Note of the Living Deb

(Oops, forgot to post yesterday.)

The traffic engineers in my town are not good at syncing the traffic lights. There is this scary thing called math that could help.

I used to think it was just my part of town, under the assumption that I live in the same neighborhood and somebody's evil ex. But this appears to be the case in many parts of town.

On one of my trips the other day, it looked like someone had decided to turn all the lights along a street green (and then red) at the same time. No, that is not a good way to sync your lights.

Currently, car owners where I live must get an annual inspection and also pay an annual registration fee. In the past, these have been two separate requirements, each with their own windshield sticker. And if you were late in getting your inspection, the one-year clock got restarted. So, as long as you didn't get a ticket, you were rewarded for putting off your inspection. Especially since there was a grace period the following month during which you would not get a ticket.

Those days are over. Now you have to show evidence of your inspection (as well as insurance) when you renew your registration. And there will be only one sticker.

But those whose inspections and registrations have already gotten out of sync get one last bonus during the transition period.

I am one of those people (not totally my fault--I got my car used and it was already out of sync). This time when I got my inspection, they did not give me a sticker--just a receipt with the results. Even though my next registration is not due for several more months, I can show them this receipt, and I'm good. Then I can wait an additional year before getting my next inspection. Meanwhile they also took off my old sticker, so I am not signalling to the police that I am overdue.

I went to my neighborhood association's meeting today because the guest speaker was talking about the plans to update I-35.

I had a whole list of things to say to him, but found that he was saying virtually every one of those things to us. They want to add more lanes. They want to add more kinds of smart things like the U-turn lanes that don't make you sit through a light.

Basically, they've changed their minds about most of the things I talked about. They're not going to remove any crossings. They are removing some ramps, but they are more likely to switch locations of on and off-ramps than to just remove them. In sum, it seems not that scary (except for all the construction).

So that's a relief.

The one thing I still don't get is the fascination with round-abouts. They like them because they don't require waiting at a light. But to me they just feel like multiple suicide ramps curved into a circle. They're currently planning to install a big one on 51st just west of the I-35 access road. The traffic really gets backed up there--I don't see this working at all.

**

As usual, we got to hear from the winner of the yard-of-the-month club. He was my favorite speaker. "I'm not sure I'd call it a yard. It's more of anti-yard." It all started when they came back from a long summer vacation. Although they had hired someone to keep the lawn watered (or tried to, I guess), they came home to a dead yard. They decided to go with the desert look. They yanked out the dead plants and added gravel and plants that can handle minimal water.

Then someone mentioned that a quarter of his front lawn was vegetables. Oh, right. They put them in the front yard because they have chickens in the backyard. Someone asked his address ... because he has cats. He said is chickens were pretty tough and probably could take a cat.

**

There were also a bunch of people running for City Council. None made a particularly good impression. Either they just sounded like politicians or they didn't know the boundaries of their district (our neighborhood is part of two districts) or both.

And we heard a bunch of updates from people who attend a lot of committee meetings, and let me just say that I can't believe that so many things have to be handled in these kinds of meetings. I like my meetings at work--everyone has the same goals. These city-running meeting sound simply horrible.

When I found out my boss lives in my neighborhood, I realized I can no longer recommend commuting by bus.

It used to be a no-brainer. You could drive in rush-hour traffic, polluting the environment, putting wear and tear on your car, surrounded by people who are thinking "If only that person in front of me were dead, I could get to work two seconds earlier." Then park far away from your office and pay for the privilege.

Or take a shuttle bus for free, adding only your relatively miniscule weight to an already-running bus. The good ones used to run every 3-5 minutes, the terrible ones every 9-11 minutes. If you're at the very last stop before campus, you might not get picked up because the bus might be full, but you can just get on the next one.

Well, things have changed. The buses come less and less often. My shuttle was coming about once every 20 minutes which means if something happens to one bus, you might wait 40 minutes. Then it got discontinued. Now I take a city bus that comes every 20 minutes or so.

The buses take longer to get to campus. When they built up the old airport, they diverted the bus to wander all around that before heading downtown. (In the middle of the day, it's even worse, crossing the highway and going in a big circle and then crossing back to wander around the airport--check out the ugly spirograph in the middle of the map at the bottom of this page.)

Basically, if I want to be sure of getting to work on time, I have to leave an hour before I want to be there. I live 3.5 miles from my office. Coming home is better; I can often be home 45 minutes after quitting time. Unless I miss the good bus or--like today--the good bus never came, so I took the bus that drops me off a mile away from home. Then it's more like an hour and a half.

And this is after a couple of weeks of strategizing--if I go to the bus stop that's one stop earlier than the most convenient one, I'm less likely to have to stand during most of the ride home, plus there are two usable routes at that stop, so I just take whichever bus gets there first.

I mostly read during the commute, but sometimes my book isn't engrossing enough to keep me patient during the 15 minutes I'm walking to the stop and, today, the 24 minutes I was waiting at the stop, then the 15-minute ride and the 5- or 20-minute walk home. Many parts of the book are amazing (you will get excerpts soon), but I like a break from it sometimes.

Recipe of the Day

Mix and match heritages the American way with this Italian Ashkenazim creation, Nutella hamantaschen. Okay, I haven't tried it, but it sounds good and looks pretty. Feel free to make some and bring them to the next party we're both going to.

My sister's going to try making some, but I can't get to her place very easily these days (even though it doesn't require taking a bus).

Someone organized a going away happy hour for me today (which led several people to believe that today was my last day, but I still have six more work days left). It was basically fun, which was better than I expected. Once I convinced the first guy who offered me a drink that all I wanted was water, I got to tell everyone else that I didn't need a drink because I already had a large shot glass of vodka (and then pointed to my plastic cup of water).

One couple told me about a new Greek restaurant in walking distance of my house that they said was really good, and because they share a big plate with two meats and three sides, they then like to go to the nearby frozen yogurt shop. So, I have two new places to try.

Also, I got a card that said, "THANK YOU from the BOTTOM of my BUTT." This could be an insult in so many ways, but I knew it wasn't. "Oh sure, it doesn't sound like much, but it's a good EIGHT to TEN times the size of my HEART." [Then open the card.] "...so, you know, BIG THANKS." Inside was a printout of a screen from the system I work on with a note on it about how Natural Sciences loves me and "Now, what was your cell # again?"

Also, I got lots of pizza. Yum!

Vehicle of the Day - L.L. Bean's Bootmobile, a drivable boot replica. (I recommend scrolling down past the video to the picture. You could learn a little about how it was made by watching the video, though I somewhat recommend muting it. In case you do mute it, I'll let you know that the big white part that looks like plaster is really foam.)

Tropenmuseum

This morning we started out for a local market, but first we noticed the Tropenmuseum, which I'd read that you might be tempted to skip, but you shouldn't.



So we decided to check it out. It turned out to be a culture museum, but it didn't have just artifacts, it also had videos.

However, much of the museum was putting cultural traits in the context of environmental traits, so it was generally quite depressing. For example, in Suriname, people in the south used to farm and those in the north herded animals because it was drier in the north. Then in the dry season, the herders would come south and their animals would eat the farm stubble and fertilize the crops. Now the southerners want to raise their own animals and no longer welcome the herders, and the northerners want to grow their own crops, too, which doesn't work well because of the dryness.

Robin enjoyed seeing jeepneys which are old jeeps which have been converted for use as public transportation, especially in the Philippines. In our country, they might be called art cars. Robin says one of these played a key role in the book Cryptonomicon. We got to see a real one which they let us actually climb into. And we got to see them in action in videos. The decorations are amazing.

Robin also quite liked a car form covered in knitting to look like a red Ferrari Testarossa. (Robin tells me that Testarossa means "redhead" in Italian and the engine heads are painted in a red crackle finish in Testarossas because they just couldn't resist the pun.)

I learned you can make a dome just by making each circular brick layer out of fewer and fewer bricks. This way you can have rooms wider than the longest available tree trunks.

There was an interesting quote about Mexico City I didn't think to write down about how the city was killing everything around it in a horrible tragedy, but those who loved the city just couldn't resist her.

Some of the displays came together to cause me to ask myself: If I left my native culture (of the United States), what would I try to bring with me? Which artifacts? Which cultural norms and practices? I sure love not having to be religious. And I like being considered a real human being even though I'm female (and whatever else). I love ibuprofen, but it would eventually run out.

Dapperstraat Market

As we left, we saw this bike with plenty of carrying capacity.



We did find the market and also three grocery stores, none of which apparently struck me as photogenic. Then we were off to find the Houseboat Museum.

Hausbootmuseum

On the way, I decided to capture the inside of a tram.



Note the single seats on one side, double seats on the other. The accordion-looking part is flexible for when the track turns, but people also leaned against it. The next stop was announced both visually, as shown (actually, this is showing the time and that we are on the #10 line), and verbally, often in both Dutch and Liam-Neesen-accented English.

We did find the museum.



The brochure explains that this is a former commercial sailing ship built in 1914. Here is the entrance.



"The deckhouse, where the skipper's family resided, including the cupboard bed, is still in place."



This is the bigger bed of the two, if you can believe it (the other is across the way on the left). It's both longer and wider. Apparently the taller spouse sleeps on the doorway side.

"The former cargo hold has now been converted into a comfortable living space."



This actually does look quite livable to me. Here's the other side of that room.



This was described as the kitchen.



Here's a passageway with the level of the water outside illustrated inside. So technically the windows don't have to be so high in order not to be underwater or anything.



They also had a slide show with pictures of all kinds of houseboats that was fun. And we got to learn a bit more about the houseboat lifestyle.

Many, but not all, houseboats have been converted from regular boats. This sort of house must, by law, be brought into the shipyard for maintenance every four years. The required maintenance takes about a week to perform, during which time you may continue living in your house, though I assume your commute to work could change quite a bit.

Another kind of "houseboat" is made form concrete which, since it does not rust, is not required to be taken for maintenance. It tends to be more block shaped. Neither kind of houseboat is likely to have a motor and thus must be towed in order to be moved.

Next stop: red light district.

Pannenkoeken

But first, here's another typical Amsterdam view, with one wonky building.



Canal view at night.



Here's another nice bike.



Note the rack in front and the seat in back.

On the way, we found a place with pannenkoeken, which I'd wanted to try. These are Dutch pancakes. I'd heard they are thinner than what I'm used to, but thicker than crepes, and they are served mostly in savory flavors. I ordered one with cheese.



It was the size of a plate, perfectly cooked on one side, then broiled to finish off the other side and to make the cheese a golden brown. (In real life, they are not nuclear yellow--this is just what my camera does in poor lighting.)



It was moist and soft--only the cheese was crispy. It was very tasty, but the pancake part was faintly sweet, so I think I would have preferred a sweet flavor.

This restaurant also sold apple pie. Real Dutch apple pie looks different from how I make mine. The crust looks more like biscuits or cake and it's much taller. I never did taste any. (By this time, I was mostly craving savory things. The Dutch are really, really great at making sweet things that appeal to me, but not so much savory).



Red Light District

As we neared the red light district, the streets became crowded with pedestrians and were full of bars and delicious-looking restaurants and plenty of bright lights. The district itself was also crowded and well-lit, and thin ladies who wore bikini-type outfits and posed, wiggled, smiled (even to me), and motioned people in.

Our guide for the bicycle tour told us that in each room there are at least three buttons that the ladies can hit to get help so that no matter what someone does to them, there should always be one within reach. Some of them are hidden. And police arrive quickly, like one minute.

Adjacent to this district is, apparently, Chinatown. At least there are all kinds of Asian restaurants and markets.

We also saw this narrow church.



And here's a terrible picture, but it shows the hooks at the tops of the buildings.



In real life, these buildings seemed to lean in over us in a threatening way.

We popped out of this area of narrow streets at a building that looks like a castle.



It turns out to be a fancy restaurant...



...built in 1617.



The nearest tram stop was at Central Station, so we bought our tram tickets for the next day.

Going Home

We took a tram and train back to the airport after all, just as we had come, no longer afraid. The train was quite crowded--we were perched near the stairwell.

I couldn't resist getting a snack I found in a snack machine at the train station for a friend. Robin said, "Travis has dreamed all of his life of these gummy apeheads." They turned out to be licorice and banana flavored.

I had decided to exchange any remaining euros for Leonidas chocolates and did in fact have some money left with which to do so.

Due to the actions of a friend of Robin's, we got some fancier seating on the flight from London to Chicago. I liked that you could lean your seat back without affecting the person behind you. And all of a sudden, unlike in coach, they understand that people like to drink a lot of water. Being stuck between two strangers, I tried to time my bathroom trips while one of them was up. But people really set up camp in this section more than in the sardine section, so it's not that easy to get out.

I remember feeling like an impostor. Not even just as a prole riding with royalty, but also like a little kid trying to act grown up. (Only I have a much better disguise for the latter now than in the olden days. Surely.) No jumping up and down on the seat. And oh, yes, I know just what this hot wet washcloth is for.

We got back a little early(!?) and so it was no problem for me to go to work the next day.

While doing my final research for this entry, I found the ingredient list of some hummus that I really liked (except for the salsa on top) from one of the stores. I had no idea what most of it meant, but figured the internet would be my friend (when I got home and it was fast and reliable again).

* gekooktekikkerwten (42%) - cooked chickpeas
* zuurteregelarr (E-500) - apparently sodium carbonate, a base used as an acid regulator and/or anti-caking agent; zuur is acid and E-500 is, specifically, sodium carbonate.
* plantaardige oile - plant oil
* water - water
* sesamzaad-pasta (sesamzaad, zout) - sesame seed paste (sesame seed, salt) (aka tahini)
* tomaten concentraat - tomato puree
* wortelen, - carrots
* zout - salt
* specerijen - spices
* voedingszuur - food acid (?)
* citroenzuur - citric acid
* peterselie - parsley
* gedroogde chilipepper (0.2%) - dried chili pepper (0.2%)
* geconcentreerd citroensap - concentrated lemon juice
* gedroogde koriander - dried coriander

Well, I'm hardly cooking up something with a food additive as the #2 ingredient. I hope that's not what made this magical. I think I already knew to use tahini and lemon juice. Oh, well.

Overall a good trip, but I felt quite touristy in a bad way. Not as good as visiting friends who have a bit of a clue about what's cool and how things work. I may want to look into visiting my next foreign country a different way. Looneymarble has made it clear to me that a group tour is not necessarily the way to go, either, though some groups may attract more fun people than others (would tours for college alumni be better if you liked your college?).

I miss those bike lanes. I don't miss the cold (actually, I've been experiencing the same cold, but with no snow, all week). I liked the trams but they were expensive. I miss the sweets but not the savories. I don't miss spending so many euros.

So, I leave you with this typical tourist shot.

Robin wanted to rent bikes and ride them everywhere. I didn't like how it would be so easy to get lost and so hard to talk to each other, plus being in a foreign country I didn't feel comfortable, plus I don't like riding bikes. So we decided to start with a bike tour. This was my favorite part of the whole trip.

We picked a place that was easy to get to. Just leave the hotel, turn left, go two blocks, turn left, and keep going until we get there. Turns out it was not so easy to stay on that street and we ended up way off course. We saw some nice things, though.





At one point, we knew we wouldn't make it in time for the tour, but then we decided to try anyway, and we made it after all.

History of the Netherlands

First we got a brief history lesson. The following is how I interpreted the tour guide and has not been confirmed and thus should be taken with a grain of salt.

The whole area is naturally boggy. If people stopped trying to keep the water out, all of Amsterdam would be under water.

Originally people came for the fishing and the bog peat (which makes a good fuel). It's always been a center for trade. And it's always been a shipping center. The people tend to be daring. They made bigger ships than the others, and this led to their hey day.

The Dutch are not creative with naming things. You have the Amstel River, the Amstel Dam, and the town, Amsterdam. You have the Old Church and the New Church, the East Church and the West Church. You can tell where they colonized by the names: South Africa. East Indies.



Britain and Spain cut them off, so they lost power, but they stayed out of World War I (though reputed to have started it). They helped move food around and got rich.

They tried to stay out of World War II, but Hitler bombed one city to the ground over five days. They learned the lesson and didn't resist. They were occupied many years and, being a haven to weirdos (like Jews) (remember all that bit in history class about people escaping to Holland back when America was a colony because of the open mindedness?), they suffered huge losses (1/4 to 1/3 of the population). The Canadians finally came to their rescue, but when the Nazis left, they took all the bicycles with them. You'll still hear creative cheers at sporting events against the Germans such as "Bring back my grandmother's bicycle!"

Hippies were big in the Netherlands, taking over all the parks. In the 1970s, real estate was down, so speculators bought it up, but they let it get run down. Meanwhile, there were lots of homeless hippies. So a law was made that if your property was vacant for over a year (as pointed out by a potential squatter and confirmed by neighbors), squatters could move in. After that it became difficult, though possible, to get your property back. It would take 1 1/2 to 2 years to get through all the paperwork.

Without these squatters rights, Amsterdam would not be what it is today. The squatters moved in, had the plumbing and gas turned on, and would start businesses. Being not being very entrepreneurial, they would have art galleries. Or collect things and become museums. Amsterdam still has a lot of art galleries and museums.

But letting all the hippies come in led to drug problems. The Dutch once had the highest rates for hard drug addiction. But the main drug was cannabis. Cannabis was decriminalized so you could consume it without being exposed to hard drugs. The Dutch had the first free needle exchange program, methadone clinics, and drug counseling. Fifteen years later, the Dutch were at the bottom of the list for hard drug addiction.

Cannabis is not legal, though, and is imported, so who knows what the money supports. The West (especially the US) is pressuring them not to make it legal. So in the future, tourists will not be allowed. You'll have to become a member, and to do that, you'll have to be a resident.

Canals

After the history lesson, we got lessons on how to use our bikes and then we rode all over the place. It was a three-hour tour with one pub stop.

Our first stop was on a bridge over a canal. All the canals have locks and these are managed to create flow. So although there is no tidal flow, there is very little smell, even in summer (unlike in Venice where the canals cannot be controlled).

Architecture

Salt water is part of the canals and is needed to preserve the building foundations which start, on the bottom, with wood (from the tall, straight poplar) and clay. Then layers of leather 1 meter thick and of sand 2 meters thick are added. The sand traps the water water as it rises and falls to keep the moisture balance needed to preserve the foundations. Of the 400-year-old foundations, 30% are still in good shape, 20% need fixing, and 50% have been repaired. There weren't really any problems with foundations until cars started tooling around the city--those vibrations were more than the foundations could tolerate.

When a foundation fails, the building on top of it may lean on its neighbor.

The houses are small and tall because they are taxed yearly based on their footprint. This leads people to politely save land for their neighbors. Small bricks are used because they have more flexibility; big bricks are more likely to crack.



Brackets are also used to help hold buildings together. (I first noticed these brackets, which look like giants staples, in Belgium. It's cool to finally know what they are for.) (I also learned that Belgium used to be part of the Netherlands.)





Hooks near the top of the building let you winch your things up and put them through a window so you won't have to bring them up the stairs. Having the top of the building lean out gives you more leeway on windy days.



Houseboats were introduced to house the people who helped with rebuilding after the war. They were made cool by hippies. They have no footprint tax but there is a limit of 2,600 houseboats allowed in Amsterdam. That limit has now been reached so, due to the laws of supply and demand, houseboats now cost as much as regular houses. They are just as comfortable (if not more so because there are no steps inside).



Zoo

Our hotel is on the old Jewish side with the tax-free docks. A lot of ships would arrive from distant lands with pets or mascot animals that they dropped off in Amsterdam. So the area became known for the mystical creatures that roamed it. And this led to what is now the oldest zoo.

Windmills

There were once 800 windmills at the harbor. Why windmills? They couldn't build water mills because the land was so flat that the water flow was too slow. But flat land is good for wind and thus windmills.

These were used to pump water. First, you build some high ground. Then start the perimeter walls. The top section of the windmill turns--the wheel does not make contact with the deck. Set up the sails so they cover the trellis. (These are rolled up at the edge of the trellis in the pictured windmill.)



The wind turns it which turns a vertical cog which turns a horizontal cog which powers an Archimedes screw which pumps water up when suction is created. Once the islands were formed, some windmills might continue to pump water, but the others were converted to other uses. The one pictured above is a brewery. Maintaining a historical windmill reduces your tax, so you can charge less for your beer.

Old Entry Harbor

We also saw an armory/naval headquarters, at the old entry to Amsterdam. If you attack, they will defend.



Now there's a science museum that looks like a sinking ship. Cruise ships dock here. And there's a library that's considered one of the top five libraries in the world even though it's only five years old. It has great technology, the space is fantastic, and it's basically everything a library should be.



St. Andrew's Crosses

We saw a church with a St. Andrew's cross on it, which is tilted so it forms an X (see the top window below).



We've been seeing X's everywhere, usually in groups of three. It turns out that the three X's are for protection from the three scariest things. Want to guess what the three scariest things were to the Dutch in the olden days? Remember, it's at sea level or below. Also, the houses used to be made of wood.

One of the things was fire. The entire town has burned down. Twice. You used to have to pull your house down when it caught fire by using a hook to pull on loops in our walls to hopefully save your neighbor's houses.

The second thing was flood. Other Dutch cities have been completely flooded in the past.

The third thing was disease. This was quite prevalent before they learned not to throw their waste into the canals.

Calvinist churches like the one shown above were traditionally round so the preacher wouldn't be in front of and above everyone.

Brown Bars

Brown bars are green but full of wood panels inside. To impress the locals, order a jenever (the Dutch word for juniper).



Tram Tickets

At the end of the tour, Robin got our tour guide to tell us how to deal with trams. He said you can buy tickets, for cash, at any news agent. Such as the one just up the street. Which we easily found. And we bought five-day passes which turned out to be a fabulous idea (except 7-day passes would have been better). Our maps showed the trams, and we never really got lost again the way we would have with bikes or with only walking.

Spui

After getting tram tickets, we went back to our favorite part from the tour: Spui (pronounced sort of like "Spow"). I really wanted to check out the almshouse courtyard. Anyone can just walk right through that arched wooden door.



Then you are here.



Check out the floor.



And all this is inside.



Did you know that some people have a hobby of touring almshouses?

We spent the rest of the evening just wandering around town.





We had some street food. Robin had the famous raw herring ("haring" in Dutch).



We also had pastries. (Sorry about the terrible lighting--these were actually good.)



I don't know why everyone is bent over (except the kids) in this mural.



This was very sparkly, all done up for Christmas.



I really liked the ceiling in this shop.



Then we took the tram back to the hotel and collapsed.

On Biking

If we lived in Amsterdam, we would be bicycling everywhere. They have more bikes than people. They have bikes lanes everywhere, separate from the sidewalks, the streets, and the parking. Bicyclists have their own traffic signals--so if they have a green light, cars will have a red light and won't turn right in front of you. Most of the lanes are wide enough to pass people on. The only confusing thing is that the bike lanes look sort of like sidewalks, though a different color. If you do accidentally walk in a bike lane, an approaching cyclist will ring a bell (natives only once, tourists, perhaps more). (I'll show you some pictures later.)

I had no trouble biking during this tour because things were so flat (except the bridges). For a while I was panting and having real trouble keeping up, but it turned out it was because my tire was going flat. After that was fixed, it was easy again.

In the US, avid cyclists say it's safest to ride in the street with the cars (at least at the intersections where drivers tend not to notice anything in bike lanes or on sidewalks). I think people in Amsterdam would be just as horrified by that idea as I am.

But while we were in Amsterdam, we went with trams. We were still clueless tourists, after all.

I haven't actually looked at many cars yet because almost all of the cars for sale have automatic transmissions. You would think there would be some people in Texas macho enough to drive a standard, but apparently they are all driving pickup trucks. And sports cars.

The few cars I do find, we keep going to these so-called dealers and finding: a) a repair shop lying about an obviously pre-wrecked car, b) another repair shop with an obviously wrecked car, and c) a unit in a fourplex whose resident never heard of Century Motorcars. Choice c) was the last straw. I declared, "That does it. I'm buying a new car."

It was fun to say.

Today I compiled a list of cars with "good" gas mileage and decent reliability and then collected their specifications. They are all the same boring car. They have the same headroom, the same legroom, the same steering, the same struts, the same front wheel drive, the same turning radius, the same greenhouse gas score, the same mediocre mileage, and they all come in the same colorless hues.

Some come in red and or blue, too, but some of those reds and blues are also ugly. One has more expensive tires than the others.

They do vary in cruising range from 350 highway miles before you run out of gas for the Honda Fit to 490 for the Hyundai Elantra.

They do vary in price, too (probably--hard to tell until you see what needs to be added to the base model), with base prices ranging from $13,000 for the Toyota Yaris to $17,000 for the Ford Focus. One car doesn't come with anti-lock brakes (the Hyundai Accent).

Not a single car comes in hunter green (or any good green unless the Corolla's green looks good). Or dark purple (or any purple). Or yellow. Or blue-green. Not a single car gets 40 MPG even on the highway. None of them have a real tire for the spare tire.

I did have two interesting cars on my list for a while. But I decided that the Mini Cooper is just too expensive and low to the ground. A there is just no evidence that the Smart is reliable even though it is made by Mercedes, probably because of its shifty transmission.

Robin and I went to a couple of car dealerships today looking at cars. I found out a couple of odd things.

The used car section of car dealerships do not have any old cars. The oldest car I saw was 2006. The second oldest car was 2007. The third oldest car was 2008, and although I did see more than one of them, I didn't see many of those either.

Also, there is not one single new Toyota Corolla S with a manual transmission for sale by any Toyota dealer in the five-state area. (Just a reminder to my New England friends--my state alone is rather large.)

Not that I'm in the market for a new car. But people are being so stupid about Toyotas right now that new Toyotas are being highly discounted, so I was tempted for a couple of minutes. But with a new car, you have to care a lot more about whether it gets wrecked so you have to have collision insurance. I'm also more likely to get control-freakish about things like ice cream in the car which is just wrong considering how yummy ice cream is.

So I now have two dealers looking for cars for me. I know I said I wanted a car from a private seller, but I really don't feel like calling up a bunch of people and begging them to hang around while I have an inspector check out their car before I buy it.

I'll have to do that at some point I suppose because I've now officially promised to hand over my car to my sister and she's leaving in a month. I'll probably end up going without a car for a while, which is fine--the main thing I really need my car for is to visit my sister and I won't be doing that anymore. It will still be handy to be able go shopping and to go to other activities when Robin's out, though I could bicycle to shopping and most activities are on bus lines. We'll see.

My car has been making a worrying erratic sound lately. Then suddenly the sound was on more than off once the car warmed up, so I took it in to my mechanic (who might now actually be able to hear it). He says it's the transmission and with my easy style of driving it will last a long time as it is. However, I don't actually like driving a a bucket of junk, and a car with a giant dent in the side or an intermittent, mostly-on sort of squealing hum feels like a bucket of junk to me. I did drive my last car around with a big dent in the side, but this sound is just too much. It makes me feel horribly negligent and even abusive.

So I got an estimate to replace the transmission, and even for a used transmission, it's $1000. That's a lot to pay just because I don't like a sound. So, I'm not going to.

I really haven't been enjoying this car anyway. The brown color is boring. The automatic shoulder belts are annoying. Having to use both hands to lock the driver's side door from the outside is annoying. The gas mileage sucks compared to my last car (and Jennifer's!). The gas tank is on the wrong side. Those things can't easily/cheaply fixed.

In addition, the hatchback likes to act like it's going to hold and then hit me in the head when I let my guard down (or, probably, when weight is lifted from the back). The back doors are squeaky. The key was sticking. Those things are/were easier to fix, and I was going to, but now I think not.

This car has also required more maintenance than I expected. I've been looking for an excuse to move on to my next car anyway, and I think this is going to be it. I have plenty of time to get just the right deal.

So, what do I want next? First, let's look at the cars I've owned and how well those turned out:

1) The Blue Elephant (like a white elephant, but blue) - 1983 Ford Escort hatchback, bought from Hertz Buy-A-Car for about $8000. It was 2 years old, with 30K miles, automatic transmission - I'd give this car 3 stars out of 10. It was a pretty blue-grey color, and once you got it going, it liked to keep going, but once it stopped, it didn't always want to start up again, even at stop signs. The last four times I brought this car into the shop, it cleaned out my (admittedly small) savings account. I decided I'd rather have fun with my savings than own a car, so I sold this after owning it six years and went without a car for four years.

2) Twin Stars (named after two star-shaped cracks in the windshield) - 1984 Nissan Sentra wagon, bought from a private owner for $1650. It was 10 years old with 100K miles, standard transmission - 10 stars out of ten. It was pretty, had an easy-going ding-dong-ding-dong idiot bell, great mileage, flexible seating, roof rack, rarely broke, and when it did, it was cheap to fix. I owned this car 10 years and sold it after someone smashed into the back in an expensive-to-fix way.

3) June Bug/Dung Pile (depending on my attitude) - 1991 Honda Civic wagon, bought from a dealer recommended by my old awesome mechanic for $3000. It was 14 years old, about 100K (or was it 130K?) miles, automatic transmission. Six stars out of ten. Described above.

I'm not buying from a dealer again if I can help it; I just can't trust them or their prices. (I understand that some dealers sell some cars from their homes so you can't tell you're getting it from a dealer.) I want a very reliable, durable car with common, easy-to-find parts.

I want a small, easy-to-park car with good mileage, and that means I want a standard transmission this time. My good car had 38 MPG with the urban highway/city driving I do; my current car has 30. So a highway mileage of 32 MPG is not exciting to me. I hate the way you can have a teeny, tiny car now, but it costs just as much as a regular small car and the gas mileage is just as bad--given those choices, I'll go for the bigger car.

The car needs air conditioning and that AC needs to be designed for modern coolants. I want a sedan this time--I never use the large-cargo-capacity of my hatchback anyway, and I'd rather you not have to see my box of supplies in the back of the car. Ideally the gas tank is on the passenger side, the warning buzzer isn't obnoxious, and the colors are pretty, but those aren't necessities.

I think a car that's ten years old and/or has 100K miles on it is about the right compromise between cost and value for me. I fear that will cost me $5000 this time, but I hope to pay a little less. Technically, I have only $3358 in my car-buying fund, but I have $2278.30 in my car expense fund, and even holding back $1000 for early expenses on my next car to get rid of the annoyances the previous owner has let build up, that gives me a fair amount to work with.

I mostly fantasize about Toyota Corollas these days, but other makes and models could be acceptable. So if you or someone you know is selling a car that might fit that description, let me know. At least if the car is located in my state (but thanks for thinking of me, Pam, Patrick, and Laurie).

To summarize:
* dependable, reliable make and model
* $5000 or less
* private seller
* great mileage (thus probably a small stick-shift)
* modern, cold AC
* sedan

Also nice:
* kind warning buzzers
* same key for doors and ignition
* gas tank on passenger side
* pretty color (jewel tones, or any non-puke green or blue)
* shiny, dent free, clean inside
* antilock brakes
* airbags
* other stuff I'm forgetting