My Brother-in-Law now thinks I have extremely weird tastes in music.

First of all, I feel like I need to apologize for yesterday’s post.  I was venting, and, even with more than 12 hours, and a good nights sleep between the party and all the noise and confusion and chaos, I was still quite tense about the whole thing.  Like I said yesterday, nothing good ever comes from acting in anger.

Now that I’ve got that out of the way, I can move on…

I’m going to give the oddest piece of automotive advice that you’ll probably ever get:  If you have the chance to buy a 1997 Geo Prizm, do so.  My car is 13 years old, I’ve been driving it for 10, (minus the time I was on my mission; Dad didn’t want to give it back after that) and I have never had any major problems with it.  Yes, it needs a new paint job, and the plastic bits in the cab tend to fall off at inopportune moments, and filling the gas tank involves the use of an old dog leash–but on the whole, it’s a great little car.

When I open the hood, the parts that have brand names on them all say Toyota.  Problems with gas pedals aside, my car has convinced me that my next car should be a Toyota.

I bring this up because of the drama yesterday. For a family that claims to eschew drama (ooohhh, WordPress isn’t going to like that I used the word eschew–but I managed to spell it right on the first try!) we sure have a lot of it.

Sis and the Bro-in-Law were headed home from the party, and, about thirty miles outside of town–coincidentally right at the turn off to Uncle Ornery’s farm, the new-t0-them car died.  Dad and I went on a rescue mission–fortunately, Sis knew the farm well enough to take the hyperactive three-year-old on a walk to meet the cows.  (She reports that G was quite funny with this–“Is that poo?” “No.” “Can I step on it?” “Yes” “Is that poo?” “Yes” “Can I step on it?” “No” Finally, she pointed out that some poo was dry enough to step on.  This is the first thing that G told me about when I came to the rescue.)

Their car had a leaky oil pan that was fixed over the weekend, and hopefully the problems are just because the mechanics over-filled the oil.  And yes, I know what that sentience means as long as their are no follow-up questions.

Sis and the boys decided to stay at my parents house until the car gets fixed, but the Bro-in-Law had to go to work today, so I was voted official taxi driver.  I took him home, then flipped around and drove the 45 miles back to my house.

Between my parent’s house and Nephi, you can consistently get five radio stations.  Three of them are country, one is easy listening/old people music, and the other one is top 40 and historical pop 40.  None of which I like.  So, unthinking, I did what I ususally do on the way home from my parent’s house, and turned on the MP3 function of my phone.

Yeah, my music is a lot weirder when someone else is listening to it too.

In the Bro-in-Law’s defense, he didn’t complain through the cycling Mika, Indigo Girls, Vampire Weekend, Michael Jackson, the Ting-Tings, Iseley Brothers, etc.  And that’s not even getting into stuff like Kings of Convenience and Colin Hay that I don’t like to listen to when I drive…

If you knew who all those people/bands are without looking them up then good for you.

There’s a part of me that’s saying that by singing the praises of my car, that I’m sure to start having problems with it.  Superstitions had to get started somehow…

Computers and Cars

You just can’t get rid of me, can you?

A word of advice to all my single readers out there.  Or maybe my readers with single siblings would be more apt.   Marry (or encourage your siblings to marry) someone who works in the IT/computer engineering field.  As soon as my sister got home yesterday, she suggested to my bro-in-law that he build me a new computer.  She’s called a couple of times this morning to give me updates on it.  I asked if the B-I-L was having fun, or if she was having to crack the whip.  She assured me that he was having fun–he wouldn’t be spending his day off working on a computer for me if he didn’t enjoy it.  AND, it’s making my sister happy because it’s getting rid of  some of the random computer parts that are cluttering up her storage room (that’s why I’m encouraging siblings to marry computer geeks–you get all of the benefit, and none of the clutter!)

So, yes, my family is amazing.  I honestly don’t know what I did to get so lucky.

Maybe it was timing.

So, my parents bought a new car yesterday.  It is gorgeous!

In an effort to keep their yard from being cluttered with cars in various stages of workability, Mom suggested that Sis and the B-I-L buy the car that they were replacing.  It might have come back to bite her, though, because as part of the sale, Sis and B-I-L traded the car they were driving back to my dad. This had the added benefit of confusing the heck out of G.  Sis kept talking about her new car, and G kept insisting “That’s Papa’s car!”  I can’t wait to see what happens next time he comes down and finds the car his parents have been driving his whole life in Mom and Dad’s driveway.

So, to recap, Mom gets a brand new car, Dad gets a new to him car, and Sis and her family get a new to them car.  I get a broken computer.

I’m really not all that jealous.  Any car I could afford right now would be in worse shape then the one that I’m driving.

Um, obviously, I’m somewhere with access to a computer.  I’m still at my parents house.  Last night was as bad as I thought it was going to be, (I spent all day depressed about my broken computer, AND spending time with the kids) and I didn’t want to be alone.

That’s a good thing, right?  Normally, or historically, perhaps, when I’ve gotten really depressed, I retreat into a shell, and don’t want anything to do with anything.  It has to  be a good sign that when I knew I was going to be depressed, I sought out the company of others.

Beer tastes on a tapwater budget

My sister is in a position where her family is going to by a new(er) car in the next few months, one that will better fit her growing family then the Dodge Neon she and her husband bought when they were in college.  Sis and I have had fun wandering through virtual car-lots together, looking for vehicles that meet her requirements, regardless of price.

The last time we were together and both had our laptops, I decided that I couldn’t let her have all the fun, so I started looking at cars for me.  I drive a 14-year-old Geo, and would like a new car, but, my car runs fine and still gets 30+ miles to the gallon, so I have no real need to replace it.  That is, even if I had the funds to spend on a new car, which I most definitely do not.

So, off to carmax.com to see what I can find.  What kind of car would I like?  A sporty 2-door coupe would be nice.  So would a convertible. I like driving a manual transmission.  Leather seats? Why not?  And so on and so forth.

I came up with a list of absolutely gorgeous cars, ones that would turn my head if I saw them driving down the freeway, with names like Porsche and Lexus and BMW.  The thing is, though, I started picturing the kind of person, especially a woman in her late 20’s, who would drive cars like that, and it definitely wasn’t me.  Not only am I not that kind of woman, I have no desire to be that kind of woman.

So, off to look at cars that were more my style.  You know, the ones made by Volkswagen and Toyota.  Again, nice cars, but…eh, kinda boring.

Then, I thought, I want something that I can take out exploring.  You know, a Jeep!

Finally, I found the cars that I could get excited about.  A car that I could fall in love with.  Specifically, this car:

So, if either of my readers have an extra $15,000 lying around, and want to do something extra nice with it…

For those of you keeping track at home, if I had all the money in the world to buy a car, I’d turn down the $67,000 Porsche 911 in favor of a $15,000 Jeep Wrangler.  Although, granted, if I had all the money in the world to buy a car, I’d probably be looking at them new, rather than used.