It's a chilly day with more than a touch of winter in it, but it's warm inside and every so often the sun breaks through the clouds and shines through the red curtains, making the room glow and bringing out little iridescent lights in the tulle I'm working with. My workday was shorter than usual today, so I've spent the morning since my return sewing. Later I'm driving out to my parents', ostensibly to pick up my piano music, since I now have an instrument to play it on, but really to take a walk in the Autumn woods and sit on the rug by the fire with my mother and pretend to be a little girl again. It's not far to drive, less than half an hour, and it will give Gerry his exercise.
Gerry is my faithful automobile. He is a 1990 Buick Regal, who was previously owned by a smoky old man who drove him nowhere but back and forth from the casino until the day he died, and whose presence is still palpable in spite of a string of air-fresheners. His driver's side door no longer opens from the outside, and thus getting in requires a certain amount of creativity, not to mention flexibility. He is generally cranky first thing, and doesn't like to shift into second gear until he's warmed up a little. For all these reasons his name is short for Geriatric. But he consistently runs in spite of frequently threatening death, and he gets through ice and snow in the winter better than any other car I've driven in spite of not having four-wheel-drive, which is usually a necessity around here. Basically, he is a small tank.
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