"What has my mommy given me to eat?!? This strange substance is solid, yet jiggly. I eat it with my fingers, and it is suspiciously sweet. Mommy NEVER gives me sweet stuff just because! More, peeeease!"
Return of the Lemon
So. Uh-huh, that's right. SO. The car repair man speaketh. After taking the car apart and putting it back together again, the car is apparently mysteriously fixed. They don't know what they did to fix it, but they claim the problem is gone. I haven't seen it for myself since it won't be home until next week sometime. However, Brandon believes this is the opportune time to sell it. We'll have to talk about that some more. (My good ol' Iowa ethics leave me feeling guilty about putting this puppy in someone else's hands.) Guess I wouldn't make a good Frenchman.
Oh, Christmas Tree
So, I decided that this past weekend was THE weekend. It was time to get our Christmas tree. After much debate, we decided we would go the "real" route once again. So, we all got in the car and headed to Ikea, one of the places to find a tree. From there, the Christmas spirit went downhill. They had their trees sorted according to height. The only problem was that the trees were wrapped up in netting so you couldn't really see what they look like. We just had to pick according to height. Once we made our selection, they cut the netting loose for us to see the tree. HORRORS! Seems that all of the trees being sold at Ikea and 3 other lots we peeked at had beautiful full bottom halves, but scrawny branchless top halves. I wasn't thrilled; Brandon reminded me that we are in the Czech Republic and this is the way it is. He then presented me with two options: "You wanna look somewhere else?" and "You wanna fake tree?" Feeling flustered and unwilling to haul Lydia all over on a tree hunting expedition I said, "It's fine. Just get it. I'll deal with it." We paid $30 for our scraggly tree and bought some loose evergreen boughs as well. We then went grocery shopping in grumpy silence. "I'm going to get the bread". "I'm getting the milk" (grumble grumble). This wasn't the way I had envisioned this evening! We got our tree home and, determined to make the best of things, I set about grafting the loose boughs onto the branchless upper half. (I call myself the "Tree Whisperer".) All in all, the end result is not too shabby. Add a couple hundred lights and some ornaments, and botta boom, botta bing... you've got a "perfect" Christmas tree. We'll keep our fingers crossed that the top half of our tree doesn't die before the bottom!!!
Not-So-Peachy Renault
Mid-November we returned the Renault to the car service guy. With the ever-present transmission issue we informed him that he had not "fixed" the problem and he should try again. So... three weeks have passed. He thought he had figured out that the problem is a faulty computer module. So, he ordered the new part, replaced it and (imagine this!) it DIDN'T fix the problem!!! Now he has another Renault at his station (presumably with a different problem) that he is going to swap parts with until he finds the part that is faulty. When Brandon told me I was supposed to have the car back last week, I knew how likely that was and thought I would believe it when I see it. Now they have given up on providing an estimated time of the car's return. I believe that at this point the car has officially spent more time at the service station then it has with me. I tell people that I have a car but it actually lives at the service station and only comes here to visit me once in awhile. Oh well... look on the bright side -- Lydia has learned the words "bus" and "taxi" and thinks of them as exciting excursions. Oy!
