Melissa's Mini

Melissa's Mini,
originally uploaded by alan waldecker.

Melissa got herself a car recently. It's a 1983 Austin Mini. It's a teeny little thing...the top hits me between my stomach and chest. She needed her own car for driving to work - the extra gas mileage was killing us! Janie was able to reduce the driving in her car by half - to a single tank of gas a week (at 45 pounds a pop - that's $75 a week in gas instead of $150!). So it's a huge help to all of us. Now she only needs to get her license - which she hopes to do in the next month.

She actually needed the car to pratcice her driving in as well, since Janie's automatic has too big an engine for the insurance company to cover her - and she isn't willing to learn to drive my stick shift.

So far I've had to replace the thermostat and the water pump (which includes taking out the radiator!). I've ordered a technical manual for repairing the car. I have a feeling we will be spending a lot of intimate time together in the years to come:).