Here's what I've been up to. My 5th Civic. Had a brief interlude with 4WD, now back to energy efficient and less expensive Civics. They're not what they used to be, much more like real cars now. Fancy this and fancy that. Not sure I'm pleased but what can a girl do. I was really tired of my 2004 broken bumper, no seatbelts in the back (thank you Tess) car. It just hit me on the way back from RI that I'd had it with that car and it needed too much money to make it nice so I'd get rid of it. I guess I can afford this. I made them give me a good deal--had 2 dealers pitted against each other so it worked out. Go Pete, go Paul. Pete won. He's in Plattsburgh so I felt good about that. He's young & cute, too. And I make him laugh. Anyway, I've bought so many new cars that I'm not truly excited about this but it's nice to have a clean new car. I'm under a lot of pressure from people, most especially Fred, to take care of it. Like, he would not approve of having a dog in it.

Let's see..my first new car was in 1975, a Fiat 128. I loved that car but it wouldn't start when it got below 20 or rained. Not good for Rhode Island, the Ocean State. Then a Mazda station wagon dream car. Then an '84 Civic wagon, which Jamie backed into and wrecked, an '87 Toyota wagon (4WD, got great use out of that), a '93 Pathfinder (my dream vehicle, but even then it cost $150 a month for gas), a '95 Civic (which Jamie said was one of the reasons he just couldn't stand being married to me--he didn't want that car but I FORCED us to buy it), a 2002 Civic (which I rolled but escaped unscathed in spite of CD's and soda cans flying around), a 2004 Civic and now the 2008. I think I've had every color except black and white. Now silver twice.

Enough car stuff. Cars are such a necessary part of my life. I get attached to them, use them too hard, and when I get rid of them I feel bad and look at them longingly. When I got back in the old car to retrieve something, I inhaled and said "Boy does this car STINK!" And did it ever.

Easter trip to RI was nice. Weather there was wonderful, gives one faith that spring will come. Liza has snowdrops in bloom and daffodils up and in bud. A few crocuses. I walked barefoot outside comfortably. T-shirt weather. I brought back the biggest, boogeriest goldfish. He's huge, the tank bully. Hounded the littlest to death (literally) so I brung him home with me. He's on the shelf in my cubicle and I see his constant motion out of the corner of my eye. I guess I'm starting to find it comforting but it's sort of distracting. The tank is really too small for him, only 2.5 gallons for his almost 4" (I kid you not). He just goes back & forth, like an autistic kid's constant rocking. Liza and Mark don't want any big fish for their pond so I think they were happy to be rid of him. I think this boy would get up to 5 lbs if he were in a big enough tank. He's exhausting to watch. Every once in a while he jumps out of the water & makes a big splash, loud enough for Kim to hear on the other side of the cubicle wall. Glass top, can't get out, nice try though.

All is well here. Ken was bored and a bit sad the other night but I'll see him tonight and I'm sure he'll feel better. He got confused the other day, trying to reach Bill, then me--no one was home (I worked late and was on my way to his house) so he was just sitting there, phone in hand, looking sort of pitiful when I arrived. He slid down the snowbank and got stuck halfway under his truck but had pretty much worked his way out by the time the Brousseau Boys came along. That had nothing to do with age--I've done the same sort of thing, slipping on the ice, getting stuck halfway under my car.

Supposed to get snow tonight, maybe 3" or maybe 6". I think if the meteorologists even knew they wouldn't tell us. It's more fun to keep us guessing. Nothing we can do anyway.

Massive cleaning in store for the weekend. I bought a nice bookcase and an ok table (to replace coffee table--an experiment) in RI so will try to arrange living room to accommodate them. Interesting proposition. I've also got mondo seed packets to open and play with. Must get going on those if I want flowers to bloom before Labor Day.

Work is fine. Am totally worn out by de-duping project but have only done 300 of 4000 so far. Big yawn. Most are vendor errors from 2004 when we merged data bases. Small comfort, that.

God that fish is driving me crazy. Maybe I need to bring in a shroud to calm him down, the way we used to cover the birds' cages at night.