I was trying to get somewhere but now I'm following the traces of your fingernails

The old Saab is gone. I got the message from my landlords that if I didn't get it taken care of, they'd have it towed, and we'd have to pay for it. So I got an extension till after the end of finals, then got in touch with some of those Donate-a-Car people. They'd take the car away for free, and give the money it brought for scrap (or a portion thereof, anyway) to our cat rescue place. Once I got moving, it all happened fast. I talked to them this morning, the lady said they'd be out in the next day or two, and by the time I'd run to the store for laundry detergent, there was the tow truck. Lucky I didn't piddle around on getting the last of our stuff out! I popped the coin drawer back in, a final gesture, and watched as he hooked it up and drove away with it to the Happy Driving Grounds.

I am ambivalent about the demise of the Saab. Sure I hated it for most of our acquaintance, sure it was temperamental and prone to breakage and a bear to fix. Sure it broke down at a time when we could least afford it. But it had the grace to gasp its last on the grounds of an auto repair garage, and we did have our happy moments. I remember putting the "Just married" window decals on the windows and driving down to North Carolina, I remember the move down from Chicago and how much stuff could be packed into that little car with the seats down. I remember trips to LARP when LARP was fun, and going to see my folks in that car, and driving dogs from kill shelters to new homes in that car. It had a lot of memories in it. It also had one of my CDs in the CD player that I was never able to get out, but oh well. It was a burn, anyway.

Now that the emotional business of the day is taken care of, there's plenty else to do. I've already done a load of laundry, gone to the bank, gone to the grocery store, and gone to buy birdseed. I also stopped off and washed the Spirit, to prove that life goes on with whatever car you have. Also, it was v. dirty. Washing the car, as usual, provoked predictions of rain, but at least it looks shiny-clean and pretty at this precise moment. Now I've got to shower, put some nicer clothes on, go get my 711 license app filled out, and hit the dentist. Yay, vacation?

There's only one thing that I know how to do well...

In other news, I've done my good deeds for the day by man and nature. Someone tossed out a perfectly nice entertainment cabinet, one of those deals where there's a box for the TV and then shelves alongside, and a cabinet beneath. I don't need one, but my coworker's daughter just moved, and has been looking for a TV stand. So when I was getting laundry detergent, I got my coworker's home number and gave her a call to let her know it was there. Just a few minutes ago, I went down to flip the laundry and get stuff out of the car, and saw her there, trying to lift the thing all by herself into her minivan. Craziness! So I gave her a hand, and it took about a second, and now junk is good furniture once again. She said it's too big for her daughter, but she'll put it in her own basement and give her daughter the TV stand she has now, which is smaller. So that's cool. Her daughter's got a new baby and things are tight, so it's nice to help out where you can.

I also went to the wild bird store and got birdseed for the outside feeder. We've been getting cardinals lately, so pretty! There's more birds around here than you'd think, and Victoria loves to watch them.