Apr28

Why I haven’t blogged

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Why I haven’t blogged

I’ve been in a more reactive mode than proactive. I’ve been so busy around the house doing, doing, doing, that when I sit down at the computer, I want someone else to do the work while I just read about it. That’s OK every once in a while, but in addition, many of the things I’ve been reading have made me angry – I blog, of course, to speak my mind, but I don’t want this entire site to be bitching and moaning.

The shootings at Virginia Tech were tragic, and many bloggers came out with legitimate concerns, but there were plenty who twisted things to push their own agendas. I wrote about Debbie Schlussel and Dinesh D’Souza, who continued their blogerific contortions trying to turn it into a terrorist plot and evidence that atheists don’t deserve to live, respectively. Plenty of other religious agendas made it into the news and the blogosphere, all with the aim of pinning blame or trying to explain that the shootings were good because they fit into “God’s plan” somehow. Of course, there were also the pro-gun bloggers who insisted that concealed weapons for everyone were the answer. The reality that all across America there are places where people are carrying concealed weapons and everyone knows they’re carrying concealed weapons and the gun violence hasn’t gone down a whit makes no impression. Nor does the fact that if someone pulled out a weapon on Mr. Cho (for example. This would apply in any shooting situation) and Bob Smith pulls out a weapon to kill Mr. Cho, then when Betty Jones and Chad Green and Lenny Gormley come into the room with their guns drawn, they don’t know whether to shoot Cho, Smith, or even each other. Cho might not have gotten a chance to do more than pull his weapon, but innocent people would still have been shot.

The fighting between Bush and Congress about war funding gives me agita as well. Here’s the man who sent troops out without body armor, with inadequate weapons, vehicles, and other defenses, and sent the wounded back to hospitals that were in shameful condition telling the world that if he doesn’t get more money, the troops will suffer and it will be all the fault of the Democrats.

I could write on and on about the things that are stabbing me in the brain, but not only are we all hearing enough about them already, but there are other bloggers out there who have said how I feel more eloquently than I can.

Instead, I’ve been cleaning the house (much easier to do regularly now that I have Adderall) and spiffing up the yard (it’s time. Fall and Winter debris that came after our last cleanup is covering all the lovely new plants that want to poke up through the ground). The kids have been on vacation all this week, so we went to the aquarium, caught up on some TV and movies, they saw friends and each had a sleepover, and yesterday we assembled a new loft bed for Audrey (which means that all her stuff is in the hall, the living room, and my bedroom. Anyone want an IKEA twin bed with storage underneath? Anyone? Please?) I was out all day Wednesday, visiting with Gayle and Barry and Sophie after getting a new crown at the dentist’s office up there, and we also had a couple of contractors over to look at fixing the windows and replacing the siding. We also had to hang around and wait for the hot tub repair guy. It’s working now, but we haven’t used it because the rain started right after. WE have a teensy smidge of sunshine right now, which may bode well for more yard things. Otherwise, I have to help Audrey finish with her room. I hope I have enough vacuum cleaner bags. We could make a whole herd of bunnies with the stuff that collected in her dungeon o’chaos. You know what, though? It’s only Saturday. We have today. We have tomorrow. If we don’t get outside for a few more days, there will be other days. And if we make any progress at all in Audrey’s room, it’s better than nothing. And if we just take a day off and hang, that’s good too. And I will try to keep my blog a happier blog, because I’m really more happy than opinionated. Much of both, for sure, but definitely more happy.

Apr19

NJ Drivers Need Some Clues

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NJ Drivers Need Some Clues

And anger management, too. This happened yesterday, but I didn’t get around to blogging it. I was out and about running errands, and the local roads seemed particularly crowded, and idiocy abounded.

First, I was heading south on Hooper Ave., in the center lane, when I saw ambulance lights flashing. The people to the right pulled over, the people to the left drove up onto the grass median, and I pulled into the right lane. The guy behind me, who was directly in front of the ambulance, sloooowwwwllly pulled ahead until he’d gotten in front of all the cars that had pulled out of the way, and then finally let the ambulance go. Nice, mister. You’d better hope your soul brother or sister isn’t in front of you when you need to go to the emergency room in an ambulance.

So then I hit Route 37, looking for a store that had a good price on something I wanted to get. I get out to the place, and the only driveway I can see is clearly marked “one way, exit only”. I was already slowed down with my signal on, so I continued, thinking that the entrance must a a second driveway. No second driveway. I’m not speeding up, because I now want to get off on a side street to see if there’s a back entrance, and if not, there’s a u-turn at the light a couple hundred feet away. The dude behind me in the black Jaguar was none too happy about this, and he was making sure I knew it. (The light is red at this point, too, I should mention. . .) Honking, screaming, about to burst an anuerism for sure. Now I tend to see people who are driving slowly, slowing down at curb cuts and signs as probably being lost or looking for landmarks, and I drop back to give them room. It’s obvious to me that not only are they likely to see what they’re looking for and move suddenly, but also that they’re a little distracted already, trying to find an unfamiliar place, and you really don’t want to make it worse by trying to intimidate them. Mr. Jaguar apparently has a completely different take on this. He got in his final rampage at the u-turn. Around here, the jughandle is universal, but not consistent. You don’t know until the last minute if it’s going to be before the light, after the light, a dedicated turn, or a bunch of signs taking you through local roads. On top of that, most of them start as one lane and divide up into as many as four (sometimes five) and you don’t know until you’re almost all the way around if you have dedicated left or right lanes, or if they’re combined, etc. Logically, the cars moving from the single lanes would move into the dedicated lanes in order, but Mr. Jaguar is in high dudgeon by now, and drives up onto the grass to pass me on the left as I attempt to get into the straight/left lane. In case I haven’t figured out yet what an idiot he thinks I am, he stops next to me, partly on the grass, leans on the horn a half dozen times, then leans over the passenger seat to scream and gesticulate at me. (I really felt like blowing him a kiss at that point) I think he didn’t read my bumper sticker that says “Has Anger Solved Your Other Problems?”

Eventually, I get back around, figure out that to get to this store you have to enter the parking lot of the store next door and drive all the way through it – it’s not marked at all. It turned out to be not what I wanted, but that’s OK. At least now I knew how the jughandle was set up! I get back onto 37, and I’m in the left lane. There’s some traffic several hundred feet in front of me, not much behind, until a woman in a Volvo SUV comes right up on my tail. OK, no big deal, I pull to the center to let her pass. She does, but as soon as she’s a foot or two in front of me, she pulls into my lane. And slows down. A lot. Then cuts off someone in the right lane and comes almost to a stop, then dashes into the far right lane to exit. As I said, there was not much behind me at all, and the signs for the exit were not hard to see, but she had to be in the front. *sigh*

You know, I really do enjoy driving most of the time, but some days I wonder why. There are far too many people who seem to consider it a competitive sport.