words for sunday

"Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God:

But only he who sees takes off his shoes."

--Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Calling Home

Don't know why I am only now alerting my 15 readers to the presence of this book in the world.

Full disclosure: I am related to the author, Rebecca Flowers, though not by blood (just incredible affection).

So, but anyway, in the interest of perhaps alerting one perfect reader for this perfect summer confection of a story, here goes.

Our heroine, Prudence Whistler, is the kind of person who likes to have her life all planned out, and when we meet her, pretty much everything she'd worked for has blown up in her face. Fired from her job, then unceremoniously dumped by her wimp of a boyfriend, she finds herself with no Plan B.

Luckily, Prudence Whistler is also the kind of person who finds clean pajamas and a DVD of The Godfather to be the perfect spiritual solace. She's tough, tougher than she ever imagined. And she becomes the unwilling companion to a spastic, ill-tempered cat. And her single-mom sister shows up, pulling lots of baggage behind her. Then there's the cute but gruff guy who owns the coffee shop up the street...

The book is witty, often wise, always warm, and definitely a lovely way to unwind.

Yes, it's summer, people. Escape.

Hypermiling

Here's a movement whose moment has arrived--at precisely the speed limit.

It's called hypermiling, and it uses techniques that tend to maintain constant speeds and eliminate braking. Hypermiling maximizes your mileage with potentially dramatic fuel and cost savings. There is some evidence (a little quirky) that it could actually break up traffic logjams, too.

And all you have to do is drive like me.

For years I have driven passengers crazy with my tendency to let my foot drift off the accelerator, my slow-rolling stops, and my overall lack of speed. I haven't done it precisely on purpose; I daydream a bit, you might say.

But today I consciously drove the hypermiling path, and I am here to say that it takes some getting used to, but is a very pleasant way to game the road. Since I drive in stop-and-go city conditions, it's more than a little hard to break the habit of scooting back and forth between the accelerator and brake, but maybe by the end of the week I'll have the hang of it.

And I might be driving more safely, I think. What with all that looking around to see who's speeding, who's stopping, and who is in between.

I've been getting about 18 in the city, and at $50 a fill-up, I'd sure like to gain seven miles or so per gallon. Fingers crossed.