Where am I at with tax returns this year? Done a month ago. (Tax returns were due Monday in the USA.)
Where have I been this week? Out for daily walks, Old Town Alexandria, Huntley Meadows, National Harbor, Mt. Vernon; the weather has been nice for walking outside. The Farmers Market on Saturday morning, Whole Foods, into DC one day.
What have I been reading? I finished a Hemingway novel, I am working on two other books. My Kindle is loaded and ready for an adventure.
What am I listening to? 70s soft rock at the moment.
What made me think, I remember when? O.J. Simpson died. I was working in a department store when the verdict came in, the store came to a quiet halt, and the broadcast was played over the store public address system. I was not surprised, the prosecution had way over tried their case, and the defense was brilliant. If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. I started law school a few months later. If you can't explain your case to the jury in a week, you don't understand the core of your case or you don't have one.
Who deserves a big THANK YOU this week? The service manager, who came up with a 10% discount on a rather expensive service and car repair. I have bought cars for less.
What was I thinking the other day? All of the cars I have owned, 3 Oldsmobiles, 2 VWs (decades apart,) 2 Toyotas (at the same time), 4 Hondas (three new Accords in a four year period,) 2 Mazadas (years apart,) 1 Renault (fun but I couldn't get it repaired,) 1 Saturn, (a cheap reliable car until law school was paid for,) 1 Cadillac - by far the nicest car I have owned. Several of these put smiles on my face, only one real lemon in the bunch, 5 of them bought new. The two Toyotas I got more for when I sold them than I had paid for them.
What made me laugh this week? Two things at lunch with Emily the other day. She is a hair stylist, I told her what I had been paying for a haircut and she said, "to cut what? you don't have much left to cut!" True. Her mother died a couple of years ago, and her father, who is about my age is starting to date, using dating apps. She was warning him about the dangers of meeting strangers, and I said will at least Aileen Wuornos is not still on the loose in central Florida. Aileen was a serial killer of men. Not listed in her bio, is the man she bonked in the head with an orr and pushed overboard in alligator infested waters about a mile from the office I was working in at the time, he lived. Dark humor, but humor.
You've owned a lot of cars. In 25 years I owned two cars and for the next 15 years (this is surely adding to more years than since I began driving at 18), two cars and then in the next 9, jointly owned 3. There may be another but I can't see any need in the medium term. Maybe our final car will be electric.
ReplyDeleteWournos sounds rather awful.
OJ, so many years ago. Your take on it is enlightening.
Most of those were in the first 20 years of driving, I have started keeping them much longer.
DeleteGraham Norton’s mother described comic Bill Bailey as the bald man with long hair.
ReplyDeleteI went a couple of years without a haircut during COVID, long in the back, not much on top.
DeleteI thought to myself, man does he go through cars...then I totaled up mine and I'm on my eighth. Who knew?
ReplyDeleteTwelve of those were in the first 20 years, several were not very good cars, then there was the new Honda phase, it was more fun to buy a new one than have the oil changed.
DeleteWhat is that in the photo?
ReplyDeleteArt on the Waterfront at the end of King Street in Alexandria, Virginia, at night it lights up https://www.alexandriava.gov/public-art/project/site-see-interstellar-influencer-make-an-impact
DeleteMy first car was a 1969 Bug that I bought for $400, then drove for ten years and sold it for $1200; nothing really had been done to the car but Bugs were reliable, and easy to maintain.
ReplyDeleteWe bought a Saturn Vue right after moving to Camden and I loved that car, but then repairs became expensive because the cars were no longer built and so she had to go. I miss her.
I have always wanted a bug, I had a diesel Rabbit that had been fried before I bought it, and I have a VW Eos hardtop convertible. The Saturn had a great dealer, I parted with it before they were discontinued.
DeleteYou have had a lot of cars in your lifetime. I think I've only had 7.
ReplyDeleteI had never heard of that woman "killer" you mentioned. Scary.
She was local to an area I was building in, then there was the man whose wife reported had committed suicide by hitting himself in the head with a hammer. It took the police about 5 years to bring a murder charge on that one. Florida can be a colorful place.
DeleteWhat Emily said about your hair was either quite insensitive or an example of American directness. I have three good friends who are as bald as coots but I make it a rule never to comment on their hair loss unless they raise the matter. Though men like to tough it out and claim that the hair remarks mean nothing to them, I know that they often hurt.
ReplyDeleteI laughed at it, and it showed me that she is her mother's daughter, same lack of filter, I knew her grandmother, she was even more direct.
DeleteMy first car was a Buick Opel - a lovely rust-colored beauty. I was so proud of that car. I had a minivan once that I sunk - drove in a puddle that was deeper than I thought and it stalled out in the middle and the water was coming in over my feet. It was declared "totaled" by the insurance company! Now I never drive through puddles AT ALL!
ReplyDeleteThe little Opel sports car was so cute. Cars don't make good boats.
DeleteI haven't read anything by Hemmingway. Do you have an state tax where your at?
ReplyDeleteThe Old Man and the Sea is a great start with Hemingway, it is one long narrative. Yes, we have a state income tax.
DeleteI'm shallow. Outside of the horror of the murders and the disappointment in the fall from OJ's glory days in the USC football program, the most memorable part of the OJ saga was the ride up the San Diego Freeway in the white Bronco. After spending the better part of my 20s sitting in traffic on that route, there he was, living the dream of no traffic ahead of him, and poking along at 45MPH.
ReplyDeleteWill Jay
Just get CHP to close the road to traffic and away you go.
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