It is Saturday. I am low on gas. It is time to drive to the local gas station and fill up the tank. At the curb, are high school girls in school colors, madly waving for attention. They are volunteering for a fund raiser for their after school program. I forgot which club they represent. Aren't they cute!!! They are slim and firm. Their hair is pulled back in pony tails. They are young and full of energy. Seeing them makes me smile. After gassing the truck, I pull into the car wash place. I am second in line. While waiting for my turn, I watch these lovely young things wash the Lexis ahead of me. Something is wrong. They don't seem to have good muscle tone. Have they not participated in athletics? They are awkward at their task. Pushing sponge and soap and water seems an unfamiliar task to them. Have they never washed their parent's car? Do they have experience with physical work? I suspect that they don't. Then it is my turn. Their teacher or club advisor is there to supervise. He has my approval. Memories of my teaching days come flooding back. One girl is in charge of the hose. Every one is soaking wet. This is part of the fun of the experience. As they approach my car, my dog barks at them...telling them to "back off." Rascal is protecting my truck by barking up a frenzy. The windows are rolled up, so every one knows that Rascal can't get at them. Some of the girls laugh. I laugh too. Some of the other girls are not too sure about a dog showing her teeth....no matter how small the dog is. No matter that the dog is behind glass.
I pay my five dollars and the young ladies go to work. Water, sponges and soap are applied to the truck. They are very slow. However, they cover the truck. Time to rinse off the soap. The girl with the hose misses a spot by the outside mirrors. I point it out to her through my closed window. She complies. The soap is rinsed off. This reminds me of when my girls were that age. They were supposed to do the dishes. It was a fight to get the job done. They did not wash down surfaces and mostly missed part of the job. They did the job as sloppy as they could get away with. Perhaps it is just their age. I don't want to go back in time and have to go through that experience all over again.
Next in the sequence is using towels to dry off the water. Two girls share one towel to dry the windshield and to go over the top of the truck. They use the towel like a saw, back and forth. This works. Other girls dry the passenger side. They forget the driver's side window. The teacher motions that I am finished. With a wave of the hand, Rascal, truck and I leave the car wash station. ..with a wet driver's side window. At home, an inspection of the passenger side reveals that they missed the roof line entirely. It is still dirty. These lovely young high school students don't know how to work.

Every thing turns into Art. I observe that as old technology is replaced with new technology, the old technology becomes an art form. Horse and buggy used to be utilitarian. Now it is an experience that is special. Bride and Groom rent a horse and buggy to be driven to their wedding.
Doing something by hand is superseded by production by machine. Those who "do" by hand, are practicing a craft or an art. Think quilts, wood working, gardening, welding, cooking from scratch...especially raising the food in one's own back yard and then cooking or canning it. (Does any one know how to can food these days?) Weaving? Dying cloth? Those who understand and program early computers are now relegated to the area of interesting historical craft persons.
Horses used to be utilitarian. Now they are the domain of the very rich. The best horses are so expensive that one person can't own the beast. He or she is owned by a corporation or group of owners...on the stock plan?
I found my husband's grandparent's wedding certificate. In those days, the certificate was framed and hung in the parlor. The certificate is huge and ornate. Mine is a half page in a folder...nothing to look at....just good to prove I married the man.
Before photography or video, the only way to record a person's likeness, was to have a portrait painted. Today We take snapshots or use our telephone to take pictures. Having one's portrait painted today is very expensive. It is now art.
As for me, I like my life style. I like making things by hand and wish I had the time and concentration to live entirely a life of art. When time runs out, I am forced to buy the usual mass produced goods.

The garden is now a mess of weeds. I haven't finished my spring chores. It is August, for cripes sake. What is the matter with me? It is the heat and the humidity. It is too hot to go outside and pull weeds. Some plants will die in this inferno, but if they do, I can replace them. I got one bed nicely cleaned and mulched. The rest of the place looks abandoned. I have fungus on my peach tree. The tree was sprayed once instead of being on a schedule for spraying. I hope to do better next year. I am eating the peaches anyways...only the skin is blotched, so I just peel the skin off.
Instead of working outside, I am socializing. Spence and I went to a cocktail party that was held by his next door neighbors...two lovely snow birds. They fly to Florida in the winter. When it is too hot in Florida, they come to our town by the sound. ...human migratory birds. They love Spence. They're his mother substitutes. Cutchee coo. He's invited over for dinner several times a week. If He accepts all those invitations, He would get nothing done. This one time, He accepted. We went over for cocktails and munchies. I saw the inside of their home for the first time. It is lovely. It is a small beach house lovingly restored and thank goodness, not modernized. It has a bathtub. The walls are matchstick..the real thing, not the imitation board with vertical lines inscribed. The ladies have gone over every inch. Spence did a lot of the work. The floors are pine boards. Spence refinished them. He painted the entire place, inside and out. His friend Victor redid the kitchen. The windows are original...in much better shape than mine. Even the furniture has been refinished. The house feels like the beach. Pictures on the walls are of beach scenes. It reminds me of the similar cottage my Dad has when I was a child. All my summers were spent in that house. I lived in my bathing suit, walking the beach, swimming in Lake Erie. I take comfort in seeing the neighbor's cottage. We had a wonderful party.
One of the other neighbors is a bartender at a local restaurant. The entire group makes another date to go to the restaurant. We did that last night. We sat at the bar and had drinks and dinner and joked with Spence's neighbor the bartender. She served him doubles and charged him for single shots. I am having what was in the doggie bag for dinner tonight. Rascal isn't getting any.
Hanging out and doing nothing is a lot of fun.

If it's not my crisis, it is some one else's that affects me. We are all in the same global village, after all. Chris was on his way back from Raleigh when his van malfunctioned. He has been putting off vehicle maintenance. It came back to bite him. Chris wants to return to my house to accomplish the final push to get his degree. His van was loaded with his possessions He had taken it for a summer visit in Raleigh NC.
The van noise was so threatening, that He turned back to Raleigh. The mechanic said his engine mounts were breaking. The engine was leaning the wrong way. Even the axles were breaking. The estimate for repairs were greater than the worth of the vehicle. There are transmission problems as well.
Chris decides against repairing his van. He wants only to get back to Connecticut in time for school. How to get back home? His Mom has sent him gas money. That wasn't enough for a UHaul or car rental. For me to pick him up would be expensive if you include the cost of putting a sick dog in the dog hospital, motel room and gas and tolls. It was better to just send money to Chris so He could rent a car or take a bus. He has also to get his possessions back. As I remember, his van was loaded up...more than a suitcase or two.
I am willing to put his car rental on my credit card. The problem is, I am not in Raleigh. Can I set it up in Connecticut? Chris can pick up a pre-paid car in Raleigh? No. The credit card and the contract must have the same name. OK. How about Chris use his credit card and I reimburse him when he gets here? No good. Chris was scammed by credit card companies. He was paying usury rates of interest. He fought back by paying off the cards and canceling them. Chris has no credit cards. He does have a debit card attached to his checking account. Could We use that? I send him money overnight. He is to deposit it in his checking account, wait one day for the check to clear. Then He can access this money. No good. The car rental companies want $300 earnest money deposit on top of the rental fee if Chris uses a debit card. This is way out of line. It will cost Chris $500 to rent a car for one day. This is an offer we can refuse.
Our next stop is the airlines. I think Chris can get a one way ticket to Connecticut for about $100. He can carry a suitcase and mail the rest of his stuff to himself through the post office. His other option is to go Greyhound Bus and ship his stuff with him. I am waiting for his email to learn what He has decided. In the meantime, Chris is still in Raleigh.