From the mouths of back seat riders

It's amazing to me, sometimes, what emanates from the back seat of our car when Cleo's along for a ride. Yesterday, for example, after taking her to Dundalk to get our sewing machine repaired, she asked if she could use my phone to take a few pictures. Sure, I said, and handed her the phone - and received, a few minutes later, a suite of interesting compositions including the image above, which I enjoy for its slightly inclined perspective: the view, precisely, of an almost-four-year-old.

Sometimes, though, her contributions are less bucolic, less aesthetic. "Dad," she began a few weeks ago, when we were driving to our vehicle emissions exam, "is getting married boring?" Well, I replied, suddenly snapping out of my vague driving-induced reverie, um, no, at least not if you choose the right person. Which, and I mounted my parental soapbox, you should certainly try to do when you're getting married. And then a small wheel turned, in my head. Um, Cleo, I added, curiously: why do you ask? "Because," she promptly replied, as if entirely ready for my question, "Mom said it is." Hm, I thought - and this time it was me using the phone, to ask L. if there was something I should know. No, came the pleasant response, I'm entirely happy. And then Cleo fell asleep, and I spent part of the time at the emissions plant wondering about the mazes of influence that are our children's minds.

As I said, though, yesterday was rather less heavy. And as we drove through largely Latino Highlandtown, we passed a car with its windows down, pumping salsa music onto the street. Cleo watched, and then wisely announced that "Music is everywhere." I smiled, and remembered writing a blog entry to that effect, about three years ago, in which I simply commented on the wonderful ubiquity of the music that flowed about our stroller walks. Indeed, I though, music is everywhere. And then Cleo, again, from the back seat: "Except when the electricity goes out and no one can play music anywhere."

I suppose that's right. Not even, in fact, in the back seat.