Last Friday

Last Friday, not relishing the idea of sitting out in the car for an hour and a half, I left the house early, strongly motivated by the need for caffeine (it seems I accidentally tossed the basket component of my espresso pot in with the recyclables). Friday mornings one can sometimes find a spot that is good right away, because people give up prime spaces to get an early start on the weekend. Sure enough, there was a man with dress shirts on hangers draped over his shoulder, opening the back of an S.U.V. “Are you pulling out?” He nodded yes. “Great. Thanks.” We were on a marginal road, with cars parked on both sides, and I shamelessly blocked traffic until he moved.

Come Saturday, Diwali, I was off to Rockaway to begin the great experiment: lending my neighbors T. & T. my car in exchange for their parking it. I am hoping this will be a win-win proposition. So far, so good. They get to use the car to take Little T. to the doctor. Little T. is fine and healthy, and looks contented enough in the Éclair, though I hope they take him someplace fun in it, too, so that he doesn’t associate it solely with doctors. I am going to move the moose bobblehead so he can see it from his backward-facing car seat.

Then T. the Dad put me onto a whole new parking scene in our neighborhood: just two blocks away is a street with a Thursday-Friday street-cleaning schedule, which nicely complements the Monday-Tuesday schedule on our block. Furthermore, this block has a median strip, which doubles the number of spaces available. I already knew about the street around the block, where the city has not yet put up signs; if you can find a space there, theoretically, it’s good forever. T. the Mom assures me that the car is fine, but I don’t think she understands the alternate-side-parking ethos. I am not content to know the car is fine—I want to know exactly where it is and how long it can stay there.

If I had had to sit in the car this week, I would have enjoyed reading about the Vatican’s reaching out to disaffected Anglicans. Good luck with that, Your Holiness. Why do you think they formed the Church of England, anyway?