vinny

It's my first post in awhile so i thought i'd write with news of the biggest addition to our life. vinny. a green 1999 acura sedan. the bad news is that after 80 years in the road, my nearly 95 year old grandpa has had to call it quits for driving. the good news is that he gave his car to our family of four. i'm kind of uncomfortable with being a car owner in nyc. you truly don't need one here and if you do they are easy to rent or car share (zip car and the like). but with two kids some of the train is pricey and kind of doesn't work so we are driving more. and on our last rental trip we spent a small fortune on a week and we had to hustle home lest we get charged for a whole 'nother weekend. so renting has become more costly and arguably more inconvenient than parking and car maintenance. or so i thought. cell phones go hand in hand (or hands free!) with car driving so vinny's first two weeks of adventure are pretty well documented... the car came to me with a brand new battery. but i left an interior light on for 5 days so the first time i took him for a spin was on a tow truck: I needed a new battery (to replace the one week old battery i killed) so $168 and warm and informative conversation with my friendly pakistani immigrant tow truck driver i was back on the road. that night, in fact, i drove to the grocery store. it pained my conscience to know i was increasing the carbon footprint of my park slope food coop groceries, but when i had the automotive might to carry a bottle of seltzer AND a six pack of beer home (when walking with cart i can only carry one or the other) i started to come around to the idea of driving to the store.

and then came the snow (again). good news is alternate side parking is canceled so you don't have to move your car. bad news is when you go out to your car it looks like this:
it took me and hour and a half to dig it out and most of that snow gets tossed into the street and the passing cars methodically push it back onto your car - just a little harder and denser! i also had to change plates and add some car seat do-hickeys.

i can't tell if the post is running over so i'll part with a couple lessons learned:

1. if you have yellow snow all over the trunk of your car you can wonder how on earth a dog climbed up there to pee without leaving tracks or you can operate under the assumption that the mini van owner behind you that you parked 1" from had to pee at the same time as he became very annoyed with me and killed two birds with one urine stream.

2. while changing over the license plates i learned that if you are a house mouse in suburban connecticut in my grandparents temperate garage. it might make sense to establish a nest behind the rear license plate complete with bird food from the nearby storage canister in the garage. but now you're in brooklyn baby!