:I

My car has slow-leaky tires, a huge hole in the exhaust, and no power steering, but it's not getting fixed because it's worth about $500 on the market. There was a used car from my dad's company I was going to look at that was reasonable (kind of high mileage - the people at Farm Credit do a lot of driving - but only a couple of years old) but it just sold. I'm planning to go with a lease, but with few dealerships around here I have little choice, so I'm going to wait until Thanksgiving and try to get one near Albany. Guess I'm just ... not going to drive anywhere for a while.

Kind of nice to make the decision, tbh. It's awkward and means I'm going to have to find a ride to get to our chorus concert in Ogdensburg on 11/11, but now paying $1200 for repairs is off the table for good and I never have to go, "should I walk or drive?" because the answer is now always "walk".

Unfortunately, "should I replace my coat, down coat, sneakers, boots, and jeans, all of which are either dead or nearly there?" is still on the table.

(no subject)

I spent the afternoon finishing my apron - it's hideous, by the way, but useful - and decided to watch Lilies again while I did the binding. It's interesting to rewatch it now that historical drama has become a mainstay of tv. If it came out now, it probably would still only get one season - its morality is a lot more complex than historical drama morality is allowed to be. Not so much in the individual choices characters are allowed to make (which we do see a lot of grey in these days) but in the universe itself. When the officials come around to make sure the houses aren't overcrowded and the kitchen isn't filthy, we've seen enough of the poverty of the street and the sketchy stuff happening in the kitchen to know they're right but don't sympathize with their manner and way of going about it, and the show doesn't exactly say, "Look how awful these guys are! The government should stay out of public health." When Ruby gets involved with the posh vegetarian feminist eugenicists, they're allowed to be partly right and partly wrong and partly clueless. And I mean: Dadda Moss. They may have actually gone too far on the ambivalent side with Dadda. I dunno. But I kind of prefer this version of "shades of grey" to the more common one.