what are you going to call it?

A few months after I moved to Alfred, toward the end of 2009, I bought a 2001 Subaru Forester from the proverbial lady who'd had it since she bought it new and which had been maintained by Collins (my brother's regular mechanic) since she bought it. It was Royal Blue and just had to be named after my mother whose favorite color was blue. Her full name (the Forester, that is) was Frances P. Forester but her nickname was Fanny. And, yes, I did enjoy the play on fanny.

Fanny went to Collins for an oil change and look at the power steering a few weeks ago. The framework for the power steering and the back supporting members showed significant enough rust, and inspection was coming up in December, that the Collins said it wouldn't be worth repairing the rusted out bits. Sadly, Fanny was taken to pasture, being in this case retirement to my brother's stable of vehicles to serve as a parts car for Jeanette's 2002 Forester and a stick-shift training ground for my nephew who is now permitted.

Meanwhile, I drove the Blazer from the stable as I thought about what to do next. I wanted a simple car and dreamed of the Fiat Cinquecento. I spent a Saturday with Rachel in Rochester doing test drives. The Fiat was just as cute as could be but it really is small. The column behind your left shoulder is fat because there's an airbag in it. It causes a bit of a blind spot. Though the steering was tight, the stick-shift throw was not. On to the Honda dealer. They didn't have a stick-shift Fit so I test drove an automatic. It was a competent car and gets high ratings but it didn't thrill. On to the Toyota dealer to look at a Yaris. They had a white 2010 Yaris stick-shift with only 17K miles and it was a dream to drive, zippy, really nice short stick-shift throw. I talked to the salesman and they've gunked up the dashboard. The 2010 dash is beautifully simple; it's been turned into a space ship control panel in the current model.

I spent Saturday evening until Monday morning weighing the Fiat versus the Yaris and hadn't reached any conclusion. It would be nice to have a car with a local dealer so I went over to test drive a Ford Fiesta and it rather answered all of the dilemmas. The basic S model is simple. The stick shift was fun to drive. The steering was tight. The gas mileage is pretty good. So ... you guessed it. I settled on the Fiesta. But what was I going to call it?

The Fiesta was black and I was still enthralled with the Fiat so I thought about Franco Nero but he's not an actor that I am especially familiar with or enamored of. Giulietta? I also looked at the new Dodge Dart which is based on the Giulietta by Alfa Romeo, and I love Giulietta Masina. Other names swirled about but I guess I figured it needed to be Spanish, as in fiesta.

Hieronymus Bosch has always (as always as possible) been one of my favorite artists. The Spaniards call him El Bosco but the Prado website uses Hieronymus as his forename. More swirling thoughts. In my rough (9th grade was my only study of the language) Spanish, I came up with Hieronymus, el Bosco de la Fiesta. I checked with Elizabeth who speaks English, Spanish, and Hungarian (and probably more) and she looked at me as if I had said "the cow who jumped over the moon." I explained how the Spaniards call the painter El Bosco, the Bosch deriving from his living in 's-Hertogenbosch (or den Bosch or Bois-le-Duc or the duke's woods). She said it was just weird but at least it wasn't vulgar. You might have La Fiesta en el Bosque (the fiesta in the woods). As a matter of fact, googling that will get you 19 million responses including a Gran Fiesta en el Bosque sponsored by the Fundación Global Nature.

Anyway, meet Hieronymus, el Bosco de la Fiesta.