Night time with the Jaguar

They are  nocturnal animals, afterall!

We spent the day doing some maintenance around the house. Just some winter-prep work. C painted the areas needing final paint. I mortared some sections of the outside basement wall to prevent any moisture seepage around the windows we replaced a year ago. We made it through last winter withour moisture, but the window still could benefit from some extra coverage. That, plus a  little lawn mowing and that pretty much covers the house work.

Prior to that, we had M's two(!!) ballet classes, and R's private gymnastics session. Both M's classes and R's class time turned out to be good investments. The children are getting SO dialed in to their respective pursuits - the progress is measurable week to week, almost session to session. If that weren't enough, toss into the mix a trip to the bank to finance a car, and it was a busy day!

So, to treat ourselves, we all piled in to the Jaguar for a night-time tour. It's hard to beat a warmish, clear/dry late-summer evening in Portland. Conditions just do NOT get any better than that. The kids each brought a book to read. R - bless his heart - is now reading Dune. M, that precocious eight year old, is reading the Legend of Despereaux. They snuggled up in the back seat, each in their pajamas, and read while we listened to music in KINK-FM,  'cruised' downtown (really! We cruised SW Broadway!)  and then drove around in the West Hills, enjoying some of the prettiest night-time scenery you can hope to find in Portland...before it's gone and winter sets in.

Back in the mid-70's, during the emergence of FM radio, KINK-FM ran a TV ad that showed a young, professional-looking  upwardly mobile couple driving around Portland in the evening, in a Porsche, listening to the unique blend of music on KINK. I may be the only person who still remembers that commercial. It was a low-key, lifestyle-based, cop-this-image proposition they put forth in that spot. Somehow that proposition has stuck in my head. Turns out that our drive was a replay of the drive they took in the commercial.  Imagine that. I didn't intend it, but there it is.