Daily Kup (My Life Rolling [in] the Dough)With small people returning to school and some large people going to work, the stars have resumed their alignment after a tumultuous weekend.
The good folks at Jeff's Auto have performed an autopsy (auto-psy?) on the yellow bus and found that the transmission that I had assumed was defective was about the only thing that was working on the old girl. She'll be back in a few days with a variety of new components -- a ball joint, plugs, two coils, intake plenum and two of three catalytic converters. On that latter, I guess we now know what kept fouling the sensor and causing the engine light to come on that I took in for ineffective diagnosis until I found that ignoring it was less stressful. One of the catalytic converters by itself cost as much as the 1971 Super Beetle that I purchased in high school. And I could at least push that thing to get it going when it wouldn't start.
The estimate for today's repair pretty much fouled my coils and intake plenum, and I don't even know what an intake plenum is. Jeff's agreed to discount the labor to help me out since I'm a long-term customer and I appreciate their being willing to work with me on it. This illustrates two good rules for purchasing services: 1) Give your business to locals whenever it makes sense, and 2) It never hurts to ask for a discount.
Oh, well. It's a punch that I can roll with. It's not like I can make my own spark plugs.
People in Knead
On the other hand, I can make my own bread. Sort of. In August, I found the one place in the world where a new drive belt for the American Harvest dual load breadmaker can be purchased. The American Harvest is kind of the holy grail of breadmakers. I got mine at a rummage sale for $5 but you'll find them on eBay for $200 and up. With a screwdriver and a cocky attitude, I took the breadmaker apart and installed the new drive belt to replace the one that had disintegrated.
A few minutes later, we were literally cooking ... er, baking.
I think my yeast was too old or the warming coils didn't get hot enough when the dough was supposed to rise. Still, stumpy and heavy though it was, we made sandwiches for lunch tomorrow.
Sometimes life is all about perspective. The car will go another 100,000 miles and the next loaf will be better.
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