Week in Review: Week 102

Annnnd it’s February. Soon will be March, and spring. I’m hoping for One More Snow Day. Last year we had two snow days in mid-February, so there’s still hope. Today I have a million things on my to-do list as it’s my last day off before going away next Friday…but I didn’t sleep well last night and I do my best sleeping from like 5-11am (which is unfortunate given most job’s schedules) so I’m just getting moving now.

This past week was uneventful so I’ve been doing a lot of flashback posts on my Instagram accounts and I’ll share some of those here as well.

Still peeking around corners.

Pottery Garden

We had a little snow this week, enough for a delayed opening. It was so pretty the way it clung to all the trees, I wish I could have played hooky and just taken pictures all day.

Pretty yellow house.

Sometimes he misses the point of the dog bed.

I’ve being doing a little biopic of “cars from my past” in the absence of anything new to share on Instagram.

This was my first car, a 64½ Ford Mustang. It cost $500 in 1979. There were holes in the floorboards so your feet got wet when it was raining, the reverse lights were on a switch so you could terrify the drivers behind you, and actual fans and an air conditioner unit mounted inside for temperature control. It went through oil like crazy and the muffler pipe was usually dragging on the ground. I adored it. That’s my first dog, Airehart, in the lower lefthand corner. I always thought the picture was kinda funny in that dog and car are facing the exact same way like they were both looking at some kids down the street.

When I totaled that car I moved onto this one, a 1967 Mustang. My friend’s little brother made that “DEATHMOBILE” sign which stayed taped on til the tape yellowed and curled up and the sign fell off. I believe there might be a picture of the car he drew to go along with the sign. I’ll have to look for that.

OF COURSE I STILL HAVE IT 37 YEARS LATER!!!

My father passed away in 1982 while this was my car and I seized the engine right around that time. I started driving his car, a 1960 Mercedes-Benz 190SL that he’d bought in Germany while he was still overseas in the Navy and shipped to Florida when he returned home to the states a few months after I was born. My mother was unsure what to do with his car after he died and I begged her to let me have it. It still ran, but he had pretty much jerry-rigged every part of it, so he understood it but I don’t think anyone else could have. Anyway, at the time I was working at a barn in an area with very steep hills, some of the highest on Long Island…and really the only experience I had with driving a stick was my friend Larry giving me lessons in his Chevette in parking lots. I’m sure you can guess where this is going. After maybe the third time of having to call a tow truck to come rescue me from the overheated car stuck on a steep hill, my mother said enough and consoled me with this offer: sell my father’s beloved car and use the money to put a new engine in my Mustang and get the body fully restored and painted. I couldn’t really turn that down. Still, sadface.

Mustang #2 after all the work was done to it. Somewhere I’d seen this ever-so-slightly metallic, ever-so-slightly lavender-tinged grey body paint and I searched dozens of body shops and car dealers across Long Island looking for that exact paint. She was a thing of beauty.

This is the car that had to be sacrificed for the greater good. It was the only car he had the whole time I was alive until he died in 1982. It was a great car. Always smelled like cigars cuz he was only allowed to smoke them in the yard and in the car. For some reason my mother granted permission for him to smoke his pipes in the basement (his man cave). I thought they smelled wonderful, too. But I can’t stand cigarette smoke.

That’s my mother and father in the car when we lived in Ponte Vedre Beach, Florida when I was a baby. We had a little house right on the beach. I don’t remember it but I have pictures.

Speaking of my mother, this week, February 2, would have been her 96th birthday. She died when she was 68…and I was 30…and I had Katie the following year. That was poor planning 🙁  She’s the one in blue. I’m the short one. Look, I have the same haircut now!

Caleb went to work with me one day this week and go to meet the president of his fan club 🙂

That seemed a little more “life in review” than week in review, but…

I’m currently reading two books…neither has really grabbed me yet but I’m still optimistic. Interesting that, like last week, they have a common theme – different cultures in other countries. But that’s where the similarities end. Anyone read either of these?

 

Alrighty then, time for me to a get a move-on. Lots to do. Have a good week, y’all!