Cool Pictures From a Tough Time

My list of things to do this week had an entry which said "PODs Ahead," which sounds like some kind of alien attack plan. But it's actually a note to get some advance Pictures Of the Day posted. As I was searching around the hard drives for some interesting materials, I ran across the first 3000 or so pictures that were taken with our very first digital camera.

There's some fun pictures in those files, and that's mostly what you'll see as the Picture's Of the Day for the next week or so. But looking through them also brought back some difficult memories.

One of the very first pictures we took with that camera was the very last picture we ever took of our beloved West Highland White terrier, Jenny. That very day she got hit by a car. That was also the same day we signed the agreement for our ill-fated lease of the Colonial Theater in Laconia.

The day after that was my birthday, and also Easter. William was so sick that he spent the whole day sitting in my lap, mostly asleep, while his big brother and his cousins hunted for Easter eggs. Danny was too young then for the hunt, being only a little over five months old, and only two months past his original due date.

By the end of that summer Brooks Cinema Corporation had collapsed. The following January I started work at the National Passport Center, and Karen worked at Dunkin' Donuts. For pretty much all of 2004, I worked from 3:30 to midnight, and she got up to go bake at Dunkin's at 3:30 in the morning.

Things are better now, but the first decade of the 21st Century has not been an easy one for The Brooks Bunch. But we did add two wonderful boys to the family, Karen got her degree in interior design, and I discovered an affinity for acting on the stage. And one thing that has not been lacking in our family these past ten years has been love.

If I have one great hope for the next decade, it's to recapture some of the creative spirit that marked our daily life at the beginning of our marriage. The spark is still there, if we can just blow it into a flame.

My New Wheels

Here it is, the new Subaru (and in this shot it actually looks new). It's actually about 13 years old and with my commute it will be passing 200,000 miles in about two weeks. It's a 1998 Subaru Legacy Outback LTD wagon, a fairly expensive car in its day, with some interesting equipment including heated seats and mirror defoggers. It's dark blue, except for the hatch which is dark green. As some point the car was in a rear-ender and the hatch was replaced.

But it runs better than the Astro van has in a couple of years, and gets at least 60% better mileage if the road trip I took with the boys is any indication.

We drive up the west side of the Lake, and then over to Ossipee for some ice cream at Bobbie Sue's, which I was afraid might not be open. Bobbie Sue's makes great ice cream, right on the premises. Danny had chocolate with a cherry on top (because they didn't have cherry vanilla today) and William had Oreo ice cream with M&Ms sprinkled on top. I had banana, which isn't like any banana ice cream you've had in the store, because it has no flavorings, just fresh bananas. (Heavy sigh of satisfaction.)

The kids wanted to stop at the Nick, the local play park, on the way home, There was a big barbeque in progress for one of the girls' lacrosse teams, and Danny and William knew many of the players from school, so they got involved in a massive game of tag. I think they'll sleep well tonight.

There are plusses and minuses to the Subaru Legacy. On the plus side... well, the plus side list starts with "it runs, it isn't falling apart, it was cheap enough to buy without borrowing," and just keeps getting longer. It's comfortable to drive, gets much better gas mileage than the Astro ever got, and the kids are comfortable riding in it, a very important item because they ride with me a lot.

Also it has an outside driver's side door handle, something which has been missing on the Astro for several months (although the routine of getting in from the passenger side, or leaning over to open the window so that I could reach through to the inside door handle made for some wonderful comedic moments).

The minuses are few, and easy to fix or live with. It has no CD player. With two hours a day of commuting and my love of recorded books on CD, this is something I'll have to remedy as soon as I can. Fortunately the radio that's there is not the original, so it should be easy to replace.

I'm also going to miss my great cupholders, my outside temperature readout (especially in the winter), and the remote-unlocking doors. But not all that much,

Overall I'm thrilled with my luck at finding a good car at such a good price. If it only lasts a year it will have been a good deal, and if I can manage to squeeze two or more, it will have been a solid bargain!

The Astro has been with us since William was a baby, and took us across the country to New Hampshire. Will I miss it? Not really. It's served it's purpose, and I no longer need a big van, and although I at times had a love/hate relationship with the van (and it's designers—don't ask), I have to admit that it certainly paid it's way for the 220,000 miles we put on it (in addition to the over 20,000 it had when we bought it in 2001).

But I'm ready for something smaller, cheaper to run, and more nimble.

Besides, it looks kind of cute sitting next to Karen's Subaru Forester wagon.