OK, to toot my horn a little bit, I could read at four, so it didn't shock me that Rayanna is making pretty good literary progress at the same age. Nor did it throw me that she can add, at least single-digit numbers. But she did blow me away two nights ago when she got online all by herself and Googled Dora the Explorer. I hadn't taught her that; neither had Lisa. I wasn't surprised that she could spell Dora. After all, it's plastered on the title sequence of the show, and she watches at every opportunity. But how did she get so Net savvy?

Then, yesterday, we were talking about Lazytown. Without a word, she went into the other room, and it wasn't five minutes before we heard the Lazytown theme playing on the computer! What the...? I asked her about that. She Googled Dora to get to the Nick Jr. web site, and from there got to Lazytown.

Smart kid.

Kudos to Brittany for winning the Daughters of the American Revolution award (first place) at her school on the subject of history scholarship. Can't deny it: the girl's a good student. At the Flag Day award ceremony, she received a certificate and a medal that she wore proudly the rest of the day. (The medal, not the certificate.)

Jacob received a medal and a certificate this year, too, but it was for perfect attendance. I remember as a kid, even being the geek and lover of school that I was, when a fellow student received an award for 12 years of perfect attendance, I thought the kid was totally out of his mind. Now, I'm proud of Jacob for just one year.

Let's not leave out Tylor. No medals here, but he's improved dramatically in his schoolwork. Proud of him, too. Let's face it. His plans to be a boxer might go astray, so he needs a backup plan. Something like nuclear physics?

And Rayanna? Heck, the girl's four and she can read (a little) and add and subtract. She'll do fine. Missy? Well, she's still a baby, but no dummy.

It's probably little known that Leonard Nimoy, who played Mr. Spock on Star Trek, released about half a dozen records. And why not? Spoke played the Vulcan lute, so there must be some musical talent there. At any rate, one of his songs was "Here We Go 'Round Again," which I think of almost every day as I ride the bus to work.

The first two days that Lisa was in the hospital, I worked at home, which was moderately successful. Wednesday night, her mother flew in from Dayton to watch the kids so I could go back to work. Leaving the door, I thought, "Oops! No cell phone. Oh, it'll be OK. I'm just going to the airport."

Wrong.

On the way, I noticed the engine bogging down on hills. What was that all about? On the way home, the van just quit altogether. "Damn! Fuel pump!" Got a tow, and the next day after the fuel pressure was relieved, I had one of the kids turn the ignition on while I listened. Nothing. Damn! Fuel pump. $200 bucks for a new one and all weekend replacing it. Listen again. Whirrrrrrr! Excellent. Try to start it. Rar...rar...rar. WTF? Battery dead? OK, so it needs a new battery. No big deal.

Charge the battery overnight. Cranks fine. Still won't start. Plug in the ODB-II scanner. It says "Camshaft sensor A." Now that is bad news, because camshaft sensors rarely go bad. It usually means that the camshaft isn't turning, which usually means a broken timing belt. And that can mean busted valves and either shelling out big bucks or scouring the junkyards for a set of good heads. Very bad feeling.

But a little research showed that the Mitsubishi 3.0L SOHC engine used in Chrysler products of that era is, in fact, a non-interference engine, so no valve damage, no replacing heads. But how could a fuel pump and timing belt go out at the same time? My only guess is that it was ready to go anyway (the manual says 120,000 miles on the belt, but it's a lie) and that when the fuel shut off, the engine jerked just enough to snap it.

OK. Replace the timing belt and we're good to go, right? Well, not so fast. Forget that the water pump is behind the timing belt and has about the same service life as the belt and so should be replaced at the same time. Forget about replacing the hoses, thermostat, other belts and valve cover gaskets while I'm in there. Forget finishing the brakes on the passenger side while I have the wheel off. Just remember that the tensioner should be replaced, too.

But the tensioner was the one part not in stock. "We'll order it and it'll be here at 12:30." That was on the second Saturday, so I decided to leave the other parts there and wait. 1:30 and I haven't heard from them, so I call. "Well, it didn't make that trip. It'll be here by 3:00, if not earlier." So at 3:30, not wanting to bother with the bus, I walk the two miles down the hill with Tylor, and find that shipments from the other stores don't even come the same day, and that it should be there by nine in the morning. Not wanting to screw around anymore, I take the parts they had and head home. The bus doesn't stop for us (a recurring theme in Pittsburgh) so we hike the two miles back home, a good 600-foot climb along the way, carrying about a dozen car parts and a 1/2" drive socket set, which I hadn't replaced yet after my last set of tools was stolen. Too late to get started on it that day. (But the fact that I can climb 600 feet carrying a bunch of stuff might indicate that I could make it out of Surprise Pit in Fern Cave.)

I couldn't be there at nine in the morning because I was taking Rayanna to see Dora the Explorer at the Benedum Center. Make it to the auto parts store at about 2:00, and surprise! They have the tensioner! Get home about 4:00, realizing that I couldn't support the engine with our yellow jack overnight because it slowly sags, so I would have to wait until I could do it all in one day.

So here we are, just shy of two weeks since the fuel pump went out, and the van still isn't fixed. Lisa wants me to rebuild the engine in the old van so we can have it as a backup. I might just do that. By the way, we still need to get a battery.

Why can't anything ever be easy?