Front
Passenger-Seat
Dreams

Lisa W. loved having front passenger seat of her HHR SUV all to herself. As the mother of three children under the age of five, it really was the only place she could call her own. The closet that she converted into a sewing nook when she first got married to Howard had since been overtaken by a tribe of My Little Pony dolls and a shelf overflowing (and I mean overflowing) with thin little books that only appeal to the toddler set. So all of her fabric, which had been neatly rolled up like little towelettes and arranged by color, was now sitting in a "Pet Gold Plus Cat Litter'' plastic tub on a top shelf in the aforementioned closet. Lisa also used to have the back-porch as an exercise centre: she had a stationary bike there with a calendar tacked to the wood wall. There she tracked her minutes on the bike. Now, five years after the fact, the bike is used a rack for drying bathing suits and towels year-round (the kiddies have swimming lessons in the fall and the winter). And the calendar dated 2003 is somewhere on the floor covered with fall leaves that somehow meandered into the porch.
Anyhow, Lisa was happy to have the front passenger-seat to herself. She figured the law required it! After all, children weren't allowed to sit there, they had to be belted into the back into their mandated seats. So that passenger seat became her craft center: six swatches from Emmaonesock were carefully draped so she could gaze at them during traffic stops, the ribbing from a Knitty.com sweater in another seat quadrant. Oh yes, a few jazz CDs from the Barrington Library were in another neat little stack (until the next close-call with another SUV, of course). Oh, Daren, Layla and Mia hated when Ella Fitzgerald started to warble, but sometimes it was the only thing to calm them when the highway home from the pediatrician's office morphed into the dreaded Dominick's parking lot. Besides, it was a chance for Lisa to pick up the swatches, particularly that lovely soft, stretch-corduroy brown/gold/mulberry striped fabric. She could see that as a cute jumper for Layla if she only had the time....