I rented a car to pick up Neon Moon and her friend after their first year at college. Although I reserved a “full size” vehicle, the nice people at Budget [see, you do nice things, you get a free plug] gave me a free upgrade to …ta da…a Towne Car. This thing is truly about the size of the Queen Mary but, with about 100 miles, it is full of luxury and that new car smell. I have never driven anything quite like this. It actually has an analog clock. I thought they stopped making those years ago. There are so many buttons and frills it took me 20 minutes to figure out how to adjust the seat. It has a better sound system than my house. When I turned it on, the strains of Montovani came oozing out of the speakers. I pushed the scan button—“Michelle”—pushed it again—Andy Williams. Weird. I was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough space for all of the possessions of two rising Sophomores but Mona Lisa assured me, after her inspection, that we could fit four or five dead bodies in the trunk, even if a couple of them were fat. Do I have to get dressed up to drive this thing? Should I wear something with pearls? When we were first married, The Flash brought his car into the household. Although the Blue Whale was the original DeLorean, it was so big and ugly that it inspired a fearless style of driving. NYC cabbies actually yielded to it. It was a car with attitude, most of it bad. It was a car that dared other cars to hit it. This car is similarly big but the message is different, more like “Hit me and I will crush you”. OMG…I rented a Republican! Do you think the people at Budget would get upset if I added a bumper sticker or two? Now if I could only figure out which of these buttons works the espresso machine.

We saw Mean Girls over the weekend. It was good and funny and very, very real. Bullying is not unique to America or, for that matter is it confined to girls and it would be worth seeing even if it just sent a message of “you are not alone” but it does a lot more than that and does it well. It was also an interesting juxtaposition to last week’s selection on the big screen, The Prince and Me. Both had interesting happily ever after endings but one was swell and the other was lousy.

The new Knitty is out! Sorry, can’t blog. Too busy reading Knitty!

Yesterday was the first May Crowning I have attended since I was very small. I cannot begin to describe how moved I was by the children in their First Communion clothes, the procession through the church and out onto the street, the hymns, the flowers and the ringing bells. It was the first such event that Mona Lisa and The Sprite had ever attended and I was so pleased that they had an opportunity to do so and that they enjoyed it as much as they did. Despite my frequent writing about churches, I am not a particularly observant Catholic. I know that a lot of the traditional ceremonies lost favor after Vatican II but I think it says a lot that the church was packed with people who just wanted some of that old time religion.