We -- that should stop this blog right there -- took the Jeep (another theme killer) out for a head clearing joy ride in the country.
Although "Dean" and I started out in the country, a tautological inference when hailing from West Virginia and Western Maryland, driving farther out into the countryside provides always a sharp change of scene, especially when the highway and roadway diminish to two-lane blacktop, one-lane bridges, and, finally, gravel utility roads.
Dean has been, so far remains, the "gal pal". Like a cat with a tolerant owner, she brings news of her birds, present and past, alive and deadened.
Annoying?
Of course, but I'll call that motivation for getting my own machine washed and waxed and Out There.
The two problems I didn't have when I brought her home (the Mustang, not the gal pal): high blood pressure and leukemia.
The one I can fix with exercise provided I can summon the energy; the other, "stage zero, least aggressive form," may hang over my head for a couple of months, years, or decades until some other cancer, or perhaps a flu or pneumonia pushes me down into the earth.
Whatever it is, whatever it means, whatever it does, possession of the condition has become a simple and irrevocable fact of life for me.
It's good to have a Mustang (2000, six cylinder, 195HP, 28.5MPG highway, gray) for this passage. Back in the day, which was just five years ago, it looked good in the lot at the Cancun Cantina (Glen Burnie bar), and it would look as good today in the cousin's lot, Cancun Cantina West (Hagerstown) were I more in the mood for dancing, and so I may be again.
I guess I'll start in the morning at the car wash.
Click here to view additional photos in the series.
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Cloud Sea Moon II, originally uploaded by James S. Oppenheim.
