I got the oil changed in the car today, and it made me a little sad. It's no big deal - you pull into the oil change place, and you don't even have to get out of your car while they take care of everything.
But it also signals the end of a relationship. From 2001 to 2025, I just went to the dealership for the oil change, tire rotation, and general checkup. I'd go there, hand over the keys, then sit in the waiting room, drink coffee, and read while it was all taken care of.
But in 2024, they put the hubcaps on incorrectly, breaking the clips. I talked them into replacing the two that fell off, and the other two have been held on, most elegantly, with zip ties. I chalked that up to "everyplace can have an off day."
Last year, when they finished, they told me that they couldn't rotate the tires because of the broken hubcaps. Also, when they put the car on the lift, they caught the underskirting, ripped it loose, and then just hoped that I wouldn't notice (uh - the sound of something scraping the ground when I drove was a giveaway). The shop mechanic was less than gracious when I suggested that they fix it - which they didn't do very well and I had to take it to a body shop to get it done properly. Later, when my low tire light came on, I realized that they had underinflated the tires..
Obviously I can't trust them to take care of my car properly any more. And I think it's the loss of that trust that makes me a bit sad. And that now it's two errands instead of one because I still have to find a place to get my tires rotated (and I just ordered new hubcaps because the zip ties are a little tacky).
Also genuine sadness because while I was getting my oil changed, I got an email from Suzie at the museum that Mabel the barred owl was found dead this morning.
I've known Mabel ever since she came to the museum 18 years ago. I handled her a lot when I was in the education department, and some even since then. She was a bit of a diva and a very picky eater. All of our other birds mostly get a special bird of prey diet (it looks rather like hamburger). She would turn up her beak at it, so she mostly got mice, chicks, and fish.
She was a most contrary bird. When someone goes in to get her, she would fly all over the place until the person could make a grab for the jesses, then she would have to hang upside down until the leash was attached and she could be lifted onto the glove. Then came the personality change - she loved to be cuddled and scratched.
I was the one who started her on that (I was one of the first people to handle her). For the first couple of years if I would reach over to try to touch her, she would hunker down or twist away or snap at me. I persisted, then one day I was able to touch and scratch the back of her neck, and all of a sudden she was "OMG, is *that* what you've been trying to do?" Sometimes she would almost fall asleep.
Of course, after I spent 2-3 years getting her to that point - she decided that she liked it and would let anybody have a good scratch. Little slut.
She was an ideal education bird. You could take her into a classroom full of yelling kids, and she'd just sit there with a "whatever" look on her face. You could let her sit on a table perch at a festival, with dozens of people walking by, and she was be so calm that a lot of people thought she was taxidermied (which was really funny when she moved). One time Jim Fowler (of Mutual of Omaha Wild Kingdom fame) came to the museum when I had her out, and told the crowd to watch her reaction as he gave a perfect barred owl hoot. Her reaction? Zip, zilch, nada. Whatever.
18 years I've known her (and she was an adult when we got her). I'm going to miss her.
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