DAY 13: Lemonade Song

WASHINGTON DC | MONDAY, MARCH 22 | THE SETTING, NATURAL, POLITICAL AND OTHERWISE, OF A SPORADICALLY UNRECORDED, HALF-DREAMED, LARGELY-UNDERTAKEN DOCUMENTARY: The setting. Two days into spring on the National Mall. Health care, almost, for all, has just been passed. 32 million more Americans will join the club of the medically cared for. Very, very more democratic than the day before. Cherry blossoms blossoming. Magnolia bloomin'. Lime-green weeping willow hanging down, almost sweeping the soaking wet ground. Bees in boxes on the White House lawn. But you wouldn't know it. You can't tell walking around these capitol buildings, between the stones piled upon unmoveable stone, city of patriotism, of unbearably symbolic pomp and weight. There is no huzzah, no hurrah. 32 million more. History made. And still the buildings and the people are quiet, calm, average. It is business as usual on the Hill, at the central nerve of this nation. The guards at the security gates have new guns, beautiful sleek black shotguns with shiny shells, a half-dozen in a row, all exposed. 

.....Me and Adrienne, Fiance One and Fiancee Two, are in DC trying to foist a big adventure on ourselves. It is Day 13 of our lemonade song, this home-made adventure that will purportedly swell into public momentum which will then calm into regular jobs and sweet unargumentative love and so forth.


.....Essentially, we will record our journey, the details and motivations of which I will relate in another minute. The rules of the game are this. I go first. I tap away at the keys. Then Adrienne, if we are lucky, points out what is wrong or ill-natured or foolish in what I have just said. Then she and I improvise another movie or take a break to eat something.

So, very quickly, so as not to bore or upset anyone who is still reading, here is how we began Yellow Truck's Big Green Adventure.


We graduated from architecture school in January. All very well and good. Then we found out, what we already pretty much knew, that there were no longer jobs in architecture. Oh there were one or two. But mostly, all jobs had been eliminated, put on lay-away or discontinued. So that was interesting. Somewhat unexpected, not fair, stultifying, etc.

We watched TV for several weeks, getting in touch with our elderly retired selves, eating dinner in synch with Pat Sajak, Vanna and Alec Trebeck.


Not knowing what else to do, we decided to pursue work in the field of design/build, a little-known off-shoot of Big D design. We got one job, to design and build some stairs, and then another, to design and build a lakefront garage with a storage loft.


Well, we didn't have any tools at hand. But I had plenty of tools in Florida, in the cottage I had once lived in, but now rented out. We also needed some transportation, something to cruise up to the jobsite in, so we settled on something reliable. It would be a Toyota pickup. I know, Toyota. No brakes. Etc. Well, I happen to love Toyotas and always have, so no problem.


Then I discovered that I wanted a diesel pickup, but still a small, fuel efficient pickup, so that I could burn biodiesel on my way to the jobsite. And I figured, it might as well, be in Florida, because that way we could fly to Florida, buy the truck, get the tools and then drive back to our two jobs the scenic route and see this great land of ours the USofA. Problem was, no diesel small-body pickups exist in this great country more recent than 1986. So it was going to have to be a very old truck. All the more reason to make it a Toyota. 


Well, we found Yellow Truck on eBay in Long Island New York. We watched the five-minute video on You Tube. We asked some tough questions via email, like, Does she burn any oil? Ever done a compression test? When was the timing belt changed last? All very good questions. Very succinct. All could give you a very clear picture of the engine's health. Only problem was that the seller was also a flipper. He didn't know too too much. He'd only owned the truck for a couple of months, bought it off a guy from Oregon who owned it most of the truck's life. So he was protected from knowing the truth, or at least from knowing very much of it, which freed him up to talk only about what made the truck so mint. Like, fresh tires, new batteries, glow plugs. Little things, little sweet inconsequential things. And it didn't hurt that the truck was yellow and cute and that Adrienne immediately loved it and fell for it. So we had to have it. There wasn't much more to it. I bought it at auction, sight unseen. Our work truck as love story. Let's hope, anyway. Pastoral, we hope, as opposed to tragic, or foolish or both.


As for the lemonade. We get dealt lemons. We make lemonade. We makin lemonade tomorrow too. We heightening the stakes. We full of a fiercesome faith. We live dogs, not dead lions. We live. We stand in a field, yellow truck faithful, idling alongside, and we drink in the open sky.