Man, David. Freaking cars.

I am conducting an experiment in rice pudding -- baked sweet lemon risotto (from the Donna Hay cookbook). I'm a little afraid there is overflowing going on in the oven right now but I'm scared to look. I did put a cookie sheet under the baking dish just in case.

Sorry for the car mess, Hec. I have a '73 Mercury you could have, but the cost of getting it out to SF might not make that practical. Plus, it's a '73 Mercury.

Thanks, all. I've had a very reasonably priced and tasty Irish coffee and roamed around "The Streets of Bakersfield."

There's lots of cool stuff like The Majestic Fox Theater which is about a block away. Nothing playing there on Easter Sunday, however. Lots of pawnshops, tattoo shops, guitar shops, bars which specifically preclude gangsta clothing (plain white t-shirts, low slung pants, bandannas, facial tats), and a Woolworth/antique store with a lunch counter.

I'd enjoy it more if I didn't have a mostly-dead car on my hands.

Sorry for the car mess, Hec. I have a '73 Mercury you could have, but the cost of getting it out to SF might not make that practical. Plus, it's a '73 Mercury.

Thanks, tommyrot. What else could make white smoke come out of the tailpipe besides a head gasket? The engine was running very rough too, and then conked out when I pulled off the freeway. I can start it up, but the engine's obviously fucked up somehow.

Hope you get a break soon, Hec. I'm pulling for you! right now I'm writing fanfic and watching a documentary about Don Cornelius. Not sexy, but good enough for not being "The hippest trip, "etc.

Thanks, tommyrot. What else could make white smoke come out of the tailpipe besides a head gasket?

I can't think of anything else that would do that. (But I'll ask my boss tomorrow.) When a head gasket fails, coolant can get into the engine cylinders, causing the white smoke. Other engine maladies generally produce other colors of smoke.

You might want to check the oil - if it's milky-white, it could mean coolant's getting into the engine oil, which is another symptom of a blown head gasket. Also check the radiator level if you need to drive it more in this condition. (You may also see oil floating on top of the radiator fluid.)

Also, I did a little googling - a cracked head can produce the white smoke (for the same reason - coolant getting into the cylinder(s)), and is even worse than a blown head gasket.

Hec, what kind of car is it? Perhaps you could price used engines to see if that would be worth it (as opposed to junking the car or having the gasket replaced).

Good lord, David. Maybe a new crappy car would be less trouble, at this point.

I had a lovely day. Church was great, nice dinner with some family (parents, grandmother, cousin and her 2 year old), and the weather could not be more gorgeous. But man, now I'm exhausted.

Yeah, I'm thinking newer crappy car might be a better bet than fixing what you've got.

And we're having our first thunderstorm.

Weird. It's been cloudy most of the afternoon and kind of coolish.

Hec, what an unbelievable pain in the ass.

msbelle, those tiles are awesome.

Roomie and I just got back from my parents. Great food and a lovely time. You'd never know that my mother is worried I'm not living a good life and am missing a spiritual rudder. Ah, the shit I hear from my sister.

Also exhausted. Nap now.

Hec, what kind of car is it?

98 Geo Prizm.

If the car's totally FUBAR I get the bonus of an 8 hour bus ride to SF.

It's just...we've already spent $1,250 we couldn't afford (at all) on this car in the last month: $1,000 to get the boot off, and $250 for the window. We only paid about $3,000 for the car in the first place.

But I've got to have a car to get Emmett back and forth. This is forcing our hand to look at pulling Matilda out of preschool and having me stay home with her to save the money. ($1,100/month)

But then I can't really job hunt because there's no place to put Matilda if I do get a job. She'd lose her spot at the preschool quickly (two year waitlist).

But she'll have another opening at a different preschool come September. And that place is cheaper. So might could just do it until then.

Aww, fuck. I'm feeling so failure-ish on the provider front.

Weirdly, I've been working really hard this month: wrote liner notes for a couple hundred, wrote several HiLo pieces and my next will be my 10th and I'll get a check. Unbooting the car, getting it fixed, baseball with Emmett, putting in about 30 hours of work on the iSearch, driving 6 hours on 3 1/2 hours sleep to do the bus tour and make some money. Did some job hunting in there and got a hit on my resume - that didn't pay off but, pushing on that front.

So a lot of scraping to little avail.

I'd much rather have a 9 to 5 to show up for with a cup of coffee in my hand then be in nonstop hustle mode.