Standing in for Melanie, pensitivity101 has sponsored a post, urging us to “Share Your World.”  Since I’m a selfish old bugger, I refused, and changed the title.  Always on the lookout for a good blog-theme, and being garrulous, loquacious, vociferous, talkative, voluble, gabby, thesaurus, and repetitive, I’ve decided to bare all.

Here are this week’s questions:
1.  Do you have family photographs on display in your main living room?

Yes, we do, finally. For years the living room walls have been adorned only with prints of artists’ originals, including one by a friend/artist, who turned it into a Remarque by painting an extension of a flowering Magnolia branch, out onto the matte.

The family pictures, including a water-color of the daughter, spinning yarn, begin at the half-landing, and extend up the stairway wall toward the bedrooms.  It looks like the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Gallery, caught in a stiff breeze.

Having run out of upwardly-mobile vertical space, the recent birth of the Great-grandson required finding space in the living room to hang a photo of Mr. Blue Eyes on one wall, and a montage of him and his parents, printed on fabric at Staples, on another.

2. What was the best vehicle you owned?
This could be a pushbike as a kid, your first car, a motorcycle, or something else.

I would be hard-pressed to pick any of the vehicles we’ve owned, as a Favorite. Each has been what we needed at the time. We started with a couple of sedans.  As the children grew, we graduated to a station wagon.  As we became more rotund, numerous and arthritic, we’ve moved up to an easier entry, 7-passenger sport-ute.

Automobiles are sedate and functional.  For cheaper, easier, more fun and freedom transportation, I owned 5 Jap-crap, rice-burner motorcycles, over 20+ years.  If I were forced to pick, I would probably choose the last – a Corvette blue-on-blue, Honda CB750K

3. Did you pass your driving test first time?

I did! I had to choose between two cities with examination centers, each 25 miles away from my home town. One possessed steep hills, and examiners known to reach over and turn off the ignition half-way up, to see how you coped.  I picked the flatland one.

I took the test in a left-hand drive Vauxhall, exported to Canada.  I lost four points, not once, but twice, for failing to gear down the manual transmission for turns, and lugging the engine.  I needed 90% to pass and ended with 92%.

4. Does loud music from a neighbor or passing cars annoy you?

Thank an un-named (and possibly imaginary) deity for allergies and air-conditioning. We remain inside mostly, with the windows closed. Our nearest neighbors are quiet, and those who play music while they’re on their decks, do so at reasonable volumes.  The son works all night, and tries to sleep all day.

Idiots in cars, with their radios jacked up to 11, puzzle me, but usually don’t anger me.  At a light, some fool rolls up beside me.  My windows are up.  His windows are up, and I can still hear his stereo blasting and the bass just a-thumpin’.  I think it’s like buying a hot-damn car as a penis substitute.  They’re compensating.  And it’s often some young white dude, blaring Black rap.

Gratitude:
What has made you smile over the last seven days?

Grumpy Archon is getting soft and mushy in his old age.

“Happy/Smile” is not the same as gratitude.  Despite claiming to be grumpy, I am easily pleased.  Mining humor sites for future blog-post jokes, and interacting with fellow bloggers keeps me happy and smiling.  I am grateful that, even as I have reached the age of 78, I still remain reasonably strong and healthy.  I much prefer seeing the green side of the sod.  If that changes, I’ll let you know.