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...and I'll advertise it. In the eyes of John Law, Miata's legit... after an afternoon of plates & stickers & insurance agents. And a robust little charge through the twisty bits, I can honestly relate. I had this pre-adolescent crush on Diana Rigg/"Mrs. Peel" when the Avengers was broadcast in the US. The combination of a stunning face and figure (the finest hour of the cat suit), educated Yorkshire accent with a wry sense of humor, and that little Lotus �lan was just too much for an isolated country boy with stirring hormones to resist. Actually, that feeling hasn't completely abandoned me, nor the image... there's a great wide-angle publicity still of her in this house; she, wrapped stylishly in a scarf peering over the windscreen on a darkened set. Va. Va. Voom. Hardly Bada Bing. When I was affixing the new number plates, I cast a glance over the bonnet at the same angle of the shot... and saw it in my mind's eye. Yeah, it's Japanese instead of Brit... but you can't disregard fantasy. It's what I got. I awoke to a house papered with little post-it notes, suggesting chores that I might engage myself with, today. This, after finding a window open in the computer room on the coldest day of the year, and the kerosene tank cap off of the still-burning heater on the back closed-in porch. Two calamitous little oversights, averted. Daddy's home. All day long, the skies brooded with icy insinuation... and the threat of making tomorrow's trip to the studio a big question mark. Which sent me onto the streets before the blanketing, in search of a wind-y road to uncoil, imagining a cat suit somewhere on the prowl. ....................................................................... Hostel Environment (rest day in Lincoln City/Devil's Lake) Sunshine. No particular place to go. A fine windy day on the beach, quite suitable for kite flying... which a few of us did, in the morning. Absorbing the abnormality of the sun rising over the mountains, not the sea... shedding a kite to ribbons in the stiff ocean breeze on the full extension of the reel, on a beach measured in quarter-mile increments, instead of feet. This would be the last day in the presence of the sea, the last day before the trip turned eastward. We posed with bikes and our backs to the Pacific, anticipating the day when we would do the opposite on the other side of the country. Later, paid a visit to the Park that bore the campground's name... so christened from an old Native American myth about a beast dwelling in the depths of the lake, that stole men away that ventured too near in the twilight. Tents pitched nearby... no problem, eh Gh0st Busters? The evening brought a subtle shift in our usual dinner procurement... instead of the usual grocery store shuffle, my cooking crew decided to check out the local fishmonger... scoring 28 pounds of fresh clams for steaming, to be served with butter drawn on a campstove. Camp food needent be so austere, henceforward. Maybe it was the combination of little bike riding, (or what there was without heavy panniers), the chance to enjoy the beach at leisure, or massive amounts of protein from the shellfish... the pain in my knee mercifully receded to nothing. Eastward, Ho! Hmmm... maybe that doesn't sound so good in 2003. |
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