Diane’s car is at the repair shop.

I put all the wine we acquired last week away and entered it into CellarTracker. I’d better not buy any more wine for quite a while!

And that pretty much sums up the day.

Our 2005 Prius has been making a funny little pulsing noise for a couple of months; it seemed to be coming from somewhere near the left front wheel. The car still drove well and the radio easily drowned out the noise, so I didn’t do anything about it.

A few weeks ago, the “Check Engine” light came on. I drove the car to a local parts store so they could read the code, but by the time I got there, the light was out. They found three codes – one was for a capacitor circuit malfunction, one was a battery issue, and one was a coolant flow problem. They couldn’t tell me which was the most recent code, so I decided to wait and see if the light came back.

It did. I tried to make an appointment with my mechanic, but never quite connected – and the light went away again.

It returned on Friday; this morning, I was on the phone with the mechanic as soon as they opened and made arrangements to get it diagnosed today. Their scanner was considerably more elaborate than the one at the parts store – and the person running it was more knowledgeable, too. The scanner showed two P1121 codes, which indicate the coolant control valve is shot. Said valve is located near the front left wheel well (near the headlight), which matches the noises I was hearing.

They’ve got the part on order and will take care of it on Wednesday. This is only the third problem we’ve had with the car in 17 years, so I guess I can’t complain!

We’ve been members of the wine club at Silver Mountain Vineyards for more than a decade. The wine is very good, the prices are fair (especially when there’s a sale), and the pick up parties are enjoyable. The owner, Jerald O’Brien, brings a selection of older wines up from his cellar – some are from Silver Mountain, but we’ve had wines from France and Spain, as well as other California wineries.

Today’s party was no exception; we were seated with another couple and spent nearly three hours chatting, with occasional trips to the bar. We were having such a good time that we only tried one of the wines from Jerald’s cellar!

After yesterday, it was pretty easy to avoid buying any wine beyond the quarterly allocation; I have 40 bottles to log and put away, and that seems like plenty for now.

My winning streak in Learned League didn’t last long; yesterday’s match was a tie. I missed this question:

The works of Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov include Uncle Vanya, The Three Sisters, The Cherry Orchard, and what 1896 play, his first major work, which, despite its title, is actually set somewhere inland in present-day central Russia or Ukraine?

The best I could come up with was “Deep Souls”, which was wrong. The right answer, of course, is “The Seagull”.

We spent the morning at Shir Hadash, first for Torah Study and then services; Diane chanted Torah. There was a “Lunch and Learn” afterwards, but it was so crowded we went home instead, arriving just before FedEx delivered my replacement camera, two days before I expected to receive it.

After lunch, we drove into the mountains to take advantage of Silvertip Vineyards' closeout sale; we came away with two cases of Pinot Noir and half a case of Syrah. As long as we were in the mountains, we also stopped at Burrell School Vineyards to pick up our November order. I hadn’t planned on tasting anything there, but the owner mentioned that their 2006 port was on sale for $10/bottle and was available for tasting. We left with three bottles (only $25!), plus our order. And we have another pickup party tomorrow afternoon!

I haven’t had a chance to use the camera yet or work on the home automation, but that’s OK – it was nice to have a mentally restful Shabbat!

The Learned League season started on Monday. I lost my first three matches, but this morning, I awoke to the pleasant news that I’d won Thursday’s match. I’d gotten all six questions right, so I was assured of not losing the match, but it was nice to notch the win!

We took two bags of clothes, a couple of cordless drills, and an old Apple TV to Goodwill this afternoon and then went to Costco to pick up a few necessities; it took less time than I feared it would, and we hardly bought anything that wasn’t actually on our list (just some Balsamic Vinegar, which is a staple so it doesn’t count as an impulse buy, right?).

I made a lot of progress on the Home Assistant conversion. I still don’t know why it decided my keypads have only 6 buttons, but I found out how to tell it that there are 8. And I migrated some of the key behaviors I’d set up in Indigo (for example, turning off all the lights in the kitchen when I turn off the kitchen counter light) – it’s fairly straightforward, but tedious. So far, I’ve been able to do everything in their UI instead of having to edit control files, which is a great improvement over the last time I tried to convert.

Small wins make me happy.