Baby's Day Out
Jun. 25th, 2010 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogThat's a pop-culture reference of some sort, but for the life of me I can't remember what it's from.
Today was perhaps the longest single stretch I've spent with Emily- and just Emily- in years. I think it was all for a good cause, and we had fun regardless.
Stop the first: her high school, for the last time ::wibble:: She wanted to get some pictures of a mural she and some other students had been working on outside the door of her art room.
The sunflowers and surrounding diddlybits are hers; I joked about where the Van Gogh "For Emily" signature had come from in the flowers; she eyerolled, and as I explained the bit to her art teacher, she said, "Oh yeah. I used to watch Doctor Who. It's not on PBS anymore, is it?"
After that and a brief office visit to clear my desk for the weekend, we headed in search of ride. It wound up closer to Greece than to Sweden (local Rochester humor there), and it looked and rode fine. Trouble was, the kid had no idea where his father had left the title. At least this way I know he's not going to sell it out from under me again, huh. He asked for an hour to try to reach dad to locate it and confirm the price, so we headed back to the Village of Spencerport just to kill time and, as Forrest Gump once said, because "we gotta payyy!"
Not before seeing a bunch of chipmunks running around the kid's yard, though. Always a good sign. As was this sight, from where the Erie Canal passes through the village:
DUCK BABIES SQUEE!
We still had time to kill before going back to see the kid again, and Em had seen another FOR SALE sign on a Focus we'd passed on 104 on the way to the village. Honest to shit, we saw more private-sale cars on this trip than I've seen in a month. We joked about some of them; one Subaru looked too much like a hearse, while a plain-white GMC cargo van really didn't appeal, either: "Dad, I'd look like a child molester in that."
We overshot the guy's street on the way back from getting gas, and wound up turning around in a church parking lot. There are a lot of really scary-lookin' Fundie churches over on that side of Rochester, not looking like the kind that I'd be welcome to preach at anytime soon. One of them had a really bizarre message on its big street sign:
All's I can say is, He'd better have a search warrant if He's going to come in that aggressively.
In the end, we reached a rather Cavalier standoff. Dad still hadn't called back, and I couldn't take the car today anyway, since I needed the registration info to get it insured before going to DMV. We settled on a subject-to-Dad-approval price, I put a deposit on it, and we will go back Tuesday, or at the latest Wednesday, to put my current plates on it and pay the rest of the balance.
Emily drove all the way home from there, detouring north a bit to head west on the Lake Ontario State Parkway. It's a rather beautiful, if never-completed, not-quite-expressway that in places is tripping distance from the south shore of the great lake. From there, she made all the connections through Albion down to Batavia, and we got home in decent, if not record, time. She is now out at a friend's graduation party, driving alone outside the immediate neighborhood for the first time ever. Sniff.
Graduation's tomorrow afternoon, with Eleanor's brother now a surprise attendee. More sniffles.
Oh, you want pictures of what all this fuss has been about:
The sunroof is included. Chipmunks are available as optional equipment.
Today was perhaps the longest single stretch I've spent with Emily- and just Emily- in years. I think it was all for a good cause, and we had fun regardless.
Stop the first: her high school, for the last time ::wibble:: She wanted to get some pictures of a mural she and some other students had been working on outside the door of her art room.
The sunflowers and surrounding diddlybits are hers; I joked about where the Van Gogh "For Emily" signature had come from in the flowers; she eyerolled, and as I explained the bit to her art teacher, she said, "Oh yeah. I used to watch Doctor Who. It's not on PBS anymore, is it?"
After that and a brief office visit to clear my desk for the weekend, we headed in search of ride. It wound up closer to Greece than to Sweden (local Rochester humor there), and it looked and rode fine. Trouble was, the kid had no idea where his father had left the title. At least this way I know he's not going to sell it out from under me again, huh. He asked for an hour to try to reach dad to locate it and confirm the price, so we headed back to the Village of Spencerport just to kill time and, as Forrest Gump once said, because "we gotta payyy!"
Not before seeing a bunch of chipmunks running around the kid's yard, though. Always a good sign. As was this sight, from where the Erie Canal passes through the village:
DUCK BABIES SQUEE!
We still had time to kill before going back to see the kid again, and Em had seen another FOR SALE sign on a Focus we'd passed on 104 on the way to the village. Honest to shit, we saw more private-sale cars on this trip than I've seen in a month. We joked about some of them; one Subaru looked too much like a hearse, while a plain-white GMC cargo van really didn't appeal, either: "Dad, I'd look like a child molester in that."
We overshot the guy's street on the way back from getting gas, and wound up turning around in a church parking lot. There are a lot of really scary-lookin' Fundie churches over on that side of Rochester, not looking like the kind that I'd be welcome to preach at anytime soon. One of them had a really bizarre message on its big street sign:
All's I can say is, He'd better have a search warrant if He's going to come in that aggressively.
In the end, we reached a rather Cavalier standoff. Dad still hadn't called back, and I couldn't take the car today anyway, since I needed the registration info to get it insured before going to DMV. We settled on a subject-to-Dad-approval price, I put a deposit on it, and we will go back Tuesday, or at the latest Wednesday, to put my current plates on it and pay the rest of the balance.
Emily drove all the way home from there, detouring north a bit to head west on the Lake Ontario State Parkway. It's a rather beautiful, if never-completed, not-quite-expressway that in places is tripping distance from the south shore of the great lake. From there, she made all the connections through Albion down to Batavia, and we got home in decent, if not record, time. She is now out at a friend's graduation party, driving alone outside the immediate neighborhood for the first time ever. Sniff.
Graduation's tomorrow afternoon, with Eleanor's brother now a surprise attendee. More sniffles.
Oh, you want pictures of what all this fuss has been about:
The sunroof is included. Chipmunks are available as optional equipment.
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-26 12:37 am (UTC)First, LOVE the Magritte "Son of Man" riff. (Always wanted to find a decal for my MacBook with the bowler-hatted man around the Apple logo in the middle).
Second, agree with Baby Ducks Squeee! We had a momma duck and half a dozen babies in the Christian Science Mother Church reflecting pool in Boston the other day. The Church's maintenance folks set up a ramp so that she and the little ones could get out, and presumably found some way to spirit the family off to the Esplanade or the Fenway.
Last, love the sign. Have you ever seen the "Behold, I stand at the door and knock" painting in St. Paul's Cathedral, London? Perhaps Emily could paint it with Jesus in SWAT gear with a battering ram for the sanctuary of that Pentecostal church.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-26 12:42 am (UTC)