doodledee

The Saab died on me the other day. I was driving home after hitting a few after-Christmas doorbuster sales and the engine just bonked and stopped running. When it happened I had to weave around some traffic and coast over to the side of the road. No power steering or breaks or anything. It was all tremendously exciting.

After I parked I tried restarting a it couple of times but it was having none of it. Rerrrerrrerrrclick. Rerrrerrrerrrclick. Then I noticed some horrible engine type smells starting to filter into the cabin, which I took as a sign that I should give up. Merry Christmas to me.

Libby had taken it in for an oil change last week so I immediately figured they had screwed something up. Never mind the fact that the oil pressure light hadn't come on and the engine temp had stayed normal, I still popped the hood and had a look. Not smokey or anything, but definetly a little stinky. I grabbed the dipstick and pulled it out: it's all pink. WTF is this? Coolant in my crank case? Did they put the wrong fluid in? Did I blow a head gasket? The turbo? Piles of money began burning in my head. Ouch ouch double ouch.

I was only like 4 blocks from home at the time, so I grabbed a few bags of stuff and walked the rest of the way. When I got home I screamed into a pillow for a few minutes and then I picked up the phone and called Poquet Auto, as they were a) the ones who had changed the oil and b) my favorite place to take my cars when they break and c) the best damn car dealer in town. I explained how it had died and how I saw coolant in the crank case and kind of asked if there was a chance that they had screwed up. The dude said he didn't see how that would have happened, and while I kind of agreed with him, I wasn't fully convinced it was all just a coincidence. He gave me the number of their tow service and told me to bring it on in.

Next I called AAA and reactivated our recently defunct membership. I guess if you do that you immediately qualify for benefits, which is exactly what I was hoping for. Within 45 minutes I was riding shotgun in a tow truck heading north on Highway 100. So far so good.

I turned the car over to the service guy and explained what had happened and how I thought *maybe* it was related to the oil change. I also added that I trust them completely and threw in a few more backpedaling type statements that served to ratchet down my 'you guys broke my car' posturing. I gave him the number where I could be reached and Libby picked me up in the Jeep and we made our way up to my sister's house for Family Christmas Spectacular 2005.

I got the call a couple of hours later. Crankshaft position sensor had failed, ergo the computer doesn't know engine state, ergo computer stops injectors, ergo no vroom vroom. Turns out it's actually a pretty cheap fix. And what about the coolant in the crank case? They couldn't find any, which was odd, until I realized I had pulled the wrong diptstick and that I wasn't checking the oil. Needless to say, I gushed apologies all over the dude, but I still felt like an ass. When I stopped to pick it up on the way home I slunk in fully prepared to eat my hat, but the service dude was already gone for the day so instead I got to make small talk with the hottie sales lady while she charged my credit card. Lucky me.

I'm sorry I doubted you, Poquet.

Libby makes them every year and I can't stop eating until they're gone. Get down.

14 oz butter
21 oz flour
6 ¼ oz confectioner's sugar
1 egg
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Cream butter and sugar together
2. Add egg, beat.
3. Stir in vanilla
4. Mix in flour thoroughly until dough comes together.

Load up your cookie gun and shoot 'em out on a baking sheet. Bake at 440 until they’re lightly browned, about 7 minutes.

Friday night was our annual trip downtown to see the battery-powered winter night parade spectacular that goes by the name of Holidazzle. We had originally planned on the whole winter evening downtown ritual: a walk over to Field's to see the 8th floor auditorium show, a quick light dinner, then out to the mall to watch the parade. When we got there, however, we quickly realized that like 20,000 other people had formulated the *exact* same agenda we had, so we skipped the two hour wait for the animatronic princess and her wicked stepsisters and went right to dinner.

As with other years, we ended up at the 'Sky Room' thing at Field's for dinner. I concluded it was the best option for a number of reasons: it's convenient, it's kid friendly, and the food actually isn't all that bad. (I'd add that it's almost even kind of cheap, but it's obviously all relative. That said, a $7 plate of spaghetti with some nice spicy sausage - cooked to order, no less - is far from the worst deal downtown.) Over dinner I thought about what our other options would have been, and I decided that there really weren't any, especially on a Friday. I have no idea where the other 19,997 people down there were planning on eating, but somebody could be making a killing during the holidays by offering up some additional options. Oh wait, I forgot, downtown isn't for people with kids. My bad.

The parade was great. The crowds were big and festive - to the point where our whole area broke out in spontaneous christmas carols several times throughout the evening - and I think the energy fed back to the marchers because they were all happy and waving and smiling and high-fiving and all that crap. When Santa rolled through at the end, the mood elevated into almost a New Years Eve caliber frenzy with people screaming and jumping up and down and I even saw a couple of dudes climbing a lightpole to get a better look. That was unexpected.

My favorite parts were when a) the big snowman thing had to stop right in front of us to wait for a traffic light and he did like a million spins and b) when I got to explain to my kid how the people cowering in the warmth of the skyways were wimps.

Last weekend we went out and got the family Christmas tree. We had initially been kicking around the idea of trying to track down the classic "cut your own" experience, but as the month burned away we tabled that motion in favor of just pushing one of those tow-behind bicycle kid trailer things down to the various neighborhood tree lots and shopping locally while thinking globally. Maybe next year I'll get out the saw and the thermos of cocoa and do all that up. It sure sounds cool. I hear they even have horse rides sometimes. Giddy up.

This year's tree buying was a tad earlier than our usual "run out at the last minute and pick from the trees left on the lot that look so bad even Charlie Brown wouldn't take pity on them" routine. The inventory was plentiful at all the places we went, the weather was sunny and crisp, and I think I may have even whistled a little bit. Can't argue with that.

On the downside, my finely honed jedi bargaining skills are apparently of little or no use so early in the tree shopping season. Most years I go in expecting to enjoy a couple of solid rounds of statesman like negotiation with the Tree Lot Guy, but this year it basically consisted of him saying "$28" and me saying "$28?! Come on, it's all flat on this side - I'll give you $22," at which point he said "$25" and I said "Ok, deal" and got out my wallet because, honestly, the one side wasn't really all that flat and $25 seemed like a pretty reasonable price. Also, I was getting kind of cold and it was a long walk home.

The tree is around 5 feet tall and it's nice and green and I think it's a balsam or something. We brought it in right away and now our house smells all piney and stuff. I had to go to Target to get some more lights for it because - of course - when I plugged in the ones from last year they didn't work and I'd rather go pay $1.59 for new lights than spend 4 hours debugging a broken strand. I'm sure that makes me some kind of Edina cliche or something, but whatever, I'll deal.

On a related but not really note, I sure saw a lot of stupid expensive Christmas trees out there. Maybe it's just me, but when I was a kid working the Christmas tree lot, every car didn't drive away with a $100 Fraser Fur tied to the roof. At this point I'm going to go ahead and lump the 'deluxe Fraser Fur' in with the '$3000 flat screen television' and the '$500 vacuum' as prices I never thought society would tag as 'reasonable'. And yes, I'm sure there's some inflation-based argument to be made, but I'd rather sit here and be flabbergasted thankyouverymuch.

Tree on.