Monday, August 1, 2011

Wheels Up

I recently took a photo of this old car as it reminds of of my first set of wheels, an old Buick Wildcat. It was my grandfathers pick, his criteria being “you could drive into a brick wall and maybe not kill yourself”. I didn’t really appreciate it’s classic beauty at the time, not realizing the fenders provided a certain cool factor. Eventually I realized that if I was going to keep driving it I would probably need to start dating a mechanic, and if you’ve met Tom you know how that story ended (when we were dating we had to roll down the windows of his Ford Fiesta as it was literally smoking inside the car).


For years after the Wildcat I drove sensible cars, based on advice from the men in my life. At one point we bought a Mazda and logged over 240,000 miles on it, but truth is it was always more Tom’s car than mine. He loved pointing out to anyone who would listen that our little car had traveled the same distance as from the earth to the moon!

It wasn’t until I got Tex and Maggie that I gave myself permission to buy a convertible. Anyone who has ever loved a dog will tell you that they come in two models:

  • sensible dogs that ride firmly ensconced inside the car
  • dogs that have one mission in life, to hang as far out of the car as possible

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out that top heavy dogs, like bulldogs or pugs, probably shouldn’t be allowed to defy gravity at 70 miles an hour. Getting the convertible seemed like a good compromise, and the pugs got to feel the wind in their fur (with Born to be Wild playing in the background).



Tom recently took this great photo on the streets of Victoria, which we've agreed to not even show Tex and Maggie, lest they get ideas.

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