Self-Portrait of the Photographer as Grease Monkey

Thursday night, the big storm arrived with a terrible intensity. It started with an impressive show of lightning and thunder, then moved on to amazingly heavy downpours. Just for fun, it threw in a little bit of hail several times, for good measure.  It was a rock-'em, sock-'em storm that left us breathless. It took down many of our beautiful leaves. It also left behind water. Lots and lots of it.

Friday morning, we got up and gravely assessed the situation. My husband and I checked the house, the shed, and grounds. We had a branch on the roof, and a river had run through the backyard where no river had run before. The power flickered off, then came back on.

About a half-hour from where we live, there was extensive flooding. Milesburg was declared a disaster area. Roads were closed there. People were rescued and taken to a nearby shelter in a local school. The power was out for some. We watched the pictures on the news online with great concern. Others were suffering. We were the lucky ones.

I don't work Fridays anymore, as of October 1. And we have been trying to make my "Freedom Fridays" (as I like to call them) into big, fun adventures whenever possible. We have hiked in the woods. We have visited my parents. But this day, more rain was expected. With no particular place to go and travel conditions sounding dicey, we decided to stay home.

My big plan was to organize the business filing. You know, get colored file folders. Print words neatly on them. Stuff them with all the papers piled on our kitchen table. Paid bills, receipts, things like that. But I started by making cinnamon-apple pancakes. Moved on to doing laundry, washing dishes. Everyday necessary things.

And what happened next was clearly my husband's fault. His big plan for the day was to do a complete tune-up on his own car, a 1997 Geo Prizm. New spark plugs, air filter, distributor cap, rotor. "We'll be home for a couple of days. Maybe today would be a good day to start the body work on your car," he offered.

Now, I've done body work on my 1998 gold Mazda Protege before, but not in a few years. It has one smaller and one larger rust spot on the driver side rear wheel well. I've been feeling badly about it, but apparently not badly enough to do something. On this day, I did.

You might think that body work is a thing that girls just don't do, but that would be a misstatement. Any girl who can paint her fingernails can do light body work. It's a tedious job, but it's not that hard.

I've watched my oldest sister do her own body work on cars since I was a toddler; she's a can-do kind of gal! And I want to be one too. (I occasionally assist my husband with the actual car repairs too; in fact, earlier this year, I installed my own valve cover gasket.)

First is the sanding. Just sandpaper and elbow grease. Several hours of it. (Though for the bigger rust job, I think I'll use a drill with sandpaper on it.) When all the rust is gone, wipe the area down with rubbing alcohol, and let it dry. Then comes the Bondo, a white putty that you add a bit of red stuff out of a tube to, and then it sets and you use it quickly before it dries out. It stinks something awful, though, so be sure the area is well ventilated.

My husband helped out with the Bondo part. Getting the right mix of red stuff to white stuff is tricky. The first batch got very hot to the touch and hardened immediately. Too much red stuff! Next batch was better. And then you use a putty knife to put it on. Then let it dry. And the next day, you sand and paint it. (Ah, something to look forward to on Saturday!)

I looked up from my tasks to find my husband staring at me. He was giggling, sort of. "Be sure to look in the mirror," he said. And this is what I saw when I was done: me, covered in car dust and crud. A true grease monkey! Which is what we always called people who did their own car work. And we don't mean it in any kind of bad way.

I showed my husband this picture and he laughed like crazy. Then he said with a big grin, "You are a dirty, NASTY girl." Which I thought was hysterical, "nasty" being the new buzzword for "strong woman" in my country these days. (Oh, and take it from me: nasty women LOVE to vote! Actually, they do WHATEVER THE HECK THEY PLEASE!)

So I figured I just had to share this picture. Yeah, maybe someday I'll post a photo of myself looking glamorous. Or not. I actually do brush my hair once in a while, but apparently not on this day. So here's a picture of me looking . . . shall we say . . . informal.

And that's the true story of what I did on my third Freedom Friday, on a day when we had no particular place to go. The tune: Chuck Berry, No Particular Place to Go.