The city towed my car.

I take my eyes off it for six lousy weeks and they tow it. Unreal. I haven't called to check how much I owe in parking tickets, but since I was illegally parked for at least four street-cleaning days, I'd say I'm well overdue for a ticket-paying sweep.

The area where I left the car is now under road construction, or, more accurately, destruction. The city probably towed a lot of cars from that two-block stretch of road. When I walked by today, there was a trench in the road about three feet wide and twenty feet long. It looked about three feet deep, too, judging by the workers standing in it. This city is under perpetual construction.

I'm not particularly aggravated because if you keep a car in Boston, sooner or later it'll get towed. I'm surprised I made it several years between towings this time. The tow lot is fairly convenient and it's open 24 hours most of the week. And they take credit cards. Grab a cab to the tow lot, swipe your card, drive out. Minimal pain.

The only hitch in this plan is the remote possibility that the car got booted before it got towed. The Denver boot is a nasty bright yellow device which clamps onto one wheel of your car and renders it immobile (except via flatbed tow truck). The boot can only be removed by one of the Transportation Department guys who put it on. The catch is that you have to show up at City Hall in person to pay the fine before they'll unboot it.

I'm hoping, fervently, that this is not the case with my car.

Generally, they only boot for the most egregious pile-up of parking fines, like $500 worth of outstanding tickets. I'm inclined to think that mine was towed for the road work and not for the fines. So I should be safe. I hope.

The plan at the moment is to split for Maine on Sunday, Boston Transportation Department willing. My cousin has a big place on a lake in western Maine, and a large group of family tends to congregate there in August. I need a few days out of the city, a few days of paddling around the lake in a kayak and eating terrific food cooked by my cousin's chefs and drifting off to sleep at night to the sounds of the loons on the lake and the waves slapping gently against the breakwater. A few days of pine-scented air and beach-sandy feet and no phones.

But it's all contingent on the car. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.