Late Saturday afternoon the light came in a southern-facing and I just happened to catch it’s delicate double-pane dance. No idea why it does this. Whenever I do see it, which isn’t every day, I find myself staring at the glass to see if there’s something there. There’s nothing there. Just an abstract ghost in the machine, a surrealist glitch in the matrix.
It reminded me that I needed to wash my car. The winter weather is behind us, surely, and I can now get the salt and sand off the body and frame. So I drove to the nearby car wash, sprung for the you-do-this-twice-a-year package and drove on in.
Drive-through car washes fascinate me. It’s a ridiculous trip down memory lane, a demonstrate of the bites and bytes that your noggin is storing for no reason. I recall, as a kid, we used to go to one car wash that was for some reason quite popular. Long lines. Hand dried fenders. Maybe that’s why. I recall once when the driver of the car ahead of us panicked. The big fan at the end of the tunnel had a large wheel that descended and rolled along your windshield, over the roof of the car and so on, as the blower did it’s job of pushing the water back inside the collection and retention system. I guess the driver didn’t know that, or had a bad experience with airplane landing gear. He jammed the brakes and we tapped his bumper. Everyone was fine. No body damage, no physical damage. Two clean cars, one weird incident, one embarrassed driver. I recall having a car where the passenger door window didn’t seal well. It was fine in the rain. Never had a problem in the rain. If I was going through the car wash I had to take a towel. I recall someone I knew who did a destroy-her-wedding-dress photo shoot, when that was a thing. She had people throwing cans of paint on the dress. Silly online trend, colorful photos. The better ones, though, were when she went to one of those manual car wash places and they sprayed down her dress to get the paint out. I saw those photos and thought, “Ahh! Finally! A reason for these types of car washes!” No one ever wants to go to those if there’s a proper drive through car wash in town. I recall washing cars in the driveway. But I don’t recall the last time I saw someone doing that. Maybe no one wants to wash their cars at home if they can pay eight bucks, drive through the soap and get their ride almost clean.
You remember a lot of things in a car wash for no reason at all, other than that you’re there with the soap and the noise and not much else.
The experience also allowed me to take a bunch of windshield photos and create a new front page for the site. Go check it out. Stick with it for 60 seconds to see them all. Go on. I’ll wait for you here.
[…]
[…]
Wasn’t that fun? Different? Memorable? Will I remember that the next time I go to the car wash? Probably late this summer? Will it be worth remembering? How many times will I change the art on the front page between now and then? Don’t worry, I’ll always keep you updated about those changes. Keep reading this space and you’ll never miss a thing. A thing on this site, anyway.
The weather is finally cooperating on several fronts, and so we had our first outdoor bike ride of the year today. We just did an easy 10 miles around the neighbor to see if the bikes were working (they are) and see how it’d feel (weird) and to see who is going to be faster this year (she is).
I didn’t ride a lot in the basement this year. It’s just been mentally difficult to go down those stairs and I’m not sure why. We have a terrific basement space. One day we’re going to finish at least part of it. Right now it’s cinder blocks and shelves and great storage and a lot of floor space for activities you don’t want to do outside or can’t put in the living room. But, still, I haven’t gone down there that much this winter.
Probably will when it gets hot, though! It is always a little cooler in the basement.
I’m still living in the happy memories of our wonderful Irish vacation. So, I’m sharing extra videos that we didn’t get to at the time. It was a great vacation. I have a lot of footage. This will go on for some time. Enjoy it with me, won’t you?
That’s Aasleagh Falls on the River Erriff.
