Books and Movies

Since the last week was so horrific I have decided to completely ignore it and instead share some things that have made me happy in the last few weeks.

First, of course, would be my awesome new Tesla. I still love that car. I love driving it, I love the color, I love the endearing way the door handles ease out as you approach the car. I particularly love the feature that updates the car over the internet. You go to bed one night and the next morning there is a message on the computer screen that you can now set the car to start charging at a particular time. Good for those who have lower electricity rates at two in the morning. (Denver does not.) And, not mentioned in the message, but found out over the next few days, when you save your seat position it now includes the side mirrors!  Yay! No more Laurence messing up my mirrors! Our marriage is saved!

Michael Pollan has a new book out, “Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation.”  Just saw him on the Colbert Report and the main message of his book seems to be not to worry about what you eat as long as you cook it yourself. (The example he gives is french fries. Not good for you, but easy to order in a restaurant. Now if you cook at home, how often do you make fries?) This easy rule comes as a great relief because his previous book espoused the message, “Eat food, mostly plants, not too much,” which seemed a bit difficult to follow.

I am a big fan of Mr. Pollan’s ever since I read his book, “Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World.” He discusses apples, tulips, potatoes and marijuana. My favorite thing I learned from this book was that if you plant apple seeds, none of the trees will be the same. You cannot plant seeds from a Macintosh and get a tree that produces Macintoshes. You will get all kinds of different apples, most of which will not taste very good. All of our apples come from grafts. It is a wondrous thing to contemplate. 

Another of my favorite authors has a book out.  Mary Roach has just published, “Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal.” I have just started it, but already I am hooked. So far she has covered saliva (amazingly we have two types and she covers both!), the stomach fistula of one Alexis St. Martin, and the crunchiness of food (including fruits and snacks.) Along the way she points out that people who have a disorder or injury that will not allow their voice box to move so that they can swallow would rather have it removed and be mute than not be able to eat properly. She also gives advice on that age old question: If you had to be swallowed whole by an animal, which animal would you choose? I do not think I am giving too much away when I tell you that she recommends picking the penguin. Truly, I cannot wait to head into the intestinal tract. 

      Anyone familiar with Ms. Roach will no doubt have read her book, “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers.” This book is a must read if you have any ambitions at all regarding your life after death. Always wanted to go to med school? Volunteer as an anatomical teaching aid. Car safety your thing? You can go to work as a crash test dummy. Law enforcement? The FBI is always looking for a few good men to study decomposition. The mind boggles at the career opportunities.

      And last, I have a movie recommendation. We rented “28 Days Later,” I loved it. Of course, I do enjoy a good zombie movie so if you do not like zombies, I think you should probably rent “Groundhog Day” instead. As to “28 Days Later” it starts out with animal liberationists in England liberating the wrong animals, in this case rage and virus filled chimps. One bite and twenty seconds later (no kidding, it is very specific) people become homicidal zombies who run way faster than the traditional shuffle we have come to expect. This makes them scarier, but luckily, they still succumb to repeated blows to the head. This is particularly good news for the Brits because they lack any good access to guns. The movie follows the trials and tribulations of four of the survivors, one of whom awakens from a coma in a deserted hospital with no knowledge of the epidemic. It was directed by Danny Boyle of “Slumdog MIllionaire” fame and I’ll admit we watched it because we are probably going to go see his new movie “Trance” at some point and just felt like watching a Danny Boyle movie. So, if you like post-apocalyptic zombie movies watch it. If you don’t, watch “Groundhog Day.”

Tesla: Early Days

Leaving the Service Center

 I have just finished wiping down my new Tesla. Earlier I hosed it down to get the dirt off it because I had to drive it in the snow on Monday (which was supposed to be sixty degrees and sunny) and the mud on Tuesday (because the damn snow melted.) Then Laurence took it out  and said it looked worse with all the water spots on it, so I grabbed my new car washing spray that I had previously purchased and went to work. It looks much better now but not as great as if I had hand washed it.

This is not good. I am not one to regularly clean my car (although I keep vowing to, I don't really mean it.) My van would go months before I'd drag it to the car wash and run it through the express wash. I think of cleaning my car as a chore unless it is a hundred degrees outside and a water fight is involved. Somehow, though, with this car I feel compelled to do it. I am not sure I enjoy doing it, but it feels wrong to let it sit in the garage all dirty.

Part of the reason I want it clean is because people notice this car. This is not a complaint, everyone loves to hear how cool and lovely their baby is and I am no different. The point is when someone notices your baby and she has jelly on her face and a dirty diaper you feel like a bad parent (even though she was spotless and smelled great not five minutes before, I swear!) So I cleaned my car.

Now it's not like I did not know people would notice the car. I did. I read the Tesla forum and the owners comment on this all the time, I just thought that they were, perhaps, just a bit, exaggerating. For the record, they were not. It is ridiculous the amount of attention the Tesla gets.

A sampling:

Half a block from the service center, where I had just picked up my brand new car, I stopped at a red light. A man in the passenger seat of an SUV rolled down his window and motioned me to do the same. He wanted to know what kind of a car it is and told me, "It is a beast!" (Which it is.)

At the grocery store a man came up to me in the check out line and asked if I liked my new car and how did it drive? (This was a bit embarrassing because I had parked it on the far side of the lot and, because I wasn't used to it yet, had kind of slammed on the brakes and parked it at a weird angle.)

Driving with my windows down a guy stuck his head out the window and yelled, "Nice car!"

Another time at the grocery store Laurence and I were in the car, about to pull out, when a pickup truck drove by and the driver took a picture of the car.

Driving down the road a young man with a beard and tattoos driving an old beat up car pulled up even with me, got my attention, and gave me a big grin and a thumbs up.

Waiting to pick up Stephen from school four young teenagers told me how cool my car is. Of course, I let them sit in the car and showed them some of its tricks.

At the car shop to buy some mats for the car the clerk asked me what kind of car I have and when I told him I had a Tesla, two of the three on duty clerks immediately left the store to check out the car.

An older man and woman in a car next to me turned their heads as they drove by to look at the car. I was afraid he was going to drive off the road.

I have owned this car for only twelve days.

Luckily, I have enjoyed showing people my car and answering questions. I just hope I become immune to the attention and don't feel bad about not washing the car. Now excuse me, I have to go put on nice clothes and fix my hair so I can drive my Tesla to the grocery store.

A Very Good Day

While at the barn today Laurence called to tell me Tesla had contacted him about the delivery of my new car! (I really am not an exclamation point kind of person, but it really really needed one.) I handled it pretty well, I screamed at my friends, Tracy and Devon, "MY CAR IS HERE!"  (Several weeks ago when I went onto my Tesla account and saw the scheduled delivery window I could barely breathe. So, you know, improvement.)  Luckily, the horse Devon had turned loose in the arena did not seem bothered by the outburst.

My lovely (that adjective is directed at you, Laurence) green Model S has left Fremont, California, the only home it has ever known, on a truck heading for Colorado. It will arrive this week and I get to pick it up on Friday afternoon. I'm not sure I will be sleeping between now and then. I have calculated the hours until the appointment (65 hrs and 45 min) but that cannot possibly be right. It feels much longer than that. 

The only drawback is that our outlet for the car has not been installed in the garage yet. I can plug it into the regular outlet with an adapter so it isn't a huge problem. Unfortunately, I will have to back my brand new scratch free perfect Tesla into the garage. (The outlet is on the back wall and you plug the cord into the back of the car.) Maybe Laurence will back it in for me. Of course, then I run the risk of never getting to drive my car again. I've been on the Tesla Forum. You would not believe how many people have begged their spouses to try the car just once and then regretted it because now they have to share. I'm sure Laurence will give it back, I think. Perhaps I'll just practice backing the van in. I have nothing else to do till Friday.

Meanwhile, back at the barn, I had a horse to saddle and a riding lesson with Devon. Poor Raymond, the horse, I'm sure he thinks he is going to be forgotten once I get my new car, which will not happen. (Although, I do have to admit, I did toy with the idea of changing his show name to Tesla, but since he does not accelerate nearly as well I dropped it. Tracy did point out that he probably jumps higher than the car can, so that's a point for Ray.) I got Ray and myself all ready and then went into the arena (which is indoors) and started warming up. 

My lucky day continued. Instead of working on transitions or jumping or whatever else we always do,  Devon saddled up Dot the school horse and we went outside to ride in the snow. We had had a big storm on Sunday so there was lots of snow on the ground plus it was snowing again. We went into the little field next to the outdoor arena.  I have never ridden in the snow before and in my mind's eye I kept seeing the Budweiser commercial with the Clydesdales galloping through the snowy field. We were much less spectacular. Ray was his usual self and simply lifted his feet high to step calmly over the snow. No high spirits or beautiful slow motion running for us. We did trot a bit and I was just getting up my nerve to canter when Devon mentioned she'd seen a horse hop through the snow like a big dog once so I figured trotting might be good enough. As it was after about half an hour I could feel Ray's gait change from nice high steps to more of a trudging sensation. Devon and I called it quits and took the horses back in. Ray, after being unsaddled and brushed, was delighted to find more hay had been added to his stall in his absence and I left him contentedly chewing away.  

Then I had lunch, ran some errands, returned home and now I am just waiting...

64 hours and 45 minutes to go.