A little of this, a little of that

I got a new car! I had my old car, a 1993 Thunderbird named Liesl, for 6 years, and she was getting old and arthritic and crotchety. (Well, she WAS 14 years old. Are there "car years," like dog or cat years?) Behold, my new as-yet-unnamed car (and our fabulous townhome!):


She's a 2001 Jetta GLS, one of my dream cars. (My second choice was a Toyota Camry, but in keeping with my poor white trash tendencies, Jettas are cheaper.) I'm thinking of naming her Lily, but I can't decide if that's a suitable name for a black car.

A little bit of knitting: My dear friend Maggi just had a baby last Friday, and I found the most adorable pattern for her new little girl. I don't want to spoil the surprise in case she happens to read this before I can get it to her, but it might even be cuter than the fuzzy bunnies. There was a bit of a mishap toward the beginning of it, which means I'll have to wash it before I give it to her, as she might not appreciate a baby gift that smells like rum. I was a little depressed because when I left for work that morning, both of our goldfish were doing, well, swimmingly, but when I came home from work a mere 9 hours later, one was obsessivly gasping at the surface of the tank and the other was dead. So I was drinking the expensive rum that we bought at the Mall of America last weekend, and I spilled it. I spilled it away from the yarn and the project, but then for some reason I neglected to wash my hands before I started knitting again. I didn't really notice it until the next day, when I was packing it into my purse so I could work on it over my lunch break. Wow, it was strong. It smells better now, but Maggi is a non-drinker, so she could probably smell it where I couldn't. I also spilled it on the Agatha Christie book that I had just gotten in the mail, and that smell didn't fade. I'm almost finished reading it, which is good because every time I turn a page I get this strooooong whiff of rum. When will I learn? No rum and knitting. Maybe I should start drinking my rum in a sippy cup.