Category: The Doctor

Gumbo was his name. Oh.

On any given day, at any hour, and regardless of the general mood of society, a quick stroll down Any Street always reveals an alarming number of folks displaying horrible parenting skills. Whether it’s the mother of two complaining to one daughter about how the other daughter is “being a bitch”; or the father showing his friend a picture of his teenage daughter and saying, “they didn’t look like that when we were that age!”; or the mother with the crying toddler shouting “don’t make me hit you again”; or the mother preaching hatred to her son; or the father letting his 8 year old kid watch the most recent Saw movie; I see on a daily basis inept parents handing out contagious doses of awful parenting to their children. And each time, I’m reminded of something The Doctor once told me. He said he and his wife wanted children because they had a lot of love to give and because they wanted the joys of a family, but in the back of his mind, he always found satisfaction in knowing that his good parenting skills might someday cancel out the bad parenting skills of at least one other parent. I’ll see your child growing up into a man who abuses women, and I’ll raise you my child who will volunteer at nursing homes.

Considering how many parents out there seem to be failing their responsibilities to their children and the world around them, I find myself especially thankful for my fiancé’s parents. Among the countless items on the list of reasons why I’m drawn to my fiancé, is that she, too, likes to make lists, and though I’m not entirely sure from which side of the Benchly family I inherited this trait, from the moments I’ve spent with her family, I can tell that she gets this trait from both of her parents. She is her father’s daughter with planning book in hand, carefully taking notes for current and/or impending projects, formulating ways to ensure that dreams become reality, and making sure she is prepared for every possible scenario life has to offer her. And she is her mother’s daughter sharing aloud each of her innumerable, and often times complex ideas for future events/plans, in a way that at times is only comprehensible to those who have spent enough time with her to have memorized the cipher necessary to decode her thoughts. As a result, I can’t remember a time when I knew her to be unprepared (except my surprise engagement, but that’s a story for another day) and each time I see her confront life’s challenges with the courage that comes with knowing life’s next three moves, I know that her parents did a great job raising her. (Note: they already blessed our engagement/marriage, so you know I’m not brown-nosing.)

It’s an item from one of my fiancé’s lists that inspired this blog entry today. A week or two after we met, I noticed a brief but ambitious list of goals for 2009 hanging on her wall. Without getting into too much detail, I’ll just say that it speaks volumes about the person she is that she was able to achieve most of those goals, including her desire to adopt a dog. She and I both had dogs in our youth and after our talks of love turned to talks of engagement, her itch to adopt a dog became our itch. We had love to give to a dog in need of love. And so we poured over countless websites looking for the right dog. A few adoption applications were turned down, a few were submitted too late, some dogs didn’t get along with cats (which mattered due to Othello’s veto power), and then finally, a no-kill animal sanctuary contacted us about an energetic terrier who had been rescued and who was looking for a home. We couldn’t resist his Benji-like appearance and the obvious wag of his tail captured as best as possible by the still photograph, and so we drove 6 hours to meet him. After a long walk around the sanctuary’s property on which we experienced firsthand what it means to hold the leash of an energetic terrier, we adopted him and drove him home (with a stop for a necessary bath along the way). He was Gumbo, our dog.

As I write these words, Gumbo has settled into his bed upstairs 10 weeks after we brought him home. The first few weeks he lived here, I often told friends, family, and strangers that he was a “work in progress”; an energetic puppy in need of a lot of training, and daily trips to the dog park. We gave him tasty treats for sitting, and we induced vomiting when he dined on our socks. We laughed as he navigated what appeared to be his first set of stairs. He took two Gumbo was his name. Oh.emergency trips to the animal hospital in the first month. He met Othello and wagged his tail as Othello growled at him and slowly backed away. He devoured three rope toys and a few other chew toys. He slept at our feet while we watched LOST. He retrieved tennis balls and promptly lost them while getting distracted on the return trip. We took him on road trips with us and let him lean forward and rest his head on our shoulders. We loved him.

But Gumbo needs more than love. Gumbo was born on the street, and has spent most of his life hopping around from home to home, never certain when and where he’ll find his next meal, never certain if he should feel safe. And so Gumbo the loveable puppy is at times Gumbo the unpredictable, growling, barking, biting dog with sharp teeth. He guards his food. He sometimes guards his toys. He gets on edge when he senses food in the air. And more unpredictably, he gets on edge when he’s tired; when LOST has ended and we attempt to stand up, we’re met with a scared dog attempting to bite our ankles. If born into a different situation, if his litter wasn’t discarded by an inept human who was most likely an inept parent, he’d not only be the most adorable and loving dog ever adopted, but also the most trustworthy one. Unfortunately, that’s not the hand he was dealt in life. We don’t love Gumbo less for this, which makes what happens next especially difficult.

Gumbo was his name. Oh.As you read these words, my fiancé and I will most likely be on the road to return Gumbo to the animal sanctuary. Gumbo needs the right kind of parent in his life: someone with no children in their lives; someone with experience dealing with the most serious rescue dog issues; someone who can love him as much as we do, but who will also be able to meet his training needs better than we have been able to. People have told me it’s not our fault; that we have been great parents to Gumbo; that we are giving him the opportunity to find his “forever home.” I hope they are right. I hope he finds peace in life, I hope he spreads joy, and I hope he brings a smile to the faces of those in need of the kind of smile that helps you forget how horrible this world can be.

The Stolen Child

Part I
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand

One piece of Benchly gossip I neglected to mention in my last entry is what my favorite Christmas present was this past year. As the wrapping-paper dust settled on another Benchly Christmas, Mama and Papa Benchly said, “Don’t forget. [Mr. Benchly] has one more present.” Considering there were no boxes left unopened, I was puzzled and my expression said as much. And it was at this point that everyone in the room turned in my direction and told me in unison that Sister #1 was pregnant. So yes, that’s right, faithful readers, if the fates have their way, Niece #4 will be gracing our presence in August.

It’s been a long time since my last entry. In fact, it’s been more than a month since my discussion of second cousins, and while I’ve been actively responding to other people’s entries, it can safely be said that I haven’t been keeping up with my fair share of the blogging. And for that, I apologize. I’d like to get back into the habit of posting at least two significant entries every week; I just need the will power to do so.

I think it’s fair to say that my relationship with Freckles has affected my writing. Before Freckles, I was lonely, miserable, and filled to the blonde-haired brim with inspiration for meaningful (read: misery-filled) entries. But after that fateful June day when Freckles charmed me by saying she was a “bad, I’m talking off-the-road bad driver,” my focus has been more on her and less on my writing. But I don’t blame her, and you shouldn’t either.

I think Sarah the L will concur with my assertion that writers are most productive in their bitter, heartache days than at any other time in their lives. Knowing this, my new goal in life is to cherish and focus on my happiness while simultaneously channeling the miserable emotions from my past for my writing. If I can find a balance between the two, I believe I’ll be able to be both happy and a good writer.

Fortunately or, more to the point, unfortunately, my life as of late has been filled with some negativity that has Inspiration written all over it. And so, consequently, in this first entry of the new year, I’ll be able to draw on emotions from the present negativity, rather than worry about experimenting with those from the past. But before the negative, first some positive because, as is often the case, there was a poetic quiet before the storm…

As some of my 5 or 6 readers may remember, my last entry described my excitement over the revelation that a member of my family was performing on Broadway. Well, thanks in whole to the unbridled generosity of Freckles’ family (both extended and immediate), 2005 ended with quite a harmonious bang. Following a limo ride from Pennsylvania into New York City, and a rewarding dinner at a fine Italian restaurant in the Broadway district, Freckles’ aunt handed us 6th row center seats to Spamalot (aka, my second cousin’s show). Both the show and my relative were amazing and although I’m slightly bitter that my cousin was a no-show at our last-minute-planned meet-and-greet after the show, I was excited when Freckles and I were able to score autographs from both Hank Azaria and David Hyde Pierce.

The remainder of our New Year’s trip to Pennsylvania was spent celebrating Freckles’ cousin’s engagement, eating a never-ending supply of delicious snacks and meals, fighting off the little cousins for time on the X-Box (and losing), shopping the outlets, and aiming my paintball gun at the freckled redhead wearing the bright red sweatshirt who was aiming her paintball gun at me. Not only did I discover that I can survive and prosper in a paintball game, I also discovered, thanks to a direct hit to my middle finger, that I won’t ever want to play paintball again. And then, as the sun began to rise on the new year, I stood on the beach and watched the ocean water of my life recede to the horizon at an alarmingly fast rate.

Part II
For the world’s more full of weeping
Than you can understand.

Some days, when I’m overwhelmed with the anguish that seems to have set up shop in my world, I can find ample solace in the promise of my sister’s unborn and uncorrupted child. Most days, though, this baby can be only what he/she should be: a sweet footnote to an otherwise tumultuous month.

After enjoying our four-day weekend, Freckles and I returned from our Pennsylvania trip unenthusiastically ready to take on the working world again. First thing Tuesday morning, we were greeted by our company’s president, who read a statement he had been assigned by his bosses to read. As it turned out, the statement was, in effect, our termination notice. The company that owned our company had decided to close shop, move most of the work to a sister company, and offer one-fourth of the workers jobs at a sister company. As luck would have it, Freckles and I found ourselves in the group of workers “traded” to another company. As The Doctor said, “I feel as though I just used my eighth of nine lives here.”

It’s an odd feeling, this feeling of survivor’s guilt at the site of 150 of your coworkers doing the Lay-Off March. These are people with families; some with very little education and/or limited skills who fear the world outside of this small Vermont town they’ve known their whole lives. And yet I still have a job. With that said, although my intentions are still to leave as soon as a better offer comes along, I won’t pretend that the predominant emotion I’ve felt the last month is anything other than relief at having this job on which to fall back. But even so, other events in the month have served as reminders that life is more important than the company from which your next paycheck is coming.

I mentioned earlier that anguish had seemed to lay its roots in my world. I think that that’s the gentlest way to describe the fact that, in the past month, the lives of three of my loved ones have been greatly affected by four instances of cancer. The best friend of one of my best friends lost her fight with cancer earlier this month. And in the past month or so, I learned that the fathers of three wonderful women in my life were diagnosed with various cancers. After looking on from a secondhand point of view, I’ve learned how incredibly helpless one can feel at the hands of this powerful and mysterious sickness.

Again, I think of my sister’s unborn child. When anxiously awaiting all the joyous moments of this soul’s life, it’s difficult to overlook all the heartache that awaits it, too. Why do we do this? Why is it our pleasure to bring children into a world of pain and suffering? It seems that for every child that fulfills her childhood dream of starring on Broadway, there’s one that begins to successfully enter her adult life only to discover a loved one at risk to exit it. But then. Then, there are unexpected moments in your life that bring with them such a clarity that helps you recognize how worthwhile your life is.

And so it was that I found myself in the passenger seat of a car driven by Freckles, shaken up after skidding off the road into a snow bank/ditch, checking to see if Freckles was OK, making sure I was OK, fighting off the inevitable shock to determine what needed to be done, and saying a silent prayer of gratitude for being allowed the opportunity to continue to share my life with someone so special. Yes, the world may be more full of weeping than a child can understand, but as you grow older, you begin to realize that it’s mostly filled with love.

Have I told you lately…

Each morning, after meeting up with Freckles and/or The Doctor for our daily car pool, and passing the other commuters (who, after many years of commuting, I have begun to recognize, sadly), and dealing with all the road rage and construction, and silently pretending that all the roadkill doesn’t bother me, I exit the interstate onto the access road that winds its way down an unending hill into the depressing granite town in which we work, and I peak my head around the off-ramp corner to see the spray-painted message that has been waiting for me on the interstate overpass bridge each and every weekday of my career: “Have I told you lately…”

The first day I saw this message, I understandably expected the second half to be spray-painted onto the second overpass bridge, but I was unpleasantly surprised to find the conclusion missing. As I’m sure most other drivers have done, I wondered aloud a number of different questions: What’s the second half of the message? Is it what I thought it was going to be? Is what I thought it was going to be any different from what everyone else thought it would be? Did the graffitist suffer heartache after spray-painting the first bridge and before marking the second one? Did he/she get arrested for vandalism? Why hasn’t it been erased after all this time?

In the (too many) number of years that I’ve been commuting to this job, I’ve had ample time to concoct my own story behind the “Have I told you lately…” graffiti. The abridged story that I’ve come up with goes something like this: a 17 year old boy, in love for the first time in his life, having decided to tell the world and his love of this love, spray painted the first half of the message onto the bridge. After marking the last of the ellipses, he slipped and fell to the ground, and just as he stood to shake off the gravel and shock that accompanies such a painful but survivable fall, a car heading under the overpass plowed into him; a collision that ultimately killed him. His girlfriend, on her way home in tears after cheating on her first love, climbed out of her car, fell to the ground next to her dying boyfriend, and though she tried to tell him one last time of her love, she could not find the words through her tears of guilt. And so, in yet another fictional poetic (read: ironic) twist for which I am infamous (subconsciously inspired by my first girlfriend in high school), both the girl’s and the boy’s words of love remained unspoken.

This story that I’ve created in my head is a product of the imagination-inspiring past-time of people-watching, a game that Montana Girl, Sarah the L, and I have perfected over the years. The object of the game is basically to come up with a back story for anyone and everyone who crosses your path. The more random and troubling the story, the better the entertainment value. Until I started contemplating how to write this blog entry, I never really understood why I liked the people-watching game so much. And then it hit me.

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I don’t deal well with the unknown. Try to slip an inside joke by me, try to keep a secret from me, whisper something to someone else in my presence, tell me “I’ll tell you later,” and all I will do is make it my life mission to find out what I’m missing. I think this stems from my own insecurities (ie, my fear of being left out or isolated) and try as I might to obsess a little less, and relax a little more, I can’t. And thanks to another one of my insecurities (ie, my fear of rejection), in the absence of a certain truth, I react in the worst possible way: I invent my own idea of the truth that is far worse than any reality I’ll ever experience in my life. As you can imagine, in the past, whenever I’ve entered into a new relationship where uncertainty is always part of my daily diet, my insecurities have always stood guard with their knees shaking in front of my emotions, which brings me ever so transparently to the next paragraph; the one for which you’ve all been waiting.

Freckles and I have been spending quite a bit of time together the last few weeks and, as I’m sure you all would have been able to guess had I asked you to guess, that’s a bit of an understatement. Evidently, I wasn’t lying in my previous posting when I said I wouldn’t stand a chance in her 2-hours-a-day presence. It didn’t take long for either of us to realize that something special was developing between us and it didn’t take long after that for both of us to say something about it. We don’t know each other very well – only as well as a handful of weeks could possibly allow – but based on what I’ve discovered, I’ve learned that I want to know more.

I like Freckles. Among a million other unnamed positive traits, I like her intelligence, her insecurities, her humor, her stubbornness, her loyalty, her humbleness, her beauty, her fragility, her sincerity, and her purity. I think, above all else, though, what I find most endearing in her is that she has the same fears and questions that I have. She does not take me lightly and from this, I whole-heartedly believe that she never will. And the benefit to a relationship begun with both people involved eyeing potential heartache like a cub’s mother eyes a wolf a mile away, is that although we both feel drawn to each other, I get the sense that we’re both willing to go at a much slower pace than the one to which I’m accustomed.

It’s early yet, I know, and there are a number of unanswered questions and unfinished thoughts spray-painted in a clear and bold font on the side of a bridge, but though, from time to time, our imaginations and insecurities may get the best of our respective fears of heartache and lead us to answer those questions and finish those thoughts with irrational conclusions, I’m finding sweet solace in the fact that each new day that I spend with Freckles brings with it one more extraordinary reason to stay with her.

And then: you close your eyes, hope for the best, and jump.

The One With the Prom Video

Montana Girl and I recently went to see the new movie Batman Begins and unlike most Hollywood blockbusters out there, this one worked for me but not for the action-packed fight scenes or the logic-defying special effects. What I loved more than anything else about this movie were the many quiet scenes where the title character struggled with morality and grief and fear and all the other dramatic feelings that accompany a dramatic movie. As we were leaving the theatre, I thought about my favorite action movies and how my favorite moments from those movies rarely involve a punch or a gunshot or an explosion but rather an ironic statement or a genuine and heartfelt expression.

Saving Private Ryan was praised by critics for its realistic depictions of the violent World War II but the one scene that I remember more than most occurred between battles. Captain Miller (played by Tom Hanks) sat in a deserted German-destroyed French town with Private Ryan (Matt Damon), doing his best to comfort Ryan after breaking the news to him of his brothers’ deaths. Ryan said he couldn’t picture what his brothers looked like and Miller said that was because they needed to be placed into context. Miller then gave an example of how when he wants to think of his wife back home, he pictures her in their backyard pruning the rosebushes. Ryan then told a story of his brothers and ended it by asking Miller to describe his wife and the rosebushes. Miller’s response was simply, “No, no that one I save just for me.”

A lot has happened to me in the last few weeks and because I’m a perfectionist who couldn’t quite think of the proper way to document the events of my life in my blog, I basically neglected to mention any of the events at all. And consequently, you’ve missed quite a bit lately, which I’m going to try to do my best to recap now.

For starters, thanks to some insider information from my coworker Soccer Mom (named as such because she’s totally turning into one), I took the plunge and awkwardly asked Freckles if she would like to carpool with me and The Doctor. After warning me about her “bad…I’m talking off-the-road-bad” driving, she eagerly accepted my offer and we made plans to begin carpooling the next week. And from the very first car pool conversation with her (that, incidentally, touched upon nearly every taboo carpooling subject), I knew I would be thankful of my decision to include her in my commuting world. Quite simply, she’s someone I already want in my life.

In other news, Montana Girl and I ventured to the disc golf course 30 minutes away a handful of times in the past few weeks and thanks to another player with whom we played a round one day (an older man by the nicknameless name of Xander), who taught me a proper sidearm throw, my game has been substantially improved; and thanks to my always reliable backhand throw, I was able to birdie the first hole of my life, which, to be honest, was a bigger thrill than most people would ever expect it to be. Shortly thereafter, Montana Girl’s employer treated the two of us to a free blues concert and VIP tent pass at B’town’s recent Jazz Festival. Despite the fact that I declined the chance to eat frog legs, I had a great time and got to hear awesome music.

A few days later, Sarah the L, Smoochie Poo, and I checked out a free Grace Potter concert but decided to leave early to avoid the inevitable 300-degree gymnasium evaporation. We then headed to a nearby softball field to check out a local women’s league softball game and quietly debated the homo-hetero ratio on each team. (My conservative 40-60 guess turned out to be a liberal one. In other words, there weren’t as many lesbian players as you would stereotypically think there would be.) We finally ended up at Sarah and Smoochie’s home where we ate some awesome homemade pizza and listened to Sarah play/practice/relearn her set-list for an upcoming open-mic performance. This quiet, private performance turned into an appropriate preparation when Sarah nixed her open-mic performance in favor of a quiet, public one on the Church Street Marketplace. For just over an hour that night, Smoochie Poo and I, as well as the Nomad, the Homeless Drunk, and the Paraplegic sat on the street and enjoyed some beautiful poetry told in sweet melodies.

And then the rains came and four days later, they have yet to cease, which I’m finding to be something placed perfectly between miserable and pretty. Every day feels like the moment before you’ve had enough time to learn whether or not someone is shedding tears of joy or sorrow; the world is crying, but why? And it makes me think back to all the confusing and mixed emotions I was feeling in the restaurant parking lot in the pouring rain that night. But that….that I’ll save just for me.

The (Commuting) Choices We Make

I slept in this morning, which is a luxury my new car now allows me to afford. But as I drove to work on the interstate, my thoughts were not of the sweet dreams I had had after my alarm clock sounded, or the joys one feels while driving a nice new car, but rather of the money I was soon going to be losing should I continue to drive solo to work every day.

I recently talked to The Doctor about carpooling again. He’s open to the idea but because of his current physical therapy schedule and his son’s daycare schedule, he can’t start for a few weeks. We’ve made plans to meet in the park ‘n’ ride lot in mid-June, so now I’m trying to determine my best commuting option until then. For as long as it is federally funded, however inconvenient it may be, the Loser Cruiser is always an option. But last night’s drive home brought with it an interesting plot twist to my life:

I left work last night shortly after the Toad hopped away (only Sarah will get this reference) and headed to the parking lot to find my still-unnamed vehicle (the latest suggestions: Silver-Door Dolly, Silver Otto, Jane Honda, Rhonda, Carmine, Gertrude, and Timothy) parked next to a blue car being opened by the new girl, Freckles. We both started our cars and Freckles took a right turn out of the parking lot with me close behind her. 45 minutes later, we both took the same South Burlington exit before finally heading in different directions into town.

Evidently, it seems that Freckles makes the same daily commute as I do and so she could very well be interested in carpooling with me, and then in mid-June, with me and The Doctor. This was news to me, because, as will not be news to you, in the two or three weeks that she has worked here, I’ve said less than 10 words to her. Although the silent treatment I’ve given Freckles has everything to do with the fact that she’s a new employee and that it generally takes me 2 to 3 months to be comfortable enough with someone to randomly talk to him/her (those irrational trust issues again), I’m now hesitant to address this commuting issue with her for a completely separate reason: she’s unfairly cute (and yes, Sarah, she’s wife cute).

You see, I have a history of carpooling with attractive women. In the 5 years that I’ve been carpooling, it has happened twice: Veronica Japanica (named as such in honor of her car’s nickname) and Widget (named as such because this is what Veronica Japanica called her). While both carpools ultimately ended, only one ended positively. Veronica and I were roommates, coworkers, and carpool buddies meaning that on any given day, we spent close to 16 hours in each other’s company. Strangely enough, it worked out just fine because we were friends who had separate lives.

When Veronica moved away, however, my next carpooling buddy taught me an invaluable life lesson: like beer and milk, coworkers that date and carpool do not mix. (The only thing more dangerous is dating a roommate, which is like mixing vodka with engine oil.) As I briefly mentioned in a past entry, Widget and I started dating a few months after we began carpooling and what seemed to be a wonderfully convenient situation quickly turned into a depressingly uncomfortable one post-break-up. The months at work that followed our break-up were nothing short of a hell where you’re forced to drink milk/beer/engine oil cocktails.

After Widget and I crashed and burned (though, not literally, thankfully), gas prices and my budget were such that I still needed to carpool, but for my sanity’s sake, I needed to carpool with someone for whom there would be no chance of falling. The Doctor was a healthy alternative because he is one of the nicest individuals I have ever met, he’s a good friend, his sense of humor is unrivaled, and well, he’s a he. The Doctor and I started carpooling and continued to do so successfully for close to a year until the infamous Inga Overheating Incident. Ever since then, it’s been the Loser Cruiser all the way with the occasional solo commutes in Mama or Papa Benchly’s vehicles and the always treasured moments spent in Inga and Sarah the L’s Daisy (after we both missed the LC).

Now that I’m a member of the car-owners’ club, I’m struggling to decide if I should ask Freckles to join The Doctor and me in our quest to save the planet while simultaneously saving money. On one hand, she will help to reduce the priceless wear-and-tear mileage on our vehicles while we all pocket loads of cash. On the other hand, she’s young, she’s intelligent (I even think she has an English degree!), she’s cute, and I wouldn’t stand a chance in her 2-hours-a-day presence. As I post this, I still don’t know what I’m going to do.

After sleeping in this morning, I left for work approximately 20 minutes after the Loser Cruiser typically leaves the bus station in the morning. When I caught up with the Loser Cruiser on the highway, I knew she was running a little late (Deane doesn’t drive slowly). As I passed the bus and returned to the right lane, bringing the Loser Cruiser into my rearview mirror, I realized that I am reluctantly closing one commuting chapter in my book, while anxiously looking ahead to the story that awaits me on the next page. Hopefully this story has a happy ending.

0 to debt in 3.5 hours

I did something this weekend that I should have done a long time ago. I bought a car. And not just any car; a NEW car. And not just any new car; a car so new it had less mileage on it than what my dad and I had to drive round trip to get to the dealer. This car is so new, you can smell the perfume and cologne of the underpaid assembly line workers.

For the car fanatics out there, here are the essentials: it’s a 2-door, silver, standard Honda Civic DX Coupe with black interior and it gets 38 miles per gallon. And the engine…well…the engine’s pretty and won’t need a tune up for “110,000 miles.” It comes with a CD player, air conditioning, two cup holders (don’t laugh, Inga never had ’em), 4 tires, a very cool (free state inspections for the life of your car) value package deal, and the coolest freakin windshield wipers you’ve ever wiped your windshields with. And in the words of not one, but two of my female coworkers (both of whom, I suspect having a crush on me), “you’re going to get some chicks with that car!”

This car’s entrance into my life, though, has presented me with four very difficult dilemmas:

1. Inga. What to do with Inga? Poor Inga Beep the Jeep has been sitting in my parking lot since mid-winter and has not started since mid-February. While her body remains, her soul has gone on to a better lot. So far, I think I have the following options:

a. selling her for parts at the Jeep dealer;
b. paying a small fee to have her taken to a junkyard; or
c. donating her to the Kidney Foundation, who will tow her for free, and which will allow me to write off the donation on next year’s taxes.

Obviously, c is the best option and the one with which I feel the most comfortable but I’m new at this donation thing so if anyone out there knows of a better donation option, please let me know.

2. The Loser Cruiser. Considering this bus has provided me with more inspiration than my 3 hours with Sally on Inspiration Point after the prom, it’s going to be tough to completely turn my back on Deane and the other regulars. But considering I’ll most likely resume car-pooling with The Doctor, and on the days I won’t be car-pooling, I’ll probably be playing softball and will need a car, I can’t see myself using The Loser Cruiser all that often. Maybe I could ride it once a week for old time’s sake?

3. Now that I’ll be driving more, I risk putting on the 20 pounds I’ve lost since I began riding the bus and started walking everywhere. I’m not so concerned with this, however, because I can honestly say that in the last 6 months, I’ve developed quite the appetite for exercise. My rule will continue to be: if it’s located within 1 mile of my house, I’m walking there.

4. Most importantly, what to name her? All of my cars have had memorable names (eg, Noise, Old Yeller, Inga). The new car must have an equally great name. I’m not going to force it though; I believe that a car’s name should come naturally, thus producing rewarding results in the end (eg, Daisy, Veronica Japanica, Manny, The Beast, Fairmoni, Fanny Muffles, etc). If anyone out there has any suggestions, please let me know. And no, I’m not going to call her “The Other Woman,” a nickname that carries with it an uncomfortable acronym.