I've finally washed

So I moved up here in Mid Sept. (Yes, that inauspicious day that I'm ambivalent about naming) However, I haven't washed my car since. It's really accumulated a lot of crud even though I have been working out of home. Granted, some of the bugs and tar are probably accumulated from the 3+ years I've spent driving between cities when Mark and I were between cities. But there was a lot of plain dirt and grime that I've picked up.

When I became old enough to drive, and hence old enough to learn about car care, my father imparted a few pieces of advice. The most important being oil changes at every 3K miles. The next most was washing the car at least once a month. This was well before Houston took the title from LA and became the most polluted city in the US. However, even then his philosophy was to get it washed before that grime had a chance to start eating away at the car. I couldn't really argue. Dispute it's age and despite the mileage that my father would put on a car (100K was breaking a car in for him), they looked pristine.

So I was out running errands today, and I pulled into a Car wash place. It was just a neighborhood place; the kind where you put some quarters in and spray and scrub your car. As I was hosing down my car and scrubbing of most of the tars and bug, I felt like I had moved into the city. It's odd. I've joined a Church up here. I've shopped the Whole Foods. Mark and I have built a home together up here. We've had Thanksgiving and Christmas with Mark's family. We've even gotten a puppy, nursed her thorough a puppy killer disease, and seen her start to grow. I've even gotten close to joining the NPR station up here.

But it took washing my car to feel at home.