The Square Peg

Embracing the mojo because cutting
corners seemed counter-productive.

1/24/2010

Ode to an Acura

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 ***This is an open letter to my 2007 Acura TSX. ***


Dear Jack,

Our time together has come to an end, and I want to tell you what a great car you've been. I will miss you, Jack. You've been reliable and I appreciate reliability. You are sexy, too, and I appreciate sleek, sexy cars. In fact, I'm convinced I was sexy simply because I drove you because sexiness just seemed to ooze out of you. I appreciate the teamwork and your helpful attitude over the last 2 1/2 years, too. Thanks for the times you reminded me that you were thirsty (even if you only wanted premium fuel), you needed an oil change, the headlights were still on, or that my passenger hadn't buckled his/her seat belt. Thanks for locking the doors behind me when I left them unlocked.

Some of my fondest memories of you include:
Driving around town together with the sun roof open to let in the fresh air and Georgia sunshine.
The way your heated seats warmed my tushie on the few cold days that Georgia gets each year.
The quick way you'd pick up speed when I was in a hurry. You never let me down, dude. Never.
Your incredible, thumping stereo. You made even ME sound good when I sang with Mac Powell and Freddie Mercury.
Driving on the interstate with you. 90 mph in an Acura feels remarkably smooth.

I hope your new owner treats you well, as I know you'll be good to him or her. Best wishes, Jack. You were the best, most fun 40K miles I've ever put on a car and I'll always think fondly of our trips to Florida, Louisiana and Tennessee because you safely got me to and from the people I love.

You'll be the standard by which I measure all of my future cars. Perhaps someday I'll again drive an Acura.
Peace out, Jack.
PS: I'm really sorry about that time I said the TL Sport was sexier than you. I didn't mean it.
Love,
Eva

We got to tour the Casemate Museum at Fort Monroe while we were in Virginia earlier this week. It was pretty neat. Our tour guide was really great. Her name was Solveigh (pronounced “Solvee”). I like saying that. Solveigh. Solveigh. See? Fun. Solveigh knew a lot of interesting things about the history of the fort. And she carried a big, wide brimmed, colorful hat that she waved around sometimes and motioned with as she talked while we were inside the museum. She didn’t wave it around outside though; it was on her head keeping the sun out of her eyes.

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The F-22 pilot who gave us a tour of the plane was really cool. His call sign is “Schlem”. He showed us some of the gear that he wears while flying, and we got to check out the plane while it was in the hangar. It’s quite bad ass. Schlem’s love for his job was very apparent, and his enthusiasm was contagious. After telling us some of the cool stuff the jet does, I looked at Moose and said, “Sold. We’ll take two“. I’m in the red & black shirt (reppin’ the Dawgs wherever I go!), middle of the second row. Moose is directly behind me.
The awards dinner was a lot of fun. Moose is the recipient of the General Jumper Warfighter of the Year award. I’m thinking about getting ”Warfighter of the Year” printed on a t-shirt for him. Wouldn’t that look cool?


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My friend has a six-year-old daughter. We were hanging out last night when she walked past him. He told her he wanted a smooch from his little princess. She smiled and walked back to her daddy. They smooched. Then they blew a raspberry on each other’s face. It was freakin’ adorable. I love the way he loves his little princess. But what’s more important is the way he loves his wife. It’s the best thing he can do for his kids.
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6/24/2009

Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel

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Whew, the Moose and I can sure go from 90 mph to nothing! We decided we HAD to see the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel that stetches more than 17 miles across the Chesapeake Bay/Atlantic Ocean. We'd never seen anything like it. I'm going to google how it was made. But not tonight; I'm wiped out.

It was a beautiful day and we ran all around Chesapeake and Hampton. Tomorrow we are going to Williamsburg and Fort Monroe before the awards dinner.

Oh yeah, I saw a boat at the pier...the name of it was "Wet Debt". LOL

I am writing this from a hotel room in North Carolina. Moose and I are on our way to Virginia for an awards ceremony. We took off this morning and will be home in a few days. Before we left, Tasha said that while she hoped nothing weird would happen, she did hope I’d find something ‘blog worthy’ to write about while I was gone. So far, I have the following blog-fodder to share with you:

We left the house around 8:30ish. By the time we:
1) filled up the car with gas,
2) got coffee at the Starbucks inside Kroger instead of our regular favorite stand alone store because Kroger was within the ‘errand group vicinity’ and would save us a little time, mileage, and gas,
3) ran into the bank to close our local accounts so we wouldn’t be charged another fee for accounts we don’t use anymore,
4 & 5) went to get breakfast & say good-bye to Drewby,
6, 7, and 8) got about 5 or 6 miles down the road before we realized the camera was still sitting on the charger in the house, turned around to go get it and got back on the road…

it was 11. And what we saved by getting our coffee from Kroger got wiped out by numbers 6, 7 and 8. We weren’t in any particular hurry (don’t have to be there until tomorrow) but geez, Louise, the day just felt really long.

We stopped to eat lunch at Western Sizzlin. Boys and girls, can you say “Fashion Faux Pas Capital of the South“? I am not even kidding you. I think everybody in that place had bad hair, bad teeth, wore overalls, too much make up, or a combination of all of the aforementioned faux pas. Or is it faux pases? Faux pi? ??? Somebody please tell me what the plural form of faux pas is! I don’t know; I’m not French! I swear I thought I entered the redneck twilight zone. And the music! Oh. My. Word. It was slap awful. Old, annoying, psychedelic, whiney, shrill; you name it, they played it. Moose and I stood out like sore thumbs. For one thing, we were dressed appropriately (khaki shorts, t-shirt & flip flops for him; yellow tank top–which matched my yellow toe nail polish thank-you-very-much, blue jeans shorts and sandals for me. For another, we didn’t know ANY of the words to the songs they played. They did…and they were tapping their toes and singing along.

We checked into our hotel (Holiday Inn Express), did a little shopping at an outlet (didn’t buy anything), browsed around Target (again, we bought nada), and had a late dinner. I think our waitress was the gal that played Half Pint in Little House on the Prairie. Hey, don’t judge; the economy SUCKS!

We were almost finished with dinner when Tasha called my phone. Now before I go any further, you have to know that when I leave the house I always remind Drew about 3 (or 10) times that he has to watch Zoe carefully if she’s not locked up because she will get into stuff. She is, after all, still a puppy. I never tell Tasha anything more than once because she pays attention the first time and heeds my warnings and instructions. But today she must’ve gotten distracted by something sparkly which caused her to momentarily forget the one thing I repeat so often, I probably mumble it in my sleep: you have to keep an eye on Zoe. You should also know that my 3 (or 10) reminders to watch Zoe annoy Drew. Eh, you probably guessed that already.

Anyway…
It seems I will need to get a new spool of thread to replace the new spool of thread I bought for a sewing project. Tasha said the CSI team is still investigating how Zoe acquired it, but the ME’s (medical examiner) report stated it only took Zoe a few minutes to completely and utterly obliterate 36 yards of 100% cotton thread. It sounds like the start of a bad joke, doesn’t it? “How long does it take a puppy to kill a spool of thread?” Ha ha ha

You wanna know what’s really funny? It’s funny how Tasha was hoping I’d have something blog worthy to share and ended up being the material for said blog. Way to participate and not just spectate, Tashy! wOOt!

Will staying at the Holiday Inn Express make Brian eligible to perform surgery tomorrow like they advertise in the commercials? “No, I’m not a doctor, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.”

Is the pillow inside the pillowcase that has “firm” written on it REALLY firm or is that just a marketing ploy to make me think it’s firm? And what's up with hotel drapes always being so ugly, regardless of the color, style, and swankiness of the hotel? Is there a rule about this type of thing? If so, how do we change that? Where are the Hotel Decor Police when you need them? Will tomorrow’s part of the trip bring more bad fashion? GASP! Will Moose wear socks and sandals without my noticing?!

Will the lunch people from Western Sizzlin read this blog and see the evil of their ways? Will they buy new wardrobes?

Or will they stalk and capture me, forcing me to wear overalls and let the polish on my toes flake off slowly as I’m tied to a chair and made to listen to bad music until my ears emit tears?

Tune in again to find out…same blog url, same blog BS.
The Square Peg would like to thank our sponsor, Tasha. Without her support, there might not have been a blog post today. We appreciate her generosity and will buy her Starbucks coffee (or tea) when we return home in hopes that she won’t pull her sponsorship from our program.

Moose and I were walking around site-seeing this afternoon while we're in Washington, DC for a few days. When we were checking out Barack's new digs, we saw a squirrel sitting on the top of the seat back on one of the benches. Moose had the camera so I asked him to take it out and snap a picture. While he was reaching for it, the squirrel got down off the bench, scampered over to where I was standing and started climbing up my leg.
I'm not kidding!

He stopped just below my hip and stayed there. I really wanted to pet him but was concerned about being bitten, so I shook my leg thinking it'd scare him off. But of course, squirrels live in trees and they're used to the wind blowing during storms, so not only did he not get down, he just grabbed onto my jeans a little tighter. Then he focused his gaze onto the pocket of my hoodie, where I put a half-eaten bag of Fritos leftover from my dinner.

I guess he realized he had invaded my personal space because he climbed down and sat on the ground. I tossed him a Frito and he grabbed it and ran off. I guess that's all he wanted. Crazy, huh?
And it all happened so fast, Moose never had a chance to get a picture. Bummer.

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