1956 Ford F100 Hood/Grill

Cassandra: Beware of Hootie Pie.
Sonia: Who?
Cassandra: I don’t know. Just beware.
Vanya: Hootie Pie. We need to keep a small notebook nearby and write all these things down, for your sanity hearing later.
Sonia: Hootie Pie. Is that a first name, “Hootie Pie”? Or is “Hootie” the first name, and “Pie” the last name?
Vanya: Or maybe Hootie Pie is a pie. And you can order it at a restaurant.
Cassandra: I don’t know what Hootie Pie is. I just know you must beware it.
– “Vanya & Sonia & Masha & Spike”

We biked both days, enjoying spring in all its glory. There are lots of wading water fowl and flowers, lots of flowers everywhere. Today’s ride centered on the annual Easter Day Forest Park car show. The upper Muny lot is undergoing repaving so the classic car portion of this dueling car show had spilled out on to the park’s roads, making the usual congestion for this event unusually bad. We got a late start, so when we finally made it to the lower Muny lot and the custom car portion of the show, a lot of the entrants were already driving off. Part of the reason that we were late is that we took Dave out to brunch at the Southwest Diner. Our timing was excellent, because Southwest Avenue is about to be shut down for major sewer work. He left for Purdue after brunch. The other reason that we were late launching is because I am refinishing the floors in our newly painted rooms. The dining room is done and tomorrow night I’ll do the rest of it.

The final reason that we were not at the car show earlier is that my lovely bride is not the fastest person off the mark. She has lots of the things that she needs to do, before she is ready to ride. I on the other hand, trained from many years of uh-oh-dark-thirty launches before work, can be ready to roll in fifteen minutes or less. Plus, I am not a patient man. Fortunately, my wife is abundantly patient with me. Generally, she just sluffs it off, whenever I try to press her buttons. I like pressing buttons. I do it for a living. I’m a real life George Jetson, working at a real life Spacely Sprockets.

There are three busy streets that we must cross on our way into the park and on our way back home. Each intersection has a walk light. For years, the walk light buttons offered no feedback. They very well may have been nothing more than placebo buttons. The new buttons offer a beep when pressed. When pressed immediately again the beep is muted and if pressed once again there is no beep. You have to wait a while, before you can get another beep. I enjoy this game, while Anne finds it just childish and annoying. While in DC, the walk signals there said, “Wait!” and would repeat unendingly. This was great fun/annoyance.

Somehow, I got the earwig, “Beware of Hootie Pie”, stuck in my head. I think that Anne might had said it once this morning or last. It was from Friday’s play. Cassandra, the maid, channeling her Greek namesake offers this warning repeatedly too, I might add. It turns out that Hootie Pie is Masha’s agent, the B-list sister and is urging her to sell the home where her two siblings still live. Like the walk light buttons, I’ve been repeating this phrase all day too.