Nellie

On Sunday, we had two tasks. One was to take the two remaining kittens to Petco to try and get them adopted (we failed-hooray!-, but saw Fernanda who ended up adopting a young adult Siamese cross, Roux, of whom we’ve grown quite fond, and also Virginia and her daughter Alexandria who was visiting and who had babysat the kittens when we first got them and given them names). The second task was to buy a car. (The kittens were MUCH more stressful.)

My ‘86 Subaru hatchback is still running fine but having spent a good ten years in New England ice and snow (and salt), is a bit the worse for wear. It was getting so that I was not feeling comfortable going on long trips—or even relatively short ones out of the way, such as going to Bodega Bay. Blue was my first car, and I bought her for $700 from my roommate back in 1995. Yesterday I sold her to a coworker whose car died a couple of weeks ago and who needs a reliable commute car, which Blue is.

So—this evening we picked up a new Honda Element at the Davis Honda dealership, which was surprisingly low-pressure and even pleasant. This car is the butt of many jokes as being the ugliest thing on the road; it’s fondly known as a toaster, an elephant, and worse. But you can hose out the inside, you can sleep in it, and we can fit our tandem INSIDE. We’ll be rigging up all kinds of gizmos for hitching things in there and are-finally-able to go on a delayed honeymoon for our first anniversary. If only Nellie were a hybrid…