ten things I like about me #6

I like that I can do the right thing when I have to. Leave a bad relationship. Confess my mistakes and take the consequences. Turn in the twenty-dollar bill I found in the teller machine.(I figured they could check to see who made a withdrawal before I used the machine, and get the money back to them) Unfortunatesly, I still feel pretty damn smug about doing the right thing, so I haven't gotten THAT far on the spiritual path. But one step at a time gets me there.

Yesterday, DH and I went to the car show at the convention center. He goes to shop. I go to laugh. There was a street-legal monster truck that I, with my 36 inch inseam, would still need a step-stool to get to the runningboard. It was macho, agro RED and had tires I could rest my chin on. I think its gas milage was measured in gallons per mile rather than the other way around.

We put our butt prints in all sorts of cars we could never afford. And wouldn't buy if we could afford them. The BMW two-seater convertible sports car is so packed with luxury amenities that there's no elbow room left for knitting. The Saab version of the SUV is as comfy as my reclilner at home. Hummers are for little boys playing soldier, and the paramilitary interior, for a car that will never leave the suburbs, just makes me laugh.

The car colors are all pretty subdued. The less expensive models have brighter, eye-catchy shades, but the luxury models are all muted, subtle, metalflake or pearl finish. Chrysler has a lovely dark plum. Volkswaggon has another version of their pond-scum green. Ford has a muscle car in flat black with no gloss or shine to it at all. Sort of a "stealth," car. Of course, the male-menopause cars still come in red, but it's a subdued, understated, Expensive red. I saw one guy with two kids in a stroller and one on a leash, standing, gazing at the Viper with such naked longing and despair in his eyes that you could have written a whole treatise on it. (The car is barely big enough for two adults. It's one of those lie-down-and-go-fast cars, so low slung that your butt hits the ground on speed bumps.)

One thing they are doing with colors which I found interesting is the way they are mixing ons color base paint with a different color metal flake. Pearl white with gold metalflake is very pretty, as is the dark grey with light blue metalflake.

Gas mileage on the new rigs looks crappy. 12 mpg in the city and 18 on the highway? I get better in my old Taurus.

We also looked at the little electric cars. Three wheels, enough space for one person, fifty mile range . . . they're like an enclosed motorized bicycle. They really make a lot of sense for city driving. You couldn't carry more than a couple bags of grocery, but they would be great for scooting aroung the neighborhood.

And then of course there are the motorcycles. I see no realson to consider buying any means of transportation that demands I wear a jockstrap. Motorcycles are so hairy-chested. What ever happened to those nice little Honda scooters? "You meet the nicest people on a Honda." The Honda motorcycles cost more than my car. There are some Harley Davidsons that cost about half of what we paid for our house. There was one guy looking at a cafe racer - the kind of bike where you crouch on the seat like a monkey, lie down across the gas tank, and try to hold up your helmeted head so you can peer through the 18 inches of windscreen. The guy considering it had a paunch that swagged well over his belt. Less of a six-pack-abdomen, more of a half-case gut. It was the lying down across the gas tank that gave him trouble. Evidently, he had no idea his stomache might get in the way. He kept sitting up and shifting and lying back down, then sitting up and shifting again . . . I do enjoy the sights at the car show!

Kate, the goldfish under glass are swimming happily under a cover of ice. Goldfish have a sort of antifreeze in their blood so that they can be frozen completely, and recover just fine when thawed. My folks had a bowl of goldfish when they were first married, and every night in the winter, the bowl froze up, and every day it thawed, and the goldfish were never the worse for it.