The Great Mini-Van Hunt of 2009

Despite the perilous economy we are looking for a new used car. We have one small car for Peter's in-town commute. It's a bare-bones Saturn which worked fine as our family car as well until we needed to add a third car seat to our traveling routine. We also used to have an old, lumbering 10, no, 11 year old Buick Le Sabre. It was a comfortable car to drive and looked right at home in the parking lot at the Senior Citizen's center. I felt like I was driving my bed down the road and it had the added benefit of accommodating all three children.

We had the Buick for about six years before it met it's untimely end. Peter was driving it home when he suddenly realized that the car had lost some of its usual vigor. In fact, it wouldn't drive any faster than 15 miles an hour. He got it to the mechanic safely and found out that the transmission was utterly destroyed. Cool. There's nothing like a $3,000 repair for a car that's worth about $2,000 to clarify one's priorities. As much as we enjoy being free of car payments, this is perhaps the time to consider taking some on. If we could fit everyone into our wee little Saturn the decision might have been more complicated, but as it is the path was clear.

We went that night to the Toyota dealership where our budget wasn't exciting enough to get the sales guy to be much help. We told him what we wanted to spend and that we needed to fit three carseats into it. He recommended a Chevy Cobalt and a Honda Accord. Really. We left discouraged and feeling like it was a huge mistake to even be out car shopping. Since we were up in Dealership Alley anyway, we swung by the Saturn dealership to see what they had on the lot. The contrast in service was blinding. Our sales woman had a working knowledge of every car in her inventory. She asked a lot of pertinent questions to help us get a better idea of what we were looking for. And then, and THEN she had the cars we wanted to look at driven into the showroom so we could look comfortably instead of in the cold, windy weather. We didn't buy a car that night, but it was certainly time well spent.

To tell the truth, we haven't bought a car yet, but we have a better idea of what we want. Though we have resisited it, it seems to be time to move to a mini-van, at least for the time being. Having three car seats isn't the motivating factor for me, oddly enough. What is really selling me on the idea of a mini-van are the sliding side doors! Getting the two older children in and out of the car is tricky enough, but getting enough room to open our car doors wide and get the infant car seat out is near impossible in our garage or in parking lots.

We are going back to the dealership on Saturday to do another test drive. I don't know what we'll end up with, but I can tell you one thing--I hope I'm done with car repairs for a good, long while!

Wanted: Drive-Thru Knitting Shop

I wish I could turn one of the coffee shops in town into a knitting store.  Better yet, we could use one less manicure salon.  How many manicurists does it take to service one moderately sized suburb?

My life would be so much easier if I could get my little hands on  set of size 6 dpns at a moment's notice.  There have been so many times when I find myself mid-project, nearing the final lap when I'm brought up short by a distinct lack of knitting needles.  I have no other explanation than an apparent Black Hole of knitting equipment that has manifested itself in my knitting cupboard.  

I've been knitting for years now and a size 6 needle is by FAR my most utilized size, but time and again I find myself scrounging the bottom of my needle bag trying in vain to locate a size 6 needle.  If I were one to have a lot of UFOs lying around occupying sets of needles I could understand it.  But even taking that into consideration I still can never find a size 6 when I need it!  I have a set of dpns that I just bought sitting in an unfinished pair of Fetching right now, but I  bought those needles a month ago.  Where have all the other sets gone?  I'm sure there must be more around here.

I could live with this Knitting Impairment just fine if getting yet another set of size 6 dpns would be as simple as making a trip to Target.  It's not like I have to hook up the sled dogs and cross the Yukon, but it involves a small drive to another town or a trip into the city to get to the nearest yarn shop.

I never get my cat groomed.  I really don't need more than one coffee shop at a time.  I don't know how our town can keep so many mortgage places in business.  We have a tattoo parlor and no less than three Subway shops.  There are two or three manicure places within a block of each other.  I have no idea why our little town can't keep one yarn shop in business.  How frustrating.

Now, if our town had a yarn shop with a drive-through window, curb-side yarn winding, and also sold bread and milk--I'm sure that THEN we'd have a boom business on our hand.  I'm sure they'd do well enough just selling me size 6 double pointed needles every week.

And, P--honey?, I have a birthday coming up, as you know, and I think that a couple of sets of Clover's lovely bamboo double pointed knitting needles would be just the thing.  I could use them in a size 6.  

Walk a Mile in My Bra

The time had come. The baby had been weaned and it was finally time to trade in my sorry, stretched out, worn out, tired and beaten nursing bras for something with an underwire. It had been two years since I'd worn anything more supportive than an ace bandage. I was starting to hurt. It was finally time to buy the bra my girls deserved after years of dutiful service to me and my babies.

As much as I anticipated the forgotten lift that a good bra can give, it was largely overshadowed by the looming dread of the Rite of the Nordstrom Lingerie Dept Bra-fitting. It's true. Even though the mighty swimsuit receives top billing as Most Dreaded Clothes to Buy, followed perhaps by blue jeans, I have to think that buying bras must be the elephant in the room that no one talks about. The process must be so traumatic for so many women that, like survivors of an airplane crash, it is an experience that is simply never talked about.

Shopping at a do-it-yourself store, like Sears or Target is bad enough. You're left to your own devices, roaming the aisles aimlessly, riffling through the racks, bringing piles and stacks of bras on itty-bitty hangers back and forth to your dressing room hoping to stumble upon something that seems like a good fit. Of course, after you've brought half a dozen bras home which you certainly thought were going to work, you find that, no, they do not work at all, but you are unfortunately stuck with a hundred dollars in underwear that will poke you in the arms until they wear out. Or the sun implodes upon itself. Whichever comes first, you eagerly await either event which will put you out of your pokey misery.

There is the other option. This is the one I choose and has proven to be one of the most humbling experiences in my life thus far. It's right up there with obstetrics appointments or a visit to the dentist. It is the Way of the Fitting and while difficult and embarrassing it ultimately yields better results. The buying experience is brief (relatively) and painful, but when it's over you're left wearing a bra you like and carrying a bag of bras that will do their job with pride and enthusiasm.

I've had many fittings in the past since babies, lactation, and age all seem to have an affect on your size and shape, but like most hobbies, this never seems to get boring or routine. I was lead back into the fitting area by the well-dressed sales lady where she instructed me to remove my shirt. Quickly, she whipped her measuring tape from around her neck and measured me here and there. Talking about various options, she left the room leaving me standing in front of a three-way mirror to contemplate my double layer of stretch marks (who knew they could CRISS-CROSS like that?) and the fact that someone other than my husband or sister-in-law had seen my dilapidated bra. If my bra were a house, it would be a condemned trailer home. It's not like something you'd invite a stranger home to see. My embarrassment was compounded by the awareness that this was Nordstrom's, hardly a place where people with dilapidated bras come to shop. I was clearly out of my element, even though I'd been here numerous times before and my sales person was being clearly professional. After all, she had neither gasped nor laughed at the sight of my bra. I was starting to wonder if I should have stopped at Sears to buy a cleaner, better bra to wear while shopping at Nordstrom's. Well, what's done is done.

The trying on session of my fitting went as expected with my honorable sales person hooking me into this bra, advising me on how to best hoist my endowment into that bra. Eventually I found a nice, reasonably priced item that fit well. And then she brought in the Unicorn. She introduced this bra as being really wonderful "when it works" and that this is the bra that Oprah always talks about and that she thinks I should just try it out to see how it does. She hooked me into the thing and I was skeptical to say the least. It had a massive, moulded shape like the breastplates worn by the warrior queens of ancient Ireland or the mythical warrior goddess Athena. But once I was strapped in, I was a convert. I put my top back on in order to get a better idea of the shape this thing was giving me and once I looked down I was overcome by the nearness of my chest. All I could do was say, "Oh!" and "Hello!" in a surprised sort of manner and "I haven't seen this much of you since I was thirteen!" The saleswoman smiled and said, "Yes, they do give you a nice bit of lift." Lift? Lift! My chest had such a presence that I felt rude not including them in conversation. I felt like I should consult them on where we were having lunch that afternoon. Lift, indeed.

My faith was again restored in the power of polyester, spandex, and flexible underwire support.

I still felt a little like Athena as I walked out of the dressing room and I was a little self-conscious with my dramatically repositioned bust. But it felt wonderful to walk into the world for the first time in two years with all my body parts right where they're supposed to be.