Summer's End

You are undoubtedly NOT reading this at 0500 on Monday the 2nd of September (as is sometimes the advertised regular drop of these little balls of wonder) because at 0500 it had not been written. As a matter of fact, I am writing this at 1055 hrs. and will likely post it shortly thereafter. My apologies to those who were disappointed this morning.

We had friends visit this weekend, in addition to the brief return home of Dash 1 from her studies in California, and it was magnificent. The visitors were our regular July 4 crowd, whose appearance this year was canceled due to a case of the VID in our house. After they departed this morning, I pondered the pros/cons of July 4 vs. Labor Day, and decided that Labor Day was the superior weekend. Because July 4 moves through the week, there is always the bother of when one can get off from work and when one will return. There is additionally the pressure (increasingly declining) of viewing fireworks. Labor Day is easy. Always on a Monday. Folks show up on Friday some time and split on Monday some time. Easy peezy lemon squeezy.

We live in a bit of a summer paradise, what with the river behind us, a swimming hole in the yard, and various watercraft (motored, paddled, and wind-powered) available for use. Additionally, we have created a backyard wonder of games including archery, hatchet-throwing, and an interesting version of pickleball played in a circle (pictured below) called “Paddlesmash”.

Not an actual photo of our backyard

I of course, engaged in none of these entertainments over the weekend, preferring to lounge about the pool or engage my friend Robert in conversation. Robert is the reason that I am able to write about all of these Miles River Summer Fun events, as my being here is entirely his doing. At a UVA Reunion in 2007 (#20, for those keeping score), Robert and I were chatting (Metcalf Dorm Homies, he basement left, I first left) and his slightly inebriated wife (Beth, UVA ‘88) decided that my being single might be cured by one of three friends that she had at the time, and it turns our her boarding school chum (Catherine) was indeed that woman. She described her as “a young widow who lives on the water surrounded by books” and I was ensorcelled. The other visitor this weekend is another boarding school chum of the ladies, Sally, who is a joy to be around. It is a sociological/social psychological case study to watch the way their (female, highly verbal, participatory) friendship plays out, whilst Robert and I enjoy a considerably more economical friendship where conversation is concerned. Don’t get me wrong. Our conversations are wonderful. It’s just that there are fewer of them. This kid sorta stumbles over it.

@thehumorousclipPre-School, tough times 😅 #comedy #laughs #jokes #funny #nursery #kindergarten #school #humor #humourous #cute

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

I tend to do the cooking and cleanup for these gatherings for a couple of reasons. The first is that in the ledger that accounts for what gets done around the house, I am what is known colloquially as a “slacker”. Part of it is admittedly competence, as in I can do very little, and part of it is a difference in standards, as in, I love how pretty all those plants and flowers are, but if it requires me to bend down in order to facilitate their growth, it likely isn’t going to happen. So cooking—an activity I love—and cleaning up the kitchen/doing dishes—an activity I love the results of—both seem right up my alley.

The second reason I cook at least, is that I am a bit of a control freak and cooking everything guarantees that I will like everything. Plus, I’ve got the cleanup stuff down to a precise science, with no wasted motion and a minimum of effort to achieve the desired result. I was frustrated in my quest to achieve desired results this weekend, when not once, but twice, the dishwasher was OPENED while it was OPERATING. Qualifications were pulled and remedial training was held.

We saw them off this morning with bacon and eggs, and as we stood in front of the house hugging and good-bye-ing, a slight, cool, breeze was blowing in from the North, almost as if to put a punctuation mark on the summer fun. No rational person looks to the autumnal equinox as the end of summer. It really is only one of two things—a return to school or the end of the Labor Day Weekend. Since school has long since ceased to be an issue, it seems summer ended at 0905 when Robert, Beth, and Sally drove away.

The Car Hunt Begins

Long-standing and attentive readers (H/T: Jack Henneman) will remember way back to last week when I wrote about having totaled my car. I have been driving Dash 2’s Forerunner around, and while it is perfectly serviceable and functional vehicle, it isn’t quite what I imagined myself driving as I approach the start of my seventh decade on earth. I SHOULD look at its availability as a sign that I should take my time and noodle through this decision like my life depended on it. But I somehow think that is unlikely.

Without going into too much unnecessary detail, I am wrestling with a number of questions. I’ll share them with you and perhaps you’ll have thoughts.

Should I do the easy thing and just replace the car I destroyed with a new version of it? This was my very first thought when confronted with the reality of needing a new car. I LOVED that car, I really did. It was nice to look at, it was a wonder to drive, and I liked the way the world looked from behind the wheel. Heading to my dealer and sitting down with my friend Wayne would be straightforward and easy, although the particular color interior on my 2023 has been discontinued, so I’d have to choose something like it.

But to be honest—the car was a little underpowered, especially when Catherine drives the same car (wagon version) with the larger engine. It was her car that got me to buy this in the first place, and I really noticed the difference. So the one decision is if I buy the same car, do I get the model with the larger engine?

Was the accident a sign from the car gods that it was time for me to buy an EV? A few years ago, I paid to have the electrical service to our house increased in no small measure because I thought that the next car I bought would be an electric car, and that on top of the pool we put in a few years back got me thinking that we needed some more juice. But when I bought the car I just wrecked last December, I chickened out on buying an EV. Don’t get me wrong, I love driving Polestars and Teslas when I rent cars, but that’s because I never run down the batteries and have to charge them. The one time I did have an extended trip with an EV, the charging process was definitely not fun. In retrospect, I think it is because I wasn’t very savvy about things. But the anxiety was there nonetheless. The more I read about owning an EV, the more I realize that having a home charging station is a must, especially out here in East Jabipp. Now, negotiating with the Lady of the Manor for where such a thing would be located is not a small task, but she seems generally amenable to this option. I’d certainly like to keep the amount of time between taking custody of an EV and having the home charger installed to a minimum, but trickle-charging from regular service electric and then boosting from an en-route EV Charging station until that point is clearly an option.

Then there is the question of which EV. And this is a really tough one. Every time I get in a Tesla, I am delighted with the technology and performance. But I am a man of a certain age who wishes to drive more of a luxury sedan. The only thing Tesla makes that resembles a luxury sedan is the Model S, and while it is all the things a Tesla is and it is luxurious, it LOOKS more like a Porsche than it does my Dad’s Cadillac. I have this image of myself pulling up to a stop light and the 28 year old dude next to me thinking “you’re compensating, old man.”

Mercedes makes a few EV’s that are derived of their E and S class sedans, but the plain truth is that both cars are less attractive than their gasoline powered progenitors. And the tech is simply not up to Tesla standards.

There’s a brand called Lucid that makes a car that looks to fit the bill. It is lux. It looks like a sedan, not a sports car (or an “SUV” that is really a min-van). It’s got great tech. But…is the company going to be in existence in two years?

Buy or Lease? At this point, I’m tempted to buy a conventional auto or lease an EV, and here’s why (please, in advance, I beg you not to turn the comments into a buy vs. lease debate. I have a handle on the financial pros and cons). I’m thinking about leasing an EV simply because the market is changing so quickly. I honestly don’t have any confidence that cars that are electric derivatives of gasoline powered cars (see: Mercedes) will be around in a few years. My guess is that the big guys are churning away in their design shops on ground up electric vehicles that will be significantly better than what they offer now, so I might not wish to make a long-term commitment to an EV until things have settled out a bit.

I’ve made a multi-virtue decision matrix to help me on this and leasing a Lucid seems to come out on top, buying a new version of the car I wrecked coming just behind it. I’ll drive the up-engined Mercedes, the electric Mercedes, and the Lucid sometime this week hopefully (Jury Duty permitting!) in hopes of gathering more information.

More to follow…