Running hot and cold (and windy)

A week ago today, the temperature was in triple digits. Midweek, we had gale-force winds. Today, the high was forecast to hit a whopping 61 degrees, with lots of chance of rain. I'm sure climate change is more complex than this, but if you ask me, this past week may be the phenomenon's seven-day cameo appearance.

Test case

My car is a 1985 Honda Accord LX. By virtue of its advanced age, every two years the DMV requires me to take it to a "test only" place to be smogged. In every previous instance, the car has passed the test with good marks, but every time it's due for another test, I wonder, will this be the year it fails? And if it fails, will I be able to get it repaired so it'll pass the second time around?

This has been a great car. I bought it used in 1987, when it had 25,000 miles on the odometer, and from then until now, just a few miles shy of 170,000, it's been everything I'd want in a vehicle. It's reliable, starts every time, is economical to run, and can hold a surprising amount of stuff, especially with the back seats folded down. Like its owner, it's showing its age a bit—some things don't work any more (I carry bottles of water to dump on the windshield because the window washer tank has a leak; the power assist steering cylinder leaks, too, so when I realize I'm working hard to crank into a parking space, I go get that filled; and there's a hammer on the floor in the front seat to whack the AC/heater fan housing when it gets stuck), and there are some places that could use a cosmtic touchup (driver's side upholstery worn down to the foam interior, sun visor fabric shredding . . .) But it runs, it's paid for, the registration is $60 a year, and my insurance is laughably cheap. So even though I occasionally think that, gee, having a newer car would be nice (and have a lot more safety features on it than my current car), I can't see any good reason to give this one up.

Unless it doesn't pass its smog test. So when I took it to E-Z Smog this morning, I focused on thinking positively, remembering how it passed all those other years, but worrying nonetheless—would this be The Year It Failed?

I needn't have worried. My little Honda passed, and not just by a hair; all the scores were good ones. So the two of us are good for another couple of years. I'm lucky to have her.

In honor of passing the smog test, I put the Obama bumper sticker on. It joins Clinton/Gore 96, there on the left, and John Kerry in the center. I'm hoping Barack does as well with his challenge as my little Honda did with its today.

While I was waiting for the test to be run, I copied down some of the signs in E-Z Smog shop:
On a sign headed "Anything broken? Altered?":
Malfunctions examples: Added ground effects/running boards/air damn
On a sign detailing types of payment accepted:
"The only restriction on cash is that it not be counterfeit. (If you are a counterfeiter, we apologize for the inconvenience.)"

Going (sort of) public

I've never been terribly "out there" with this blog, meaning I haven't distributed the URL far and wide. I don't include it in my e-mail signature, for instance, or otherwise refer to it. I shared it with family and a few friends, and if they read it, great. Sometimes they comment on a particular post, and I recognize their names when they appear in the moderation section.

So I was utterly disconcerted when, a couple of days ago, two comments on my Double Century post appeared from two people I don't know and who had read what I wrote without my knowing it. It felt downright Peeping Tom-ish. I guess those two bloggers have some search thing they do to find posts on cycling, as both of their sites have to do with riding, but I'm so unsophisticated in the ways of blogging that I have no idea how that works, or even that there is such a thing.

With the possible exception of a grocery list (and I can make a good argument that a grocery list reveals a lot), writing makes the writer vulnerable. Discovering that I've been read by unknown readers was a reminder of how comfortable it is to be anonymous, and how important it is, sometimes, not to be.

Yarhzeit

My mother died 35 years ago today, just a few weeks shy of her 61st birthday. Trying to write about her life and my feelings for and about her runs up against the dam holding back the words—fragments of sentences, whole paragraphs, inchoate emotions that swirl and churn, rise to the surface and are pulled deep again. It's like a rapid below a steep drop in the river, too much turbulence to stay there long. Better to get downstream a bit . . . I miss my mom. Most of all, I think, I miss what I missed.

Today is also the 31st anniversary of the day I quit smoking—May 18, 1987. The occasion was a 3-day whitewater trip on the Cal Salmon River. The coincidence of it being the same date as my mother's death is just that—a coincidence. I think.