Lavender Squeak

Wow. I have been noticeably absent of late. Forgive me.

I bought a new car. Not a new car, actually, but a new-to-me car. She's a 1998 Chrysler Town & Country (I guess that's a minivan, not a car) of questionable color. 

No kidding. No one seems able to describe this color. My car guy said "pale purple." Elder Brother and WGR said "blue" and "gray" respectively when they saw it at twilight. Big Brother called it "gunmetal purple." The highway patrol officer who checked the title wrote down "gray" because "it'll look gray at night."

Sigh.

I call it "lavender gray" and what I say is all that matters.

Her name is Lavender Squeak, because there's a little squeak coming from one of the wheels. I'll be having my mechanic double-check that when I take her in for her first oil change. I don't mind the squeak because it reminds me of my first car, Cricket, a 1983 Subaru GL10 that also had a mysterious, undiagnosable squeak only I could hear.

While I'm driving, I find myself humming "Lavender blue, dilly dilly, lavender green." I notice how perfectly the steering wheel fits in my hand and how smoothly the van responds to my every whim. I look in the rear view mirror and grin at how much cargo space is back there. I think about how this time I will vacuum the interior more than once a decade. In short, I'm tickled lavender with my new van, and I hope God gives us many, many years together.

I got the out-of-State title registration done yesterday. Now I have to update my insurance, pay the sales tax (still trying to figure out how to do that), pay the tags and taxes and sell my old SUV, apparently all within the next 30 days. That makes my stomach roil a bit, but I'll get it done.

And I'll hum while I do it.

Thanks, Lord. I love my new van.