I had this exchange with my father this morning:
Me: I had a list of things I wanted to to before I turned thirty, and I did all of them except for learning to ride a unicycle. Now it’s on my list for thirty-five. So, I need to get hold of a unicycle in the next eleven months.
Bill: Do you know any clowns?
I have a few other things to add to that list, too. I want to learn how to drive a manual transmission. This has been a bugaboo for me for years. When I was in college, Molson tried to teach me on his ’87 Mercury Lynx (186,000 miles). It was pathetic. We drove around College Heights twelve feet at a time. Thing is, I get how it works and I can even hear when the gears are supposed to shift, but I just can’t put it together. There was a manual Jeep I wanted to buy many years ago, and the salesman insisted that he could teach anyone to drive stick – he had taught lots of other people, and he was convinced that despite my protestations, in less than an hour, I would be fine. After ten minutes, he said, “ok, you’re right, get out of the car.” So, I feel like it is time to learn, for a number of reasons. I am a car person, raised in a car family, and I should know how to do this. It’s a good skill to have should I ever be in a situation in which the only available car has a manual transmission – what if there is an emergency? Also, I’ll probably replace my car in the next few years, and this would give me some more fuel efficient (yet fun) options. But, more than anything, I really, really want to drive my father’s Porsche. He let Scott drive it this weekend, which was both surprising and a hell of a lot of fun.
During our trip, we visited Bill’s office, outside of which is a giant water tower, which has always struck me as interesting because it is painted to match the sky. This delights me. I like it when things match. I also like it when things extremely don’t match, but they have to not match in a special way.
Speaking of which, as I was taking pictures Saturday afternoon, I was thinking about how nice it will be to have a new, smaller camera, when it occurred to me with some distress that the camera I am planning to buy will clash with my phone.
Finally, I really like this picture from the weekend, which is also has some sky:
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