200,000

A momentous non-birding milestone in my life: my mighty little beater has officially hit the 200,000-mile mark!

It has survived two years of Glenn commuting from L.A.'s Miracle Mile district to his job in Irvine, then a year of biweekly round trips between L.A. and Fresno (the year I taught at Fresno State), then three epic round trips between Costa Mesa and Vancouver, B.C. (don't ask), then a seven months of a daily commute between Costa Mesa and Pasadena, and...well, you get the picture. Its only mechanical problems in the 12-odd years we've had it have been related to peripherals: a leaky tire every few years, an occasional dead battery. AND it gets close to 40 miles a gallon. Take that, you Humvee-owning snobs!

It actually started out as Glenn's car, which he got as a replacement for a sexy little Mazda RX-7 that, regrettably, was stolen and stripped. At this point, we'd been dating for a couple of years.

"This time I think I'm going to get an automatic," he said, "so you can drive it too."

At that moment, I knew that he was playing for keeps.

Happy (early) anniversary, dude!