Hidey Hoe

Do you remember what TV character used phrase to greet their neighbor?

Yesterday I learned not to rent from Thrifty. They were a few bucks cheaper than Hertz even with my AAA discount so I decided to give them a try. Mistake.
Another couple and I stood for 40 minutes (we counted) waiting for the Thrifty shuttle van at the Detroit airport. It got to the point where we recognized and nodded a greeting to the drivers of other company's shuttles as they drove by us repeatedly.
This is what I got. It's a Dodge Caliber. You can click the photo to enlarge it. Trust me, the car could use that.Instead of Thrifty they should change their name to Cheap. No remote exterior mirror controls. Or cruise control. Or electric windows. Or electric door locks or keyless entry. It does have a radio!
The engineers who laid out the interior obviously never sat in the fruit of their labors (they may have been sitting in something else when they designed it, however). The center console-mounted gear shift lever sits right above the cup holder, which is right in front of the storage bin.
Note to self: be very, very careful when lifting a 32 oz. Diet Coke out of that cup holder lest you throw the piece of junk into reverse at 70 mph.
I shoulda had a V8.

I almost always take a book with me on a trip like this, and because I didn't plan ahead I'm re-reading "The Picture of Dorian Grey" by Oscar Wilde. He was weird.
Unless one decides to collapse in the middle of a flight and totally mess up the schedules of 240 people there's not much to do on a 4+ hour flight except read, so I'm about 1/2 way through the book. It is a good story.
And it got me to thinking about the visage of people I see. (There is a wide variety of visages on an airplane.)
I enjoy people watching, and I think most of us draw conclusions about personalities based on appearances. That guy with the furrowed brown is an unpleasant character, that short lady with the bad hair cut and annoying cackle is a pest, and so on.
Then I thought about people I know well. What did I think of them the first time I saw them? I don't even remember. Did I think they were attractive? (cf. Dorian Grey)
I don't know about you, but once I get to know people I "see" them, their physical appearance, in terms of their personality. If you were to ask me to describe the appearance of one of my friends I'd do a really poor job of it. I see their physical appearance in the light of their personality. All my friends are very attractive people.
Do you do that?

BTW, I'm sitting at Panera writing this. Pam's mom has wi-fi at her condo but doesn't know what the security key is. So at least for the next couple of days I'll be posting in the a.m.

Americans would never make it as Japanese.
Sociologists tell us that people who live packed together in very dense population centers naturally develop a very tight and restrictive code of social mores. They become what we would describe as overly polite and deferential because it's the only way to prevent hostility and conflict when that many people live in that little space.
Think of a packed Boeing 757 flying across the country for several hours. Only people used to having plenty of their own space would throw their seat back into its full reclining position for the duration of the flight. They would hang on the seat back in front of them as they climbed out of their own, without so much as an "excuse me" or "I'm sorry." Arm rests? The notion of shared space is completely foreign to them.
It's a good thing we're Americans, because if we were Japanese we'd be thrown into the sea.

Alas, poor Lakers, I knew thee well.

I just checked, and at home right now (where it's 4:30 a.m.) the temp is 88 degrees. Here it's 7:30 and 55 degrees. We're headed for a high of 63.
Weather fascinates me.
Sorry, Sherry.

I'm off to spend most of the day visiting with my very good looking friends. See you tomorrow.