Cars

Recently I "celebrated" 18 years of marriage. At a point when so few marriages seem to last for any significant amount of time, you may be hoping I can offer some insights into how I have managed this feat. I believe the key is thinking of husbands in terms of cars. You may wonder what brings about this unusual theory? Well, I have done intense research over these last 18 years, and by "intense research" I mean I have observed and heard my fellow wives' experiences, and I have found husbands all have similar factory defects. I think the secret to surviving marriage is in recognizing that all women discover these warps in their own husbands, no matter which style they selected.  Read more

My husband is obsessed with gas mileage. Whenever we fill up the tank, he resets the trip odometer to zero so he can check how many miles he got for his full tank of gas the next time he refills. He coasts down hills, he rolls to a stop rather than inching forward, and he practically salivated during Mythbuster's dirty vs. clean car gas mileage episode.  Read more

In the course of a year, we find ourselves buzzing down the stretch of highway that leads from Seattle to central Oregon maybe a dozen times, give or take a trip or two. With the assistance of things like Yelp and Urban Spoon, we've learned where to get the best sandwich, where you can get a huge slab of cake with your coffee and where to ask for Korean food instead of reading the menu that the diner waitresses give you. We make this trip in our fairly fuel-efficient car, a Pontiac Vibe that we bought a few years ago.  Read more

In my twenties, I fell in love with BMWs.  I loved their history, their styling, and their ability to live up to pure car enthusiast standards in terms of performance and handling.  I scraped together all my money and stretched my budget completely thin to buy my first BMW.  I absolutely loved the car.  I loved how it drove, loved how it looked and I meticulously hand-washed and waxed the car to keep it beautiful.  Read more

One of the things I traditionally do at the start of a new year is clean out the inside of my car. It's just as glamorous as it sounds, particularly because I gave birth to a couple of trash factories a few years back. Sometimes the things I find on this annual excursion are best left undisclosed.  Read more