Be The Pigeon

Today I'm grateful for that phrase. For a couple of years now, my car has very occasionally been a little slow to start. I figured it was the battery, but it always got going and so never was a problem. A couple months ago I loaned the car to a friend and he said it wouldn't start once. I took the battery in and it tested fine. So figured it was just a ghost I'd have to deal with. Then, a few weeks ago, I went to start the car to come home from somewhere, and it wouldn't start. Took the key out and put it back int and all was fine. Ghost was back, but only for a moment. Last night, Jo and I were done with a movie and ready to come home from a date and the car wouldn't start at all. Battery was fine, but it wouldn't turn over at all. Ghost was teasing me now and the novelty was wearing off fast. I called my handy mechanic friend and he told me to tap on the starter. It started right up then. Diagnosis: bad starter. But only 0.5% of the time. Do ...

Jolayne already beat me to the punch on reporting our trip, so this'll just have to be my version. After many years of idealizing in my mind what it would be like, I finally took Amy and Misha skiing at Copper Mountain last week. Short summary of the trip: reality doesn't always match the idyllic view in the mind's eye! Though we had a great time and came home without any injuries, my visions of tooling down the hill with my girls came off just a little differently. As Jolayne said, it was ridiculously cold. It was below zero at home before we even left, and the predicted high temp on the mountain was something like 15 degrees. We caravaned up the mountain (a 2-3 hour trip most of the time in winter) with friends, but after a trip home to pick up forgotten items and a clogged/frozen windshield washer sprayer (and stop to fix), we finally got into the mountains. Traffic up the freeway was terrible. Apparently people think it's well worth a 30-minute wait to wat...