Dorothy Marley's Journal

So. My husband has been looking for a car. His old car still runs pretty well, except for the thing where it has to be parked correctly or it won't start, and the thing where it doesn't go into gear and won't start, and the thing were it slips mysteriously into gear if you leave it running, and the thing where the driver's door doesn't close all the way and wind and rain tend to blow onto the driver. You know, small stuff.

His dream car is a Chevy Aveo hatchback, one of the reasons for the word "subcompact" to be coined. He wants a manual transmission, manual locks, manual windows, low mileage, and, oh yeah, air conditioning. (The last thing is important.) He also wants all this for as close to under $10K as can be managed, which is actually pretty darn close.

( How we almost bought a car )

We discontinued the cable. It's probably a sign of the apocalypse.

I did it, though, because I hadn't watched anything for weeks. Not even the History Channel. The only thing I used the cable for was the weather, so we replaced our $50/month cable bill with the one-time purchase of a weather radio and an outside thermometer.

I don't actually miss it yet, but I miss what it represents. I mean, there goes my last pretense to being an up-to-date media fan. :) I haven't seen more than a handful of episodes of any show for probably a year, and I don't seem to be eager to change that. I do get frustrated because I don't know what's going on, but every time I think, "I need to start taping and watching show X again," I realize how much effort that would be.

On the other hand, maybe with the extra $50 a month we can afford to buy the seasons as they come out of DVD.

In other money-saving news, I replaced the broken defroster and heater vents on my car with a $20 ceramic heater that plugs into the cigarette lighter. It's very spiffy, and it was nice having a fog-free windshield that didn't necessitate me continually rubbing with my sleeve or driving in cold rain with the window down. Much cheaper than $1200.