In some ways I feel lucky, but... could also use a break.

Sounds like! Jeesh.

could also use a break.

Excluding the thumbs.

Ironically, I'm toying with the idea of buying a car. We would only use it a few times a year, but OTOH it costs $1000 just to rent a car for our trip to Canada every summer, so a $3-5000 used car would pay for itself pretty fast even if that was the only time we used it. (And it wouldn't be - having a car would make it infinitely easier to visit D's grandparents in DC for weekend trips, plus local stuff like the Bronx Zoo and Costco.)

Of course I have no idea how much car insurance etc costs in Brooklyn. My impression from neighbors with cars is "a lot."

Radoslaw Sikorski (the Foreign Minister) is married to Slate/Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum.

I sometimes get invited to parties at the Polish Embassy because I taught in Krakow. There are a couple professors over there now, and they don't know what the university there will do.

The tragedy for Poland is horrible. I was shocked when I read the headline, like, surely I read this wrong. Terrible, for their families and the whole country.

Things that disturb my calm: when I read the phrase "died of a pulmonary embolism" and I think, I had that! and then I freak out a little. I'm sure in some parallel universe, I talked myself out of calling 911 because "my chest felt funny" and died. Gives me the willies.

Jessica, I had wondered but didn't want to ask/pry. I can't believe they just let it sit there! I'm glad you got it and I hope it recovers.

So, immediately upon our car distaster (which involved a horrible noise) the children started planning what new car we should get. Casper wants a Mustang. Dillo wants a Ferrari.

I'd LOVE to get a Prius - all our driving is in-town stop and go - but mr. flea doesn't really fit in the 2009-earlier models. He does fit in the 2010, but we can't afford one.

Has anybody looked at the Ford Fusion hybrid? (Our current, probably dead car is a 2000 Ford Focus, which if it needs a new engine is probably not worth it to repair for us. And we said never a Ford again after this car, but mr. flea seems to like the Fusion.)

I sat in a 2009 Ford Fusion hybrid at a car show here last Spring and liked it a lot, but I haven't driven one yet, sorry, nor talked with someone who has.

My uncle's Ford Escape hybrid made a good impression on our trip to Yellowstone two summers ago.

msbelle, your place looks huge! I'm sure it's the lenses and the decluttering and the paint.

I was reading that Lech Walesa and another Polish official were calling the area cursed. Since it's now the location of two huge tragedies for Poles.

I got almost no sleep last night, between my damn cats and the wind rattling my windows. I just tried to nap, but nada.

I'm making dinner and need to get my apartment together for a friend to come over tonight. Too bad I planned the menu when it was hot out, so it's all cold food, and now it's 50 degrees, but oh well.