'Just Saying'

2016 Subaru In Tungsten

Well, as the above picture suggests, we bit the bullet, ordered a Subaru with most of the bells and whistles, courtesy of my wife, Evie, who is tired of my 'cheap but crappy' attitude toward most things.  This one ain't cheap or crappy, I can guarantee. This may be the first time in my life I have actually broken down and bought better, not cheaper.

7:44

I was awake by 5:30 this morning, worried about spending all that money on a car.  I guess I will never change, always be my father's son.  So, I will take my own advice: let it go.

It's now 7:00, a heavy fog sits on the lake; I can just make out the end of our dock, as I listen to Morning Joe talk about 9/11.  It's hard to believe it happened 14 years ago, that I was in a class room teaching when one of my colleagues pushed a TV on wheels out into the hall and I wondered why, what was he doing?  When class was over, I opened the door and found out.  At first, like most, I could not understand what was going on, but as we watched the second plane hit the tower, slowly the implications of these seeming accidents began to dawn on us: this plane crash was purposeful, that it was a terrorist attack. And then, that terrible moment when the towers fell.  Unfathomable.  I watched this happen, worrying about my wife Evie, in Colorado with my daughter Jill who had just given birth to her daughter, Hayden.  She was alone because her husband Drew was with his special forces team in Kosovo.  Scary times, the beginning of the end of the Middle East as we knew it.

As for yesterday, we started our morning with a great paddle, like my paddle the day before, to Long Point, Whitney Bay and home, marveling at the morning, the quiet lake, the warming sun climbing in the sky.  It was chilly when we started, but by the time we returned, we could feel the warmth of the sun on our backs.  So, we took a quick swim.  Why not, the water is great, it's almost mid September and before we know it, it will be too cool to swim.  Maybe not for Evie but for me.

Around 11:30, we left for Erie, to just 'look at a couple of cars.'  We hit a traffic jam on #90 just before Erie, reminding us of the old days when we would drive out to the lake each weekend, praying there would be no lane closures.  We sat for an extra 15 minutes I would guess but no big deal, the dealer was still waiting for us.  So, we went to the Subaru dealer first, intending on looking at the Honda's and Mazda's later but never made it beyond the Subaru dealer.  We drove the Outback, both of us really liked it, but Evie was blown away by all the bells and whistles.  It's going to take us weeks to figure them all out.  Most, however, seem to make it one of the safest cars on the road, things like brakes that automatically turn on if you get too close to the car in front of you.  Or if you tend to drift one way or the other, the car automatically self corrects.  Evie loved this because she thinks I tend to drift when tired.  We liked the car enough to end the process.  Why keep looking when we really liked this car.  So  they made an offer, we countered it, and they agreed .  I gulped and we will have a new Subaru Outback by the end of September.  I still cannot believe we bought a new car.

View From Our Porch: 7:35 PM

We were home by 5:00, decided to celebrate with, what else, libations and appetizers on our porch, enjoying the early evening.  We must have sat out there for an hour and a half, listening to music, talking about our new investment.  Yesterday,  Evie had bought a pizza crust from Wegman's, so she seared some mushrooms and sauteed Italian sausage, put both on the pizza with tomato sauce and cheese, and in ten minutes, we had dinner.  We watched the previous night's opening show for Stephen Colbert.  Neither of us were excited about it but we will give it time.  Like most viewers, for now, we miss the old Stephen.  But we'll wait as it will take awhile for him to find the right persona, touch, and mood, whether satire or comedian or just a talk show host...or all three.