I discovered tonight that I am not ready to give Sugar Plum up to just anyone. Even if that anyone is a charity that will put her up on the auction block and put the proceeds to a good cause.

I know she is old, has 230,000 miles, and is in somewhat "iffy" shape. But she is still Sugar Plum The Wonder Honda and I want her to go to a good home.

Ever since brother Joe got her back running and her temperature/radiator system back in working order, I have been trying to search for a local charity that would help me find a family in need who would like to have the gift of Sugar Plum.

In my daydream for Sugar Plum, a local Orange or Santa Ana family in need of a car but possessing mechanical skills would be happy to get Sugar Plum as a gift. They would wash and wax her (as I never did) regularly and put on new plastic hubcaps and would love her until it was time to go to the big chop shop in the sky. But I can't find such a situation.

I called Holy Family Cathedral and they wanted me to sell it and give them the money. I called the Vineyard in Anaheim and they wanted to give it to a Biola student. I looked at the websites of a bunch of car donation places and they did not give to local charities, only to big national ones.

Erika suggested that I call LA Mission as they took used cars to help give homeless folk job training. Wonderful, Sugar Plum as training car. Not to be, as the LA Mission now wants to use one of the car donation clearinghousings and then get the $.

Megan suggested that I "tithe to NPR". I called KPCC's car donation line and then after setting up the donation for yesterday, I couldn't find the title (I put it somewhere too safe), and after spending several days crying about Katrina, I cancelled my donation.

On Saturday, I spoke to my Aunt Anne and she suggested that I contact her friend Geoge who knows a nice young lady who just moved from the UK to go to graduate school and needs a car. Now this I could get excited about, me leaving to grad school in The Isles and Sugar Plum going to a person from The Isles who is going to grad school here. Good idea.

I played phone tag with George all day today, and his last message was to the effect of, "Your aunt Anne told me the car has overheating problems, so my friend Tim will sell it and we will donate the money."

No. No. No.

Back to Square One.