Back in November, I ended my 13 month streak of being vehicle free. Not only did I buy a vehicle, but I bought a giant, gas guzzling, temperamental, difficult to park vehicle.

The reason I gave up my car in the first place was because it was old, I got sick of parking, I had a short commute, my boyfriend has a car for when it’s really necessary, and my sister needed it more than I did.

Walking, biking, bussing and subwaying were great while they lasted but you can’t deny the feeling of independence your own vehicle gives you.

In steps this big ol full bodied beauty:

Man, has he or she (that’s still up for debate) changed my life. If it’s a boy, I’m naming him Otis Redding. My cat’s name is Little Richard and my fish’s name is Tina Turner, so that really does create a trifecta.

I debated buying it for days, but I always knew in my head that I wanted it. I’ve always wanted a truck, and especially an old truck. I look forward to the adventure of parking it on my narrow LA street. I love the sound of the horn and the looks on people’s faces when they realize a girl is driving this behemoth. I also love helping people move stuff, surprisingly enough. Any excuse to drive it.

So as a result of my new purchase, I have not been biking nearly as much. I love driving Otis R. around town, but I may be biking more soon because the weather is getting so much better, my legs are much less strong and the truck needs some work done.

The benefit of having the truck is long distance biking – I just toss the bike in the back and take off. Here’s a picture of my ride back from a ride in South Pasadena. Lovely!

Thanks 4th Grade Nothing!

So am I a hypocrite for purporting the benefits of living without a vehicle for myself and the environment, only to take all those benefits away?

I mean, who cares right? I’m happy as a clam in my big ol beast.

Deep acid techno, Britain (2000)

Warm, fresh breezes rose playfully from the surface of the ocean and rippled through the taut sails, blowing Lucy’s long blond hair across his face as he stood holding her from behind. She was steering Sea Angel towards a soft pink dawn, the herald of a glorious summer day to come…
…then there was the rich vivid greenness of Preston’s Valley, the strong, ever-changing and piquant scents of the forests that surrounded Right Downaways. He could hear, within himself, the busy, burbling sound of Faraway Creek, where, on warm summer evenings, if the mood was on him, he’d take off his shoes and socks and wade cautiously into the chilly waters to nab a fat river trout dozing under the heavy banks or lurking behind a large stone. If he was successful, he’d cook the fish for their supper…

Stevie was far down Quarry Road, and well pleased with the speed he was making, when suddenly there was a deafening crash of thunder and streaks of fizzing and crackling lightning that burned away the dark and heavy clouds in an instant, to reveal a mauve morning sky.
Remarkably, there was a clear view out over the ocean, to Reef Rocks and to the dark low shapes of the far western islands. But there was also a bowel-loosening, ominous trembling and rolling of an earthquake rippling through the ground beneath the vehicle. The truck bounced violently on its tyres, everything rattled and shook rapidly for a few seconds, and the surface of the far ocean, moments ago smooth and shining like silver mercury, broke up into wildly excited waves before calming down again. Without warning a huge black mass of starlings came from out of the north, wheeling and spinning several times in the bright blue sky above him before turning sharply westward out over the sea. Stevie stopped the truck and watched in amazement as the birds spiralled upwards to a great height and then dropped all of a piece, like a slab of speckled stone towards the ocean. His body tensed and his breathing almost stopped in anticipation of their disastrous contact with the water, but it didn’t happen, nothing happened; instead the entire flock winked out of existence, one second it was there, the next mysteriously gone from the sky and his disbelieving sight. Black vaulting clouds and smog rolled in quickly blotting out Stevie’s view of the shimmering sea, and removing all trace of the strange incident with the birds.
Stevie didn’t believe his eyes; he couldn’t, he reasoned that the stress of approaching Cataclysm, his frantic dash from the shack, had sent him over the edge for a moment, and in strong defence of his own sanity, he chose to dismiss the matter from his mind and returned his attention to driving his truck down the winding and slippy road….

Taken from Cataclysm’s Day, Book One of The Gatherers Trilogy

Uncle Bill wasn’t as enthused about cars as dad was. Bill was good at fixing things and hated school, so being a mechanic was a logical step for him. His heart wasn’t really in it, though. Dad’s heart, on the other hand, was definitely in cars. He loved how they were built, how they ran, how they worked, how they smelled, and how they made people’s lives better. He just loved cars.

And so he took a real shine to working with Uncle Bill. By the time he was a junior in high school, he had his own business. Friends from school would bring their cars over for repair, and dad would work on them, offering a discount on his labor. He was a pretty cheap mechanic, and his intuitive ways with cars enabled him to be a good mechanic. Word got around, naturally enough, and dad was able to build up a decent business. After he graduated from high school, he made his business full time.

It really took off, of course, and he became one of the most popular mechanics in town. After a while, he saved up enough money to buy his own place, and so he bought a place out in the country, with a couple of acres and a pond. It was here where he met his future wife.

Mom was a neighbor of his, a farmer’s daughter, conveniently located just west of his house. He saw her one Saturday when she was taking lunch out to her dad, who was trying to get beans planted. To hear mom tell it, he didn’t hesitate for one second, and walked straight out to her in the field and introduced himself. Apparently dad was quite a charmer back in the day, and he managed to get himself invited to Sunday dinner the next day. Six months later, they were married.

With a new wife in the house, it became obvious that a second vehicle would be convenient. And so dad set out to find a new car. He had some business to attend to in Indianapolis one day, related to some issue with his plans for expanding his garage, and so he drove down to the big city. On the way down, off route 19, he saw this beautiful red truck for sale by owner. Curious, he stopped to look at it.

Since he had an appointment at the permit office, he couldn’t stay long. He left a note under the windshield wiper with an offer, his name, and his number. The next day, he and mom went down to buy the truck. Dad drove the truck home, having fallen in love with it. It was a 1954 International truck, painted bright red.
Dad’s ’56 Bel air now became mom’s Bel Air, and the truck was officially dad’s. Two years later, in 1963, I was born.

It wasn’t until I was six or so that I began to remember the truck with much detail. Dad was a busy guy who generally worked every day but Sunday. That was the day we all went to church as a family. When church was over, we would go to our grandparent’s house for Sunday dinner.

Sometimes, though, dad would take a Saturday off. It would be a special day for family, and, in the summer at least, he would drive us to a pond that was about five mile away from our house. We always took the truck.

Mom would sit in the cab with him, leaning up against him, with his arm around her. Even now, that image, forever etched in my memory, brings me a feeling of contentment and peace, as if everything is right with the world. Just knowing that those two people were so deeply in love brings a feeling that just can’t be described.

The kids, of course, would ride in the back. It was always fun to ride in the back, because that meant the wind whipping at your face, blowing hot and cold and fast. Dad would have the radio on, blasting loud for us kids. It was always a country station in rural Indiana; no one wanted to listen to the hippie nonsense that passed for pop. Occasionally, though, dad would go searching for a top forty station. He was a huge Beach Boys fan, and loved their songs about cars. I can still hear Little Deuce Coupe now.

And we would sing along in the back, happy and carefree. “She purrs like a kitten ‘til the lake pipes roar/and if that ain’t enough to make you flip your lid/there’s one more thing: I got the pink slip, daddy.” Daddy had to explain that song to me when I was older.

When I did get older, the truck was still in service. Dad taught me to drive in the truck, although by the point he had replaced the engine and rebuilt the transmission. He even put in some actual lake pipes, although now that seems to be quite ridiculous. Still, it was fun to have him teach me how to shift gears and correct a fishtail on a dirt road.

He also taught me how to take care of cars. He knew I wanted to be a teacher, and always encouraged me to follow that dream. He worked hard to make sure that I had everything I needed to succeed in life. Dad was a wonderful man.

However, he expected me to know how to do maintenance on cars, for when I would own my own car. He was a mechanic, and had heard countless customers tell him how other mechanics had lied to them and ripped them off. Dad was an honest man, and had cultivated a good relationship with his customers. He knew that it would be good for me to know how to take care of my own car so I wouldn’t get ripped off.

And so I learned how to change filters and fluids and light bulbs, and make minor repairs. I still do my own maintenance work today. It helps me connect with my past.

There are a lot of memories in that old truck. I drove my first date, Amy Johnson, in that pickup truck. We went to the drive-in ice cream stand and sat in the back of the truck, eating ice cream and talking. Three years later, back from college on summer break, I took Amy out to that ice cream stand again. This time I proposed to her. She said yes.

Dad’s older now. Though he’s officially retired, he still works on cars sometimes. He only works for family, a few close friends, and a couple of his most loyal customers. He still lives out in the country, just a little off Route 19, in the middle of Miami County. He still has that ’54 International truck. It still runs fine; dad’s replaced the engine a couple of times and rebuilt the transmission a couple more times. Thanks to his careful skill, it still runs well and looks good. There is little more rust on it, though.

During the three and a half weeks I’ve been here, I’ve used all kinds of methods of transportation to get out to visit farmers and communities. I got around by bike… bus (as a driver and as a passenger)… hitched in the back of pick-ups… walked… chartered other peoples’ time and vehicle to drive me places… but now, I get to drive a TRUCK!

After two trips up to Cayo (aka San Ignacio), which is 6 hours from Punta Gorda by bus, I have made this beautiful ’96 Tacoma Moho Cacao’s new cacao-buying machine (well, I did the work, but the money paid wasn’t actually mine). It’s quite a beast.

According to some scholar-hippies staying at the lodge this week, yesterday was the day of the Mayan “Earth Monster,” a large crocodile-like entity that has to do with creation and is symbolized on earth by caves. Or something like that. Anyways, it’s a pretty awesome name for the new ride, which crushes the crappy roads here as it grinds its way through muddy potholes that appear as though they could swallow a truck whole.

the earth monster itself!

I’m pretty psyched — with this truck, I can now get out to the more remote villages and retain a large degree of flexibility with my schedule. Our bean-buying potential just jumped significantly. I have my first bean pick-up on Saturday in the towns of Silver Creek and San Pedro Columbia, and then community meetings with cacao growers in San Antonio, Santa Elena, and Pueblo Viejo on Sunday. Things are really getting started…

My former methods of transportation:

i was not cut out to drive a bus in the jungle

riding in the back of a pick-up is fun for the first 5 hours...

riding a hand-cranked ferry! granted, this was after i bought the truck. from cayo --> spanish lookout.

Also, I finally got around to putting up some photos on flickr. You can click on the flickr window on the side of the blog or go to: www.flickr.com/photos/emilyvstone/

As we were preparing to move to America last year, we sold our car in the hope that it would allow us to buy one when we arrived in North Carolina.

Most of the money we got from the sale disappeared very quickly, though, as we purchased airfares, secured visas, payed a security deposit for our apartment here and everything else that is involved in settling in to a new country. Which is why, when some generous folks offered to loan us their 1989 Ford F150 we were relieved and delighted.

Since then the truck has been our ever present companion, making simple things possible (like getting the groceries), that might otherwise have been a real headache.

Sadly, though, this weekend we said goodbye to our faithful friend. After 18 months of service it is time for her to head back home, leaving us with only sweet memories.

Sweet memories such as flat tires, dead batteries, failing brakes and a tire that blew out on the interstate a few weeks ago. It happened with such force that I thought the engine had dropped out from beneath me, so I was relieved to look in the rear view mirror and see only a tire tread trailing behind. I was equally relieved that in the car behind me was a friend, as he was the lucky one to drive over the top of it, rather than some stranger with a shotgun. And any day in America where I avoid getting shot is a good one.

Farewell, old friend.

Have you ever had one of those moment where your significant other suggests you both do something, like visit the in-laws or hand dig a hole for a swimming pool in your backyard, and your stomach does that weird, oh crap, kind of flip? You know the feeling, right? The one where all you can think is, this is not going to end well, but your mouth says, “That sounds like a great idea honey.” Well that’s the feeling I got when Clarissa said, “I think we should put a new radio in the truck.”

For those of  you who don’t know, I drive a 1983 Toyota pickup truck. It’s a classy little number that we painted camouflage in order to hide the ugly. I like to believe old vehicles have character. (Really this is just what people who own old cars tell themselves to feel better, but whatever.)

Now let me explain. It’s not that I didn’t want to have a radio in the truck. The problem with the whole situation is that Clarissa had already installed a radio when we first purchased it. However, the old-school door panels were too flimsy to hold the speakers and eventually they fell out and grounded the radio. When Clarissa suggested reinstalling a radio I immediately understood that it would not be as simple as throwing a new one in there. She explained to me how the logical solution to the problem was to build our own door panels to support the weight of the stereo speakers. (At the time my brain was telling me the logical solution to the problem was to not start this project in the first place. I mean come on, who needs a radio when you can sing out loud!)

Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t have much experience building vehicle accessories, using power tools or running electrical wire. The last time I checked neither did Clarissa. Plus, Clarissa never does things the simple way. (She says she does things the right way, but I say the right way would mean paying someone else to do it.) On top of that, her projects tend to morph into a plethora of equally aggravating side projects, but when Clarissa said, “This time it’s going to be different. Trust me. This is going to be simple.” How could I say no?

Oh I forgot to mention that once an idea happens upon Clarissa she has to act on it almost immediately. So at 8 o’clock on the Thursday evening when she first suggested we make door panels she didn’t mean that weekend or at some time in the near future. She meant, lets build door panels right now. So after some goodhearted bickering about why this was in fact the dumbest project we had ever decided to do, we headed over for the first of what would be many trips to Home Depot for some wood. By the time we finally got everything we needed and rustled up some grub it was nearly 11 something at night. (Yes, I was stalling! Don’t judge. You would be too.) I figured it was too late to start, but I should have known better. Clarissa declared that she was going to hand paint some white fabric we had lying around to cover the panels with. Heaven forbid we just buy some dang fabric. Apparently that would be too easy. So after one last eye roll and shoulder shrug I declared I was going to bed. When I got up for work the next day I found the old door panels laying in the living room along with some impressively painted fabric. Who knew Clarissa was that artistic?

Above is the original door panel and the new wooden one. Below is Clarissa’s fabric. Sorry its not the best photo, but I was rushing. Not to shabby right?

I was hoping to avoid working on the project until later in the weekend, but when I got home from work that day I realized that wasn’t going to happen. Because Clarissa is afraid of power tools she agreed to install the radio if I cut the wood. Basically the options were try not to cut off your finger with a power saw or try not to electrocute yourself on the car battery. Not really promising no matter which way you looked at it. That left yours truly wielding the big guns. Now considering I have the ability to trip while standing still and routinely fall out of office chairs, this had scary written all over it. It didn’t help that we had chosen the hottest week on earth to start this whole ordeal or that I chose to set up my wood cutting station in a swarm of mosquitoes.

Apparently I make the same faces operating power tools as I do setting off fireworks. You may note that there are no pictures of Clarissa. Seeing as I could hear her swearing at the radio wires over the din of the power tools, I made an executive decision to avoid her during this part of the project. (My mom did always say I was one smart cookie.)

I was able to cut my wood pieces rather quickly while retaining all my fingers. Clarissa didn’t have so much luck. Despite spending 3 hours out in the truck, she was unable to get the new radio to work. This brought the project to a screeching halt until we could call in some extra help. (I did my best to look sad while secretly cheering on the inside!) I waited till Clarissa went inside to take some more pictures of my poor truck during this dismal time in its history.

About a week passed and Clarissa started to get antsy. She claimed she was sick of looking at all the miscellaneous tools lying around and decided she HAD to organize them all. This involved dumping out all of our junk drawers in order to find every last hidden nail and screw so it could be put in its “proper place”. One evening I came home and I swear it was like walking into a bad episode of hoarders. There was crud everywhere!

Didn’t she say there weren’t going to be any annoying side projects? This also happened to be the night that she “misplaced” (i.e. “threw out”) her car keys. Now seeing as I have lost not one, but 2 sets of car keys myself, (technically 3, if you count the set I found then promptly re-lost) I couldn’t really be mad despite having to fish through a dumpster to find them.

It took about 3 days for all of our junk  to find a clearly sorted and neatly labeled “home.” Around day 2 Clarissa realized there was a flaw in her plan. You see it’s really great to have containers to store everything you own in, but if you have nowhere to store those containers you have a bigger problem. To make space meant we were going to have to tackle the spare bedroom (A.K.A. the room where hobbies go to die). Ugh! I have talked ad. nauseum about how Clarissa will not throw anything away and this is the room where all that stuff lives. Suffice it to say that I think we both would have gladly traded this day for any other.

I spent the afternoon spouting obituaries for all the stuff in this room. Like, “Surf Boards R.I.P. 2001-2003 Wilmington, NC They conquered the ocean, now may they conquer these walls.” (I didn’t say they were good obits, but they were enough to entertain me for the day). Clarissa was not amused.

Believe it or not these photos were taken near the end of the day so imagine what the room looked like before the pictures.

On the plus side, we did locate some of the dogs holiday wear.

Thank God we have good friends who are handier than we are! About a week after the infamous cleaning debacle of 2010, we coerced our buddy Dawn into making the radio work.

Dawn works with high tech, fancy electronics for a living. Lucky for us she brought along a whole bag of tools  to make this project go much faster.

However, being that this project was cursed from the start even Dawn seemed unable to get the thing to work. She hooked the stereo up and the dang thing still wouldn’t turn on. Being the troubleshooter that she is Dawn wired the radio directly to the battery to make sure the radio itself was good. Believe it or not (this is sarcasm in case you couldn’t tell) it still wouldn’t turn on. While Dawn and Clarissa tried to puzzle through the issue, I picked up the directions that came with it. On page 17, under the header, “Installing Your Stereo,” I noticed a line instructing the user to hit the source button to turn it on. I strolled around to the front of the truck where Clarissa and Dawn were huddled holding the stereo directly on the battery. I tapped the source button and about a second later the whole thing lit up. The shocked look on both their faces was priceless.

Finally, all that was left to do was hook up the speakers and install the door panels. But we all know nothing goes as planned in my world. It turns out that the door frame got in the way of the speakers and wouldn’t allow the panels to sit flush. Now we could have cried about it, or whined, or rebuilt the whole door panel, but that’s not what we did. (Well I may have whined a little, but can you blame me?) Instead we decided to cut a hole in the door and make the stupid thing fit.

It important to remember safety first

At last we were able to install the panels! After 3 weeks, a major house cleaning extravaganza, about a million mosqitoe bites and about 5 pounds in sweat everything was complete. (Or so I thought) Being the perfectionist that she is Clarissa insisted that we paint the screws that we used black so they would “blend in better”. If I wasn’t so happy to be done I would have hit her over the head with the dremel.  

Here she is admiring the completed project.

I think we were both thrilled to finally be done.

I will be the first to admit that when we started this project I had absolutely no faith that we could pull it off. But I’m pretty proud of the end result. What do you think?

Can you tell I was excited to be done?

 I think we both sat in the parking lot for like 15 minutes just listening to the radio like a bunch of dorks. Then Clarissa got out and looked down at the torn seat and said, “I think we need to fix this. This looks horrible. I think we can reupholster this ourselves.” And I replied, “Are you kidding me? Have you been to reupholstery school? No way!”  To which she said, “Come on, it can’t be that hard. This will be simple!” I rolled my eyes and shrugged. I mean did I really have a choice in the matter?

 Stay tuned for the fantastic blog about our next big project.

Working another morning show friday so I pulled an all nighter last night.  Why you ask?  That way I can fall asleep at about 2 this afternoon and wake up at 9 or so tonight to be to work by 11 pm.  Fun.  Then I’ll work an evening shift Saturday, and another morning Sunday night/Monday morning.  Oh yeah, my body is going to be very angry at me.

But Bair, what does an all-nighter have to do with that liquid cooling pump picture?  Glad you asked!  Just as I was settling in to do some serious gaming for my all-nighter, it overheats and turns off.  Apparently I hade a bubble hit the pump and stop the system dead.  So I had to purge and fill and fiddle for several hours.  Kept me awake just fine, but I didn’t get to do as much gaming as I’d have liked.

Speaking of gaming, anybody know a modern game where you sail a tall ship from the deck?  I own games like Pirates of the Burning Seas and East India Compay.  Both decent games, but not at all what I’m looking for.  I”m hoping for a game that includes the strategy/managerial type thing, but the gameplay is on deck.  I want to sail my ship, not point it.  Or assign a destination.  And I want the powder smoke swirling around me as my men fire off the great guns.  That’s a sailing/pirate/etc. game.  I haven’t found one, have you?

Oh, and I finally got a new stereo in the truck.  Was crazy cheap because it doesn’t have a cd player.  Aux in for the MP3 player, but no CD.  Works for me.

My best friend Laura’s dad was the high school science teacher at our small Christian school.  He was (and still is) one of the favorite teachers at that school.  He could make science interesting and he had certain traditions that were legendary.  (Making peanut brittle in chemistry? Awesome!)  The Truck Story was one of them.  There is absolutely no way I can do the story justice, but I will attempt it.

In addition to being a science teacher, Mr. W had a dairy farm.  On this farm, he had an old truck that he used to get around on the farm, move hay bales, and other, uh, farm-ly duties. (I may be from the country, but I’m quite ignorant of actual farm life.)  Over time, different parts of the truck wore out, but it still ran. You just had to do certain things differently. For example, in order to crank the engine, you had to actually go under the hood and start it with a screwdriver.  It was something he’d done a hundred times, but one day, something different happened.  He opened the hood, started the car, and another problem reared its head.  The throttle got stuck and the engine roared.  Nothing too out of the ordinary, so he slammed the hood, and then yet another problem emerged.

The clutch tended to slip the car into gear sometimes, and when he slammed the hood, the car slipped into reverse, and since the throttle was stuck, the truck took off, barreling backwards across their yard.  Then, it hit a pole, shifted into drive, charged Mr. W, and then veered off into the pasture.  The last thing he saw was the truck, continuing to accelerate, going over an embankment and through his neighbor’s fence.  He eventually found it a half a mile from his house, through five fences and a swamp.  It had climbed a utility pole and was quietly idling.

It’s so much better to hear him tell it, and over the years, he has really refined the story.  It became one of those legendary traditions, and every year, all of his classes begged to hear it.   We heard it in 7th grade Life Science, 9th grade Physical Science, and 10th grade Biology.

The summer after our 10th grade year, Steve, Cody, Laura, and I were hanging out at her house, and we decided to go for a ride in the legendary truck.  Laura and Steve were in the front, and Cody and I were in the back. Over the years, a hole had worn in the middle of the bed of the truck, and some barbed wire to repair fences was stored in a loop around the hole.  I didn’t think much of it and took my perch on the side of the truck.  Laura took off into their huge open yard, bouncing over dips and bumps and continuing to accelerate.  She kept going faster and faster, sharply turning left and right.

I went from sitting on the edge of the truck, to sitting on the tire hump, to eventually bouncing on the bed of the truck, trying to avoid the barbed wire and the huge hole in the middle of the bed of the truck, and Cody was no help at all.  He was in the same situation on the opposite side of the truck.  I was screaming, Cody was yelling, and we were both holding on for dear life.  At this point, Steve stuck his arm out the passenger side window and sprayed something at us.  Since I was screaming, it got all in my mouth.  Then, mercifully, Laura slowed down.  I scrambled back onto the tire hump and away from the barbed wire, and she banged on the side of the truck.  I knew exactly what that meant…it was the signal to her old dog, Lady, to jump into the bed of the truck.

Let me take an aside here and tell you a little bit about Lady.  She was a hound dog mutt that they had reluctantly started feeding a few years back.  I loved dogs, and I was always very affectionate with Lady.  She was sweet, if somewhat dim.  She seemed to be perpetually pregnant, but she was a poor mother.  In an effort to protect her pups from the hot Texas sun, she would carry them off, hide them, and bury them in the dirt, where they were almost always suffocated before anyone could find them.  She also had the largest…well, my mom called them “dinners”…that I had ever seen.  They sagged nearly to the ground and were generally leaking.  Sorry to be so graphic, but the mental picture is essential to the story.

So…Cody and I were in the back of the truck.  Lady jumped in too, and Laura took off again, seemingly going faster than before across bumpy pasture land.   Of course, Lady was excited to see me, and when I started screaming again, barbed wire still poking my butt, she licked my face and essentially got to first base with me.  I screamed at Cody to help me, but he shook his head, mouth shut tightly, trying to avoid Lady’s advances as well as the barbed wire and whatever Steve was spraying at us.

Eventually, the truck ride ended, and that’s when we found out Steve said he would give Laura $5 if she could throw one of us from the truck.  He sprayed tire sealant at us in an attempt to help her out.

Twelve years later, Cody, Steve, Laura and I are all still friends, and, whenever we are all in town at the same time, we almost always rehash this story.  Usually, it’s me telling the story because I still get so animated, so outraged that tire sealant was sprayed in my mouth, that barbed wire poked my butt, that a dog gave me my first kiss. It’s been a good way to initiate the significant others who have come on the scene.  The last time we revisited that night, telling Steve’s now-wife about our crazy high school shenanigans, I looked around at my friends and realized that we’ve all changed a lot, and our friendships have changed too.  But we still laughed at that story like we’re hearing it for the first time.

Here is how she sits as of today!!

…outside of the Pawtucket Wintertime Farmer’s Market there parks a truck. Not just any old truck. It’s a truck that produces some of the best mobile take out food that you can find. The owners of Chez Pascal in Providence upgraded their hot dog cart that usually sits on the sidewalk at Lippett Park to this mobile purveyor of hand made sausages and other delectable offerings. On any given day you could find turkey and rabbit sausages, a bacon-wrapped meatloaf sandwich and homemade meatball subs (just to name a few). A stop at the truck has become a must for Ingrid and I after shopping at the market- we suggest that you check it out for yourselves.

-Josh

1963 Chevy pickup, AKA Old Bessy, AKA Appa

1968 Dodge Coronet aka "The Corn Nut"

1967 Plymouth Satellite aka "The Satellite"

Just for info, the pickup and the Coronet run, the satellite……almost runs.

Suck.

P.S. – I have done three things this week that I never thought would happen.
1. I got a professor hooked on an internet flash game. (Dr. Mealy loves Text Twist)
2. I got excited about reading poetry (John Donne was a genius)
3. I started keeping my own journal (and not just for a class, thanks Jeff even though it didn’t work out with you, p.p.s. i got a knock-off moleskin at wal-mart)

There is just something great about being outside all day doing honest work,
no books or teachers or tests. Just the sweat on you back, the paint in your hands and the sun on your face. It was beautiful today. Plus we went
to skins’ which always makes the day better. There’s nothing better than coming home smelling to high heaven and taking a nice hot shower.