Today we were at another auto place getting the Michigan car ready to store. We waited in an alcove with chairs in a square. The dealership was busier than expected; we had to wait for some time. There were seven people there and ten chairs; so we could easily (as a nursery school teacher I knew used to say) "make new friends."
Talking heads (some men, some women) from Fox News were raising their voices in an attempt to raise the blood pressures of anyone in earshot, whether they understood English or not.
Four of us were reading on Kindles, all different models. S had was reading Kindle on his phone. The only non-e-reader was a man who had worked for many years in an auto plant (this being Michigan.) He had a penetrating, loud voice. During the time we were there, we heard many stories of things he invented, bullied management into, saved thousands/millions of dollars, and so forth. Lots of stories, including cars he had ownded and their various vehicle-histories, including what happened to them after he sold them. Actually some of it was pretty interesting, especially his work on a team that built the all-aluminum car that took 600 pounds off the weight of the vehicle. This part of the tale had details about the differing structural properties of steel and aluminum that I didn't know. It is even possible that I would have chosen to listen to him, alas, in this case it was thrust upon us.
Just before her car was ready, the woman with a Black Labrador-Great Dane cross. (she had run over a spike) did a short riff on how she and her brother did their homework on the back of her father's duplicated sheets of auto specifications. This reminded me of my beloved father, whose leftover GE steel mill spec sheets were our family's standard writing paper for years. Now I wish I had kept one. Then she tugged on the dog's red leash and went to get her car.
And THEN, the man with the loud voice went home. There was an agreeable short silence, except for Fox News. But soon we Kindlers began to discuss our various models and where we got free books. The man with the Kindle Fire had web sites to recommend. He has 600 books and ONLY reads free ones! The woman with the gray model uses library books, and renews them if she has to. We had a short sidebar about my Paperwhite, and how the light works for reading in bed. [GREAT!] Another woman belongs to a family group with Amazon, and all six of them read the books! I think we were about up to recommending many more specific titles when our car was ready. I think it is interesting that we ALL had Kindles, not other e-readers or tablets. I loved this sampling.
And now, near the end, having taken another track than I planned, I can finally mention the photo, which reminds me of the wonderful beauty of English landscape painting. I made it on my iPhone with the Pixlr app, while the Auto Man was talking. I used a photo I took on the Day of Clouds. (See the two previous pasts.) At once I was reminded of paintings in museums. I hope you like it, too.
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