I could spend hours playing on different parts of the internet

I could spend hours reading or listening to OTHER people who are doing it so well

Or just distract myself with trashy distractions of stuff that I believe I could do better than.

And I could work myself into a tizzy of hopelessness thinking, oh no one will ever notice what I read, no one will care or even if they do care they will not be impressed

But the thing is…it doesn’t matter what other people think of what I’m doing. It matters a little. But what matters most of all is that i do it because I like it

Chris decided he needed a new car.

I don’t really believe in new cars. I was not raised with new cars, and his new (okay, eleven years old new) car was not new enough for him.

“What’s wrong with your car? Why do you need a new one?”

“Good point!” he said. “If I am going to get a new car, it should be a significant improvement on my current one.”

whoa. Not at all where I was headed with my question.

But he wants a new car, and we could probably afford it so okay. He test drives and researches and discusses. We want this car to be a keeper, one that will please us for another 10 years like the one we have now.

He finally decides on the first rung of the BMW ladder.  Does he not realize this will cause me to rue my previous words from the “Alaska Road Rules” story?

He does not. This is the car he wants.  He is decided and decisive ( i LOVE that about him), and he sends an email to the dealer.

Say, salesman of the car I want –he says–do you have this car?

Salesman replies no, but he can order it from Germany.

An email is sent to Germany. The factory is going to make a car for us, just like a pizza. We get to watch, through the internet, the car progressing through the factory.

“The car is done! They are loading it onto the ship.”

Oh, yes, oh yes, they are loading Chris’s car ONTO A SHIP and sending it to America.

During this time, Chris locates a documentary on TV that shows us what it looks like to load a car transport ship full of cars. We talk about it and see what kind of ride our little car will be having on it’s first sea voyage.

He gets to watch it in the form of a little green arrow on the map of the Atlantic ocean sail our way. It will have to go through the Panama Canal to get to California.

But wait! WAIT! there is a concern.

Hurricane Sandy is also crossing the Atlantic. It happens to be gaining strength during a moment of radio silence (Gps silence?). Is our ship coming in? Is our little white car okay?

Now we get to watch with more intensity, feeling privileged and safe because it is just a car and not our home or our family under threat of hurricane.

We see that a number of green arrow ships have huddled out in the ocean away from the shore to wait out the storm. Probably our ship in amongst them.

But! There is an automated email that is sent, telling Chris that the ship has arrived at the Panama Canal early. The wise and skillful crew of our car’s transport ship hurried to get ahead of the storm. Chris got to watch our very ship, with our very car, progress through the locks that were created a hundred years ago to let ships get to California. He took snapshots and showed them to me after the fact.

Our ship has passed that landmark. The green arrow is coming this way. It has in fact landed and the car will be in our hands, probably by the time you read this.

The future is now. In case you didn’t recognize it. Jet packs are just retro.