cooking
I set the alarm for 7AM this morning, because I needed to take the Passat in for its 60k mile service. Of course this was the morning that David decided to sleep in, so I ended up waking him at 7:35AM. I dropped off the car, and Denise picked me up.
While waiting for them to call, i decided I'd do some cooking. Last night before going to bed, I put two cups of pinto beans into a pot to soak. I started off this morning by cooking them. While they were cooking, I put a little olive oil and an 8oz can of tomato sauce into a pot. I diced up 1 eggplant, and threw it in, and let it simmer. As that was going, I decided to poach some pears in red wine. I put 1.5cups of merlot in a sauce pan with some cloves, brown sugar, vanilla extract & cinnamon, and turned up the heat. While it was heating, I halved and cored 4 pears (3 red, and 1 green), and then put them face down in the pan, and put the lid on. After about 20 minutes the pears had softened up, and I removed them from the pan, and then reduced the sauce further.
The VW dealer called to let me know that the rear shocks were starting to leak, and had basically come to the end of their expected lifespan. \$500 to replace them. Also the cam shaft on the engine was leaking oil, but amazingly that was still under warranty and would be repaired at no charge.