My car got washed today for the first time since Katrina, although I may have hosed it off a time or two. At any rate, it hasn't been hosed off since The Hip.

I'd planned on taking it to my favorite carwash, which is finally open again, but the logistics just didn't work out. I even got about 2/3 of the junk off the floor in preparation for the grand cleaning, but then I bought groceries and I haven't quite finished bringing them inside. (I bring the perishables in, and then whatever might be direly needed, and about that time my knees are saying NO MORE CLIMBING!)

So, when I got back from my geek reading at PJ's I took out the dish detergent, squirted some on the car, then hosed it down like mad. It looks a bunch better, but more to the point I have a clean windshield. The last couple of times I've headed into New Orleans the sun has hit the dusty windshield so that I could hardly see through it, so I stopped where there used to be a gas station, opened my driver's window, then turned on the windshield wipers and squirted water from the drinking bottle. The washer aspect of the wipers hasn't worked in ages. A couple of winters ago the rodents ate through the reservoir, so I had it replaced. And the mechanic I quit going to apparently didn't check to see if it worked. And I never got around to complaining.

I just realized that thanks to DST I probably won't have the sun angle problem again for about three weeks. What the heck--it needed a quick bath.

Well, LSU got really far, but somebody has to lose. Too bad it was both the men and the women.

I ran into a guy in WalMart this morning that I've known since he was about 8 or 9. He and his twin brother used to wash my dogs and sometimes help in the yard. They took swim lessons from me in exchange for painting my outdoor furniture. (And they then taught the other neighborhood kids who were too bashful to come to classes what they'd learned.) He's now an assistant manager at a local Sav-a-Center and he has a second job stocking shelves with Pepperidge Farm products one day a week. We chatted a bit and he showed me pictures of his baby boy. That's the first (and so far only) grandchild for the family. Yep--I've lived here quite a while.

I am looking forward to driving my clean(er) car tomorrow. Now if I brush against it I won't get all dusty.