The day's mechanics.

"In case you want to know," my father said a few minutes after I stumbled downstairs at 10 a.m., "the mystery trip will commence at 11 a.m." I poured myself a cup of coffee, read the comics, and stumbled back upstairs for a little more Walden, then got ready with plenty of time to spare.

An hour later, we were on the outskirts of Indianapolis, where we ended up at a Chipotle (where neither of my parents had eaten but which my brother and I tend to adore) and then at a camera store I haven't visited since I was a teenager. I'm happy to say that I will be taking a monopod into my transatlantic life. After a few hours at one of the city's most chi-chi malls, we headed homeward with our various purchases--red bowls, Leatherman tools, a hip flask, silicone hotpads, my monopod--and my father and I got to work, fixing my driver's door rear view mirror.

My beloved Lexingtonians' street is very narrow, and they've also turned out to have a new batch of neighbors who seem to be fraternity guys (or similar). Sometime during the days I was visiting, someone--perhaps those new neighbors, perhaps some random wayward driver--hit my wing mirror and shattered its glass, something I didn't realize until I was leaving and checked said mirror to see whether the street was clear before pulling out. By the time I made it to Indiana on Wednesday, I'd realized that the damage wasn't confined to the shattered mirror but also involved the mirror's housing. Forutnately, I am the child of incredibly crafty parents.


Within an hour of our beginning the project, my father and I--but mostly my father--had disconnected and disassembled the mirror, epoxied and fiberglassed the damaged bits back together, covered the shattered glass with a substitute mirror surface that will at least get me home safely (and, to be honest, will probably be the car's driver's side door mirror until I am home again next summer), and reinstalled the whole thing. In the process, we even found a tiny, fragile mud daubers' nest hidden behind the mirror. My father worked some wonders with chunks of the butyl rubber he keeps in the garage for occasions just like this one. And now I have a functional mirror again. My financial contribution to the project was $9.52. My father's was the cost of the epoxy and the mini-bolt of fiberglass. Not too bad, I'd say.

For the rest of the evening, we kicked back for The Bourne Identity. I suspect that I've said nothing about my love of the Bourne series, a love which has only increased now that I can see how much the third film echoes tiny details from the first one. I want to have a film fest.

But for now I find that another day has ended. Sometimes I am surprised by the swiftness with which that happens.