Car Free in Raleigh

Many books on living without a car reach for the “compromise” of a “car-lite” lifestyle; use your car as little as possible, but keep it.

There are a few reasons why I don’t think that’s the ideal situation.

1. It’s darned near impossible to be disciplined enough to do it. (See anecdotal story below.)
2. You maintain many of the expenses of car ownership while taking on the additional expenses of other forms of transportation. Compared a car payment, a bus pass is cheap. In addition? Not so much.
3. You don’t get to experience much of the truly simplified life, because there are always justifiable reasons to use the car when it is sitting in your driveway. You will go shopping when you wouldn’t otherwise. You will run errands that could wait. Etc.

Anecdotal story

Once in a while, Mark’s father encourages him to take the extra work truck home. (Usually when they’ve been working late or when he needs to meet Mark at the job site the following day, rather than at his home.)

When this happens, we have a truck sitting in our driveway. It’s amazing how much less creative we are when driving is an option. We miss the bus… then justify driving rather than waiting an hour for the next one. We drive to the grocery store that’s further away, rather than take the bus. And then buy more stuff, because it’s easier to haul home.

But surprisingly, we also feel unsettled about driving. We are more aware of how much time we spend stuck in holiday traffic. We feel antsy, eager to be on foot or in the roomy confines of a bus. And when we get home, we don’t usually opt to drive anywhere else for a long time.

(Disclaimer: This is a rough calculation. I haven’t kept records; this is just what we can remember. These numbers are our calculations of the cost of owning a 2000 Ford Focus sedan for 7.5 years. They do not include the cost of my 1990 Nissan Sentra, which I owned for a year or two before we married, or the old, faithful 1990 Ford Ranger pickup that Mark drove for three years before it was stolen.)

Malachy and Seamus have a few suggestions for you.

Tonight, I had the urge to make my Incredibly Good Brownies™. Unfortunately, I created the recipe long before we had a toddler with food allergies. I’ve yet to create a Malachy-safe version.

So, tonight looked like it would be the night. I melted the “futter” (fake butter - Earth Balance brand). I mixed in the cocoa powder and double-strength coffee. I stirred in the soy flour (it’s a little known egg substitute for baking: 1 Tbsp + 1 Tbsp water = 1 egg). I spritzed in the cinnamon. I drooled.

Then, I opened the sugar canister. Half a cup, at best. I looked for our ever-present unopened bag of sugar. Curses. Foiled again. Clearly, someone had neglected to make the appropriate mental note when he or she opened the last bag of sugar and dumped it into the canister.

I grumbled and puzzled it over for a bit. Mark offered to walk to Food Lion and pick up some. But at 7:00, a naked toddler was streaking through the halls and I had no desire to tackle and diaper him (and then wrestle him into jammies) while Mark made his late night run.

I poked around the cupboards a bit and unearthed some maple syrup, corn syrup, honey, and brown sugar. I added a bit of this and a bit of that. I added the rest of the ingredients. I adjusted the sweeteners some more, feeling just a tad smug as I mused over how easy it was to run out to the grocery store when you had a car.

I tasted the batter. Yuck.

Then I threw the rest away, rationalizing that I’d actually saved myself a little time and money, because everyone knows that the first ten or so attempts to “vegan-ize” any favorite recipe are always a disaster anyway.

(At least I didn’t have to scrape the baked “brownies” into the trash can and clean that pan, too.)

As we walked back from a nearby store (1.5 miles away) a few days ago, Mark and I talked about the stranger parts of The Typical American Lifestyle.When we owned a car, I frequently did paradoxical things like driving 2 - 3 miles to walk at a local greenway…. for exercise. Or driving 1 mile to the grocery store to buy a bagful of healthy snacks, in the hopes of losing a pound or two… and then driving home.

Or complaining about a lack of free time… while sitting in our car, stuck in traffic, on the way home from another trip to Walmart for one or two little things (which inevitably included a couple more impulse purchases).

Or grumbling about the high cost of gas… then leaving the car idling while we waited in a fast food drive-through lane for yet another last minute dinner.

Or driving across town to go to a playgroup or library storytime… then looking out our glass storm door at the neighborhood children walking home from school and wondering if any have toddler siblings.

Does anyone know a place in downtown Raleigh where I can get vegan “parmesan” sprinkles? I asked Capitol City Grocery to carry them, so we’ll see if anything comes of it. In the meantime, anywhere closer than Wade Ave Whole Foods?

(We’re not vegan, but my toddler is allergic to milk and eggs, so we use some vegan products).

How about one of these Wilton long aluminum bread loaf pans? I need something for making sandwich bread, and my loaf pans are all more of a “banana bread” size.

(Yes, I know that I could order it online. I want it now. )

Lastly, any idea where the Raleigh Rickshaws are all hiding? I’d love to go for a test ride.

(Mark came up with the idea.)

And for you who wish you could be car-free, here’s a license plate frame.

(You can buy either here. Not to mention lots of other weird stuff, which may or may not fit your lifestyle.)

So, we had planned to head out to Lowe’s this morning to get a heater. But when we woke up, it somehow registered that today is one of the few of what we Catholics know as “Holy Days of Obligation” (read: “Get your heiny in church or else!” days).

(The Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, in case you’re curious.)

So, this threw a bit of a monkey wrench into our best-laid plans; we now had to get to mass at the Cathedral at 9:00 am or 10:30 am. (We missed the vigil mass held Friday night.)

We hurried to get our stuff together to hop on the 9:18 bus (#3).

But then, after running (with the jogging stroller) all the way to the nearby stop, we realized it was long gone. Mark wanted to walk to the Cathedral (2 miles). I, being quite winded from the impromptu morning run, was not so eager. I voted for waiting for the next bus (minimum wait time: 45 minutes).

Heated words were exchanged, and finally we compromised on walking from one bus stop to the next until we caught the next bus.

We entered the Cathedral just as the Alleluias were being sung. Phew.

(According to Canon Law or folklore, and no one is really sure which, you have fulfilled your Sunday or Holy Day obligation if you make it to mass before the Gospel readings begin. The Gospels are preceded by the sung Alleluia.)

Malachy was pleasantly sleepy throughout and did not require his customary series of entrances and quick-exits from the mass. It was a lovely mass, complete with my favorite Marian hymn, Hail Holy Queen (Salve Regina).

Afterward, we stopped for a couple chili dogs at Roast Grill, where chili-onion-mustard dogs are $2 and Coke in glass bottles is $1.

The website has every bit as much character as the shop, where you can’t get ketchup or fries, but you can get a hot dog with your choice of chili, onion, mustard, and/or coleslaw. And baklava. (I swear, I’m not making this up.)

Here’s a stolen picture of the inside:

As you can see, it’s a true “hole in the wall” treasure.

Then we headed down to Capitol City Grocery, where I was pleased to find organic foods and an Ace Hardware across the street.

We canceled our plans to trek to Lowe’s - quite a relief. It’s much more fun to shop at small, downtown, local shops than to haul your toddler from the bus stop across the mega-lot at a strip mall.

Today, we packed up our Radio Flyer wagon and headed down to Food Lion to get some groceries.

My first mistake was choosing this trip as the time to shop for a month, rather than a week. Yes, theoretically, it is cheaper. But seriously, do you know how much food it takes to eat for a month?

Ok, apparently neither did I. Clearly, this car-free thing is going to require some more lifestyle changes.

My second mistake was not bringing the stroller. Yes, Malachy rode in the wagon on the way there. I neglected to think about where he would ride on the way home. On top of the potatoes? Nestled between the chicken drumsticks?

Anyway, we managed to haul everything home. (Except the Christmas ham, which, duh, could totally be bought… like… sometime closer to Christmas.) And I carried Malachy, much to his disappointment.

Other than the long trip home, it was a pretty fun adventure. I also realized that Food Lion is close enough to walk to one or more times per week, and that it’s a much shorter walk when you’re not lugging home half a grocery store. Note to self.

So a week or so ago, our heater stopped working. We bought a space heater, called a repairman, and were given an estimate of $380 to fix it.

We called around, found another repairman, and he met us at our place today. Well, apparently Repair Man #1 did not look inside the unit, because when Repair Man #2 did, we all clearly saw that it was a mess inside. Corroded, dilapidated, and if just the broken part was replaced, would leak carbon monoxide into the house. Being that it’s already over a decade old, it needs to be replaced entirely.

Which will cost $5,000. Which we are not prepared to spend this month, and don’t particularly want to finance.

So tomorrow morning, we will trek up to Lowe’s (via bus route 1) and buy two larger space heaters. We plan to give that a try for a day or two, and see if it heats the place sufficiently. For $100 and a higher electric bill, it may just do the trick and get us through this winter. It’s hard to justify dropping five grand on a new heating unit when you live in a place that winter lasts three months.

(It’s been 55 degrees inside the house… and outside the house, for that matter… for the last week. The tiny space heater works fine to keep our bedroom toasty at night, but it’s no match for the whole house. Consequently, I have been baking many, many muffins. If I could just figure out how to re-route the dryer vent into the house, we’d have plenty of heat, considering the number of cloth diapers we wash and dry each week!)