Yep.

I grew up in Atlanta and the two papers were co-owned in my lifetime.   Of course, they had been separate newspapers once upon a time.  Though co-owned, they maintained separate newsrooms through 1982 and maintained separate editorial boards through 2001.    The Journal was liberal.  The Constitution was not.

Now the combined Atlanta Journal-Constitution, according to my Dad, who reads it every day, is “terrible.”  It’s delivered once a day (morning) and focuses on local news.  My parents get the New York Times every day as well.  They’re newspaper readers and getting the Times means they still get a real newspaper.

I went through a period of not reading the paper much.  I read Salon and Slate, checked the Los Angeles Times web site when there are wildfires, watched Rachel Maddow with Teresa sometimes, and listened to NPR most of the time.  I figured I was getting my news.  I never gave up the Sunday paper thing, though.  I always read the Sunday paper, even as it got gutted.  No more Book Review, no more Opinion, no more Magazine.

I’ve been lucky, in my adult life, to live in cities with decent papers.  The Washington Post does pretty well.  The Los Angeles Times has something to say most days.  I moved away from Washington before the decline of the newspaper.  I am certainly not qualified to speak on the newspapers’ decline in any expert way.  There are those far more in the know who I have asked about the situation (folks who teach or taught journalism at my University, for example) who just shake theirs heads when I ask about the future.

And, of course, the future looks bleak.  The LA Times runs large number of corrections every day because they’ve fired their fact checkers and copy editors.  One day last year, their Calendar briefs had stand-in headlines that read “sub head here” printed instead of the actual sub head.

For a while I was getting the Thursday-Saturday papers for free and paying $1.25 a week for the Sunday paper because every time I tried to cancel, they’d offer me a better deal to keep me as a single number on the subscriber list.

Lately, though, I’m glad to get the LA Times.  It may not be the great paper it was even ten years ago, but they employ a number of writers and critics I really like.  I would read anything Dan Neil writes about anything.  Mr. Neil, here’s a box of hair, please write about it and I will read it.

I even sent Neil an e-mail some years ago praising his review of a car Chevrolet (the SSR) put out that was supposed to look like it had been chopped and altered.  Neil’s take on the difference between mass-manufacture and art was one of the best things I’ve ever read about folklore.  I told him so by e-mail and have used the piece in my class.  He, in turn, worried in his e-mail response to me about what happens when a writer’s writing makes it into a college class.  Does he lose his edge?   Even recounting the incident here now makes me happy.

I always read Susan Carpenter (who they should let review motorcycles again).  I like Robert Lloyd and Ken Turan.  Mary McNamara and Sandy Banks.  Steve Lopez.

The paper may have had the great short-sightedness to fire its copy editors and fact checkers (surely a necessary group of folks).  I am glad they kept some  of the people they did.  And so I read it Thursday through Sunday.  I’m not looking to it for the latest news any more.  I’m looking for in-depth reporting.  Good writing.  Stuff I didn’t know.

I guess an aside is worth making about the other daily Los Angeles paper, The Daily News.  I don’t read it, but one of the reporters calls me a lot to be a quoted expert.  I’m sure it says something about the self-absorption of the city and time in which I live when I say I always look those articles up online to see if I sound good in the quotes.

All this lead-up brings me to the piece they ran on page A3 in yesterday’s (9/18/09) Los Angeles Times Valley edition by David Kelly.  I won’t hotlink, since at some point it won’t be available any more, but here’s the first paragraph:

“A man claiming he was paying tribute to dead golfers tossed up to 3,000 golf balls into the biggest sand trap he could find: Joshua National Park.”

Yes, indeed.  That right there is why the paper is worth reading.  This item didn’t go viral on the internet (maybe because it didn’t involved Kanye West).  It didn’t get picked up by NPR because it’s a little too long for a quip and doesn’t have the pathos needed for a feature.  Rachel Maddow didn’t mention it.  Salon and Slate didn’t cover it.  I read about it in the newspaper.  The same daily print newspaper that had a very interesting piece from Neil about Diesel/Electric hybrids (want!), an hilarious panning of the Matthew Modine play making its world premiere at the Taper, a good review of both The Burning Plain and Bright Star, as well as a bad one of The Informant! (Very helpful–I now will not go see it).

I also read an interesting piece about why the NFL is helping the Washington football team keep its racist name and an obituary of Frank Coghlan, Jr. who played Billy Batson in the Captain Marvel serial.  (Shazam!)  Just so you know, Southerners read the obits.  Every day.  There was also a well-done (and scary) feature by Richard Fausett on the Oath Keepers.

To get back to the golf balls, I read every word of the story.  Twice.  Thought I should tell Teresa about it.  Thought I should say something on Facebook about it.  Then, I decided to blog about it.  Because, of course, my connection to and fascination with the story was about more than the golf balls in the National Park.  It was about why newspapers should still matter.  Do still matter.  It’s good to slow down, read the paper.  Think about it.  Talk about it.  It’s also good to listen to NPR, read the web, follow blogs, tweet (I suppose, though I’m not yet convinced).  None of these things have to be either/or zero sum things.

Quoting again from Kelly’s piece, wherein park rangers noted that the golf balls had some tennis balls mixed in, he writes:  “Rangers also found cans of fruit and vegetables left in the desert along with park literature tossed around.”

According to Ranger Joe Zarki, Jones [the accused] spread the golf balls around the park, “‘to honor all the golfers who had died.’”

“Contrary to what rangers originally though, Jones wasn’t chipping golf balls into the desert with a club.  He was hurling them from his car.”  Mr. Kelly, you’ve got me hooked.  Tell me more, please.

“Jones was unavailable for comment Thursday.  He lives with his 84-year-old father, Douglas, who didn’t know about the incident until a reporter called him.  ‘It certainly sounds strange,’ said his father.  ‘He hikes out in Joshua Tree every three months or so, and he golfs maybe once a week.  But I don’t know where he got that many golf balls.’  He did, however, say that his son works at a local golf course.”

Well done Mr. Kelly.  Well done LA Times.

Support your local newspaper.  It may be dying, it’s certainly flawed, but it’s still worth having around.

Now, about afternoon delivery…

“Every human want to justify her decisions.  It’s what makes us human,” was her reply.

I had noted that I would be glad not to have to worry about the size of open parking places in the really impacted Whole Foods parking lot.  This was after saying early this very afternoon, that I would be glad:

1) Not to have to worry about the enormous blind spots on the FJ

2) Not to get 18 mpg

3) Not to have my car mistaken for a Hummer ever again

I may have come up with another thing or two or three.  Or eleven.

You see, friends and blogreaders, it’s a mere three years after procuring my Toyota FJ Cruiser and enduring the summer of 08, where filling it up was a $65-75 endeavor that had to be done every 300 miles (or fewer).  Usually fewer.  And my time with the FJ is drawing to a close.  Not because I leased it.  Not because there’s anything wrong with it.  But because I just can’t deal with it any more.  I’ve got other reasons.  I’ll throw some around now:

I’ve been furloughed from work two days a months with an accompanying 10% pay cut.  I would like my car to be cheaper.

It has faux-suicide doors and very few adults want to get into its back seat.

It will need new tires in the next six months and that will cost $1000 or more and I still won’t be able to change them by myself, given how large they are.

Gas is back up over $3.00 a gallon.

Americans still want “cute” SUVs and the FJ is cute.  And newish.  And retro.  Someone will want it.  It still has value.

I don’t like having to hoist up into it.

I would like to make less impact on the environment.  It qualified for Cash for Clunkers.  A 2007 vehicle.  Seriously.

I know, by the by, that someone else will buy it and use it and they will make an impact on the environment with it.  That will be partially my fault.  I’m ok with that.

Ok, see what I mean about justifying what I want to do?  A lizard brained serial carogamous, I am.

Anyway, all of which is to say, I put a deposit down on a 2010 VW Golf TDI.  Clean Diesel.  40mpg.  German made, just like my Passat of yore.  $1300 tax break.

It won’t be here until December or January.  In the meantime, though, I’m a little obsessed.  In a good way.  Want to see what it will look like?!

That one is British, but it’s the color I ordered.

We had our usual terrible time with car dealers trying to get one ordered.  We went to test drive the Jetta TDI (same engine) to make sure I liked it and to order one.  It’s not even worth going into much detail about how much both dealers we visited did sucketh.  Van Nuys VW and Livingston VW both refused to take my order, had marked up the TDI cars above MSRP, and said that the dealers who would take orders were “lying.”   Commonwealth VW has my business in buying the car for sure.   Some car advice:

1) Do your research on the interwebs before you go

2)  Walk away from people who call you “ma’am” in a condescending way and

3)  Always always always always bring Teresa.

Then you’ll be fine.

More details to come, I’m sure.  Vroom (in a clean diesel way).

The Rambler, in turn, was replaced by a VW 412 which overheated a lot.  The VW was replaced by a Buick Electra Limited, a behemoth whose soft steering was my comfort as I was I learning to drive.  Its landau top was forever the source of family drama because of the sparkler thrown onto it by my brother after an explicit warning not to throw sparklers.

I should note that this car lament/blame had a parallel in a story about the cat who died, because she was let out onto the busy street and run over.  As I was weeks old at the time, it was not I (in the Electra) who ran her down.  It was, nonetheless, my fault.  I was said to be the source of her “freedom” because the African-American woman who helped my mother care for me as an infant had warned that cats will “suck the life out of babies.”  Thus, cat outside on busy road, and a bad end.

Anyway, back to the cars.

Got the sequence?

Gave way (because of me) to:

Which wasn’t a good car, caused the downfall of AMC (my fault), and was replaced by:

Which overheated a lot.  Did I mention that my brother and I didn’t get along as children?  Thusly, one of us had to ride in the “way back” over the overheating engine one summer on a trip from Atlanta to New England.  I can still remember how hot I was.  Hotbox was replaced by:

There were more cars later, including the unfortunate car that became my first (handed down from my mom) and therefore the subject of my early driver accidents…

Have you ever noticed that certain cars never make people wistful for the past?  No one longs to have a fully restored 1980 Chevrolet Citation.  And that is why GM is failing.  You heard it here first.

Anyway…

Between the 412 and the Electra, my dad bought a used car, which he drove for six or nine months.  My excellent internets-based sleuthing has led me to the conclusion that it was a mid-70s Toyota Corona.  (I knew it was a Toyota, I knew approximately when we had it, and then I recognized it while looking at google images of mid-70s Toyotas.  See how clever I am?!)

That Toyota–while otherwise an ordinary car–had one extraordinary feature to my school-age mind.  The headrests of the front seats had openings into which the poles slid.  They functioned fine and the headrests were firmly attached.  Nevertheless, into one of these very small holes, someone had placed a dried bean.

Like that one in the middle there.  I saw very clearly how the bean could have been inserted.  Getting it out was another matter.

I could not, for the life of me, sort out how it might be extracted.  I spent hours contemplating.  I really wanted to figure it out.  Then, my dad sold the car and the bean was gone from my life.  I still thought of it occasionally for years.  The problem I could not solve.  The void filled with bean.

I thought about that bean today.

We spent yesterday with Teresa’s parents and their three dogs and our two dogs.  They have a small dog along with whom Biscuit does not get.  (Did you follow that?)  Anyway, Biscuit got into a fight with that dog and as a result, she smelled a little like the pee that dog emitted as a result of the fight.  I should note that non-Biscuit dog started the fight and I later said, “Lulu wrote a check she couldn’t cash.”  As a result of Lulu’s check, Biscuit smelled like Lulu pee.  Oh and chocolate chip cookies.  She smelled like pee and chocolate chip cookies.  We had a fresh chocolate chip cookie in the car on the way home (a result of a coupon at Black Angus.  Don’t ask).  So my car smelled of dog, urine, and cookie.

I was taking Biscuit to get groomed this morning.  I was traveling to a part of SoCal I generally avoid.  Biscuit’s groomer had moved from a store in the valley in which I live to another north of here.  I programmed my Garmin Nüvi with the address and set out.  When I arrived in far northern valley, I discovered that the store was on a new bit of road that wasn’t known to the Nüvi.  I got lost.  I found myself staring at the Nüvi, which was showing my car in a blank space on the map.

It looked like that except there were no roads.  I stopped the car and looked at it.  The Nüvi said I was nowhere.  And yet, I was somewhere.

The where was new space–not in a good sense, mind you.  There I was driving down a new road lined with faux-Spanish facade built around all the expected national chain stores.  Ex-urbs have no soul and may well be the reason for the bad economy.  You heard that here first.

But Biscuit likes Harvey and Biscuit doesn’t like many people and Harvey had moved to the PetSmart at the place unknown to the Nüvi.

All of a sudden, staring at my virtual car in a virtual wasteland, I thought of the bean.  I also thought of my nine year old self staring at the bean, trying to get it out of the void.

Then I looked up.  Away from the blank, away from the bean.

I found the store and took Biscuit inside.

(Why does Biscuit’s hair cut cost twice as much as mine?  Never mind, I know.  It’s because I don’t nip and my hairdresser doesn’t brush my teeth).

Normally, when I defy the Nüvi’s directions, she says “recalculating” in a way I find judgmental.  Today, as she tried to find her way through the blank space, I found her recalculations less judgmental and more bereft.  She seemed (not that I’m anthropomorphizing AT ALL) relieved when I headed home.

When left to pick up Biscuit, I turned the Nüvi back on and directed her back to the blank space. Biscuit didn’t smell like pee anymore.  The blank space is now filled in my mind by the exubry stuff that’s actually there.

I was listening to Carrie Newcomer as I descended back to the valley that is my home.

I’m the fool whose life’s been spent.
Between what’s said and what is meant

Or so she sang.

That bean is surely gone now.  Dessicated enough to dry up and blow up and away from its void.  Maybe it’s still there.  It’s not a problem I need to solve.

So I will wander without fail
In circles that grow ever wide
The sky expands and then exhales…

When I arrived home, the Nüvi said, “arriving at home, on right.”  We both felt glad.

(Lyrics from The Geography of Light by Carrie Newcomer, “There is a Tree”)

I was doing one of those 25 things things.  I never do memes on the blog, why I did one on Facebook, well, I dunno.  I have NOT done any of the follow-up memes.  48 things, etc.

Anyway, here was things #23: I once got “stranded” on a rock in the former Yugoslavia (when it was still Yugoslavia). My friends and I made our way into town and I bought and ate some mallomars. They tasted better than any cookie ever had before or since.

___________________________________________________________________________________

A friend asked for more info on what had happened.  Here’s my response.  I should note that I have now corrected my spelling of the cookie in question.  It’s Mallomar.  I’m going to maintain that it should have a w, but acknowledge that it doesn’t.

My response:

In the late 1980s, I traveled with friends from Italy, up through Austria, and down into Yugoslavia. The train to Zagreb was fine, the train from Zagreb to Split was not.

Once we arrived in Split, we explored the city and decided to take a ferry one day to Hvar, an island off the coast. We were the only Americans, probably the only English speakers, and certainly the youngest people of the ferry. The ferry arrived at a rock. It opened itself up and we got off. Everyone else drove off in cars or was picked up. The ferry closed and started back to Split. There we were standing on the rock.

There was NOTHING there. Alone.

Off in what looked like an impossible distance to travel was a town. We climbed up the road and down into the town (it wasn’t actually very far). It turned out to be a pleasant resort town, largely closed for the winter (it was March). We wandered around, found a small grocery store. I bought the best Mallomars ever. When we saw the ferry headed back toward us, we walked back to the rock.

In our exploration of the town, we found a path along the harbor that got us back to the rock without having the climb the road/hill. We arrived as the ferry did and boarded it back to Split.

That night we had goulash, and the following night we took the overnight ferry to Bari.

It was that moment on the rock. I wanted to jump in the Adriatic and swim down the ferry.

That and the Mallomars.

Also, We got our yard done and lots of work on the interior of the house.  Did I mention we got married?  Oh, and then there’s that whole election bidness in a couple of days.  No on 8, k?

But, friends, I’m here for a short while today to speak about a grocery store.  Yes sir.  Yes ma’am.  All those other things, they take time and thought and care.  This is just about happy in the ‘hood.

I’m not the first to notice.  Sandra Tsing Loh, who I would probably follow into the fiery pits of hell should she ask, noticed. Twice.

I don’t know where Loh lives in the part of the Valley she refers to as “The Nuys” to give it new cache.  But I’m close to Fresh and Easy.  Remarkably close.

Today, my spouse slash wife (of two weeks) slash partner (of fourteen years) and I went there.  Oh it is a bright place.  With Jam.  And chips that taste like Doritos.  Except, and here is the clincher, they’re SPINACH and ARTICHOKE kinda-Doritos.  Maybe I should have told you to sit down before I told you that.

It occupies a space that used to be a Ralphs.  Not a good Ralphs.  just a ralphs.  It’s not any longer.  Soy milk.  Fresh fruit.  Teeny pies.

It may not be love, but color me intrigued.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…

Fresh and Easy

It’s a neighborhood market.  In my neighborhood.  My my.

Hugs and kisses and lots of foons,

Sporks.

Theoretical fingers in theoretical ears… Lalalalalalalalalalalalalala Done with eight year old sex thoughts.

Ok, I won’t give you a whole travelogue, but here’s a highlight/thought list.

*They can dress it up all they want, but Innovations (in Tomorrowland)=superverylame.

*The redo of Space Mountain is awesome. It seems faster and you can’t see the track any more. It’s like a roller coaster in space. Wait, it IS a roller coaster in space.

*Disneyland rides with pictures they take and then try to sell you do NOT take flattering pictures of me. Nope.

*This image is funny and is on almost every ride. I kept trying to be these people. My body won’t do the things it suggests.

*Cynthia, who was having a birthday and brought her coffee onto Thunder Mountain in the pouring rain, reminded me of how great people can be. I don’t even know her and we rode behind her on the ride for all of three minutes. Still, she and her friend Susan rocked.

*As a child, I was DEEPLY disappointed to have spent one of my E-tickets on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (aka the submarines). The 35 minute wait we experienced on Tuesday did not improve my liking of it a lot. It was ok, but it was the longest wait of the day.

*I kind of loved (actually really loved) the Tiki Room. I’d never been there before. Full props to Disneyland for not tearing it out. It would not have been worth an E-Ticket, though.

*Fewer full props to them for tearing out the gallery above New Orleans Square for the new luxo-suite. I did like the Disney employee at the “Disneyana” store who described the gallery space as “having moved on to its next life.” She did this all why I dripped onto the rug, having gotten soaked in the rain on Big Thunder.

*We didn’t bottom out our Small World boat! I’m also pleased to report that Small World is less annoying at the holidays, because they intersperse Christmas songs with the eponymous song. I’m not a fan of either, but less of both overall makes it more bearable.

*I was pleased to do Tomorrowland first. Why we always do Adventureland first is beyond me. I’m a big T-land fan, Innovations notwithstanding.

*Bring back the People Mover.

*Indiana Jones has gotten more jerky. Panic attack inducing jerky.

* I know, I know, SOMETHING has to make you want to go to California Adventure, but why oh why can’t Tower of Terror be in D-land? I heart it but not enough to pay $20 more to ride it.

*I wish we had parked on the Daisy level instead of the Mickey level. I’ve never much cared for the mice. The ducks, I like.

*La Casa Garcia has really good albondigas. Really good albondigas tastes especially good when you’re wet.

*I would say I need a rain coat, but I live in Southern California.

*The best part of the day? All of it, of course. What’s not to like? A day with my Honey at Disneyland.

I like my inner eight year old sometimes. She has good ideas.  Besides, my outer 39 year old can afford to buy her extra E-Tickets.

At the tiki, tiki, tiki, tiki room…

This 1953 Studebaker, for example, was 20 feet long. And it’s a coupe. My FJ, just for comparison, is about 15 feet long. A Prius is about 14 feet. Big cars of the 50s meant big streets. Frank Lloyd Wright said we needed it, you know.

Anyway, I was watching these folks turn right and I noticed they were all leaning over as the turned. How odd, I thought. Then I turned left and realized that I, too, had leaned. Not as much as the people I was watching, but I still leaned.

Now, while I’m sure we all like to keep our equilibrium, it got me to thinking…how important is it to stay upright at all times? It’s not like you’re going to fall over in the car. And, really, if you are going to fall over in the car, you have a lot more to worry about the simple uprightness.

So, here’s the question–are you a car leaner? If so, why? Be honest and share out in comments.

I like going places that feel away. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I like our house and our space. I like them despite the asshole neighbors who had a couch dumped in front of their house and, rather than calling the city, moved it in front of our house. Like we wouldn’t notice that it had been across the street until last night and now, had, by some miracle, just up and WALKED itself in front of our fence. Sometimes, therefore, I need to get away.

My favorite getaways are fundamental but not hard to achieve. It may be why I like Catalina Island so much. Drive to San Pedro, get on a boat, and you are SO away. But they still have a Vons and my cell phone still works. Hell, you haven’t even left Los Angeles County on Catalina.

Anyway, we go to Carpinteria every year. Early October. Why? Well, why else? The Avocado festival!

I’m sure that some of you now have visions of something grand, indeed. Festival! Avocados! They go every year! There must be magic there.

Eh. It’s pretty much the same every year.

Here’s an overview:

There’s a giant inflatable avocado with sunglasses.

It’s right outside the official California Avocado tent. Inside, there are illustrations of avocado type…

Signs for your own avocado orchards to deter thieves…

My favorite part of the tent is the avocado costume contest. The kids at the Carpinteria Elementary school make quite the effort.

That’s Carmen Miravo and a Golfer Avo, if you couldn’t tell. Both prize winners, I should note.

Outside the tent, there are a couple of blocks of fair. Get a henna tattoo, buy some silver jewelry or those weird psychedelic spinning things.

There are two stages, one with “guac n’ roll” and the other more eclectic. I noted with some (ok, a lot) of dismay that the first band yesterday on the guac n’ roll stage was signing Christian rock. As is befitting a festival based on food, there are lots of avocado choices, many of them tasty. We usually go for tacos with guacamole, though this year I did contemplate a guacamole and tri-tip sandwich. We also get some guacamole and chips, though have yet to try the guacamole made by the high school cheerleaders in the kiddie pool. I’ve yet to try to avocado ice cream.

We wander the fair and look at the t-shirts. One year we bought a poster and one year an avocado themed napkin-holder.

Once we’ve had lunch and picked out a Reed avocado to make guacamole with later in the week, we’re done. (This year we got a Nabal instead. Such rebels!)

Is it fun? Sure. The fun, though, is found in the familiar. We do the same thing, we eat the same food. We wander past the same booths (for the most part). Things change a little. Last year we bought a rug shaped like a surfboard. This year I bought a bracelet made out of old forks.

On the way home this year, we stopped at the outlet mall. Last year, we took the train. So there is a little variety. Just a little. I guess that’s the way I want it.

Scout-the-dog has a really bad habit of waking up early. Thursday mornings are especially bad for this, as they are our neighborhood trash day. He likes barking at the trash trucks. Ok, to be honest, he just likes barking. Scout-the-honey and I call him the “barkist.” When he’s out there barking and Biscuit is churning up circles in her attempt to chase off the planes on their approach to the Burbank airport, it all seems a little mental.

Anyway, Thursday morning, he was barking and I was not sleeping and by yesterday afternoon I was close to my limit. It didn’t help that I had spent all day dealing with a rather tragic circumstance, calling offices on campus I normally don’t call. I did what I could and got things to where I wanted them to be, given everything else, but it wasn’t an unpleasant matter.

So, I decided to go home a little early.

I slogged out to the parking lot to discover that a minivan had parked within about an inch of my truck’s door. On a campus as big as ours, there was no way of finding the minivan driver. I spent a minute or two trying to piece together what office the driver might be in, based on stickers. Having a “Star Student at XXX School!” was hardly predictive of the driver’s role on campus. Nor was the affinity for soccer. What could I do, really, walk into every office in a seven building radius ad ask, “anyone here a soccer mom with an above average child?”

Here’s my FJ, for those of you who don’t remember it.

So I opened the passenger door and looked in. It seemed to me that I had two choices. First, because the back seats were folded down, I thought I might try to crawl across the expanse of rubberized interior and sort of dive into the front seat. When I though that through a second time, I realized that I didn’t so much want my head on the floor and my feet in the air.

Here’s the back view. This is not my FJ. If it were, you would see books on CD slopping around and scratches on the rubbery parts from bikes being put in the back.

Here’s what the front interior of an FJ looks like. This is also not my interior. If you use your imagination, you can picture mine. Add CDs, dog hair, Coke Blak bottles, a bike bottle, and a cute grey and yellow Timbuk2 bag.

I sat in the passenger seat for a while, then turned the car on. No need to try whatever I was going to try without AC. I started with trying to get my butt moved over first, followed by my legs. Then I remembered what that great faker, Bear Grylls said on Man v. Wild, which is that your legs are strong. So I slung my left leg into the driver’s area and then scooted my butt over with it. Now straddling the center console, I had pulled out the rubber cup holder interior, kicked the parking light indicator, changed the A/C from face to defrost and I had a cramp in my thigh.

An aside about Bear Grylls, who turns out to have stayed in hotels and tried to “tame” already tame horses. Scout-the-honey said he was a faker. I should listen to her more often.

Anywho, I managed to get my right leg into position, though more things were displaced (my bag, the other rubber insert for the other cupholder, the other Coke Blak bottle, the radio control, etc.)

I put the car in reverse and silently wished the minivan driver’s kids well for a hot soccer weekend. All’s well that ends well, I guess. I’m just glad I went with the scoot over mode rather than the dive into mode.

Happy long weekend. My all your second thoughts prove successful.

Fancy has seven or eight tables inside and another six or so outside. The food is reasonably priced, fresh, and good.

Fancy? Not really. Your order from the counter, get your salsa in little plastic buckets, and they call out your number in Spanish and English. The folks who work there are nice and it’s one of those L.A. places where people from all sorts of cultural backgrounds sit next to one another, including those who by birth should know good Mexican food. It’s next to an express lube place. Why do we call it Fancy? Because it is. To us.

Fancy is on the way home from work for me and since Honey has been commuting by bike, I’ve been trying to take up more of the cooking slack. My two choices tonight were cooking fish and picking up Fancy.

So, I walk into Fancy and there’s a line. I get in it and stand for a few minutes as it inches forward. Then out of nowhere, a young woman in truly ridiculous shoes steps in front of me and says, “I was in line.”

I look at her in shock and amazement. “You were?”

She gestures impatiently behind me. “Yes, I was over there.”

I turn to look and realize that she had been sitting (though I did not and could not have seen her) in a chair five feet away from the end of the line hidden behind a stack of high chairs.

“You were sitting there?”

“Yes and that was how I was in line.”

I glance down at my feet (clad today in Teva sandals) to think for a second and notice that she is wearing five inch teeny spike white high heeled sandals.

Now, what I want to say is:

“If you didn’t have on those stupid shoes, you could actually STAND in line like the rest of us.”

What I actually say (trying to sound deeply contemptuous):

“Oh.”

I’m so brave in my head.

Fancy still tasted terrific and Honey enjoyed her tostada without ever having to see those stupid shoes. The sacrifices I make for love. It’s how I’m so brave. In my head.