![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Dispatches from the Mars Lander
Nov. 15th, 2001 07:35 pmVal and I have managed to aquire a reputation at the grocery store, such that they fully expect us to ask for odd ingredients and have consular armies of bag boys arrayed in preparation for our arrival. The check out clerks ask about our recipes for the week, and remark on our insistence upon fine spices and fresh ingredients. And occasionally mango chutney.
===============================================
America's newfound patriotism ("nationalism?" says Romie, and Val gets incredibly upset) seems to be mostly centered around American flag stickers on automobiles. Val counts them every day on the way to school. Romie has recently noticed that almost all of them are on white cars.
Romie hates white cars. She thinks that no decent person would own one; they look too similar to police cars, and she enjoys travel superior to the posted speed limit (speed suggestion).
Her father owns a white car, which he would never have gotten away with if she had been living with him at the time. It mostly stays in the garage, so she doesn't mind too terribly.
Patrick owns a white SUV -- a double sin in the eyes of Romie. He wants desperately to trade it in for a smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicle, but his mother, (who used to own it,) will not let him -- for reasons she refuses to specify. While orginially Patrick mainly intended to impress Romie and to bring down his gasoline bills, he is now a die-hard environmentalist and spends much of his time carpooling.
Romie has a new theory to the effect that oil companies underwrite suburban housing developments not because they are sound investments, but in order to drive up gasoline prices.
===============================================
I have been summoned for jury duty, something about which I am very excited.
The George Washington University, my old school, has managed to track me down again and is claiming I owe them seven dollars. I looked at the bill, and I think they actually owe me fourty three dollars, but are so embarrased about it that they're trying to cover it up. I wish they would leave me alone -- I don't want to pay a "voluntary library gift". They don't seem to accept that I haven't gone there for two years, perhaps because I am so luminary that they cannot resign themselves to life without my presense.
===============================================
America's newfound patriotism ("nationalism?" says Romie, and Val gets incredibly upset) seems to be mostly centered around American flag stickers on automobiles. Val counts them every day on the way to school. Romie has recently noticed that almost all of them are on white cars.
Romie hates white cars. She thinks that no decent person would own one; they look too similar to police cars, and she enjoys travel superior to the posted speed limit (speed suggestion).
Her father owns a white car, which he would never have gotten away with if she had been living with him at the time. It mostly stays in the garage, so she doesn't mind too terribly.
Patrick owns a white SUV -- a double sin in the eyes of Romie. He wants desperately to trade it in for a smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicle, but his mother, (who used to own it,) will not let him -- for reasons she refuses to specify. While orginially Patrick mainly intended to impress Romie and to bring down his gasoline bills, he is now a die-hard environmentalist and spends much of his time carpooling.
Romie has a new theory to the effect that oil companies underwrite suburban housing developments not because they are sound investments, but in order to drive up gasoline prices.
===============================================
I have been summoned for jury duty, something about which I am very excited.
The George Washington University, my old school, has managed to track me down again and is claiming I owe them seven dollars. I looked at the bill, and I think they actually owe me fourty three dollars, but are so embarrased about it that they're trying to cover it up. I wish they would leave me alone -- I don't want to pay a "voluntary library gift". They don't seem to accept that I haven't gone there for two years, perhaps because I am so luminary that they cannot resign themselves to life without my presense.
