01 March 2012

Notes - Car thoughts & a book promise / dark-humored metaphor / hopeful young eyes


        Hot bath this morning helped your aching lower back. Carol discovered the right rear brake light has failed so after a stop at the grocery with Carol you are off to the Honda dealer on Mayfield in nearby Cleveland Heights to have it replaced. After that you are swinging by Chipotle at Legacy Village Mall for a take out.

         I am looking at a new red Honda Fit facing me in the lot. I have sat in one and there is plenty of room up front. The last few months I have been reading Paul’s Motor Trend magazine (when I was his age I would only subscribe and read Car and Driver and Road and Track) debating what kind of car to buy next year when this one will be ten years old and will probably have close to 150,000 miles on it. I like the new 2013 Ford Fusion (it does look a little like an Aston Martin in front) and the new hybrid is supposed to be super.

          The most comfortable would be the Lincoln MKZ hybrid but it would also be the most expensive car we would have ever bought. I wish they hadn’t dropped the Mercury line; we enjoyed the Sable a lot – comfortable, plenty of room, a good sized trunk and the average mileage each year was 24 which was not all that bad as this  2003 Honda averages between 24 and 26 each year. Carol doesn’t like the average Consumer Reports rating on maintenance for the VW so that lets it out. The last VW we had besides my awesome red GTI was a Quantum which was a really good car and enjoyable to drive. The Accords are too – they drive like a European car – the Toyotas not so much, which is the main reason we have never owned one. Right now it looks like we will end up with a 2013 Honda Accord hybrid. We have enjoyed our six cylinder Hondas but the four has much more pep than it used to have. Carol’s white 1998 Accord with the tan interior was a four.

         You have no more thoughts on cars. – Amorella

         I don’t know why I had any except for that new Honda Fit parked across from me. No sense thinking about cars until next year, but I don’t always make sense. Buying a new car once in a while is a really fun experience for me, not as much fun as buying a new MacAir but almost. Carol doesn’t like to buy either because of the cost, especially the cars. She puts money aside until we have enough to buy a new car outright. Automobiles depreciate right away of course but she doesn’t trust buying a used one. That’s her dill pickle, not mine. Being on the road though is one of our delights in life – driving off to somewhere (for me like Jack Kerouac) and then eventually returning home. Man, it is getting cold waiting out here.

         You are home after the Honda errand and picking up a burrito bowl at Chipotle. And, you had a Jennifer cookie from On The Rise Artisan Bread on Fairmount Blvd. in Cleveland Heights.

         The serviceman at Honda who put in the brake light was as excited as I was for the new Accord hybrid that comes out in December. Got me pumped! The Honda dealers we work with have always provided polite, quick and excellent service. Plus, the brake light was only $4.50 and no charge for installation. First one we have had go out in 9 years and 120,500 miles. I’ve been thinking about the wait and I decided to promise myself I’d be working on book five by the time we buy a new one.

         I’ll hold you to that, orndorff. Be done with this book and be working on book five by the end of December 2012. You’ll feel better about yourself. Post. – Amorella



    You are thinking of the above in relationship to your inability to articulate your ‘glitch’ thoughts of the recent 28 February posting. - Amorella

** **

“Sometimes, behind the scenes (as I know them) intuition shows me Amorella is as a shadow to what is beyond her. More than several times events happen ‘within’ the keyboard – an old fashioned ‘glitch’ in World War II terms – a glitch with a shimmer of the old Twilight Zone show.

         You need to learn to express this more correctly. I understand what you are ‘feeling’ as far as thought is concerned but your vocabulary is too limited.

         Glitch – a sudden irregularity; this is your best definition in context. – Amorella”

** **
         Here (below) are the kind of glitches I am referring too. Every so often I will say something that through a miss-tapped key gets  erased, then when I think about it I realize it was better that it was erased because it was not as proper or friendly as the commentary could have been.

         For example, the original 27 February post began this way:

** **

        After dusk. You have had a busy couple of days. Yesterday morning Paul called and said it was time to go to the hospital (Cleveland Clinic’s Hillcrest off Mayfield Road) and by the time you arrived at 1300 hours Owen’s baby brother had been born. Brennan Evan-Seung Paik was arrived into the new world of light at 1043 hours. He is a pound heavier and an inch and three-fourths longer than Owen was when born. So far his demeanor is as Owen’s was, calm and collected.

         Also today, a tragedy unfolded that included Hillcrest Hospital. Two of  the students shot at nearby Chardon High School were brought to the emergency room here. When we arrived we saw emergency lights flashing, police and media at the Emergency Entrance and did not know about the shootings until we arrived at Kim’s room where they were watching the news live. It is a sober reminder of what a hospital does. Some are born, some are fighting for their lives, some recovering, and some leaving this planet for good. Fortunately, our situation is a heartwarming experience. It is sad day though for others.

         That is the gist of what followed, then, suddenly, I accidently brushed a key and lost and (unbelievably) could not recover the paragraph. I was frustrated and angry at the moment. Then I thought, ‘this was not a good paragraph to include with the announcement of a birth even though it was a true observation of that time of day. It was not polite.’

         I cannot help my whim towards superstition from time to time but this is not the first episode where I fumbled and lost recovery of what I had just written. Each time I realized it was to my good fortune that the ‘accidental error’ occurred. It was as though another ‘force’ other than Amorella was playing my hand on the keyboard.

         Seeing this thought here and now I realize I duped myself by being myself, being ‘naturally’ superstitious. At least I realized it. Still, from time to time, I allow myself a moment of this type of self-deception. I am not sure why.

         Wishful thinking, orndorff. You would like me to be something more than imagination but you have it deep in your mind that that is what I am. Therefore, to work around this, you invent a puppet master behind me the supposed puppet master as far as your writing the Merlyn series and blogs are concerned. After all, once I said, “I am the gift, not the giver of the gift.” – Amorella

         You continue to have a twisted sense of humor, Amorella.

         You would rather dangle by someone else’s dark humored metaphor than your own.  Post. - Amorella


         After a take-out dinner from Brennan’s Colony and Owen’s time for bed you have second thoughts about the two boys. – Amorella        

         Having Owen come sit on my lap while we watch the beginning of Cars on his portable DVD player and after holding Brennan for about thirty minutes I find I’m still deeply attracted to the little guys. Their eyes and youthful energy to survive and learn new things each day, gives me hope that our species will survive a bit longer. Certainly if it is not a hope it is a wish for the species.

         All in all not a bad day, young man. Post and continue to relax. - Amorella

No comments:

Post a Comment