Why can't IQ and character tests be administered upon prospective dog owners and homeowners?

Every night I hear the neighbor's dog outside barking for more than twenty minutes at a stretch because it's neglected and left alone without people I pray that our local home values by 15% go down in 2009. The neighbor is already underwater on his mortgage. I feel like a dork for borrowing for half of the kitchen costs but at least I have over 50% equity...

Podcasts 2008

I am in some ways a Luddite and have most recently learned of Podcasts. At the risk of self-disclosure:

CBC Radio 3 SuperFeed
CITR Misery Hour
CITR Sweet and Hot
NPR The Color of Money
Kiplinger's Money
Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips
Nutrition Diva's Quick and Dirty Tips
Money Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips
WFMU's Antique Phonograph Music Program

Ah me, another book list

I secretly thrill to book recommendations. In my city of frosty passive-aggression, I have found books to be effective at bridging connections between people.

On my list now from the past two weeks:
The Master and Margarita -- M. Bulgakov
I Was Told There'd Be Cake -- Sloane Crosley (cautioned, may get a library copy)
The Tummy Trilogy -- Calvin Trillin
No Logo -- Naomi Klein
The Shock Doctrine -- Naomi Klein
The Lesser Evil: Politics and Ethics in an Age of Terror -- Michael Ignatieff
Dry -- Augusten Burroughs

Another book list: Black fiction for White people

I read on a local periodical's blog a post by its Books Editor noting the segregation of African-American fiction in bookstores and audiences. Most of my friends have read Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God and we have a Chester Himes book at home, but now's as good a time as any to cross segregational lines. As one panelist put it at a Book Expo: "Books are the freest media we have—it's the only media where we're not advertising drivel."

Chester Himes
Edward P. Jones
Donald Goines
Nathan C. Heard
James Baldwin
Walter Mosley
Richard Wright
Colson Whitehead

Alice Walker
Zadie Smith
Zora Neale Hurston
Octavia Butler

RIP Tanta of Calculated Risk

Doris Dungey, 47, Financial Blogger succumbs to ovarian cancer

I enjoyed her sassy and informative posts, even though I could understand maybe 40% of what she wrote (some posts were very thick with economic and financial terminology), and didn't quite understand her tendency to pick on Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times and Catherine Austin Fitts of Solari.

A posthumous thanks, Ms. Dungey, for opening my eyes and mind to the financial world behind the front offices of mortgage lenders.

Surprising how few recreational readers there are

My son's classroom window has "what I've read" lists by several of his classmates. Two girls have at least two pages of book lists. I didn't see a list for my son and wondered about that: he does like reading but usually I catch him reading comic strip anthologies, or Astroboy or Pokemon. So I was surprised when his teacher reported his reading capability was well beyond his grade level. Right now he's reading Treasure Island.

Where I live and work books are frequently discussed, and are the most common ice-breaking topic for the otherwise reticent citizens. When they discuss their favourites they usually mention classics, which I have yet to read for pleasure. At a dinner on Tuesday a fellow guest recommended Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita to me. When I used the online library catalogue, I found it had many positive reviews and holds. I take out at least 50 books for me, and 20 books for my son through the local library branches. You'd be surprised how many people here wait in line or take the bus with Dostoyevsky, or George Eliot, or even Charles Lamb.

Harris Interactive Poll: Over One-Third of Americans Read More Than Ten Books in Typical Year.

Maybe my long bus ride to work affords me much more reading time, coupled with the fact that books are still popular where I live (a local company that is now a major online reseller started out selling books). Most of my friends have personal reading libraries whose size and breadth put mine to shame.

This is disjointed, I know. I rarely write more than a few paragraphs. Maybe if I read more offline and less online...

Breast Cancer Awareness month

My letter back from the Breast Health Center says I'm clean! Woohoo! This year my child's friend's Mom is recovering from an aggressive cancer of the breast, and my son's former classmate's mother passed away from breast cancer in late August. Considering my mom and aunt died of cancer, I'm tickled PINK to be clean.

Keep taking the cholecalciferol, Northwest women! Keep eating organic! Keep exercising! Knock back that cod liver oil!

Nobel Prizes for Literature and Canada

Just once, by Canadian-by-birth Saul Bellow in 1976, did Canada have any connection with a Nobel Literature Prize winner.

What's wrong with our literature? Austria, Chile, Sweden can produce winners, why can't we? Nobel Prize for Literature winners, according to Wikipedia.

Does sending my kid to public school in Seattle make me a bad mom?

She: "We really want to buy a home next year."
I: "Buy mine."
She: "I want to send my child to a good school though. We've considered private school."

I have nothing against private schools -- it's true some children do better in them. It was the suggestion that my kid's school isn't good, or there aren't good private schools where I am. If she phrased it as:"my child is gifted and doing really well in her school, and we'd like to buy a house to stay within the neighbourhood" I'd be all for it. It's too early yet to tell how well my kid is doing academically -- he's in an advanced reader group, he's in a math group with his best friend, but he's nowhere near gifted. The truth is that the schools in my area are the best-performing schools in the city.

Mama bakes bread

Yes, this reads as a consumer testimonial, but I used King Arthur All-Purpose Unbleached Flour and its dry milk powder for extra rise action. The loaf rose very well indeed, maybe a little beyond what the recipe called for.

I have to say that the dough becomes less pliable with repeated rollings. I was trying to get it into a flat circle for loaf formation and it was most accommodating on the first try, although it was more rectangular.

I should dedicate one day to making multiple loaves. I compensated for my husband caving into our child's demands and buying factory-baked bread not on special: my rule for this year is no bread over $3.00/loaf.
Check out KAF recipes.

Soon to come: Mama makes apple pie for (Cdn) Thanksgiving.

Detoxing this week

I am fighting cravings for salt and dairy, and trying not to think about pizza and danishes, which I don't even eat much of. I am having fun with the juicer though: made a splendid concoction of carrots, cucumber and beet. This fast will help me get rid of the excess vegetables. I'm hoping it'll restore circulation to my extremities... the feet have been getting cold.

What I'm reading now: September 2008 edition

Lifehacker -- there's an actual softcover book I have on loan from the library. Blindingly obvious tips I never thought of before.

The Learners -- the second novel from Chip Kidd. Astonishingly good writing. Appeals to the Communications major within me. Check out the promo video. Safe for work, but use headphones.

Weird dream

I cooked up some plums with ginger, honey and cayenne and served myself with some creme fraiche last night. Then I grated and chopped some more ginger and mixed it in with sea salt and epsom salts for a detox bath.

The dream I had: "after the election, in which Americans chose a Republican government, I decided I would move to Canada. My spouse wanted to move to the Finger lakes, which I misinterpreted as the Great Lakes. 'Why do you want to move to Wisconsin? That's still the United States!' I said. We couldn't agree where we wanted to move to so we agreed to divorce."

I slept really well, though. I recommend an occasional detox bath: Run a hot bath, as hot as you can stand it, and pour/stir 1 cup sea salt with epsom salts with minced or grated pieces from a two-inch portion of ginger into the tub. scrub your body with a dry brush for about five minutes, using circular motions, toward the heart. Enter the tub and stay there for 30 minutes. Keep a large container of drinkable water tubside. You'll start sweating in 15-20 minutes. When your half hour is up, empty the tub, get out, vigorously rub your body to remove dead skin and improve circulation. Wrap yourself in a towel and head for bed. During the night your skin will eliminate toxins through the pores. Have a beautiful sleep.

The Key to Personality at Your Fingertips

Article

Very interesting! I'm going to check my child's fingers tonight. My index finger is shorter than my ring finger, but that's no surprise, considering what a closet math geek I am.

Focusing on the kitchen, and Osaka

The morning is not so good when my husband's first words to me are about Merrill Lynch. We don't have money with Merrill Lynch, but the implosions of Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, AIG and Merrill Lynch aren't helping my retirement any.
I was going to rebalance my holdings on or before 9/17 but with the Dow off 2.0% does it matter?

I signed a contract for my kitchen and chose appliances. Today I look at color schemes. I have a 1940s house, so am thinking of the following:

traditional black, white and red.
opaline, lavender, light green
white, celery/celadon/mint, lemon

white subway tile as backsplash and accents of red or bright yellow.

I have a small kitchen, facing south. Right now it is white and peacock/teal blue.
Color meanings I seek: fresh, light, healthful, calm.

My cabinets are light maple, which may be repainted white. I do kinda want "appetizing, saucy" colours, but then again I've been under stress lately, and prefer to be soothed.

Thank goodness the appliance retailer and my contractor are experienced and reliable!

Screech

I'm not talking Newfie Screech. More the screech of brakes, the screech of a woman having her Howard Beale "I'm mad as he!! and I'm not taking it anymore." I need to be flexible and patient, sure. I need to release my ego and let go and be with the flow, sure. But I have goals that I want/need to accomplish, and we're being kept too busy, too disorganized, too on-the-go.

It beats being unemployed, although I am now actively seeking work. I posted on Monster that I'd be okay with taking work in Metropolitan Toronto, the Capitol and Island region of British Columbia, and the Lower Mainland as well as my current environs. I need to declutter my house, communicate with people, network and make my intentions known. I just feel I am failing on so many levels right now--health, job satisfaction, relationship satisfaction, parenting, financial, selectively disengaging as well as failing to make the time for people I genuinely want to connect with right now...

Reading: Raw food and others

I am reading up on Raw Food.
Wikipedia entry on raw food
Three Hartford Courant journalists adopt a raw food diet for 30 days
So does Steve Pavlina

I can see some benefits: less prep time; less energy used; less meat; fewer preservatives, additives, toxins and chemicals. I'm interested in juicing too.

I would like to work toward a diet of 70% plant, 50% raw.
I am reading:
The Trillion Dollar Meltdown -- EAsy Money, High Rollers and the Great Credit Crash by Charles R. Morris.
Japanese Etiquette: an Introduction, by the World Fellowship Committee of the Tokyo Young Women's Christian Association
Ball Blue Book of Preserving (what I'll be doing all Labor Weekend, I guess -- preserving fruits for the winter)

Toni Tennille's Lentils Vinaigrette, recipes from Bragg

Toni Tennille is half of the musical duo "The Captain and Tennille." She posted this recipe on her blog.


LENTILS VINAIGRETTE
-
1 1/2 cups lentils
1 quart water
2 1/2 teaspoons salt
7 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 red onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
2 ribs of celery, chopped
1 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
1/4 pound (about 2 quarts) mixed salad greens
Ground pepper to taste
-
Put the lentils in a medium saucepan with the water and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, partially covered, until the lentils are tender...about 25 minutes. Drain and return to the pan. Add 1 tablespoon of the olive oil, 1 tablespoon of the vinegar, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Mix gently and set aside.
-
After the lentils have been cooking for a while, heat 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large frying pan, over moderately low heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent (about 5 minutes). Add the carrots, celery, and 1 teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender...about 10 minutes.
-
Remove the vegetables from the heat and add 2 tablespoons of the vinegar. Combine the cooked lentils with the vegetables.
-
In a small frying pan, toast the sliced almonds over moderately low heat, stirring frequently, until golden brown.....about 5 or 10 minutes. You can do this ahead of time, if you like.
-
Shortly before serving, stir the toasted almonds and chopped parsley into the lentil mixture.
-
Put the salad greens in a large bowl and toss with the remaining 3 tablespoons oil, 1 tablespoon vinegar and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Serve the lentil mixture over the greens. Makes enough for six to eight people. Healthy and delicious!
-
And remember, you can adjust the salt in the recipe according to your own taste and health requirements.

The accidental housekeeper

It's been hot. We've drawn the awnings down, turned on the fan. I have the bright idea of renting a Rug Doctor from the supermarket, and clean the upholstery on the sofa and chair, and the carpets. We now have damp, clean cushions to rest on. My sorrow is that I did not think to clean our upholstery more regularly. It's a joy, actually, to dump out the grey-brown water and accompanying filth into the tub. Not such a joy to clean out the tub afterward.

So tempted to go on a major purge and get rid of 30% of our junk.

Noise

I'm reading The Power of Now and am learning lots. The practice toward enlightenment is one that takes patience, dedication and self-discipline, however.
Pretty much everything I do: child-rearing, working, marriage-wise requires all that, but I don't believe I have enough patience, dedication and self-discipline to make it through.

Advice from Helen Gurley Brown on how to life life to its fullest. Why not?

I'm particularly irritated because our delayed bathroom countertop has the wrong circumference hole for our faucet, it's hot, I had to endure some third-rate pabulum sixties Muzak, a poorly edited menu (erratic Capitalization of nouns which is hard on the Eyes), who actually has seventy-five/hundredths of a cent, which is 0.75¢?) and a pencil drawing of Kurt Cobain as representative artwork at a restaurant which had changed hands. Whenever I see .75¢ I think it takes one hundred of those to make seventy-five cents. What's so wrong or bad about $0.75, or 75¢?

Giving blood, then doing work after that. Such a chore to work through the noise of the neighbors' dog who must bark at everything and everybody, to work through my general dissatisfaction, but at least I'm learning that there is joy in holding things and situations up to the Light, where the Truth is, and there is Reward from working through pain. It's the journey to acceptance that's blistering me.

I do recommend The Power of Now by Eckhard Tolle, by the way, even if I am still Ms. Grumpypants. Off now to buy plants and see about a replacement battery.

Aargh!

this may be evaporative, as it is cathartic.
My scooter battery died when I was in rush hour downtown. Thankfully I could easily push it onto the sidewalk, and into a parking lot.
I had my appointment with my optometrist. I have glaucoma. My left eye is doing okay, my right eye is not. I am tiffed about the bill, as my husband's idiot insurance provider (oh be thankful you Canadians and Brits) won't cover my service. I pay it anyway, and tell my optometrist I'm moving back to Canada (as soon as I can find someone who's willing to buy a duplex with me, that we can rent out. He asks me if I have many relatives left in Canada. I don't. He asks me where my parents are. There's a long pause.
"They are cremated," I said.
He looked at me. "You're not at all old. How did they die?"
I couldn't believe he'd ask me this. Although now in retrospect it makes sense -- he probably wanted/needed to know if they had something like diabetes that I might have inherited to get the glaucoma. So I tell him: cancer, 1999, mom; heart attack, 2002, dad. Then he wants to know if they ate the way I do.
"No. Different education levels, different income levels. I eat much better." I talk about their vices. He tells me stress is a big killer. He tells me to watch the stress. Yeah. Exercise. Some support around the house would be good. Does housework count as exercise?
I'm irritated though, because I gave up coffee and have only a wee bit of alcohol, for the sake of glaucoma, and my right eye is getting worse. I walk frequently. Maybe not enough. It chafes me that there doesn't seem to be enough diet or exercise or anything personally I can do. At least in Canada I could take medical marijuana, but that would harm my body in other ways so it's not worth it.

Fourteenth anniversary today

Apart from that, here are some links I found interesting:

Using the Web to learn a new skill -- I keep telling myself I will learn pivot tables and PHP this way...

Interview with Julie Morgenstern, author of 'When Organizing Isn’t Enough, SHED Your Stuff, Change Your Life'.

My husband is proving to be a good declutter partner. He cleaned the garage. I cleaned out the upstairs bathroom. Together we donated some of our more interesting books to a women's shelter fundraiser. I have more to tackle, but I feel better seeing less paper mess.

1962 Critics' Poll, Sight and Sound Magazine

Yet another "Films I need to watch" list, this from the top twenty. I have not included the films I've already seen:

Ugetsu monogatari (Tales after the Rain) -- Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953.
Greed -- Erich von Stroheim
Ivan the Terrible (Ivan Groznyi) (parts I and II) -- Sergei Eisenstein
The Battleship Potemkin (Bronenosets Potyomkin) -- Sergei Eisenstein
La Terra trema (The Earth Trembles) -- Luchino Visconti
Zero for Conduct (Zéro de conduite) -- Jean Vigo
Hiroshima mon Amour -- Alain Resnais
Pather Panchali (The Song of the Road) -- Satyajit Ray
The Childhood of Maxim Gorky (Detstvo Gorkogo) -- Mark Donskoi
Ikiru -- Akira Kurosawa (this is playing next week locally)
Nazarín -- Luis Buñuel
Oktober -- Sergei Eisenstein

Here's the 2002 Top Ten List from the Directors -- excusing the films I've seen already.
Godfather II
Rashomon
Seven Samurai


Lots of Chaplin in the top twenty! My sister-in-law is not a Japanese cinema buff, so I am learning the films by myself. I did see "Floating Weeds" which was beautifully choreographed and acted. I must see "Tokyo Story" soon.

Where art thou, Swivel?

Swivel Magazine: A Nexus of Women and Wit was one of my favourite periodicals. As it was published in Seattle, I'd occasionally daydream about meeting the editor or a local contributor.

Swivel has a Website but no issue since October 2007. However, there is a book list:

This Is Not Chick Lit edited by Elizabeth Merrick
The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank
One Hundred Demons by Lynda Barry
The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard
An Invisible Sign of My Own by Aimee Bender
The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender
A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You by Amy Bloom

Mean Season by Heather Cochran
Wide Eyed by Trinie Dalton

My Misspent Youth by Meghan Daum
Almost No Memory by Lydia Davis
Monkey Food by Ellen Forney

A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That by Lisa Glatt

Bending Heaven by Jessica Francis Kane

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
A Year in Van Nuys by Sandra Tsing Loh
Birds of America by Lorrie Moore
Self-Help by Lorrie Moore
How to Breathe Under Water by Julie Orringer
See Through by Nelly Reifler

Big Cats by Holiday Reinhorn

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
What the Truth Tastes Like by Martha Silano

The Woman Who Cut Off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club by Julia Slavin

Nonrequired Reading by Wislawa Szymborska
The Secret Language of Sleep by Evany Thomas

Animal Crackers by Hannah Tinti

And Now You Can Go by Vendela Vida

The Partly Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell

If you want a look at what I've been missing since October, here's a link to some excerpts.

Here's a virtual cemetery of zines I've loved and lost:
To-Do List edited by Sasha Cagen
Mystery Date by Lynn Peril
Bunnyhop edited by Noel Tolentino and Seth Robson
Ben Is Dead edited by Darby Romeo
Action Girl Comics edited by Sarah Dyer

nothing to you, everything to me

Soundproof was a community channel show back in the 1980s, featuring local acts and alternative videos. I learned about alternative music here and had a crush on Dave Toddington.

Third post today: Learning Japanese, I think I'm learning Japanese (I really think so)

I have my Canadian Passport now! Woo woo! I'll soon be getting my Change of Name Certificate, which means I can then complete my son's citizenship certificate. I hope to have him baptized soon too.

Anyway, I now have a sister-in-law, and as I'm visiting Osaka in February I must learn some Japanese: but what? Nihongo? Katakana? Kanji? I should learn the feminine forms of spoken Japanese, correct? Or can I get away with a broader or masculine form because I'm gaijin?

I'm also going to immerse myself in some Japanese culture over the next six months -- some Yasuhiro Ozu films, some Akira Kurosawa, Haruki Murakami, Yasunari Kawabata, Shusaku Endo, Natsuo Kirino and Hitomi Kanehara books (in translation, of course!!)... but what if my in-laws are unfamiliar with Ozu or Kurosawa? What if they don't watch movies? or read books? I don't know much about my sister-in-law, only that I can count on going shopping in Osaka. Do they have kombucha tea in Japan? Oolong is very popular, I know that.

More 'Best American Films Lists'

I recently watched two highly esteemed classic films, both directed by Martin Scorsese, and both featuring Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, and Frank Vincent: Goodfellas and Raging Bull. It's taken me a long, long time to see these films. Eventually I do want to see all the 'excellent/very good' films.

For this list, I have yet to see:

Broken Blossoms
Greed
The Strong Man
The Crowd
The Wind
Scarface
HISTORY IS MADE AT NIGHT
STAGECOACH
YOUNG MR. LINCOLN
THE MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS
DETOUR
THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE
FORT APACHE
GUN CRAZY
ON THE WATERFRONT
THE SEARCHERS
A FACE IN THE CROWD
THE LAST PICTURE SHOW
MEAN STREETS
THE CONVERSATION
THE GODFATHER PART II
TAXI DRIVER
DAYS OF HEAVEN
ALL THAT JAZZ
DINER
RUMBLE FISH
STRANGER THAN PARADISE
AVALON
JFK

Safe for work and sharing with young relatives -- Robert De Niro shares his craft with Elmo on Sesame Street:

Apple Pie

I need to clean the bathroom, then empty it, today. My plan is to declutter some books and magazines and stuff downstairs to make a place for the bathroom items that won't be used in the shower. Then to apply a bleach or TSP solution to the bathroom. So I went downstairs, and was disappointed (okay, infuriated) to encounter cat urine smells on books. I've turfed out some books, and the ones that don't smell of cat urine will get deposited in a book drop or exchanged for credit at a used books store. I will buy a black light, some pet enzyme cleaner, more bleach, distilled water, and garlic.

So one of the books I was removing was Jean Paré's Easy Entertaining and what did I find but the first page of my mother's apple pie recipe! Hot damn! My father-in-law will be pleased. I am near ecstatic. Maybe it's a sign of my aging that I'm whipsawing between ecstasy and fury right now. But I should photocopy the one page I have and commit the rest to online, and put maybe one copy in the safe deposit box.

How do you get your partner to engage in cleaning, by the way? My spouse seems to be okay with cat urine, and I am not. Should I assume he is insensitive, or that he prefers cat urine to me? He's home nearly all day, whereas I have a lengthy commute, so I can't just drop everything and clean full-time.

IDs indeed

For my son's citizenship certificate:
I need to order a Change of Name Certificate for myself. I am sure my mom had one but I understand she had other things on her mind while she was dying. I have a choice of calling Vital Statistics and ordering over the phone, or visiting in person, or putting materials in a sealed, addressed envelope and asking my visiting friend to mail it when she returns to Canada.

Social Security Card for boy:
Not sure he needs this immediately, but he'll need it one day. I'm tired of looking up tax returns to find out what his Social Security Number is. This will require taking some time off work to apply. However, if I end up employed, at last, at last, at last, for keepsies, I may spend an unpaid, unstructured day catching up on my reading and visiting the Social Security Administration Office.

Change of Birth Certificate:
I was on drugs, literally, the prescribed painkillers you get in a hospital, when I filled out his certificate of live birth. I could not remember if my original middle name was spelled with an 'e' or not, so I went with the middle name I had at the time.

The good news is that I can easily afford the replacement garage door. Yay! Perhaps tomorrow I will remember to take some time to do errands by fax, e-mail and phone. Order some weeding/pruning.

weaning from caffeine, going green(er)

I gave up coffee a month back, which wasn't such a big sacrifice when I was suffering from my third go this year with a sinus infection. The lemon juice and cayenne were doing more to cut the excess mucus than the java was. I was also working somewhere where the morale was as close to the bottom as the company's stock price at the time. Coffee and alcohol were the survival drugs of the condemned, so I had the déjà (did I get that right?) vu of my dot-com bomb days.

Now in the morning instead of coffee I have a hot lemon/honey/cayenne drink, or hot apple cider vinegar/organic maple syrup drink. Sometimes I'll have Renew-U tea. Something to clean the insides without making me jittery and tense. I'd been drinking coffee since 1988, so this is indeed news. Of course, it is summer, and I need coffee the least when there is maximum sunlight. Perhaps I can save my latte money for a light box.

I have been less tense, but some of that might be from rebalancing my portfolios, and reciting the Rosary daily. I have more energy, which I dearly need.

My house has a carbon footprint that is 0.8 of the size of my car's carbon footprint. The house has a fuel efficiency score of 9.1 out of 10, meaning 9% of the homes in the US are more fuel-efficient that ours. We do not have solar power, and live in an old house. We have updated our heating system, purchased new windows and new insulation. I'm now considering duct cleaning and sealing, and other weatherstripping.

I am saving for a new car, as my car is twelve years old and has over 140K miles on it, and have identified the following possibilities, although by the time I have enough for a full car purchase other good options will be on the market:

Toyota Prius
2008 Nissan Altima Hybrid
2007 Toyota Camry Hybrid
2007 Hyundai Elantra

I looked at family sedans at Fuel Economy, a U.S. government website from the Department of Energy.
Any of these vehicles will have fewer emissions than my current vehicle, and better mileage. I'm looking to upgrade to a family sedan as the child grows. If I purchased an Altima Hybrid this year, I would be qualified to take a tax credit.

I'm back.

Here's what's going on with me:
* applying for kid's citizenship certificate
* renovating bathroom
* looking for F-T job
* getting more into a whole and natural foods diet, down to making my own bread and creme fraiche, growing my own vegetables

I made a list of films in the Top 100 Films list by Mr. Showbiz editors that I haven't yet seen.
The Man who Shot Liberty Valance
Godfather II
The Wild Bunch
The Searchers
Bridge on the River Kwai
On the Waterfront
Apocalypse Now
The Hustler
Unforgiven
Deer Hunter
Hud
Red River
The Empire Strikes Back
Hamlet (1948) -- Laurence Olivier
Streetcar Named Desire
Last Tango in Paris
Out of the Past
All that Jazz
Grapes of Wrath
Goodfellas
Stagecoach
Last Picture Show
Die Hard
Midnight Cowboy
West Side Story
The Quiet Man
Reds
From Here to Eternity
Adam's Rib
Patton
The Terminator
Floating Weeds
Gates of Heaven

Have you seen (m)any of these?