Thank Goodness for Good Neighbors

It has been extremely cold here, especially last week. On Wednesday, it got down to almost -40°C (which coincidentally is also -40°F). While most people here plug in their cars, our parking situation is such that we don't have access to electrified parking while we are at work. There is a wait list to get into the lots that have electrified parking, and an even longer wait list to get into the heated underground parkade. Because of my disability parking permit, we are able to park right in front of our building. This is convenient, except for the fact that it is unprotected and often icy, which can be hazardous for me getting in and out of the car. It is also problematic on very very cold days, because weather like that can kill a battery if the car is not kept warm either by staying indoors or plugging it in.

I have been badgering the parking office to allow us to get parking in the underground lot in anticipation of the possibility of me driving to work on my own, as I am not particularly comfortable with the idea of getting in and out of the car and trying to get my walker by myself when there's ice on the ground (which is all of the time). Not to mention that if it snows during the day it would be almost impossible for me to clear the snow or ice off of the windshield and windows. So far I have not gotten a response from the parking office regarding my request. If they deny me, I will take it to the next level, as I think this is clearly a disability accommodation issue and this request should be granted.

It is very unfortunate that we had to park outside last Wednesday when it was so cold, as after being parked there for about eight hours, the car wouldn't start. We contacted campus security, and they try to jumpstart our car, but it didn't work. By a stroke of good luck, the campus security officer who responded happened to be someone I had met at a training, who also happens to live one block from us. Jeff and I played board games with him and his wife a couple of weeks ago. He kindly offered to drive us home, which was well beyond what he had to do as a part of his job.

We tried calling CAA (the Canadian equivalent of AAA), and apparently we were not the only ones having car trouble in the cold weather, because we could barely get through. They were finally able to come by on Thursday to try to get the car to start (it didn't), and then sent someone else out on Friday to replace the battery. It still didn't start. We eventually had the car towed to a shop where it will be looked at on Monday.

We are also fortunate to be friends with another faculty member in our department who happens to live three blocks away. He was able to take us to work on Thursday and Friday, and helped us out in a number of other ways. We had relied on this neighbor/colleague/friend for a lot of rides for a couple of days, and knowing that we wouldn't have the car at least until Monday, we finally decided to rent a car.

At that point we realized that our car is now 14 years old. We were frustrated and fed up with car trouble, and decided that now that we have real jobs maybe it's time to get a real car – a newer car that won't break down so often. We have been talking about this possibility for a long time, and have always wanted to get a hybrid. We decided that there was no reason not to do it, so yesterday we went to a dealership and picked out a car. We decided that we wanted the new Prius v, took it for a test drive, thought it was great, and successfully negotiated a deal on a 2012 model. We applied for financing, and to our surprise as well as the dealer's, Toyota Canada is able to talk to Toyota USA. Based on our American credit history, we were able to get approved for the best deal on financing. We should have our new car in 7 to 10 business days (it has to be transported from elsewhere). We were so pleased that we went out for ice cream to celebrate, as we do:

Jeff thinks it's reasonable to wear a T-shirt out to ice cream when it's -12°C. To be fair, compared with the weather from a couple of days earlier it did feel balmy out.

A picture of us driving our new car, that Jeff drew while we were having ice cream.

What our new car will actually look like.

This morning, I baked oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and we delivered them to our two helpful neighbors. It's nice to know that even though we are new here and haven't yet established a huge social network, we do have people we can count on to help us out when we need it!