I just want to say...

I'VE GOT WHEELS AGAIN

The Cat was in the the shop today, and got new halfshafts, and an alignment (turned out not to need the lower control arm.
So I've got my car back, man have I missed her. Of course I have to be at my other job in less than an hour and won't get out of that til way late, so I won't be able ot enjoy having The Cat back for a while."

The Cat's repairs.

"So The Cat was repaired today."
The Good News:
The repairs cost less than anticipated. I didn't have to replace the front control arm (the wheel was off-alignment, but by such a small amount the mechanic didn't think it was worth $150). So with discount I only spent about $300 on repairs.
The Bad News:
These repairs didn't end the saga of The Cat's front end.
The engine mounts are shot. to have them done is about another $500. The parts themselves are at least $200-250 of that. Also the strut bushings are toast, don't know how much they will be (and they suggest I replace the whole strut while I'm at it since they are the originals).

Fortunately niether of these repairs are things I wouldn't drive The Cat because of. And after seeing how simple half-shafts are (after my shop manual made it out to be a huge deal) I'm going to prolly attempt these repairs on my own.

Weekend part 1

"Well Friday started off with a trip to the bank to get a new savings & checking account. Needed one since I'm now getting paychecks, and Fleet canceled my old one. Feels kinda weird to be plugged back into the great economoc machine again. On the one hand it'll be a hell of a lot easier to be able to depoist/cash my checks, and a debit card makes life so much easier. On the other hand I've attached myself to a place again. Even moreso than before since then bank I'm now with is only in CT, rather than across the NE like Fleet was.
A trips to the post office, and the library rounded out the errands. The next couple of hours were spent helping out around the house and helping with prep for my sister's graduation party on Sun.
After she got out of work [C] came over and we ripped the power steering pump out of her car. unfortuantely we had gotten the wrong pump, and returned it just in time to learn that the only store in the area that had it was already closed.
So rather than spend friday night puting the pump back in, we got in my mom's truck and headed back to [C]'s place.
Saturday morning I took the truck to work at Pep Boys, and [C] followed a couple hours later in her Cadillac. The plan was for her to pick up the correct pukmp (which would have been delivered to the store by then), and drop the Caddy off to get the A/C system checked.
Well the Caddy went into the shop right about the time I was getting off work, so we headed back in the truck and proceeded to install the new pump (accomapanied by much power steering fluid everywhere as we purged the black fluid from the suystem).
At one point [C] called Pep Boys to see what the story was with the Caddy, and came back remarking that it was only going to be $65 to repair it, which was only about twice what the A/C check would have been.
We finally had the car back together, and called Pep Boys to see if they had completed the Cadillac, the dim bulb [C] talked with couldn't manage to figure out if there was more work needed of if the car was proceeding on course. So we washed the power steering fluid of the other car, and drove over to Pep Boys. The Caddy wasn't done yet, so we headed back to [C]'s place to shower and change for Waterfire that night. After that we returned to reaquire the Caddy.
turns out that the repairs were in fact $646 not $64. [C] was quite obviously pissed by this. She paid it though and we brought the Caddy to my mom's place where we dropped it off. We then headed offto Providence and Waterfire...
{to be continued}