Miss Penny

May 5, 2008

The other day I decided I would be one of those people who cares about the appearance of their automobile. I was going to wash my car. “This is great,” I thought; “I’ll be a regular guy.” I studied carefully the instructions on the bottle of car wash, used a clean pail and rags, and hosed down the machine—then running the soapy rags over the maroon, or “merlot” finish. The cats looked on with interest, wondering no doubt why I was suddenly veering from my policy of neglect and indifference that I imposed on my belongings. In the most perverse way imaginable, only the things deserving of the least care are lavished with undue attention. If it is rusted and not in operable condition, it gets moved to the top of the list. Those finely-tuned and almost pristine objects I take great care not to think about too much.

With the washing done, I dried the finish in the late evening dimness, following the car wash people’s instructions not to clean the car in direct sunlight or very warm weather. Then I applied the wax, which was probably a good idea. I’ve had the car for almost a year now, and have never waxed it or thoroughly washed it. Occasionally I’ll hose it off at one of those self-serve washoriums where you wield a high-pressure hose that hisses out water and soap. That’s about it.

With the waxing done, and the finish polished to a high-shine, the car looked fantastic. The whole business only took about an hour, which was not too bad—including the wash and wax. I went inside to change into some better clothes, having decided to go out to eat. About ten minutes later, I came out to admire the car and put the top down for the ride over to Ellicott City. Planted across the deck lid of the trunk were the unmistakable paw-prints of the smaller cat, tracking mud across the mirror-like finish. I had to laugh, as I’d expected this. There was really no way to keep the cats off the car, so it didn’t make any sense to try. The little cat had simply wanted to see what all the fuss was about. With her muddied feet, she was obviously not impressed with my work—and showed it in the best way she knew.

With the top down, I was out on the road for about five minutes before the sky—which had been clear and cloudless all day—began to spit rain in a desultory, half-hearted kind of way. I tuned in the rain station, and they said that, yes, rain was on its way. But it wasn’t a regular kind of rain—one that washes and clears away the dirt from the road, running down the curbs in little rivulets. This kind of rain is welcome, as it evenly coats freshly-washed cars in a uniform blanket of dirt—so that they still look kind of clean. The rain that now fell started and stopped in fits, with a few big droplets hurled groundward in an angry kind of way, then nothing. Then a few more droplets, with each little shower kicking up splotches of moistened road grime that now stuck to the car’s finish like crazy glue. I didn’t know until next day the overall effect of this drive through the half-wet landscape, only found out what my efforts had come to when I went to take a drive out in the sunshine and clear air of a beautiful spring Sunday. The car, which had looked beautiful for about ten minutes after waxing it—now had angry splotches of dirt haphazardly applied, like little stickers, all over the once glistening finish. The contrast was remarkable: You could still see the shiny paint in between the dirt patches that clung like barnacles to the finish. The car looked about a hundred times worse than if I’d just left it alone and had followed my usual policy of neglect.

On Sunday, with my dirt-splotched car’s open cockpit letting in the beautiful afternoon, I headed to a party up in Pennsylvania. In the town of Saint Paul de Vence, it is all fruit trees a-blossoming—the apple trees, peach trees and cherry trees festive in the afternoon sunshine. Actually, I believe it was just the apple trees now in blossom, as the other trees had already flowered and dropped their colorful petals. And—truth be told—Saint Paul de Vence is a town in France, but there should be one in Pennsylvania as well. With the big Civil War battlefields behind me, I turned the speckled car off the old Lincoln Highway and onto a side road of turns and rolling hills.

Earlier, two friends who happen to be musicians hailed me from the car in front. I’d been following them for some miles, wondering at the slow bastards hogging the road in the little Ford. At a crossroads south of Gettysburg, the driver exited, waved his arms, yelling my name. They’d recognized me behind them, wanted me to get in front, since I knew the way better—having taken that path often over the years. I gladly obliged, blasting obnoxious country music into the clear country air as my car sped past theirs. I let up on the gas, however, as I was in no particular hurry—and mostly just wanted to enjoy the ride. Both of them commented on the license plate, wanted to know why it said “LAVERN’S.” I set them straight, telling them that it was an acronym for LA VIE EN ROSE and did not say LAVERNZ.
“Look at it,” I said, “Sound it out: LAVENRZ.” Ok--it's a stretch for the "rose" part, but it's the best I could come up with.
“Yeah, it says Lavern’s,” they replied. This unfortunate incident notwithstanding, we all had a good time, and the food and music were excellent.

Just a side note: Up at the orchard I visited one last time with the farm tractor I’d purchased maybe a year ago. I’d let it sit, thinking that at some point I’d come with King to fetch it, bring it back home, fix it up. The motor was locked up, needed to be torn down and gone through to see what was the matter. Most likely rain had gotten down into the exhaust, rusted the engine’s innards—made it unwilling to budge. King and I looked it over. “Yep, she’s locked up,” he said.
“Yep,” I replied.
Then we both looked at it a little more, saying yep, with King bemoaning the fact that the machine had been allowed to fall into such neglect, as it had been a fine tractor with a good little motor.
“Yep,” I said. “But it’s not my fault: It was like that when I bought it.”
“Yep,” he said.
I could have said yep one more time, but decided to hold off until later. I asked my friend, the host of the party, to sell it again, as a man running a piece of heavy equipment had expressed interest in it. He’d been there clearing some land with a big tracked machine, had seen the little tractor sitting in the new spring grass. Like me, he’d wanted it for whatever reasons.
“It’s unlikely I’ll ever come and get it,” I said. If I can get what I paid for it, I’ll be happy.”

I returned home late, the night air becoming remarkably chilly for an otherwise warm May day. I put up the top, turned on the heat, and stopped for coffee to stay awake. When I finally pulled into the driveway, I spied Saxon--shirtless--out back playing with the pipes. Caught momentarily in the headlights' beam, he lumbered off into the woods, where I could occasionally catch a glimpse of him peeking out from behind a tree. Before turning in for the night, I looked outside once more, saw in the bright moon's glow a large tree rustling back and forth, its upper branches shivering with motion. Saxon was scratching his back.

Shortage of Cats

Recently I’ve become aware that the internet showing of cats has dipped dangerously low, to well below 350 million images. It’s during these times that the images have to be replenished, so that they are at a more comfortable 400-450 million photos, videos, sketches, portraits, or other types of images. I’ve done my part, by going to the farm supply store and photographing the store cat, Miss Penny, who normally sleeps atop the computer’s printer during inclement weather, but was actually receiving visitors out on the loading dock today. She is not always the most gracious hostess, but the fine warm weather brought out her best mood, and she allowed herself to be photographed and petted before heading inside for the evening. While I was there I bought a bag of potting soil for some flowers I picked up at the Sunday market.

Out in front of the other house I planted the many petunias in flower boxes--an odd preoccupation of mine, considering how much work remains to be done on the house itself. It is still uninhabitable but—never mind—it has pretty flowers out front. With the new porch, everything actually looks very nice. I would want to live there.

Down in the basement I spent an hour or two disconnecting the ancient coal-fired furnace, which had in years past been converted to an oil-burning unit, then abandoned altogether by me. I’m all for reconnecting with things from antiquity, but this behemoth is ridiculous: It no doubt gobbles up fuel at a greater rate than anything built these days, and was never intended to be used with oil anyway. Its time has come. With the main pipes disconnected and the electricity cut off to the furnace, it remained only to wield a heavy and long-handled maul to break the thing apart. I managed to smash some heavy pieces off, remove the fire-bricks from inside, and get the dirt and muck shoveled out from the bottom. With a few more whacks from the heavy hammer, the thing toppled forward—about one thousand pounds of cast iron dead on the floor. I kicked at it a little to see how willing it was to move from that spot. It gave no indication that it was going to move—ever again. I’ll have to reevaluate my options, which may include hiring a group from the labor pool that meets downtown. They’ll be no strangers to this kind of work.