A camaro in its natural habitat
It's been statistically shown* that dog walkers are more likely to find dead bodies than non dog walkers. I hope we never have that kinda luck, but being out for walks** with the dogs means we notice lots of little things in our neighbourhood. Things like who uses pesticides on their lawns, whose gardens look great, how long a house has been for sale, and who is always arguing when we walk by, that kinda stuff.
Not far from our house is something in a yard which we both think is a perfect encapsulation of life in the 'shwa. I could write paragraphs trying to explain its socio-economic status, geography, and history, but for those not familiar with the area, we're practically a suburb of Toronto,*** but are still firmly entrenched in mullet country complete with big raging SUVs and trucks, white bread restaurants, and blue collar charm. I saw another minivan today that had spinning rims.
In fact, there's a perfect illustration of the 'shwa just a few blocks away. On the way to the P-A-R-K**** we walk past this: 
It's what I call a camaro in its natural habitat: overgrown by long grasses, rusting out, and on blocks. Sadly, the happy days where its mullet-sporting owner would blast the tunes on a sunny day windows down, drumming on the steering wheel, head banging to the beat, honking at "chicks" and flashing the devil sign with his tongue sticking out look like distant memories. Apparently the owner was a Zeppelin fan. I think the car has climbed its last stairway to heaven.
Ah the joys of living in the 'shwa.
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*I completely made this up, but so often when they discover a body on the news it's someone who was out walking their dog.
**Or runs, but lately detaching my ass from the couch takes tremendous effort so there hasn't been much of that.
***Safely the most multicultural city in the world. Unfortunately the 'shwa offers little in the way of diversity - last I heard it was 94% white.
****If it isn't spelled in this house the dogs whip themselves into a frenzy. I think the train of thought in their heads goes something like "Park? We're going to the park? Really? Park? Did she say park!? OOOH park! Park park park park park! we get to go to the park! Really! Park!"
9 comments:
I think I saw a nature special on the camaro in its natural habitat. They're pretty shy, so it's great you got such a perfect photo!
Be careful. I hear that Camaros in the wild can become feral. It may trap you and force you to cut off your jeans and discard your shoes.
I love the L-ZEPP license plate. That's classic!
My mom and I had an Old English Sheepdog named Holly and we had to spell C-A-R out whenever we said it because if we didn't, she'd go nuts. She cottoned on after a while and knew we were spelling CAR when we spelled it out. It got to the point where we couldn't jingle our keys without her bounding towards us, floppy ears flying in the wind.
I love the L-ZEPP plate too. Awesome!
I can almost hear the voice-over now, with the British-accented dude from the nature show, "Notice the wild camaro, camouflaging himself in the deep brush. He is of species Leddus Zeppelinus, a difficult-to-tame camaro, known for its flashy rims and hubcaps..."
lol...love all those asterisks! And that license plate is hilarious.
We used have to spell out "walk" with our dearly departed dog, too :)
Oshawa is more diverse than you think. Maybe not largely visible minorities, but still very diverse nonetheless.
Check out: www.fiestaweek.ca
Perfect! I now know what I'm getting to get back at my neighbors for complaining about my weeds. A Camaro to hide among them!
I'll probably put it up on blocks, too, just to really tick them off.
Roro: we seem to have the perfect habitat for this species right here. There are even some which are which are not on blocks.
Whinger: I'll be sure to stay away. my thighs look awful in cutoffs. Thanks for the warning!
mama_tulip: me too! I didn't even notice it until I looked at the photo more closely. I don't think our dogs will catch on to us spelling park - they haven't yet! We saw some old english sheep dogs at he park yesterday!
Izzy: I thrive on tangents, so the asterisks are my way of trying to stay on topic.
Anonymous: Oshawa, last I heard was 94% white, and, having lived in Ottawa, Windsor, Hamilton, and Toronto before this makes it not seem very culturally diverse. We'll try to stop by the festival though, and I do agree there are some great Caribbean restaurants here, and I've tried a couple of Thai places which were none too bad.
Jozet: I'm really not too ticked off at the neighbours- I find the camaro rather funny. Oddly enough our neighbours beside us pulled a couple of the dandelions on our lawn and left them there in a big cump for us to discover and presumably as a 'hint.' We threw them back on their driveway. Thanks for stopping by!
Oh, great! You found my car! They can keep it, but I want my license plate back.
In my house we have to spell everything: "food", "walk", "car", "dinner", "treat", "I'm going to send you to the pound if you don't stop barking at the neighbors". You know, they usual stuff.
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