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My poor car is old. A teenager. And while I've had the fortune to live in areas where I can do a lot of my travel (work, shopping, etc) via public transportation, this is not one of them.

I've had a slow oil leak for a long time. I'll check the oil, add extra and things will be fine. Not now. Last night I noticed my car making a strange grinding noise and turning hard on the way home from work. I hoped it was a one time thing, parked it in the garage and waited until morning. This morning I took it out again. Still making noise, still grinding. Not good at all.

Off to Sears we went, where the manager of the auto department helped me out. We took a short ride through the parking lot, he said it was the engine and not a bearing like he thought. We discussed the oil leak I'd had for a while. He took a look at it. The plan was to fill the oil, clean the engine off and then go back next weekend for them to look and see if they could tell where the leak was coming from.

Instead, he called me and informed me that I have a 'massive' leak. The quart of oil he put in before driving the car into their garage - gone by the time they were done. And it's big enough and in an awkward place, so it isn't something they can repair. So I have a referral to a place that isn't open on the weekend and my poor car is back in the garage. I don't even know if I have enough oil to get to this other place - I may have to go and get some to top off before I head out.

I'm lucky enough that I live within walking distance to work (just under a mile) and there is a grocery store about a mile away as well. Walgreens is just over half a mile away. Wal-Mart a bit further, though it's across a very busy highway that I'm not certain I'd want to cross even though it does have a cross-walk.

On top of all this I've been very moody this week, I screwed up a short-row heel (how is it I can't count properly on a SR heel?), one of the cats threw up last night and I forgot to get my swapee's first card in the mail. Also, I've been under a lot of stress lately - semester is nearly over, the search committee's I'm on, deadlines coming up on stuff, colleague leaving, etc. All this resulted in me having a major meltdown on the phone with my Mom.

Now, however, I'm feeling much better. I have a bad tendency to internalize stress and internalize more stress until I fall apart. I'm certain that the long bath, hot cocoa and raspberry chipolte black bean and cream cheese dip I'm having helps. It's going to be a no knitting night - or if I do knit it'll be something new/different. The sock needs to frog and I'm not liking the yarn, Versatility is not something to knit while trying to veg. I may work on the striped feather and fan afghan I wanted to make for my bedroom. Or I'll pull out the other sock I have somewhere - except I think I'm to the heel on that too. Oi. I'd start Ice Queen, but it requires a provisional cast on which is more intense that I want to deal with right now. :(