It's nice seeing non-US news for a change. They are simply more critical. For example, take a story on what Mr. George Bush, president of the United States is doing or saying. In the US, it will always be "the President" is doing this or "the President" is saying that. In Europe, it's "Mr. Bush", "George Bush" or even "the current president of the US".

Objectivity. You can't beat it. With a stick.

(is jet-lagged, drunk and sleep-deprived blogging maybe not the best blogging? maybe not.)

Trans-Atlantic flights are always a little strange. If you don't sleep on the plane, you are a little disoriented when you finally get there. Then, if you sleep all day, you wake up feeling really disoriented. Then, if you start drinking that same night, you become really disoriented.

I got of the plane at 6 this morning.

The car died last night. We named it after a cow, so it was no surprise when it started to slow down when I was driving past a field filled with cows. Leisurely eating the few really green straws that were striving to break from the earth and into the spring. This is were it stopped. And asked to be put out to pasture. A metal cow among all the hormone-injected ones.

I was on my way to a dinner. After being rescued by some of the other dinner guests, I was inundated with offers of cars to use until mine had been nursed to health. Offers of help in finding a good garage. Or another car. One girl even offered to sell her car to me. For next to nothing.

And today, when more of my friends heard of my troubles, they offered to loan their cars, pointed me to good mechanics and offered to help with getting another car.

Why is it that I am always so awe-struck with how good people can be? Why am I less surprised when I hear of some wickedness than acts of kindness? Can it be that I do not believe in the inherent good in man?

Anyway. My car is still dead.

It is official. I am a junkie. A people junkie. I just can't get enough. It doesn't hurt that, for some unknown reason, I seem to have a guardian angel that keeps steering wonderful people into my path. Or me into theirs.

There were thirteen people in all here on Easter Sunday. Painting eggs, swinging from the trees (half of them are under the age of ten), eating chockolates, playing games, singing, searching for easter baskets, sunbathing, drinking, talking, napping, reading, looking for worms, pole vaulting, and dining.

We had a double steak dinner. Our houseguests made glazed ham, and I made my leg of lamb. I have always thought of ham as just something you put in a sandwitch, but this was something else! I must have eaten a whole pound of it. And the lamb was actually quite good, even if I say so myself. We poured the juices from the lamb over the mashed potatoes, which took them to a whole new level.

Mmmmmmm... I have to go now. I just remembered that I still have some leftovers in the fridge.

Four days. I know, I know.

Sorry.

I just noticed that I am now updating my blog only every third day. Strange. It doesn't feel like time is passing any quicker than when I update it daily. I feel like Riff: It's astounding. Time is fleeting. Madness. Takes it's toll.

Time has a way of smoothing everything out. Or muddling it into vague memories. For example, my first coherent memory is from when I was a little over one year old. I was sitting in the grass next to another toddler. This was on a farm of sorts just outside my hometown, where my uncle lived with his family. It was sunny. My parents were laughing. I felt good.

It doesn't come as a surprise to me that this is the first thing I remember vividly. Tears and rain do not make up a big portion of my memories. Maybe I just had such a wonderful childhood. I did. But I think I remember more laughing than crying because that's what my mind chooses to remember. I think it selects mundane, pleasant things to store in my memory so that I do not go insane. That's my explanation of why it was always sunny when I was a kid. It's just the warm and fuzzy blanket of time, which has been drawn over all things past.

And why do I mention this? Because of The War, of course. It's virtually over, the invasion stage of it, anyway. And I am afraid that I will see these times through some rose-tinted spectacles, when I'll look back on them, twenty or thirty years from now. "Do you remember?", I will ask my wife. "We were pregnant, had just bought our first house, and I was demonstrating against the invasion into Iraq. Those were the days."

I hope this will not happen. But deep down I know it will. I will forget the let-down, the desperation, the incredulity, the sorrow, the nausea, the indignation. The horror. The slaughter. It will all become somehow sugarcoated. And it will become about me. How these were my rebellious years. How this was the time when I stood up for what I believe. And nostalgia will follow. O, how foreseeably pathetic I will become. And probably am already. Pitiful. Sad, really.

But I digress. I was about to explain why I'm only posting every third day now: The thing is, thie blog is an outlet. A vent. And when there is nothing to vent, nothing interesting gets written.

Like now.

For a couple of weeks, our car has had this weird little noise coming from the engine part of it (can you tell I know nothing about car engines?). I took it to a mechanic, who basically scratched his head, changed some oils and gave me a bill.

The sound didn't go away, so I took it back today. The mechanic scratched his head again, changed some more oils and gave me a new bill. That was not reassuring. And the noise was still there. So I did something you should never do. I asked him to guess. That's like asking your doctor to guess. You don't want these people guessing what can be wrong with you. Or your car.

His best guess? "Slowly failing torque converter". His words. To fix that, if that is indeed what's wrong with it, it would be "best" to install another automatic transmission. A low-milage used one, plus labor, could cost a thousand dollars.

So my options are:

• Wait until it breaks (a week, a year), and then buy a used 'tranny'.
  
• Trade the car for another used one. More money, maybe less hazzle.
  
• Buy/lease a new car. Much more money, definetly less hazzle.
  

Fun. Fun. Fun.