torn away
    No voices can recall:
The eve of New Year’s Day
    Left the Old Year lost to all.

  — John Clare (1793 - 1864), English Poet

PENNYWISE - YESTERDAYS

Up from the ashes and over the hill
We knew more then than we ever will
Back when the days passed by so slow
And now we’ll never know
That sense that tomorrow was far away
And our dreams they will never fade
We never thought the good times could end.

Can we go back to those days—
When everything was simple then?
And nothing could ever change
Can we go back to those days—
We didn’t have a care at all
I wish I could remain—
Back in Yesterday!

Pictures of another place and time
They seem like scenes from a different life
We didn’t notice as the days went past
We knew it couldn’t last
But looking back I wouldn’t change a thing
The memories shared, they’ll always stay with me
We never thought the good times would end.

Can we go back to those days—
When everything was simple then?
And nothing could ever change
Can we go back to those days—
We didn’t have a care at all
I wish I could remain—
Back in Yesterday!

Can we go back to those days—
When everything was simple then?
And nothing could ever change
Can we go back to those days—
we didn’t have a care at all
I wish I could remain —
Back in yesterday!
Back in yesterdays!
Back in yesterdays!
Back in yesterdays!

… tax season, that is … it would have been over yesterday had the IRS not decided to extend the deadline for a couple of days to accomodate people in the northeast who were affected by this past weekend’s major storms, and by 6 months for those affected by Monday’s shootings at Virginia Tech.

Of course, Kim’s and my final joint tax return was filed a month ago …

Okay … so I talked with one of my friends about yesterday’s post; and my guts are tied up in knots … but I think we cleared the air, and I think we’re going to be okay.

Time will tell.

So Kim just started a new job yesterday, working for McCann-Erickson, which is a division of the Interpublic Group. The Interpublic Group is a consortium of the world’s largest advertising agencies; Kim will be the Technical Project Manager (exactly what that entails, I haven’t a clue), working on one of the firm’s largest accounts.

She started yesterday. Today, she’s flying to Seattle to meet with the client. Talk about fast. When they asked if she had any “familial hindrances” that might restrict her ability to travel, they weren’t kidding.

I’m learning that buying older cars and trucks also means buying older cars’ and trucks’ problems. We’ve already had the timing belt replaced on the Trooper, more out of preventative maintenance than anything else, since we weren’t sure if it had ever been done. I’m told that a timing belt should be replaced every 60-75,000 miles. According to Intermountain Isuzu, the timing belt on my Trooper looked like the original one. Keep in mind that my Trooper has 132,000+ miles. It was definitely time to replace that, at about $450.00 parts & labor.

They also found a leak in the power steering line. So far the estimates are coming in between $275.00 and $350.00 to do that work. I’m still shopping around, though, to see if I can find anything less expensive, at least from a labor perspective.

I need to get an owner’s manual, a shop manual, and to gradually increase the size of my tool collection so I can take care of some of the more mechanical issues myself.

Thankfully, the dealer we bought the Trooper from replaced and balanced all 4 tires, 3 power window regulators, the glass in one window, the serpentine belts, the air and oil filters, as well as changing the oil as part of the purchase price. They should be sending someone out to the office today to do a windshield replacement as well.

And, according to Kim, our insurance ought to actually go down, despite adding a second car, because of the “multi-vehicle discount”. We’ll see what happens when I call Liberty Mutual later this afternoon.