Escape to Seven Words

Even had I wanted to write this weekend, the events of the last two days made that impossible. I barely had time to take the dogs for a short walk Saturday and a short river walk Sunday. I would happily take another couple days off, if I could. I suppose, however, that I shouldn’t complain too much. Come Friday, (or Miraday, as we now like to call it), I will have ten days off in a row. I will be using five days from my PTO, two weekends and the Labor Day holiday. I am likely going to do some kind of “staycation” as people around here like to call them. I am not certain that particular crossbreeding of parts of the English language should be encouraged. Much like the person on the mastiff forum who seriously wondered about breeding a mastiff with a Pomeranian. There are things in this life one should just never do for the sake of humanity, let alone the poor animals.

Were I intending to travel, I did just get a new car! My dad and I drove two hours Saturday to a big car sale down in Mead, Washington, where I traded in my 1999 Honda Accord and picked up a 2002 Ford Escape. I am now a prince in white Ford. Haha. Sorry, bad joke.

I did not drive the Honda down on Saturday, so the salesman offered me a good trade-in value having never seen the vehicle. I warned him that no one would want to pay $1200 for it, but he made the offer and put it down on paper. In the end, he saved me a lot of money. The registration and the license plate expired this month, for one. Apparently it is cheaper to register a new car. There were also a variety of aesthetic and mechanical issues that I hadn’t taken care of and now no longer need to worry about. This is good.

So far, the Escape is great. It has plenty of room for dog, camping gear and sundry. There’s a roof rack, so I can borrow the kayak mounts and kayak from my parents and go play wherever I want, not just down the river outside the house. That’s definitely happening over my vacation. It handles our driveway better than my dad’s old truck does or the Honda did, and has good clearance and 4 wheel drive, so I need not worry about scraping nor how bad the road gets in the winter. These are all good things.

I now have two things checked off my list of short-term goals. I have my dog. I have my vehicle capable of towing. Now I just need to find a catamaran and a girlfriend. Getting the reliable things checked off the list first. The lady can come when life decides it is time. I am not wandering with my eyes closed though! Mira just fell right into place when I decided to look for a dog, she happened the perfect mix of a couple breeds I was considering. The Escape fell into place when I started looking. My dad was down in the area on a job, stopped by the lot and told the salesman what our criteria was. They didn’t have anything on the lot and by the time he got home, the salesman had called to say they had the Escape just arrive. It is exactly what I want. I told my dad, “If only I could be so lucky in finding a woman.”

Be careful what you wish for, right? Well. . . I have a song about that too.

Ella, what do you have

against taking chances

I’d be willing to risk

getting what I wish for

if you would only give me one

Life moves forward and I have no reason to complain. Don’t fight the current. Put a kayak in and go with it!

I am going to cheat on my word count now. When I was driving down to Mead on Sunday I had lyrics running through my head and had to text them out. Safe? Unlikely. Kept my lyrics? More important. Ha. The following selections are what I like to call tidbits, meaning incomplete pieces of something I may or may not finish later. I don’t know that I will ever write the song about chances and statistics, but perhaps. I like the sentiment. I know I want to write “Seven Words.” Note the excessive wind in here? That’s because they’re rough drafts.

If you lay out a deck of cards

statistics say

there’s a higher chance

monkey became man

than the cards turn up

in the order that you played

What I think this means is

the chance that there’s someone, somewhere

out there just for me

is a sure thing,

yeah, a sure thing.

Seven Words

(Dedicated to Kvothe and Denna)

There are seven words you can whisper

to make any woman fall in love.

I’m still searching for my seven words

and the one to say them to.

May I have this dance with you?

No one moves me like you do.

Hold on, I’ll never let you fall.

With you, I am naught at all.

The idea of seven words comes from Patrick Rothfuss’ novel, The Name of the Wind. (More about the book in my recent post of reviews.) In it Kvothe is told by two of his teachers who study the power of words and names that there are seven words that will make anyone love you. Whether it is true or not, I like the idea. It also makes for an interesting challenge, making a song from it. If you hadn’t noticed, each line has seven words. Here are a few seven-word lines from the books that Kvothe says to a couple women. In context, they’re very strong lines.

I’m just wondering why you’re here. (Denna)

For all that, she lacked your fire.

I need you to breathe for me. (Denna)

What do you think? Does your heart have a seven-word key?

And a thousand words, goodnight.

-m0rg4n