Extensive car work and a death. In Venice.

So... on my Mom's recommendation I took my car in to Saturn to get a 90k checkup (My car has almost 92,000 miles on it). The Saturn folks just called me back with the bad news: extensive brake work needed. To the tune of $900. Ooooooo... I had to do a quick math problem in my head to justify it. My car is paid off. If it were not, I would be paying probably $300 a month. So, if this is the only major repair in a one year period, I have still saved 9 months of car payments. This does make some of the hurt go away. Oh. And there is the fact that, if I bought a car now, the gas mileage would actually be worse than what my little 1997 Saturn gets. How's that for an extra little smiley bonus?

The Allergies are still bad. I have been hiding in my room as much as possible. Not that it helps much, as The Cat (Pandora) manages to sneak in occasionally and shed havoc-wreaking dander and fur.

Oh. And my tires are almost illegal in Maryland. They are that bald.

About the Death. Yes, I finally managed to complete Thomas Mann's Death in Venice. I have been trying to read it since high school. I have suffered years of guilty feeling for my inability to get more than two pages into the novella. I didn't like it. I had to bribe myself with Jelly Belly Jelly Beans to finish it. Allergy medicine and Thomas Mann: lethal combination. Add a cat or two and its lights out. Oh, and what is with the 14-year-old boy building sandcastles? How unrealistic is that? Maybe Mann built sandcastles when he was 14 (which might account for his incredibly boring prose), but I think the average 14-year-old boy is probably lurking in some dark corner whacking off to Victoria Secret catalogs. I mean, really. Sandcastles?