Village

Last winter I was taking a bus home through Boston and thinking how different the buildings were from the ones I grew up with. I was thinking about what it will be like for my hypothetical children to grow up in a world of 1890s triple-deckers instead of 1980s colonials. And I started making these blocks.

They are an assortment of real or mostly-real Boston-area buildings.  The church and post office are from Porter Square; the Goodwill and restaurants are from Davis Square.  Dragon Garden and The Burren are not really next to each other, but they are on the same block.

This is Jeff’s family’s house, where we live now.

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This is the carwash near my work.

The sign rotates between various messages, any one of which should be enough to make you want to wash your car there.

  

 

How much to drive?

I used to be pretty good at driving when I was doing it regularly.  Now that I’ve had access to public transit for  years, I have gotten much worse at driving.*

A few times a year, it would be helpful for me to drive.  So about once a month, I practice driving somewhere.  But once a month is not often enough to get very good.

So if Jeff and I are driving someplace, is it safer if I practice driving (so that I get better at driving overall, even though that individual trip is more dangerous than if Jeff were driving?)  Or is it better to reduce the number of trips I drive, hoping that three less-skilled trips a year are safer than 20 medium-skilled trips?

*I’ve still never had a car accident, so I’m basing this on the frequency of Jeff saying things like, “That was a stop sign!”