Bachelorhood Continues

 So in a few hours, the partial solar eclipse will darken Miami skies. I'll probably forget to even go outside -- these things underwhelm me. The last one, in 2017, I did go outside my office on Brickell, and noted the cool sunlight sparkles on the sidewalk. I went to Trulucks to celebrate the fact that the sun did, in fact, reappear.

Two friends traveled to see it: Kenny and Mike. Mike went to Texas with Loni and Chris -- hopefully there isn't cloud cover, and their trek will not have been in vain. Kenny is in Ohio, visiting his oldest Adam, and hoping to see the event, though he texted earlier that clouds seem to, as Joni Mitchell sang, get in the way.

I comforted both with the factoid I read: a total eclipse will come to Miami -- Northwest to Southeast -- and Miami is in its totality path. It's due in 2045, so as long as we live to 83, we get to see it without travel.

Meanwhile, we may be doing some car business again. Wifey's SUV returned from the body shop looking great, and it only has 34K on it, but it IS 8 years old, and Wifey had been complaining of little things going wrong -- like sometimes the passenger lock doesn't open. Still, the used car market remains strong, and her car has some value.

D1 has the same model SUV, but 2 years old, with only 12K miles on it, and she is annoyed at the high monthly cost, given how little she drives it.

Enter my consuegro Ricardo, the car whisperer. He found a great deal on a Tesla SUV, and yesterday D1 drove it and loved it. She also loves not having to get gas for her vehicle.

Ricardo found that the lease buyout price is well under market price, so I asked if it made sense for me to buy that vehicle, give it to Wifey, and then sell the older one. Ricardo said it made a LOT of sense -- it would be a waste to give a windfall to Lexus Financial if we had use for the car.

So he is about his work, and hopefully Lexus will let me buy the car directly, instead of D1. Otherwise, D1 will buy it, and then gift the car to us, thus avoiding a ridiculous double sales tax event.

Ricardo knows this stuff very well. Last year, he found my man sized Caddy SUV for MUCH less than I saw anywhere, and got me a LOT for my girlie Lexus sedan. I thanked him with a Palm certificate, as he refused to charge for his services.

Ah, to be Wifey. She damages a car, and ends up with a newer, better one, where everyone does all the work associated with it. In my next life...

But this am I got some real good news. We had our first inside leak, in the room above the garage. I have done several repairs, but always for rotted wood on the eaves. I figured this inside one may be a sign that a new roof is needed, and I already know that will cost about $120K for a metal one -- same price as clay tiles these days.

Young Kevin came, and surveyed the ceiling stains. He explained that given their location, they were from a backup in the drain under the roof -- the paper was still fine. So it will be a $2K repair, and he thinks I have another 5 years or so before I need the new roof. I asked if he could guarantee I would last another 5 years.

He could not, but admired my Orange Bowl memorabilia -- he had never visited, and didn't realize it was located where Marlins Park now is. Ah, children.

So -- here's to good, newer cars. If I get this done before Thursday, I wonder whether Wifey will notice the silver SUV parked outside instead of the gray one...