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captainsblogActs of kindness, that is. A perfect storm of weird and wondrous, signifying very little in the grand scheme of things but making me feel pretty damn good on an otherwise dull morning.
Today is a Car Guy Day. Cameron has told us that he'd prefer we just sell his old beater van for whatever we can get for it. It's been sitting, uninsured and without plates, in our driveway ever since his mom canceled both in late June. We've taken it around the block a few times just to keep the engine from seizing and the tires from going flat, but the noises on just that block are scary. We got a random inquiry from a neighbor last month, who saw the unplated hulk, but he Carfaxed it and backed off. So the first step is to have our mechanic check it out and, maybe, help us find a buyer for it either repaired or as-is.
Meanwhile, my own car's been making some less scary but still annoying noises. On my last tire rotation, they identified both; relatively minor (at least in the past they've been), but I've put off the trip up there. Last night, though, I worked out the fire drill: I'd drop mine off, take a plate off it, have Eleanor bring me home, put the plate on the other one (highly illegal but, face it, it'll stop all but the most eagle-eyed of cops), run THAT over, have Eleanor bring me home again, and then take her truck to court at 10 this morning.
That proved to be a bit much for her, so I thought, why not walk home after dropoff one? I haven't run-run since the 5K, but the place couldn't be much further than that (almost exactly 3 miles, it turned out), so I did the one-plate switch before leaving, clocked the route out to be sure I could handle it, prayed that the slight drizzle would stop (it mostly did), dropped the key in the slot and was committed.
Distances around here seem greater than they really are; the first leg, from Maple to Sheridan, is well under a mile and I'd barely broken a sweat at a speedwalky pace when I got within a block of the new Mickey D's on the corner. And that is when things got interesting.
----
My decades of legal training spotted an oddity on the sidewalk- a tiny piece of Uniform Commercial Code lying upside down. It was a recently written, uncashed personal check to a local church. A foot beyond it, another one. In the side street just past that, a complete slag heap of more. In all, probably close to $1,000 in checks and ticket receipts for some sort of football-game fundraiser for a local RC church's school.
I did what nobody else had done: I stopped and picked them all up, and went into the restaurant to caffeinate and regroup. Then I called the school, to see if some panicked kid was having his knuckles rapped by Sister Mary Yardstick for losing them on his way to school this morning. They knew nothing about it, but were very grateful that I'd found them. Later today, I will assemble the mess into something marginally postal and mail it out to them. I'm half-tempted to do it anonymously, and I'll refuse any gift offered in return, but I wouldn't mind the thank you for its own sake, either.
After asking for a takeout bag to contain all this loot, I walked the rest of the way home in time to shower, get ready for work and, yes, even post this. There were tickets from that fundraiser that had already blown down Sheridan halfway to Millersport Highway, but hopefully I contained most of the potential damage to coffers and identities.
I disagree with much of their theology, and I agree with almost none of their politics, but today, it was the right thing to do.
Today is a Car Guy Day. Cameron has told us that he'd prefer we just sell his old beater van for whatever we can get for it. It's been sitting, uninsured and without plates, in our driveway ever since his mom canceled both in late June. We've taken it around the block a few times just to keep the engine from seizing and the tires from going flat, but the noises on just that block are scary. We got a random inquiry from a neighbor last month, who saw the unplated hulk, but he Carfaxed it and backed off. So the first step is to have our mechanic check it out and, maybe, help us find a buyer for it either repaired or as-is.
Meanwhile, my own car's been making some less scary but still annoying noises. On my last tire rotation, they identified both; relatively minor (at least in the past they've been), but I've put off the trip up there. Last night, though, I worked out the fire drill: I'd drop mine off, take a plate off it, have Eleanor bring me home, put the plate on the other one (highly illegal but, face it, it'll stop all but the most eagle-eyed of cops), run THAT over, have Eleanor bring me home again, and then take her truck to court at 10 this morning.
That proved to be a bit much for her, so I thought, why not walk home after dropoff one? I haven't run-run since the 5K, but the place couldn't be much further than that (almost exactly 3 miles, it turned out), so I did the one-plate switch before leaving, clocked the route out to be sure I could handle it, prayed that the slight drizzle would stop (it mostly did), dropped the key in the slot and was committed.
Distances around here seem greater than they really are; the first leg, from Maple to Sheridan, is well under a mile and I'd barely broken a sweat at a speedwalky pace when I got within a block of the new Mickey D's on the corner. And that is when things got interesting.
----
My decades of legal training spotted an oddity on the sidewalk- a tiny piece of Uniform Commercial Code lying upside down. It was a recently written, uncashed personal check to a local church. A foot beyond it, another one. In the side street just past that, a complete slag heap of more. In all, probably close to $1,000 in checks and ticket receipts for some sort of football-game fundraiser for a local RC church's school.
I did what nobody else had done: I stopped and picked them all up, and went into the restaurant to caffeinate and regroup. Then I called the school, to see if some panicked kid was having his knuckles rapped by Sister Mary Yardstick for losing them on his way to school this morning. They knew nothing about it, but were very grateful that I'd found them. Later today, I will assemble the mess into something marginally postal and mail it out to them. I'm half-tempted to do it anonymously, and I'll refuse any gift offered in return, but I wouldn't mind the thank you for its own sake, either.
After asking for a takeout bag to contain all this loot, I walked the rest of the way home in time to shower, get ready for work and, yes, even post this. There were tickets from that fundraiser that had already blown down Sheridan halfway to Millersport Highway, but hopefully I contained most of the potential damage to coffers and identities.
I disagree with much of their theology, and I agree with almost none of their politics, but today, it was the right thing to do.
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Date: 2012-09-21 07:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-26 10:34 pm (UTC)