I'll do anything for cake .... (posted by Lani)

Seriously. I could use a cake right now.

Our Subaru Legacy had a catastrophic turbo failure which may have also destroyed the engine, which has not made for a happy past few days. It's under the 60k engine/power train warranty mark but Subaru hasn't given me warm fuzzy feelings about whether they'll cover it; they're insinuating that maybe we haven't taken good care of the car and demanded all of our maintenance records, etc. Those were provided on Friday, so on Monday we'll have an answer both as to whether we still have an engine at all and as to whether Subaru is going to do what they ought and cover all of the repairs, or whether I'm going to have to fight for it.

Given that I've found a ton of evidence (thank you, interwebs!) that sudden oil starvation causing this type of failure has been a known problem with even perfectly maintained Legacy turbos, I have every intention of fighting if need be -- but it would sure be nice not to have to. I'm pretty much prepared for the engine to be toast as well as the turbo and that's where they may really give me issues, since if you stop driving immediately when the turbo dies you may -- MAY -- save your engine. Mine went at night though, in sub-zero weather, on the road up the mountain to the house where there is no cell coverage for miles. I didn't know what it was and I didn't pull over and stop, I limped home, and if that ruined my engine oh well, I'd do it again in the same circumstances even knowing.

It's been bitterly below-zero cold and generally nasty here for a while but not really snowy, although we finally did get a foot or so of snow this past week. We're supposed to have a beautifully warm weekend though, so maybe some of the 2" thick layer of ice on the front porch will melt! Now if the 60 mph+ winds will die down ....

Let's see, what else has been going on here with me, with Steve and with Jim. Pretty much work, work, and school in that order. Steve hasn't been traveling nearly as much in the past 3 months and it's been very nice to have him at home. Jim started back to college in mid-January carrying a full courseload and things seem to be going well with that; overall he likes his professors and that's a pretty big part of it, I think. My job has been going well and I'm still enjoying it, but it's been hectic. We lost one person in the department at the beginning of January and have just replaced him, so hopefully things will calm down a little now.

Our clutter of cats continues to do well, and isn't that an awesome word for a group of cats? Much more descriptive than clowder, I think, and when you have 6 cats it's definitely a clutter, cats everywhere you look. Resk in particular is doing well, although I wish he'd gain a bit more weight. He's playing with the other kitties now on a regular basis, he sleeps with us for at least a part of every night, and he's a total lapcat to boot. Who'd have thought that poor mangled almost-dead beastie I trapped last fall would have turned into such a great companion cat?

I promise to provide photos with my next post, and I promise my next post will be within the next week. Cross my heart! So now ... cake story, and cake recipe?