Does This Color Make My Bumper Look Fat?

Because I drive the speed limit during my commute, I get passed by a lot of cars -- especially when I'm behind a vehicle driving even more slowly than I am.  I usually pass the time by counting how many cars pass me before I, too, can overtake the slower vehicle.  I've gotten up to 44 or 45 before losing count.

The other day, I tried something different.  I pondered if my peripheral vision could detect the color of the next car about to pass me, just as it entered my sight.  It did.  After 36 cars, the color I first saw was correct.

What surprised me was the limited number of colors.  Out of 36 cars, one was orange.  All the rest were red/maroon, black, white, or silver/gray.  There were no yellow, brown, green, or blue cars (unless the green/blue were so dark they passed for black).  I stopped at 36 because the sun had gone down, and it was getting too dark to determine any color.

I repeated the experiment another day, with 42 cars.  Substitute a chartreuse car (we'll call it ugly yellow) for the orange, but all the other colors were the same as the first time.

How boring.  I'll admit to driving a silver car (family tradition), but I'm surprised by how few car colors people choose, out of all the ones possible.  Maybe it's just in New Mexico.  Maybe the rest of the world drives interestingly colored cars.

I'm tempted to break with tradition the next time I buy a car, if only to liven up the road.  Can you see me in a purple car?  Blue with yellow lightning down each side?  Do you think any body shop could custom-paint my car to look like an owl?

Cap'n Chlorophyll's Day Off

Since my friend Betty hasn't posted anything about it on her blog yet (And why not?  You can make fun of me in public for this!), I'll tell you about what we did on our day off.

The genesis and overarching goal was this:  the Jim Henson exhibit at the Albuquerque Museum.  I saw it in the paper a couple months ago, and we decided, "We can not miss this."  Since we're only a couple years younger than Sesame Street, we have been Muppets fiends our whole lives.

Okay, great idea, but can we make it work?  It would have to be a day we both were off work, and considering Betty's a shift-worker whose schedule changes weekly in insane ways, it wouldn't be easy.

Then my car reached 200,000 miles.  "Hmm," I thought, "I probably ought to have it checked out, since I've done nothing else to it but have the oil changed and replace the tires."  I further thought that this (whatever "this" is) probably would take all day, and even with several books, and even though they installed a comfy sofa (with soft cushions!) in the waiting room, I would not want to wait at a car service station all day.  Alas, I have no friends in town who could pick me up after I dropped off my car.  "Hmm," I thought again (I ponder a lot).  Could we work it that I drop off my car, Betty drives up from Socorro to pick me up, and we go see the Muppets?

This story already is too long, so I will shorthand it by extolling Betty's wisdom at putting in for a vacation day even though she already was scheduled that day off, because she knows her coworkers well enough to predict that one of them indeed wanted the day off and asked her to switch, but she had put in her request first.  Ha!  You will not deny us the Muppets!

I hadn't even finished the first book I was working on when Betty arrived.  (She is not a morning person, but she hit the road at 8:00 a.m.  Such a sacrifice to our friendship!)  We couldn't decide on a place to eat Second Breakfast, so we figured we'd eat a light snack at the museum to tide us over until a late lunch of cheesesteaks.  She entered the address into her phone's GPS, and off we went.  Wherever that was.  The GPS started spouting incomprehensible directions that made absolutely no sense.

This is entirely my fault.  I first thought it was my Weather Wizardry, which wreaks havoc with all forms of technology.  I apologized to Betty in advance if it happened to snow that day.  (The forecast was for sunny and 49 degrees F.)  A second possibility was that I plugged my phone into her charger and set it next to her phone.  Maybe her phone was nervous with a strange phone sitting next to it.  (Betty's cats were never all that pleased by my occasional visits, either.)  Maybe it was jealous that some other phone was using her charger.  At any rate, the GPS kept spouting incredible directions, and we might be halfway to, well, anywhere if we had actually followed them.  (Betty never again will doubt my judgment at bringing my paper atlas of Albuquerque streets "just in case".)

The Incident was also my fault.  I should have realized that yelling, "Go!  Go!  Go!" to a driver unfamiliar with the city and slightly distracted by her wonky GPS sounds remarkably like, "No!  No!  No!"  Fortunately, Betty did not drive her car into the curb, and we were not run into by two other cars (no matter how close their drivers came to ignoring the law of physics that prohibits two objects from occupying the same space at the same time).

After I promised not to say anything else to distract Betty's driving, we arrived at the museum without further incident.  We each ordered a breakfast burrito (passable) then were pleasantly enthralled by the exhibit.  (There were parents with young children there, but there also were many other middle-aged people like us, so we weren't the only ones instantly transported back to some of the most delightful moments of our childhoods.)  The most focus was on Sesame Street because it's familiar to the largest number of people, but the exhibit also included items from Sam and Friends, the Wilkins Coffee commercials, The Muppet Show, Fraggle Rock, The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and The Storyteller TV series.  Most of the actual Muppets on display were larger than I expected of hand puppets, but I realized they had to be, since many of them interacted with humans and had to be of similar scale.  Plus, I got to see my favorite:  Grover.

Alas, the museum shop did not have T-shirts, but Betty did pick up a copy of Jim Henson:  The Works.  (I already have a copy.)  We both already have copies of Jim Henson:  The Biography which also was on sale.  The store also had revised copies of The Monster at the End of This Book, which was a favorite of both of ours, and which we'd read over & over again, despite knowing how it would end.  We didn't buy that one, either.  I don't know about Betty, but I'll search used bookstores to find an original, Golden Books edition.

After the museum, we stopped by Betty's favorite tea shop.  Since it was nearby, since she was low on her favorite tea, and since she doesn't come to the city very often were all good reasons to go.  While Betty did whatever she did, I browsed.  The second room had some non-tea items.  I found a box of four Doctor Who coasters, which, obviously, she couldn't pass up.  (She cursed me in the most loving way possible.)

Incidentally, Betty had shut down & restarted her phone, and that brief nap did the GPS lady a world of good.

Betty got back at me, though, when we went to Page One bookstore.  I told myself that I would buy only books that were on the wishlist I had brought with me.  Then Betty pointed out Born to be Posthumous, Edward Gorey's biography.  Then she stood near a gardening book I wanted.  Okay, both those books were on my computerized wishlist, not my paper one, but, still, they both were wishlisted, so they count.  I also had told myself that I had an envelope of money in my jacket pocket and that was my budget, but...  It's a good thing I had my credit card with me.  Still, my wishlist did diminish by nine.

After that, we had our always-wonderful cheesesteaks at Philly Steaks.  Then Betty dropped me off at the service center & headed back to Socorro.  It was only minutes later that my car was back from it's test-drive and returned to me.  The day was ending much better than it had started.  (Betty sent me a text to let me know when she got home, so the GPS lady must have cooperated enough to get her out of the city.)

So, what did you do on your day off?