I bet Cadillac, Mercedes, and Lexus have these classes, too.
From today's Oddman.
Showing posts with label driving. Show all posts
Showing posts with label driving. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 15, 2015
Sunday, August 23, 2015
third reflection on driving
Monday, July 27, 2015
happy anniversary
The Excellent Wife (TEW) keeps telling me that we've been together for 21 years, which I know can't be true, because, while I'm certainly old enough to have that happen, I have no ability to be in a stable relationship that long. In rebuttal, she points out that we first started dating just after we got out of grad school in 1994 (an allegation I have been unable to rebut) and that there is a marriage certificate on the dining room wall from 1997*. Which there is, but just as I can't have been steady with her for 21 years, I can't have been married for eighteen; I have too much egotism and emotional instability.
*Quakers do weddings better than anyone else I've ever heard of; they sit in silence until someone is moved to speak, and, at weddings, many people are often moved, to speak about joys, hopes, memories, sillinesses, and so on. Bring handkerchiefs. At the end, all present sign the wedding certificate, indicating that the whole community will be around to help support the marriage. I've said often that the wedding certificate is a far better reminder of the marriage than the ring: if this thing falls apart, I'm going to have to deal with all those people who signed the certificate. It's easier just to stay married.
IN any case, to celebrate this undoubtedly fraudulent occasion of the 21st anniversary of our first date, we bought tickets some time ago (prior to the recent unpleasantness) to the American Shakespeare Center productions for Saturday, July 25. The American Shakespeare Center is located in Staunton, Virginia; they've built a reproduction of the Blackfriars "theater", an indoor space where some of the plays were produced.
Each year, they hire a repertory company to act a selection of the plays (they usually choose a theme, and sometimes throw in a play by someone else that fits the theme). We've gone a number of times, and the productions are always at least good, sometimes great. The funny comedies are actually funny (not all of Shakespeare's comedies are comedies in the modern sense), and we've noticed that they make a point of including scenes often cut from other productions.
We got up to get going at some stupid hour on Saturday morning to do the six-plus-hour-drive to Staunton, which was uneventful (I didn't even need to make up another verse to my song), and got to town early enough to find the motel, and then get to the theater. We saw The Winter's Tale:
... a story of jealousy and false accusation, which was particularly touching to me in view of my recent difficulties (there are some speeches I need to go look up again). It's a "comedy" in that it ends with marriages and reconciliations, and not with deaths, but don't bring the frat boys.
After that matinee, we potted around Staunton for a bit, and had dinner and excellent gelato (TEW loved the logo of this place, and thought some of our cow-friendly friends would like it, too),and then returned to the theater for A Midsummer Night's Dream:
This is a wonderfully silly play, and they did it masterfully. I was taken especially, though, by the actor who played Oberon, king of the fairies, who projected the dignity, and power and magic of the part.
And then to the hotel. The next day we got up for breakfast, and staying at the hotel were some of the members of the Tar Heel Mini Club, a group of Mini Cooper owners, who were doing an ice-cream run up to Michigan, where they hoped to join owners from all over the country, to set a record for the most cars involved in some event or other. (An ice-cream run, I was told by one of the members, means you're supposed to stop at least twice a day for ice cream. Now THERE's a crisis.)
And then we drove home, on which trip I STILL didn't make up another verse to my song. Maybe the problem is I just hate driving in New Jersey.
*Quakers do weddings better than anyone else I've ever heard of; they sit in silence until someone is moved to speak, and, at weddings, many people are often moved, to speak about joys, hopes, memories, sillinesses, and so on. Bring handkerchiefs. At the end, all present sign the wedding certificate, indicating that the whole community will be around to help support the marriage. I've said often that the wedding certificate is a far better reminder of the marriage than the ring: if this thing falls apart, I'm going to have to deal with all those people who signed the certificate. It's easier just to stay married.
IN any case, to celebrate this undoubtedly fraudulent occasion of the 21st anniversary of our first date, we bought tickets some time ago (prior to the recent unpleasantness) to the American Shakespeare Center productions for Saturday, July 25. The American Shakespeare Center is located in Staunton, Virginia; they've built a reproduction of the Blackfriars "theater", an indoor space where some of the plays were produced.
Each year, they hire a repertory company to act a selection of the plays (they usually choose a theme, and sometimes throw in a play by someone else that fits the theme). We've gone a number of times, and the productions are always at least good, sometimes great. The funny comedies are actually funny (not all of Shakespeare's comedies are comedies in the modern sense), and we've noticed that they make a point of including scenes often cut from other productions.
We got up to get going at some stupid hour on Saturday morning to do the six-plus-hour-drive to Staunton, which was uneventful (I didn't even need to make up another verse to my song), and got to town early enough to find the motel, and then get to the theater. We saw The Winter's Tale:
... a story of jealousy and false accusation, which was particularly touching to me in view of my recent difficulties (there are some speeches I need to go look up again). It's a "comedy" in that it ends with marriages and reconciliations, and not with deaths, but don't bring the frat boys.
After that matinee, we potted around Staunton for a bit, and had dinner and excellent gelato (TEW loved the logo of this place, and thought some of our cow-friendly friends would like it, too),and then returned to the theater for A Midsummer Night's Dream:
This is a wonderfully silly play, and they did it masterfully. I was taken especially, though, by the actor who played Oberon, king of the fairies, who projected the dignity, and power and magic of the part.
And then to the hotel. The next day we got up for breakfast, and staying at the hotel were some of the members of the Tar Heel Mini Club, a group of Mini Cooper owners, who were doing an ice-cream run up to Michigan, where they hoped to join owners from all over the country, to set a record for the most cars involved in some event or other. (An ice-cream run, I was told by one of the members, means you're supposed to stop at least twice a day for ice cream. Now THERE's a crisis.)
And then we drove home, on which trip I STILL didn't make up another verse to my song. Maybe the problem is I just hate driving in New Jersey.
Monday, July 6, 2015
second reflection on driving
Remember that last reflection on driving with the song to the tune of "Oh, Tannenbaum"? Driving back from the in-laws on July 4, I started another one:
I hate to drive, I hate to drive,
It messes up my tummy.
It makes me want my teddy bear,
It makes me want my mummy.
The Parkway of the Garden State
Deserves antipathy and hate.
I think I'm going to be late.
I hate to drive, I hate to drive.
I hate to drive, I hate to drive,
It messes up my tummy.
It makes me want my teddy bear,
It makes me want my mummy.
The Parkway of the Garden State
Deserves antipathy and hate.
I think I'm going to be late.
I hate to drive, I hate to drive.
Sunday, June 21, 2015
reflection on driving
With the in-laws being sick, The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I have done our share of driving from Central Jersey up to Bergen County, often at the worst of times and in the worst of conditions. We take the Parkway, mostly because the tolls are lower than the Turnpike. But I hate the Parkway; the lanes are too narrow, and I think the presence of trucks on the Turnpike has a calming effect on people in cars. (Do you know why the toll is higher on the Turnpike, in my opinion? Because it's worth it.)
On the way home from staying overnight at the in-laws last night (the Excellent Mother-In-Law was released perhaps just that little bit too early from the hospital), I composed the following bit of doggerel. It's to the tune of "Oh, Tannenbaum":
It strikes me that Laura OLPH's husband, the excellent Professor Jack, does not drive. Perhaps he will relate... or perhaps he's never endured the exquisite torture of, for example, Route 21 in Newark on a rainy rush hour.
On the way home from staying overnight at the in-laws last night (the Excellent Mother-In-Law was released perhaps just that little bit too early from the hospital), I composed the following bit of doggerel. It's to the tune of "Oh, Tannenbaum":
I hate to drive, I hate to drive;
It really makes me mental.
I'd rather go be skinned alive,
Or have procedures dental.
On turnpike, or on country lane,
It causes pain inside my brain.
Serenity doth fail to thrive:
I say again, I hate to drive.
It strikes me that Laura OLPH's husband, the excellent Professor Jack, does not drive. Perhaps he will relate... or perhaps he's never endured the exquisite torture of, for example, Route 21 in Newark on a rainy rush hour.
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