And now she's dead

Well if dishwashers are considered female, like ships and such, then she's dead. My mother's dishwasher that is. How prescient my post on that dishwasher turned out to be. My mother called the repairman because the dishwasher was no longer draining. She said he spent the entire time he was there shaking his head and asking questions like "do you actually USE this?" He asked her if it got the dishes clean. "Well, no, actually. We pretty much wash them and then put them in the dishwasher and they get dirty and then I hand wash them after I unload them" she replied. The lock is broken ($200), the pump is broken, you know the thing that spins and sprays the water? Yeah, that's broken. When he got to about $600 in potential repairs, he stopped and said "once the repairs get more expensive than the appliance, I stop." He said he'd never actually seen a dishwasher in that condition that someone was trying to use.

It's interesting because my mother's frugality extends really only to appliances and honestly, she has amazing luck with them. She only replaced her washer and dryer a few years ago. The washer and dryer she got when she was first married. In 1967. And it kind of killed her a little bit to buy a new dishwasher because "I figure I'm only going to be in this house another 10 years or so."

Here's something that doesn't suck today. California grilled pizza. It's a Barefoot Contessa recipe inspired by Alice Waters. I've made it many times and it's always good. We're having it tonight, we usually do just pesto and veggies and cheese. In a nod to Alice Waters, we're having a local artisan goat cheese on ours.