Of eyeliner and cars
I am fed up with my eyeliner pencil. The flipping thing needs to be sharpened fairly regularly, otherwise I look like I'm headed to some kind of heavy metal concert and not to work. But the "lead" is kinda sticky, and it coats the inside of the pencil sharpener. Result: the next time you go to sharpen the dang thing, the tip sticks to the inside of the sharpener and breaks off. Then you have to dig it out with a real pencil and try again, only to have it break again. This of course with minutes to go until the bus comes by. I'm gonna have to either start keeping the pencil in the fridge to keep it from being so sticky (we don't have A/C), or go with one of those plastic pencils where you turn it to advance the eyeliner.
We were in Graz this weekend for my aunt's 50th birthday. It was a fun, if exhausting afternoon with family.
Meanwhile, the A/C in our car broke. Stefan noticed that it wasn't blowing cold air anymore on Friday afternoon. Well, tough luck. All mechanics close on Fridays just after lunch and do not reopen until Monday morning. The last guy there was simply able to inform us that there was no coolant in the system, obviously indicating a leak. And that it might have blown out the compressor if it had been running dry for too long. And that a new compressor would run something like €1500. We drove to Graz and back (2.5 hours each way) sweating, but fortunately it wasn't too hot out. I put a few ice packs on the cat's box to keep him cool.
That was pretty much the last straw with this car. It is 5 years old and we have had it for just over 2 years. So far: one window freed itself and dropped down into the door; the driver's inside door handle pulley system broke, meaning we couldn't open the door from the inside and the interior door panel had to be dismantled twice (€€€) to fix it; a ball joint broke; the tail lights keep burning out; a headlight came out of its socket; the LCD display went haywire; the brakes were warped; the doors keep squeaking and groaning. Just off the top of my head. Now, this is the kind of list I'd expect from a 10 year old car, not one with less than 50,000 miles on it!
So we're in the market for a new used car, a slightly bigger one in view of any future additions to the family. I'd love a Toyota, but they are much more expensive than the competition. At the moment, we're looking at a Ford C-max or Renault Scenic or maybe Opel Vectra. These are all a peculiar kind of European style: taller than a station wagon but not as long. Like a large hatchback. The Toyota Corolla Verso, would be good too, but it would be €2000 more expensive. Then again, if we went with a gasoline motor rather than diesel, that would knock about €2000 off the price.
Stefan spent most of yesterday evening looking up cars and prices while I was sewing. There's a Mazda 6 somewhere not too far from here that we want to visit. I get the impression it's going to be a hectic coupla weeks.