Welcome Sander!

Yesterday, Jojo and I welcomed the newest member of our family. Since we don’t have kids and neither one of us has pets, our family has grown to include our cars!

After almost 4 years of companionship, Jojo and Silver, his loyal 2001 CRV, parted ways. It was a sad moment for us since Silver served us very well these last few years. She was with us on several out-of-town trips (Las Vegas, San Diego, Sta. Barbara) and made the countless treks to the airport to pick up all our guests. She has carried more than her fair share of balikbayan boxes and has brought to us more than our fair share of pasalubong! Silver was our first 4-door car here in the States. She and Rave (my car) have been our link to the rest of the L.A. world, since without them we would probably not survive.

Silver was the car I was driving when I got my first and only (knock wood!) ticket for doing a California “rolling” stop at a stop sign. (It was 8 am on a Sunday morning and the road was deserted and I still could not talk my way out of that ticket!) She was the car that blew out a rear tire on the 110 freeway on a day when the temperature was a scorching 100-degrees. But despite those memories, I have no ill-feelings towards Silver and truth be told, we will miss her.

Yesterday, we spent a good part of the day in the car lot picking just the right car. We knew we wanted something dependable and with enough space for our many guests. We were leaning towards a CRV since a Pilot was too big and a Civic was too small. There were several CRV’s in the lot – a shiny red one, a cool blue one, a dark grey one, and a gold colored one. I know there were many other features that diffrentiated the CRVs from each other. But since I'm mechanically-challenged, I refer to them by colors only. Anyway, in the end, it really was the color that helped us make up our minds. After negotiating with the dealer and filling up all the necessary paperwork – Jojo and I were the proud owners of a 2006 Gold Colored (actually Desert Sand) CRV!

The cincher was the fact that a few months ago, Jojo consulted a feng shui guide that stated my lucky car color was white (which worked out fine since I was already driving a white car). Jojo’s lucky car color was gold – which was not so great cause he had Silver. So at the back of his mind, Jojo was really looking for a gold car. While our top criteria was the car’s make, model, mileage per gallon of gas, safety, roominess, and dependability, it was a real bonus that it came in gold too!

It was a bit sad to drive away and see our old car sitting in the lot amidst all the newer models. We can only hope that her new owner will be a little old lady who needs a dependable car to drive her once a week to church.

And so, yes, we got another CRV. I know it does not speak well of our originality. After all, my first car was a 1997 2-door Rav-4, and when I traded her in I got a 4-door 2004 Rav-4. Jojo did the same thing and traded Silver for a Desert Sand CRV that we have now christened, “Sander” (get it SAND-er?). What did I tell you about our complete lack of originality!? But what we lack in originality, we make up for in loyalty. :)

And so today is the beginning of a hopefully long relationship with Sander, which began with a trip to Sunday mass. We look forward to many more safe trips with her in the future!