Do'h . . . Drip drip drip

[JCL12]

Background:

01 tip 986, currently has 41,300 miles. The dripping appeared somewhere between 40,000 and 40,600 miles. The dripping is not to bad - over about 5-6 days about 10-15 large drips came out when I measured over a clean surface. The surface under my engine is stained, but there is no "pool" of oil, just a whole bunch of oil marks. My engine oil was replaced back in Nov. 07 and the level is fine. When cool, it is about at the 1/2 mark on the dipstick and the electronic gauge reads 1 notch below the advised max. When I measure with the engine warm after driving, the dipstick usually seems to read right at the top.

Help:

What do I do? I have heard many stories of people just letting it drip for years. Since I have a tip, I expect labor to fix the seal to be enormous and I really don't want to do anything. I am kinda ticked-off that this started dripping on a car @ the 40K mile mark after 7 years, as I've always understood this to be a more early failure.

Plz advise!