Meet the new car, rather different from the old car.

Meet the new car! Rob called me Wednesday and announced that he was in love. Since his new love has four wheels, I think I can live with it.

For the curious who aren't sufficiently car buffs to ID this on sight, this is a 1989 Porsche 944. The body is in prime condition, with not a speck of rust on it. It runs, and is in generally excellent shape, with one major caveat - it's also in many, many pieces. The seats, hatchback, inside door panels, instruments, and almost everything else but the engine currently reside not in the car, but in the back of our pick-up. Rob estimates six months or more to get her back together and on the road.

Fortunately, since Rob loves working on cars and is quite good at it, this was more of an incentive than not. Especially since the whole "the car is in pieces" thing brought the price down a lot. Lots and lots. Which has the added benefit that if, after he gets her together, he decides he really didn't want a Porsche after all, he should be able to sell it for at least 4x what he paid for it.

I'm not a car buff myself, but it's fun to watch him light up over this car. Plus it's rather cool to say we have a Porsche in our garage.

Cars and Japanese

Rob's bonus came in. For the first time in his working history, this does not mean "Woot! Let's take the family out for pizza and blow it all!", but actually involves a noticeable amount of money. He's hoping to replace his current car with a nicer, newer, though still well-used one. Right now he's having an absolute blast looking through all the local cars for sale and deciding what he actually wants. - shopping is always his favorite part of buying a car. We'll see what he finally settles on, but right now he's just loving the drooling. For example, he will be looking today at a Porsche 944 that was new when he was in high school (theoretically in running condition - once it's put back together). I doubt he'll bring it home, but he's getting an enormous kick out of the idea that he could. It's the first time he's been able to buy a car without the entire consideration being "how cheap can I get something that I can keep on the road myself?" I'm having a lot of fun watching him enjoy himself, and for the fact that the cars that he's most enjoying drooling over look like the epitome of a mid-life crisis (the Porsche, an Eclipse, a GT). No mid-life crisis involved, he's always loved roadster-type cars, but that doesn't stop me from snickering.

I'm back to working seriously on my Japanese. I've almost got my hiragana down (and my friend Chia says my handwriting is pretty decent). My ability to use the language is still down at the "Would you like to eat? Nice weather, isn't it?" level, but seems to be coming along fairly quickly. I'm not sure if working Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur simultaneously is better or worse than either separately, but it's certainly less frustrating than either alone. Pimsleur gives you longish phrases without a lot of understanding of why they mean what they mean, and it easily turns into boatloads of mass memorization if you can't break it down, while Rosetta Stone teaches you using no English at all, which can mean the breakthrough of understanding what the heck you're saying can take a long time, when just a tiny hint would have made it clear. I went through the lesson on pronouns three times before I realized that the lesson was even about pronouns! Combining it with Pimsleur seems to give me the extra bit of explanation that lets me decipher what a given Rosetta Stone lesson is trying to show me.

Eight weeks and counting to the World Tournament. I've gotten in some good sessions with my sai, but it's been raining non-stop for the last week (and is supposed to keep doing so this week) which makes bo practice time hard to come by. In general I think it's probably time to ease up on the general conditioning and start hitting the specific conditioning harder.

A Deep Breath

Some good news - Dad W has no metastases. We have only the primary tumor to deal with. The oncologist sounded downright optimistic at the latest visit. Granted, we still have a big honking, fast-growing liver tumor, but we have a plan of action and some hope.

I just realized I was talking about Dad W's cancer the way some husbands talk about pregnancies - as "our" tumor. It's really feeling that way. I track the appointments, take Dad W to them, and provide doctor interface and translation when he gets confused. Though I feel a little guilty because along with everything else I feel, I'm also absolutely fascinated with the actual treatments being planned.

We'll be starting targeted chemo and radiation therapy in January, both supplied through polymer microspheres fed directly into the artery that supplies the tumor. Between now and then our instructions are to feed him up, and chase him out of the house to get some exercise - basically to try to build him up both physically and mentally before treatments actually begin. So for now, it's time to catch our breath, enjoy the holidays and get ready to hit the ground running.

Other news: The Saturn having been successfully turned into a large paperweight (cracked engine block), I now have a 1997 Nissan Maxima to play with. It's a year older, but with 100,000 fewer miles than the Saturn. We now look like a family of government agents, with two black cars with black interiors and tinted windows.

Our church organist is taking a leave of absence for January and February, so I will be sharing duties with one of the other choir members (a composer and phenomenal pianist) to provide coverage. Eeep! That's a lot of playing given the size (miniscule) of my organ repertoire. Also, said composer has written a duet for two sopranos and has asked me if I would debut it, singing with M (a professional singer/voice teacher), which is terribly flattering. I've heard M sing, and she's got a fabulous voice, though very different from mine. To have a professional composer think I'm a good match for a duet with her just made my whole day.