Hey doctor, it hurts when I press this button

A few nights ago in SF a little light flashed on my dashboard, "MAINT REQD". Was something wrong with the car? Did I forget to change the oil? (No.) I added oil anyway and then the next morning, got another oil change. The light didn't go away. So this morning at the Toyota dealership I was told the light would come on every 5K miles and that I had to pay 90 bucks to get the "service".

What! 90 bucks every 5000 miles? You're joking.. Is this necessary? To his credit, the perfectly nice dude working the service booth started laughing and said, "No... it's a scam." The amazing Dealership Service is a tire rotation, brake inspection, and oil change.

Then he performed the real service, which was to show me how to start the car up while holding down the odometer button. Doing that turns off the MAINT REQD light.

My agenda this morning is to loaf a bit and to clean the house. I made Rook breakfast in bed (french toast) and read a bunch of the "Hey Kidz" book I borrowed from Squid; it's a very good book!

Last night after vgqn and her partner's xmas carol-singing party I fell asleep reading an excellent book that Caraja gave me: "Women Writers of the Middle Ages" by Peter Dronke. Oh! It's got a beautiful, excellent preface! I will be typing up bits of that preface and praising it to the skies. It's the sort of preface that makes me feel way, way less alone in the world and in how I view things. I now have a swoony intellectual crush on Peter Dronke because at every paragraph I was like "Yes! Exactly! Neatly said! I must jot all of that down! You read my mind! We are on the same track! Hey, wait a minute, did you read my preface?" And much of it applies beautifully to blogging; the bits about immediacy and being outside established genre/writerly communities/literary scenes, especially. He mentions the attempts to say that Hrosvitha was a man, or a hoax, and ditto with Hildegard of Bingen. (Relevant always but particularly right now while Louise Labe's writerly existence is under attack.) And I loved the testimonial of Perpetua from something like 200 AD. That's as far as I've gotten in the book.

C. also sweetly gave me a hot pink tshirt that says "Word to your mother" with a sort of retro chick on it holding what might be a gun or a steaming plate of food; it's hard to tell - And some more books and a pile of comics. Some of my presents I got for people are still not here (I went a little nuts on Etsy, very easy to do) and I ahven't burned my solstice CDs yet. Think of them as "winter holiday CDs" and expect them sometime next week!

This afternoon we are driving in my NOT BROKEN car that didn't need any service, up to Marin to Doss's tree trimming where I am super excited to see her and Dr. Beth and my friend and lizard-sister Id3xa who I not seen since like 1996 or so. She has 2 kids. I think Doss's idea of treetrimming will satisfy Moomin's new aesthetic tastes. (He admired Ep's tree very much and also vgqn's, and pointed out again to me gently that our tree Sucks and is not as it Should be.)

Comments

[Liz]

I didn't get by with the books yesterday. I've forgotten how time consuming schlepping a kid is, plus the deep annoyance of trying to find parking ANYWHERE.

Maybe today. Maybe tomorrow. Jo's not quite up yet to narrative fiction, I gather, anyway.

When I undecorate my tree (the last year of having a BIG tree) I'll make a box of ornaments for Moomin.

I have one whole box of ornaments left over anyway.

[minnie]

is that the annoying cunt who critisized my fucking filing system (which WASNT even mone sine i had only been there like 3 months and so it was clear she was just trying to be a huge bitch). kick her in the ass for me please. GOD!

oh yeah and make sure that NOT getting the service doesnt void your car warrenty.

[Ralphie]

Hi liz, have a merry whatever its called!