JZ, I have a '99 Prizm! They are good cars. I'll probably be driving mine for another 10 years.

We have a '97 Corolla, which as you note is pretty much the same thing. If it weren't for its 220K miles, I suspect it would chug along forever -- may yours go at least that far!

Yay new car! Even if it is old.

Our big accomplishment for the day, building a compost bin

[link]

we are tired. Matt is napping.

and that amount of homework is stupid. and some of the assignments are worse.

Yay for the compost bin! That looks fabulous. D. & I still need to figure out what we're going to do for compost. I'd like to do a bin like yours but I don't know if I'm good enough at maintenance and I think our winds and dry temperatures will be a problem. So I think we'll end up buying one of those fancy schmancy continuous tumblers, but it will take quite a while to save up for it. And there's stuff ahead of it in the want queue. But I do want to get there.

And yay for new to you car! We're in the market, too, but we're hoping we can squeeze out another half year in our current one to give us time to scrounge up the jack.

And yay for new to you car! We're in the market, too, but we're hoping we can squeeze out another half year in our current one to give us time to scrounge up the jack.

For the last month I've been white knuckling it across the Bay Bridge with a car with a fucked up fuel pump that's leaking coolant, overheats readily and stalls when it's idling at a stop.

So those exciting days when I get to deal with bumper-to-bumper traffic in the rain at night on the Bay Bridge (which doesn't have a breakdown lane) have taken their toll on my blood pressure.

Glad to have a sturdy little faux Toyota.

I was reading the backlog of Natter earlier, and I had to go out in the rain for applesauce and sour cream because I was determined to make latkes for dinner. They were delicious. Which is good, because I'll be eating the rest for breakfast and lunch.

Which is good, because I'll be eating the rest for breakfast and lunch.

I'll trade you some prime rib for latkes. The prime rib is delicious but eating red meat every day is deleterious to me.

I'll trade you some prime rib for latkes.

I'd push them through the interpipes if I could. I'm planning on making tilapia for dinner tomorrow just for a brief potato break.

For the last month I've been white knuckling it across the Bay Bridge with a car with a fucked up fuel pump that's leaking coolant, overheats readily and stalls when it's idling at a stop.

Ayup. We replaced our fuel pump (and fuel filter and plugs & points and distributor cap and O2 sensors and catalytic converters) but it still stalls when it's idling at a stop. However a) I'm not driving across the Bay Bridge, so it's a lot less stressful when I stall out and have to start it back in neutral in the middle of the desert with no traffic within eight miles of me, and b) it doesn't do it as much with premium gas and at lower elevation. So we're going to try to live with it until we can work something else out.

I'd push them through the interpipes if I could.

For the food exchange I think we need more of a really, really big and complex lazy susan.