Our Fog

      Every once in awhile, Indianapolis remembers it started out as a swamp, and throws out a pea-soup fog of impressive thickness.

     Oh, there's fog all over central Indiana this morning, tapering off into Illinois, but the heart of the city holds it cupped, like someone with an unexpected handful of overcooked oatmeal and nowhere to put it down.  From the front windows of Roseholme Cottage, the houses across the street are mist-wrapped mysteries, hazy shapes bulking from the gray that might conceal anything (but probably only nurses, retired dog-walkers and a guy who deals in used vehicles of questionable provenance).

     My car has gone somewhat foggy, too.  A week ago Sunday, I worked a late shift and on the way home,  noticed the normal-beam headlights were unaccountably dim.  Most of my night driving is on well-lit city streets, but there's a stretch along a nicely-wooded road, and thinking back, I realized I'd been having more and more trouble there with the headlights of oncoming cars.  I'd been blaming bright HID and LED bulbs, but those didn't suddenly appear on the market last November.

     It's time to replace the headlight bulbs of my car,* a task that carmakers have been making more and more awkward all my life.  It looks like the passenger-side change requires removing a large plastic cover (held with snap-in plastic rivets), unbolting the windshield-washer reservoir and setting it aside, popping out a twist-to-remove weatherproof cover (with wires through it) and reaching into the back of the light housing, where the socket comes out, bulb and all, in another quarter-turn-twist assembly.  At that point, you can finally unlatch the bulb from its socket and reverse the whole process.  The driver's side requires a similar procedure, minus the big plastic cover and bottle of windshield goop.

     Or I could just go to the oil-change place and have them do it while getting fresh oil and filters, which is what I will probably do.  It's filthy work, outdoors, and well, I'd as soon not.
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* My previous string of Hyundai Accents were successively named The Hot Needle of Inquiry, The Hotter Needle of Inquiry and either The Hottest Needle of Inquiry or The Needle of Inquiry So Hot You Would Just Plotz.  The Lexuses (Lexii?) have been much nicer, and I have never been sure if they should be The Pride of Chanur, The Solar Queen, or Unexpected Expense, but in either case, the present one rates a II after it.  (I tried The Skylark of Space for the first one, but it didn't stick.)  And bonus points to anyone who recognizes where all of the ship names comes from -- or all except the last, which was my own invention but is unlikely to be unique.