Apologies to the late Fred Rogers, but it’s not a beautiful day in the neighborhood today.

First of all, I’m still sick and getting very, very tired of being sick. The sniffles and the sore throat have departed, and I was happy to see them go, but I now have two infected ears and a lingering cough. The cough I am treating with a combination of Tessalon Perles and single-malt scotch, though I try to stick to the former … the latter makes driving a big risk. The ears are hopeless, and it’s freaking me out a bit because I make my living with them and can’t afford for anything to happen to them. I have antibiotic drops and pills and lots of other stuff, but they all take time to work and I’m impatient. I feel like I am listening to the world from underwater. Ugh.

As if that weren’t bad enough, I got in my car this morning to drive to work and it began merrily spewing water out of its radiator the way Martha Stewart spews useless advice. (“A little lemon and seltzer will remove those pesky ink stains after you’ve been fingerprinted”) I had a rebuilt engine put into this car less than a year ago … I had to take out a loan against my 401(k) retirement plan to do it, and I’m still repaying that loan. The engine had a warranty of 2 years or 24,000 miles, whichever came first. It’s been 25,800 miles, so according to the fine people at the mechanic’s shop, I’m hosed.

The car has 200,000 miles on it. That’s because I really love this car. It’s a 1998 Buick Century Custom, and up until the last year or so it’s been a wonderfully reliable vehicle. It’s gotten me where I needed to go, it looks fairly classy, it handles well, and it’s got a big beefy V-6 that has no shortage of power when I need it. It’s large and comfortable enough to sleep in, and I’ve done that very thing many times on long trips when my eyelids would not oblige me by staying open all night. My ears have become accustomed to its very high-quality sound system. It’s even quite easy on fuel, considering its weight and engine size. I have never been so satisfied with a car.

Now it’s dying. In addition to the two recent major engine problems, it’s beginning to show its age. There are rust spots here and there. The blower fan for the air conditioning died about a year ago, I replaced it, and it’s now died again. (In Atlanta, air conditioning is emphatically not a luxury, it is a life-support system.) My left rear speaker gave up the ghost. The passenger side power window is sticky. The transmission is making faint but ominous noises and occasionally, once or twice a week, it slips. In short, it’s falling apart. If it were a working horse, now would be the time for it to go out to pasture to live out its remaining years lazily and peacefully.

Is it strange to be so sad about this? I am not ashamed to say I really loved my car. I loved it enough to spend $4000 to put a rebuilt engine into a car that already had 175,000 miles on it, a move that even my wife described as monumentally stupid. She was right, but I probably would do the same thing again if I thought it would make the car its old self again. It won’t. I know I need a new car, but I am going to miss this one terribly. Even the nice smell of a new car isn’t going to take the sting out of this.

So, I’ve been on the phone with car dealers all day, trying to arrange appointments, trying to decide on something new. I feel very good about this, because I’m spreading mirth. When they ask what I’m willing to put down as a down-payment, I tell them, and they immediately have a really good laugh, the kind where they roll on the floor and clutch their sides, gasping for breath. Laughter’s the best medicine, so just call me doc.

Meanwhile, other aspects of life are less depressing. Our friends Nicholas and Seong went geocaching with me on Saturday. It was their first outing, and we had a lot of fun. I still haven’t logged the caches, that’s how frantic I’ve been, but we found two out of two! Afterwards the guys came out to our house and ended up staying over so we could have Easter dinner together on Sunday. Yvette cooked up a mighty feast, impressive even beyond her usual standards. I slept early and well last night, stuffed to the gills.

I have a major odyssey coming up. I have been asked to go to my company’s west coast manufacturing facility in Grass Valley, California, to learn all about a product which I’m to demonstrate at NAB. I will start my training on a Thursday, then fly directly to Las Vegas and man the booth at NAB (a big broadcasting trade show / expo) from Monday through the following Thursday. I hope my ears are better by then. Maybe I will get a chance to wander into San Francisco for Sushi one night. I can dream, can’t I?

I would write more, but I have important malingering to do … and I must at some point find some time to raise a pint in honor of my pal, Henry, to thank him for jarring me out of this dry spell! I think I have a pint of Tetley’s in the fridge that would do nicely.

More tomorrow, stay tuned to the never-ending saga (comedy/drama) that is my life.