3/14/25 - $85.
Steve moments after the conversation below.
I couldn’t read the look on his face. “Is it good or bad?”
Steve walked out of our cabin and said “A woman named Diane answered. I said “my name is Steve and I’m calling about a super obscure part for a Perkins MT80. There are set of timing pins for—”
Diane: “$85.”
Steve: “What?”
Diane: (matter-of-fact) “The set of three timing pins. Perkins doesn’t make them anymore, so we manufacture them in house. They are $85. What’s the address and will UPS work for you?”
I’m sorry, what?
What?
Confusion. Elation. Anger. Astonishment. Shock. WasThisAMiracle?-ment. On the outside, it looked like I was feeling nothing. As if all of my emotions were pushing me in completely different directions and perfectly cancelled each other out.
Text chain between Steve and I an hour after his initial conversation with Diane.
Eighty-five dollars. I said it over and over yesterday. It reminded me of the scene in “The Rock” when Nicholas Cage’s character kept repeating the line “I’d take pleasure in guttin’ you, boy” in different ways. A mantra. “What are we having for dinner? $85. What should we do today? $85. Why did the chicken cross the road? $85.”
How did this happen? It felt a Hail Mary pass at the end of the 4th quarter. Our friends, Claire and Jon, had “a guy.” Truthfully, they sent the contact info for this guy three weeks ago. But, I didn’t realize that their guy worked on Perkins engines—I just thought they had a local engine mechanic. *Oh my friends, a trite facepalm emoji wouldn’t begin to cover it.*
Claire and Jon, thank you for being persistent! We awoke yesterday morning to a text from their engine mechanic’s wife, Hannah, who emailed me a link to a company in Virginia. And then Steve called and spoke with Diane. And now you’re caught up. Andrew, our new engine fixing guy (I think he wears a flowing red cape….???), is planning to come and get Layla ready on March 24th.
****
Does mean that all is well and nothing else will go wrong? Ha. Does it mean that we are no longer considering re-powering? No.
Again, so many lessons to be learned from this: Keep an open mind. Darkest hour is just before dawn. <Insert other cliche lessons here.>
Here’s what I know for sure: We need to refresh. And we are going to do that. We spent yesterday packing for a still-to-be-determined short-term journey. We will continue to coddiwomple along.
Steve found this on Facebook back in November. It hangs in our saloon. That said, I think we might be pushing the boundaries of this. We’re the coddiwomplingest-coddiwomplers I know these days!
Thanks for all of the prayers and good wishes. This crazy blog has connected and reconnected us with so many people. *chuckle* I think that if all had gone smoothly and we were simply posting screensaver-like photos this whole time, those re-connections may not have been as deep and meaningful. So……we remain…
….grateful. Lots of love and obnoxiously-big, friendly hugs to all of you. Here’s our gorgeous sunset from yesterday (biting no-see-ums, endless dishes, and never-dry-always-damp-clothes-sheets-and-everything-else-you-own not included). Special shout-out to the glorious person who invented my beloved dash punctuation mark.
There is beauty even in this super industrial boatyard on the ICW. If you listen hard, you can hear the ocean less than half a mile away.
Mother, Mother Ocean, I have heard you call.” -Jimmy Buffett