FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2005
me-ow!
Rudyard Kipling had a great understanding of cats. "I am the cat that walks alone and all things are the same to me," he made the first Cat say, repeatedly, in his classic short story, The Cat That Walked Alone.
He could have been writing about my car. A Jaguar - named after a species of cat for reasons appreciated only by those who have owned both cats and Jags. Like your average house cat (or even the feral kind - why limit it?), my car has a mind of its own. If there's something in it for it, it might decide to cooperate. If not, don't even ask. Some days it loves you, others it's happier pretending you don't exist.
I took it in to the only British car mechanic in town last week, to get it wedding ready. I figure that, now that I have the thing, I might as well use it for one of the most important days of my life. Make it worth the investment.
When I stopped driving it, the front driver's side triangle window had been taken out by vandals. The brights went on automatically when I turned my driving lights on, pissing off everyone I passed at night; the back brake lights didn't work (I used to turn the parking lights on whenever I stopped so some sort of light would come on in back to warn people of my stopping), and, oh, billows of smoke appeared from under the hood within seconds of starting it.
I had pretty much sworn off cats as cars, and the thing has been languishing in my mum's garage (much to her chagrin) for the past three years.
Well, it's back, now, and my affection for it was renewed whilst driving it home - "motoring" through the curvey roads of East Kelowna, gliding through the town traffic (turning heads all the way) and pulling up to my house. I then drove Kyle to the airport - or rather he drove himself - for his bachelor weekend in Vancouver. So to my Grandma's, to collect my supper, and home (it's home; my mum's).
The thing drives like a dream. It's like riding a cloud. Because it's so wide and solid, you just float over bumps, feeling practically nothing. Turning heads as you do is just the icing on the cake.
Still, it takes premium, 94 octane petrol ($1.13/l vrs. $.99 regular), gets only 15 miles to the gallon (20 on the highway - makes Kyle's SUV seem environmentally friendly), and goes through motor oil almost as quickly (question: how do you know it's time to add oil to a Jag? When it stops dripping).
According to Kyle, who drove behind me on the way home from the mechanic's (who's name is Mike, so Mike and the Mechanics), the brake lights were working fine, as were the signal lights. Then again, my lights seemed to work fine on the way home from the airport - but as I left my grandma's, they were back to brights only - - Cats!
But we'll use it for the wedding. Get our $244 of work worth out of it (supposedly we shouldn't have to add any oil before then), and then retire the beast back to the garage. Maybe in the future we'll have the engine overhauled (we being me and Kyle - he probably didn't realize he was getting THREE high maintenance divas out of the deal - Me, Sarah, Jag), and have the interior redone.
That's the other thing about cats - they tend to grow on you to the point that, just when you think you've had enough, they start to purr, and your heart just melts all over again. And, oh, you should hear my Jaguar purr!
***
Update: Now that we have our own home with a two car garage, the Jag sits languishing in OUR garage. With the price of Regular gas tipping the scales at over a dollar ($1.03 today) that's not about to change any time soon. But it still melts my heart the odd time it's fired up and driven out onto the driveway in order to move something in or out of its habitat. Perhaps someday I'll have a more exciting update, which would include a lump sum of cash in exchange for its pleasing purr...
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