Me and the Gold-Plated Porsche

Yours truly, stylin' in a Dolce and Gabbana black, gray and olive striped knit cap, Calvin Klein black long-sleeve T, and A&F olive-drab cargo pants, peering under the hood of Stephan Wilkinson's bright yellow Porsche 911 race car, 2004. Hah! I always wanted to walk down a red carpet and have someone ask me who I was wearing, instead of asking me who I was stalking and escorting me out. None of my clothes had paint on them at that point. Rips and tears, and in some cases duct tape and staples as I don't sew, but I didn't start painting until late fall 2004 when I stopped working full-time.

B O O K S — The Gold-Plated Porsche: How I Sank a Small Fortune into a Used Car, and Other Misadventures, Globe Pequot Press, 2004. This is a book by my publisher, but I had nothing to do with its design or production. Stephan Wilkinson is a former editor of Car and Driver, a graduate of Harvard and contributes a monthly column at Popular Science, "Man and Machine." The car isn't a product of a Las Vegas shopping spree gone wrong, it's not actually gold-plated; the title refers to the obscene amount of money the author spent to have the car made race-worthy after buying it for next to nothing. 

I was still working full-time in 2004, about to quit actually, when the author dropped by with his book's namesake Porsche. He was a really interesting guy to talk to, aren't all car people, lol? The car's six-cylinder 'pancake' horizontally opposed engine was L-O-U-D and stripped out as race cars tend to be. It was good weather, a great afternoon to gather outside for an impromptu car show of one, and I always enjoy the times I can tell someone associated with a book or magazine I've read forever, just how much I appreciated their contribution to my car-fueled adolescence. We have a few Porsche lovers that read this blog so I thought you'd appreciate this post.

For a link to the Amazon write up of this now out-of-print book, click here.

Here's what Car and Driver said of the book:

". . . this isn't a book about Porsche restoration. It's about Wilkinson's colorful life. . . . That, along with elegant writing, is what makes this book so endearing--the tales are told without ego. Wilkinson is amused by life's inevitable disasters and humiliating blow-ups, trotting them out so everyone can laugh. This is . . . less a tale about a machine than a tale about a man enjoying a machine."

And Here's the Turbo 2.0T Coupe!

Hot off the software.... my Sonata 2.0T coupe, in Pearl White.

C H O P — Not content with just chopping a Sonata Hybrid coupe, I just finished making a coupe from their new Sonata Turbo. The regular Sonata and Turbo have slightly different rear taillights and rear bumper and detailing from the Hybrid models, as well as a completely different front fascia not seen in this view. In addition to losing two doors, I added a black glass roof and a slight amount of black rocker trim including the rear 'diffuser' around the tail pipes. I enlarged the wheels slightly also, one of my main complaints about any of the new Sonatas. It's not that they're small, they're available in 16, 17 and 18 inch sizes, normal these days, but for some reason, they just look a bit small in those voluptuous wheelwells. I've made mine approximately 20 inches. Again, pillarless construction prevails, and I absolutely love the way this chop came out. I think it looks nicer than the somewhat oddly styled new E coupe from Mercedes, with its even odder 2 piece rear side windows. Hyundai: you can have this for free, just build it!

Original Photo:

If there is a better looking sedan in the Sonata's price range, I haven't seen it yet. One of the few cars I've seen up close and personal as well, having perused one in a parking lot, I can say the design holds up under scrutiny also. The interior is just about as nice, the one I saw having a two-tone beige and black color scheme with cloth seats. This press photo is unbelievably dull though, dull colored house, dull pavement and does nothing for the car. You can see with a little work in Photoshop, and making the car white, the image could have popped so much more, and isn't that the point of a professional manufacturer's PR photo? Thanks to PhantomX for suggesting I publish the original photo, too.

Hyundai's Sonata Hybrid Needs a Coupe

You can count the number of Hybrid pillarless coupes available on the market right now on the fingers of no hands, lol. Hyundai—call me! Let's make this happen!

C H O P — Hyundai's new coupe-like styling of its sedans makes chopping a true coupe that much easier. I made the C pillar thicker than the sedan's though, to make up for the lack of the B pillar in this pillarless coupe. I think the new Sonatas are smashing looking, and I think a true luxury bodystyle as pillarless coupes have become in recent years, could only be a great showroom draw for its new Hybrid model.

How About a Coupe in the new Elantra Lineup?

C H O P — The new Elantra (Avante outside of the USA) is going to be available here shortly. The four door's lines are so coupe-like, all I really had to do was delete the four smaller doors and add 2 longer doors that most coupes use. I've created two versions, one 'normal' and one with the dipped rear beltline like the Hyundai Genesis coupe. I don't think Hyundai will actually make a coupe in this market segment, and if they did I don't think they'd crib the Genesis Coupe's most unique feature, but hey, that's why I make fake cars, because they won't! I also darkened the front fascia, following the production sedan's built-in curves, and added the chrome and black rocker panel moldings I favor. I also changed the wheels on both, using an Acura's dubs on the top rendering (adding Hyundai logos of course), and the Genesis Coupe's wheels on the lower chop.

Woody Thompson has kindly posted these chops at his site, Woody's Car Site, giving my chops more exposure!

Before I Started Creating My Fake Cars ...

Jaguar. 
(all images clickable to see larger)

Opel.

Renault.

Thunderbird.

D I G I T A L   A R T — Before I started creating my photoshopped fake cars, I played around with automotive press photos in a different way. Basically I was practicing in Photoshop, and using car photos to keep my interest. If there was anything I learned taking piano lessons most of my life, it was that practicing was REALLY difficult to do when I was bored with the piece of music for that week. I worked in Photoshop for my job doing pretty boring stuff like resizing photos, creating feathered edges or drop shadows, and color-correcting poorly scanned photos. I knew there were tons of filters and techniques I'd never need, but wanted to learn. I took a couple of classes and seminars, did online tutorials and then just started at the top of each pull down menu, testing each one, seeing how every single item worked. I learned to modify every preset function for better control, and this process actually ended up making everything I do in the program easier and more fun. 

I found these OLD photoshop exercises tonight on a CD dating back to 2001. I cringe at most of these today, I believe the term 'heavy handed' was meant for my technique on these desktop wallpapers, which is what I used them for. At the same time, there is a kernel of the nascent artandcolour "look" beginning to develop.

Follow the jump for four more of these desktop/wallpaper creations.

Impressionism Via the Oops Method

It was early, too early in the day for me, but I have to get myself outside in the morning to see my morning glories. It was the first shot of the day, I hadn't had my coffee yet, and I was certain I wasn't going to be able to capture a single photo of this butterfly unless I took it RIGHT NOW, lol. I must have shaken the camera, or I was shaking, but the image was totally blurred out. When I saw it in Photoshop though, I really liked it. It had all the imagery I desired, and the blurriness really didn't bother me. I added a slight bit of "Film Grain," a filter that recreates old-time graininess to digital images.

Some artists devote their careers to furthering the art of blurriness. Susan Mikula comes to mind, Rachel Maddow's partner.

Even with its blurriness, click on this image and I think you will find it pretty interesting as it renders larger!

Simple Shapes, Complex Flavors!

Another Brandywine approaches its salmony-hued ripeness. These tomatoes don't turn a a rich bright red. At maturity they have a pinkish, almost magenta outer skin. The flavor is a mix of sweet with a bit of savory, and they are amazing looking inside as well. They have no 'center' area that so many tomatoes have coming down from the stem. The entire interior is a soft fleshy juicy mass of tomato 'meat' with pockets of seeds and 'jelly' throughout, not just around the edges.

OK, in the interest of full disclosure, I haven't actually tasted my Lemon Cucumbers yet. Instead of being a zuchini shape and dark green, these cukes will turn yellow and stay almost perfectly round. They are supposed to carry a hint of citrusy lemon-like flavor too. I'll let you know, as I have about three that can probably be picked in the next few days. I have at least 25 of these plants. When I had to thin them out as the seed package said to, they all looked so healthy I just couldn't toss the 'extras' so I planted them all around the outside fence of the garden, with the dahlias and the cutting flowers, and I didn't lose a single one. They don't even need to be tied or staked. They send out long tendrils that hook onto anything around them, like morning glories, and they've tied themselves to the fence, inside and out. They have great little bright yellow flowers too. Cucumber and lemon in one vegetable, sounds like a complex flavor to me!

OK, I haven't eaten one of these yet  either... This is a group of three German Striped tomatoes. The "striped' part apparently comes from the three-dimensional ribs on the outside that continue to thicken as the fruit matures. I thought they might end up striped in color, but it's the texture. How cool and how sculptural!

Complex Shapes, Simple Flowers

Definitely the drama queen of flower buds, I think I'm more fascinated by sunflower buds than the actual flowers! They're so 'armed and dangerous' looking, yet they're soft to the touch, an absolutely gorgeous shade of green and quickly open overnight once they're ready. Sunflowers don't fool around, and I can't believe I've never had them in my garden before.

Wild Snapdragon, or Linaria vulgaris, is a 'weed' which I've introduced into one of my flowerbeds, ie pulled up from the side of the road and brought home in my backpack. They have a lovely wispy leaf system and stems, almost like a short Cosmos or an Asparagus Fern if they stood straight up. They don't flower until late summer and early fall and get thicker each year—this is only the second year I've had them. My mother used to call them "Butter and Eggs" or "Eggs and Cream" or "Butter and Cream" lol. I think she called them by all three because I just can't ever remember, and I'm pretty good at the colloquial names of wildflowers. For more about this distinctive wildflower, click here.

No, this Zinnia isn't terribly complicated in shape, but I'm fascinated at how it changes each day. It began as a relatively flat Daisy-like flower, and as the petals opened up, the entire flower filled out almost like one of those foam multi-piece sponge thingies on a stick they sell to clean dishes with. Know what I mean, lol? Other Zinnias have opened up into almost Chrysanthemum-like buttons, but this one is simple and complex all at once. And let's face it, I love featuring Zinnias in my blog! : )

Jack-in-the-Pulpits: The Pods Have Arrived!

I like this photo because it shows the Jack's very distinctive red seed pod and the almost ghost-like beige remnants of the three leaves and stem of the immature plant lying next to it. Long-time readers of this blog, well long-time as in last April, lol, will remember the Jack-in-the-Pulpits in their spring guise. I'm finding it hard to believe the growing season is winding down. Sigh.

This is a great photo showing the seed pod as it first appears, a bright apple green, right next to its last stage in bright red. The leaves on the plant with the green seed pod have grown taller allowing the 'pulpit' to get the sunlight it needs to create the seed pod. As the plant matures, the leaves wither and the stem weakens. The seed pod begins to turn red, as seen below, and by the time the stem can no longer support the maturing seed pod, it's bright red and lays on the ground allowing the seeds to form new plants. The existing plant will always come up whether or not any new seeds are buried and germinate however. I've had all of these plants come up for several years now. Note, the cluster of small green leaves at the base of the red pod are not attached to the Jack, and actually belong to a different plant, a young Ajuga I'd say.

Another good photo of this stage in the Jack's life. The leaves have withered away from the stem, and the seed pod is turning from bright green to bright red and will soon fall over. I really love these indigenous wild flowers. The woods around Pink Gardens are FULL of them. I'd say thousands. I've never seen anything like it. They're actually a protected species of wildflower in Connecticut, and I'm quite protective of them myself!

My Buddy, the Lopsided Swallowtail

This is my little friend, the lopsided Tiger Swallowtail. I've noted three unique tigers this year, they all have different markings and shapes of the stripes, but this one is missing part of it's lower right wing. You have to look really closely, click it to enlarge, but the lower right wing is missing it's distinctive lobe that identifies him as a swallowtail. The left lobe is dark and tends to blend in with the leaves, but it's there. This happy little butterfly has no idea he's not perfect. And for that reason, he's perfect to me. If we all could be as uncaring about the little things and as happy as he is.

He is a totally happy creature, flitting from one zinnia to another, bursting upwards several feet, then catching some air and hovers, then flits back down to another flower. He checks out the cucumber flowers and the tomato flowers and the sunflowers, but seems to prefer the zinnias. I swear I can hear him singing in a Bert Lahr type of voice, "Oh there's a pretty red one, Oh THERE's a pretty yellow one, Oh My, Oh My, There's a pretty orange one, I was just there, Oh I want to try them all, Oh there's another red one..." He didn't even care this morning how many photos of him I took, although I couldn't get too close. Then I swore he sounded like Lahr as the Cowardly Lion, "If I only had some c-c-c-ourage I could try that yellow one near that nosey guy! Oh there's a pretty pink one!"

This is the 'new' part of the yard that was cleared this spring. We've had such a dry summer, that it's apparent that we'll need to reseed in the fall and probably in the spring again to get the grass to come in strongly. I think the lawn is probably cut too often for the weather conditions, but the landscapers have to eat too. They just cut the lawn and trim the large shrubs, I take care of all of the flowerbeds and potted plants.

Reaching for the Sky First Thing in the Morning

The morning glories are really coming into their own right now. I had 17 blossoms this morning, all this same variety called Heavenly Blue. I just wish they were afternoon glories. I hate getting up in the morning to go out and catch them before they shrivel up and turn purpley-pink.

They're opening at just above eye level for me, around 6 feet tall, which makes the Lemon Sunflower closer to 7 feet tall I guess. The tallest sunflower is on the other side of the garden and isn't in bloom yet.

I like the bright blue sky at the top and the darker blue of the morning glories on the bottom of this photo. This sunflower is going to have 5-7 blossoms. I keep finding new buds in the crooks of the leaves, but each new one is a bit smaller than the last one. Be sure to click this image as the morning glories don't really show up at this size.

A Study in Green and Blue. Nothing is really spotlighted in this photo, but the blues of the flowers blend in with the blues of the sky and creates a great abstract assemblage of summer greens and blues.

The Art of the Chop—1970 Thunderbird

What if Ford had further developed earlier Thunderbird design cues such as slim rear quarter windows and rear fender skirts on their almost-a-fastback 1970 model? I pushed the front wheels forward several inches for a shorter overhang and more classic steering wheel-to-axle proportion. As extreme as this looks, it's just about the same as the classic Continental Mark II of '56-'57. 

Photos of older cars are harder to find than press photos of new cars, so I'll take what I get as long as the resolution is adequate. This car had seen better days in the original, so while I fixed a few flaws in recreating it, I kept the look of a slightly used car. I'm including the original photo below to show that in addition to the changes to the car, I "touched up" the background as well. There was something about the car that screamed for graffiti, which I found on a photo of the new Kia Optima. I also deleted the apartment building in the rear and added a canopy of trees for that "tree grows in Brooklyn" look which I find so appealing.

Original image of a fading glory, a white 1970 Thunderbird standard coupe, which I found through Google Images. Even in less than mint condition, vintage Thunderbirds have a glamour about them that doesn't fade no matter how much the paint does. 

I'm Not Sure What This Is! Toyota Tercel X

Toyota's Tercel X—entry level, all-wheel drive, crossover hatchback. Um, sure. Click to enlarge this little jalopy!

C H O P — Sometimes I just start chopping a photograph without any clear idea what I'm going to do. In fact, I do that with my art as well occasionally. 

I know what bothers me about a photo to start with, so I begin by 'fixing' those items. Then at some point, a clear idea will develop, and I'll run with it. This time, I just kept changing things in Photoshop, adding and subtracting details, and this cool little car came out. 

I began with a Yaris sedan, a thoroughly competent small car, but not exactly a looker. You wouldn't say that about this car. Even in dark gray metallic, I think my little Tercel X would stand out anywhere. Besides the suicide doors, which are almost a trademark of mine, I used a vintage styling cue of a chrome beltline molding visually tying the door handles together. Instead of a full-length molding though, I used it only on the doors, for a contemporary, almost avant-garde slash of chrome. Heavy duty springs are visible in the wheel arches for a functional touch, and a roof rack is included for the occasional African safari, lol.

I think it has a very cute quality about it, almost that 'sit-up-and-beg' look that characterized some vintage British Fords. I began this chop a couple of years ago, found it last night while looking through some old folders on my HD and finished it tonight.

Meet Chippy!

Chippy #1 or #2, I can't tell which is which, lol. We have several groups of these little striped creatures living around the yard. There's the Woodpile family, the East Porch family, the South Porch family, and this little one and his brother that live below that huge granite slab that is June's front step. They scurry in and out of the cracks betwee the slabs, and they love it when the plants on the step are watered and the water splashes down in between the stones, lapping it up. June sits out there quite often communing with them and feeding them, and while they're not exactly lap pets, they're not as scared of us as the others are. They're really adorable to watch as they play together, running from one bush to another, jumping over each other, disappearing down one of their holes and popping up another one. They stand up like Prairie Dogs also, sniffing and staring at us. I startled one in the Zinnias one day, and as he ran away from me looking for one of his many "entrances" in the ground, he turned around to see if I was following him and ran right into the granite slab. It was precious, lol!

RWD Infiniti D20 to Combat 1 Series!

Infiniti D20, an entry-level rear-wheel drive hot hatch with BMW's 1 series squarely in its sights.

C H O P — Infiniti takes on the admittedly limited niche market rear-wheel drive hatchback class with this new D series. Power comes from a brand new 2.0 liter four-cylinder. Performance variants will include both a turbo- and a supercharger for maximum efficiency, power and torque. Available in three states of tune: D20 with 150hp/165ft-lbs, D20t with 190hp/215ft-lbs, and the D20t3 with 250hp/275ft/lbs. Economy ranges from 45 combined highway/city for the D20 to 32 combined for the D20t3. A hybrid drivetrain will be available in six months, with a lithium ion battery pack guaranteed for ten years and 150,000 miles, and a small electric motor in each wheel hub for fully electronic all-wheel drive and a 75mpg combined rating. A 100 mile electric-only range capability will be offered. Three and five doors will be available. Depending on sales, the range could expand with a coupe and convertible towards the end of the their first three year cycle. US sales will commence at the same time as European sales.

First chop since my bike mishap. Even though I still only have nine good fingers, those nine are doing OK, lol. I did another small Infiniti coupe, the R25 a few years ago from the same base photo of an Alfa Romeo MiTo, but it was pretty crude compared to this one. Cute, but crude. I work in a much higher level of detail these days.

Pass the Salt, Please. No, the Other Salt, The One Next to the Harley Davidson Lighter

A somewhat broader view of the shelving unit I designed and had built. You can see the various fabrics I adhered to the backboard as well as the subtle paint treatment on the shelves themselves. Make sure to click on the image to enlarge it. There are all sorts of small items displayed on it, small in stature, not in meaning or history! Several vintage salt and pepper shakers can be seen, including one where the salt is a wedge of cheese and the pepper is a hungry-looking rat. Also pictured is a vintage Kodak camera, several scale model cars, the head of a nineteenth-century bisque doll, the top half of a ceramic saluting woman, which I dug up from the ground when I was a child, and a very small red-ribbon lapel pin, given to me by my late friend Andy. This photo shows about a third of the case.

Flowers from Here and There

A lovely pink Dahlia photographed at Harkness Memorial State Park. This plant was 18 inches tall, and the flower was only about two inches wide. I think it may have been a dwarf variety.

My Morning Glories the other day. They've reached the top of the vegetable garden fence, and I've strung fishing wire horizontally in three additional rows for them to climb on. The vines are close to 6 1/2 feet tall now and approximately 12 feet wide. I hope to see a wall of blue flowers sometime in September, as they tend to like cool mornings the best.

An undetermined flower, also shot at Harkness Memorial State Park. This flower was tiny, not quite an inch wide, and the foliage was growing along the ground in the grass near some overgrowth. It looks a bit like a scallion flower, but it wasn't. I think it's some sort of succulent perhaps. Those leaves it's laying on do not belong to the flower. The only part of the flower's plant visible is the thin green stem to the right of the bloom. It sort of looks like a Bee Balm as well, but I think they're bushier. Leave it to me to be fascinated by a tiny purple flower in the grass of a state park of more than 200 acres with several formal gardens, lol.

Another view of my Lemon Sunflower and its proximity to the Morning Glories. Note the center of the sunflower. I shot this photo Tuesday late afternoon, and rings of yellow flowerets had appeared in the dark brown center, in an almost polka-dotted fashion from a few feet away. By late this afternoon, they were gone, and the center was completely dark brown again. I'm not sure why, but there are tons of bees and butterflies that have been snacking on its nectar, so perhaps they were yellow with pollen. I love the blue and yellow together, but I have to wake up early to see them together. The morning glories are pretty much done and shriveled up by 11am.

Kitty SIttin' Pretty

Aw, c'mon, take my picture! This is a cat I captured in my digital camera a few years ago. It was sitting in a window downtown and meowed loudly at me until I walked up to the window and took a photo of it. I swear it was posing for me. Probably a lovely way to spend the day—watching all the well-dressed townspeople walking by its storefront home—until it saw me in my paint splattered camouflage cargo shorts and T-shirt, that is. Everything I own is covered in paint, and this pretty kitty probably just wanted a closer look at the slob and his camera.

They're Right at Home Now

Three little black porcelain bears,recline and relax on the top of my curio shelves. My friend, June, recently gave me these three vintage red-eared bears. They fit in perfectly with my fairly vast collection of small vintage items such as can be seen here. The base itself was built for me eight years ago, to my design, by a father of a friend of mine at the publishers. He's a master carpenter, and created this six foot wide by 5 foot high 'book' case for me out of poplar. I have bookshelves, so I designed this with narrower shelves, just for some of my collectibles. I have part of my grandmother's salt and pepper shakers displayed in it, as well as hundreds of other vintage figurines, dishes, model cars, etc. I've painted the unit, distressed it, used pieces of old wallpaper and linoleum, as well as a few printouts of photographs, all under several coats of polyurethane, much like my art that hangs on walls. You can see some of the flowered detail work on the edge of the shelf, covered with glazes and sanded off a bit to make it more aged looking.

A View of the Sound—and Beyond

One of the many expansive views from the grounds of Harkness Memorial State Park I visited Sunday. There are more than 200 acres all leading to the Long Island Sound. You can see the water in the background and in the far reaches of the horizon, you'll notice a long, thin slightly darker island. That's part of Long Island, New York, only about 15-20 miles away as the crow flies. That's a kite in the sky, not a UFO or a spot on the lens... There were several kites being flown all afternoon. Click to see this bucolic scene larger.

Blue Stems, Golden Petals, Magenta Leaves

These photos were taken Sunday afternoon at Harkness Memorial State Park. Not sure of this variety of thistles. They're on their way out, but were quite small flowered, quite thickly branched, and low to the ground. The blue stems were quite eye catching next to the much taller Rudebeckia, or Black-Eyed Susan's behind them.

Mounds of Black-Eye Susans 6 feet tall. They swayed back and forth in the slight breeze.

Another view of the coleus foliage I posted yesterday.

And yet a different grouping of coleus. I don't have any this year in my gardens, but I always have in the past. I'll have to plant some next year. There are so many new varieties.

When is a Sunflower a Lemon?

When it's a Lemon Sunflower, duh! The first of my sunflowers is fully open now, and is a pretty buttery-lemon yellow. The flower is about 9 inches wide and the stalk is a little more than six feet tall with two more buds to come.

Sometimes They Sneak Up On You

The Quiet One—approximately 20 x 23 inches on four vintage clapboards.

M Y  A R T — Some of my pieces shine from the first touch of brush to wood. They scream and shout their need for life and practically grab the raw materials out of my hands on their way to maturity. Others fight me every step of the way, rejecting the paint, bubbling the paper printouts, giving me splinters, and all manner of problems. In fact my process usually consists of trying to save the piece, during which it becomes so much greater than I imagined in the first place. This one however, was different. 

This piece just kept motoring along, peacefully accepting everything I threw at it, never complaining, and never grabbing the limelight for itself. The paint went on perfectly. The images worked themselves out the first time. The accents practically threw themselves on it from the floor, from out of my print boxes, from out of the paint bottles. Until the very end. Until the last few tiny squares of paper were affixed to it, until the last few stripes of paint dried, until the last sanding and clearcoating was done.

Then it was like a halogen pinpoint spotlight was turned on it. It revealed itself to be one of my favorite pieces at the very end of the process. It came into its own at the last second. For that reason, it became The Quiet One, and was promptly sold and on to its next life in someone else's home, lol. Long Live the Quiet Ones!

Repost: Saying Hello to Strangers

This post first ran on April 1 this year. I was only getting a few hits per day back then. I liked this short remembrance, I was just starting to find my voice, so I thought I'd repost it for my "new" readers. Enjoy!

E X P E R I E N C E S — An ordinary trip to the grocery store today, something I do on an almost daily basis, turned into a smile that has lasted the rest of the day.

The sun was shining for the first time in four or five days. The temperatures have been warming up nicely, even with the frequent downpours we've been experiencing. Today however, almost 70 degrees, and instead of riding my bike for speed, I decided to walk and enjoy the sunshine. I also decided to pick up some pansies at the store for my two cast-iron Victorian planters, and it's easier to walk with extra packages than ride. I was in a good mood!

The early spring flowers on sale were outside the store. I walked over to them and recognized an older woman that was also perusing the pansies. I say "recognize" because I don't know her, except for seeing her at this Stop & Shop parking lot occasionally, getting in or out of her vintage Mercedes Benz. She drives a brick-colored 1983 sedan, identical looking to the one I bought my mother a few short months before she died in 1999. This woman's is a higher level model, a 5 cylinder 300TurboDiesel, as opposed to the 4 cylinder base-model 240D I bought Mom, but the exterior and interiors are virtually the same. This smiling stranger was perhaps 70 years old, with dark red short hair, cut in a severely chic style, and spoke with a familiar German accent. I was born in Stuttgart while my father was stationed there, and spent three months of my senior year of high school living in Bremen on a student exchange program. We hit it off immediately.

I remarked on how beautiful the day was, how warm it was getting and how the pansies I had in my planters last year lasted until nearly December. She offered up a bright smile, and told me that pansies had a happy face, and walked over to show me the ones she had picked out.

"Look at the little faces smiling back at us" she remarked.

Pansies are NOT my favorite flower, but I've grown to appreciate them for their long-lives and constant blooms-you can plant them first in the season, and they will be the last blooms of the year. I never noticed that they smiled before, and they do!

She asked me what colors I was looking for, and I told her my house had been recently painted a salmon color. We both said 'purple' at the same time, lol, and moved over to the purple ones. She also told me that "A little white is always necessary in a garden." My mother's late cousin Corinne, who died at close to the age of 100, a few months after my mom passed away, always told me the same thing, "A little white does wonders for any garden." It was like Corinne was saying hi to me, in the guise of this nice red-haired stranger. I smiled at the thought of Corinne.

Then this woman with the delightful German accent told me to pick out a 'nice plant, one with lots of buds, not full blooms." At first I wasn't sure I heard her correctly. That is EXACTLY what my Mom used to say—almost every time we bought annuals together. "Always get the ones with buds, not full flowers, they're healthier." Now I felt like my Mom was with me. I smiled again, broadly smiled.

She insisted I take a certain bunch of purple pansies and another bunch of variegated ones, in whites and yellows, and told me I'd have a very happy garden with these little fellows smiling at me all season. I told her I was sure I would, thanked her and walked into the store thinking of my Mom and Corinne—thinking of another spring, another garden, another year without my parents and family—the people that taught me all about flowers, being kind to strangers, and making the most of your life no matter how much money isn't in your pocket.

A simple walk to the store, a simple hello to a stranger, and I was reconnected with lost family I miss tremendously. I've met a new friend as well, one I will surely give my best and broadest pansy smile to in the future, lol—a tremendous ten minutes of smiles that lasted the rest of the day—life was good this afternoon.

Oh Noes! Another Large Lincoln Sedan!

Chopped from the MKT concept, not the production crossover, this MKL would be a replacement for the Town Car. While I prefer names for cars, for this chop I went with Lincoln's current style of nomenclature, and selected "L" for Long, Limousine, or Large, to follow their MK prefix. There's a certain sleekness to this sedan missing in my other large Lincoln creations. I WILL bring back opera windows, at least slim vertical ones!