Muscle Cars are Orange

Frank is a huge fan of the British show, "Top Gear." He watches it streaming on Netflix and is strongly influenced by the goofy, rowdy trio. He has developed a hated of the Toyota Prius, for example, and pronounces it PRY-us. He will comment off-handedly about the engine size of the cars around us at the traffic light. To my surprise, I like the show as well. The personalities are fun, and my favorite segment is the challenges segment. The episode we watched last night was a test of cheap cars on the Autobahn and then the "Industry Standard Oompah Band Test" when cars were stuffed full of a driver, and an oompah band including a tuba, trumpet, etc. and tested for "roominess."

I really like that kind of humor. And it goes over really well with my 12 year old.

Last night Frank and I were painting the attic and Frank began talking about muscle cars (probably one muscle car in particular, I don't remember) and I asked, "What is a "muscle car," exactly?"

Frank immediately started listing things that make a car a "muscle car." "Well, they're American. And they are designed to go fast, but don't do so well on curves. It's because of their soemthingsomething (I forgot what he said) suspension. (There was a lot more information here about block engines and other stuff that I can't remember. He went on for awhile.) And they're orange," he finished.

"They're orange?"

"Well, or at least some portion of the paint job is orange," Frank said.

I don't know a lot about cars, but I do know that muscle cars come in colors other than orange. What is really funny to me about this is that I am sure the orange color comment comes from the Top Gear guys who were making a joke, and Frank doesn't even know it's a joke, but he knows what kind of suspension a Dodge Charger has. (Seriously, those come in blue and stuff, right?)

Parenting is not what I expected at all. And even as much as you can prepare for it, it surprises you and the kids become themselves and start to become adults and I find myself painting a ceiling with a boy that I know intimately and at the same time hardly know - his physical manifestation outside of my body still surprises me sometimes. He feels like a part of me, but we are separate. His interests will change a hundred times in his life and I feel so fortunate to share time like the time we had last night. Very soon he will be a teenager and then a man and he will drive away in his Shelby Mustang and paint ceilings with someone else. This is my baby, I thought, as we painted together.

"Mom, are you ok?" Frank asked when he noticed I was crying.

"Yeah, I'm just really sure that not all muscle cars are orange."

Turn That Racket Down

On the night that CBGB closed down, Bill and I sat up late listening to records - Blondie, The Ramones, The Talking Heads, Patti Smith, etc. At one point Bill's teen-aged daughter came down from her room, leaned over the banister and said, "Could you please turn that down? It's really loud." Bill and I looked at each other in surprise and giggled.

Kids these days don't like loud music. My kids complain all the time that I listen to music too loudly. Beach House was on the radio when I dropped Mary off today and I had the volume cranked up. As usual, she begged me to turn the music down before she got out of the van at school so that I wouldn't embarrass her with my loud music.

"Why do you listen to it so loud?" she asked.

"I want to be inside the song," I explained. "I want to feel it all around me like the song is holding me."

"You're weird, mom," she said.

I need a walker to shake as I yell, "You kids and your damn ear bud headphones!" Of course, they won't even hear me because they'll have those little headphones shoved in their ears. The headphones create a personal experience of music that doesn't have a physical component to it.

I like to think that someday my grandkids and I will horrify their parents with our loud rock and roll. "Tell me again about the wall of speakers and how Ministry got fined for being too loud at the Lollapalooza concert, Grandma."

Turn it up.