Got something in the mail from my grandparents... sort of an autobiography of my grandfather. Full of weird tidbits of his life: During the Depression, he would steal empty whiskey bottles from the winos and sell them back to the bootleggers. I knew that his father had run out on the family, but I didn't know that he had been declared legally dead. Later on, they had a pet alligator that apparently my dad let loose, and it was never seen again. Crazy stuff. Strange fantasy story ideas run through my mind -- a returning great-grandfather, a twenty-foot long albino alligator, and a bunch of angry wino ghosts.

Last weekend, Rebecca and I spent a ridiculous amount of time restoring the mailbox thingy. The house just has a slot beside the front door, and then there's a door on the inside that you open to retrieve mail. Rebecca already stripped the nasty paint off the outside flap, which turned out to be a reasonably attractive brass doodad. Now on the inside, more layers of goopy paint had finally killed the hinges on the inner door. So we stripped the paint, removed the hinges, sanded the bits, painted the bits, put new hinges on and fastened it all together. We've painted it to match the red and black niche, and it looks mahvellous.

Yesterday, I got a letter from some collection agency that works for a tow company. Evidently, the people who bought my old car got it towed and impounded and haven't paid the fees, so it's going to be auctioned off. I think it's weird that they let me know about it, but maybe if the most recent owner won't pay the charges, the previous owner might be the best person to ask. Conceivably, I could sell the car over and over again to poor Hispanic people who don't pay their registration fees, parking tickets, auto insurance or impound fees. It's sad. She was so excited about the car; no doubt it was going to save her hours on the bus going to the houses she did housekeeping for. But it cost more than the bus, I'm sure, and it caught up with her. I hope the year's worth of use she got out of it was worth it.