I mentioned to my sister recently that Cassidy had been in the shop getting dents undented (I roll my eyes at anyone caring about a car's appearance, but RDC said they'd hasten rust) and a headlight fixed. CLH asked how the car got beat up, and I told her the small dent was RDC's fault and the big dent was a cowardly git's and the headlight was mine. Harkening to my 1992 accident, at which each of our parents projected their anger at me for causing it onto her, who was involved only as the reason I drove a) a long way and b) in the Middle of the Night, she asked, "Now remind me, how was this headlight my fault again?"
Hm, I hadn't thought of that. "Well, I had gone to that store to get a new swimsuit, and we all know what an athlete you are," which made her snort, "and I was on my way to see 'Brokeback Mountain,' which is about gay men, and your best friend was gay, and that's why it's your fault." Embellishing the blame to my sister with exploitation of our parents' homophobia: a great excuse.
When I was but a tot, I scurried crying to our mother that my big sister had bitten me. I showed her my arm, clearly imprinted with upper and lower tooth prints. She began to yell at CLH, who pointed out that the toothprints were all of baby teeth, while she had at least two adult teeth by then. I don't remember what happened to me for lying and trying to get my sister in trouble.
Another time, CLH wanted to play with Jennifer, HPV's older sister, alone. I don't know why HPV wasn't available to me: a path through the woods connected our houses. (Nearly; the neighbors across the road from the Vs' house didn't mind our scampering through as long as their German Shepherds knew us. I knew Rebel from puppyhood to his old age, by which time I used the path to get to only my babysitting family, but just now I realize that I should remember his mother's name too but don't.) Anyway, CLH told me that if I let them be, she would bring me gum. No gum was ever forthcoming, and CLH got in trouble for that.
Almost fourteen years of less than Usanly average consumption came to an end earlier this month. Our one-car-ism began involuntarily when Fugly died, and RDC might not have replaced Sugaree with the Terrapin in 1993 if I had been able to use its clutch, and if 1996 had been financially feasible at all, one-car-ism might have ended then. However, one-car-ism might still exist if Dot Org had not moved away from downtown or if I had changed jobs to remain on a busline or if I were more disciplined about biking when it's colder or wetter than I prefer. As RDC put it, he brought Cassidy in for engine maintenance (an earlier shop-visit than the body maintenance shop visit) and then had to get home somehow.
Enter Stella, another Subaru Impreza Outback, on the lot configured just as RDC wished ("and I even like the color"). We're already saying "your car" and "my car"; Banzai remains in Cassidy; RDC is unlikely to decorate Stella with a University of Connecticut sticker but I bet he'll get a "reality" fish (a skeleton); and I'm happy to have the old car because its tape deck means I can use my iPod, while Stella's lack of deck and an incompatibility between iTrip and the iPod means that RDC is stuck with CDs for the time being.
Kal and I read our lunches together for the first time in months. She's reading Nobody's Fool, and she loves it, thank heaven. I'm reading Ken Jennings's Brainiac, which is not only about his stint on "Jeopardy!" but also about trivia as a pursuit. I learned, with a gasp of dismay, that J.M. Barrie did not invent the name "Wendy" for "Peter Pan." Kal said she thinks she learned that from me (probably when we saw "Finding Neverland"), and I apologized, and she said she's since told someone else that, and I apologized again. Truth evidently is not the only virus out there. She giggled and would tell me what she giggled at (a great Nobody's Foolism, "Don't tell your mother," and when Sully's hourly rate went up). I told her Thomas Edison set prospective employees impossible irrelevant "general knowledge" quizzes, e.g. the population of Japan and the weight of air in a 16x12x12 room.
Another factoid in Brainiac is that Australia is not the only country with native kangaroos. New Zealand? I wondered. "Does he tell you, or leave you hanging?" she asked. He tells you, but at the back of the chapter, and I have to read to the end of each and get all my trivia questions answered at once. "Okay," Ms. Reasonable said, "but can I look now?" I handed her the book and she nodded sagely: "That makes sense." So of course I had to cheat and look prematurely: Papua New Guinea. Perhaps kangaroos can swim.
What else. I volunteered at MoveOn.Org tonight and felt unclean, because what I was doing was calling people (MoveOn members, but still) in their homes, disrupting their private lives. Letter-writing or nothing for me for me, and I wonder what sort of penance I can do. Data-entry for whoever maintains the no-call lists? My best contribution was two commas in signs on the wall: "This Week's Volunteers" and something like "Let's Set a Record." That's me, making the world safe for democracy one punctuation mark at a time.