the good old days

I want a hydrogen car. Badly. If a hydrogen fuel cell car was biologically compatible, I’d have its babies. Words can not express how much I want a hydrogen fuel cell car.

So I was overjoyed to hear that Honda plans to lease 150 FCX Clarity cars this summer.

And I was horribly, horribly crushed at the qualifier

only customers currently residing in the Torrance, Santa Monica and Irvine areas who meet additional qualification criteria will be eligible to take an FCX Clarity home

I know this is because you need a hydrogen refueling station near you or the car can’t be driven, and that 2350 miles is a bit outside the vehicle’s range. But I can’t just call up my husband and say, “Honey, we’re moving to Southern California, despite your cushy professor job at University of South Carolina.” (or maybe I can, since USC also means University of Southern California… hmmm…)

Please, Honda. I would wash it every day. I would tuck it in at night. I would bake it cookies. I would take it to auto shows so it could play with other cars. I would take it to a gasoline station and show it how “olde tyme” cars were fed. Please, please, please build a hydrogen station in Columbia SC and give me an FCX.

I am so totally rocking this Friday The Thirteenth thing. The plant manager wrote one of the most kick-ass recommendation letters ever for me — it sounds like I singly-handedly saved the factory a thousand times. (It was really only a hundred or so.)

I am SO hired! In, uh, whatever field I switch to after this…

SO UP YOURS, BAD LUCK ON FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH!

Warning: this is probably irrelevant to anybody but me, my spouse, my brother-in-law, and their parents. Sorry. Ignore unless you’re bored.

When your son graduates from college, the least you can do is go out to dinner with him. Otherwise you are BAD PARENTS. BAD!!! I don’t care how much you stuffed yourself on free cookies at the post-graduation reception, you can sit through one damn meal and have a day that is about HIS success, not YOUR neurotic self-indulgent fear of aging.

Also, when you’re visiting us, and planning on getting into town “sometime today”, could you please give us a phone call to let us know you’ve arrived? Especially considering one of the highways you were supposed to travel on has a few gaping holes in it since Indiana is experiencing extensive flooding. We realize you don’t care much about your sons (ref. previous paragraph) but for some ridiculous reason WE would like to know that YOU are not dead.

Then you ice the cake by calling up the next morning and complaining that we already made plans (in other words, went to work) and dropped our kids off in daycare? True, we could have just left them at home in the hopes that Nana and Grampa hadn’t drowned last night, but I guess I’m just a crazy overprotective bitch secretly devising ways to prevent you from seeing them until four in the afternoon.

Thank you. Please feel free to return to your normal life now, I’m done. At least, I hope I am, because they’re in town for another week.

I’ve been digging into my family tree, and learned that my 3x-great-grandfather (Sylvanus) was a Union soldier in the Civil War. A cousin-once-removed that I recently reconnected with had an amazing anecdote…

I grew up with Mom telling me about Ophelia’s husband [Sylvanus] dying on the train returning from Sherman’s March. He died of starvation, 17 miles from home, on his return home to her. Ophelia was given his body when she met the train. He was barely recognizable — filthy and emaciated and long-haired and bearded. Ophelia grieved his loss the rest of her life. It was a heart-breaking story that I heard many times.

That’s seriously awful — go to the station to meet your spouse, end up taking home a coffin. At least the modern army manages to properly feed its soldiers.

What makes this additionally poignant (and just a bit ironic) is that I recently moved to Columbia, SC, which he helped to destroy.

I got my first comment from somebody I’m not related to* a few days ago. I was so excited I felt completely ridiculous.

* This doesn’t count comment spambots, although they’ve also been visiting in increased numbers, which I suppose is some sort of validation