Hell is Other People

(Or as Jean-Paul Sartre originally said, "L'enfer, c'est les autres.")

Let me make one thing perfectly clear, as Richard Nixon was fond of saying. I know how to drive in the snow.

The thing is, no one else does.

We have had a very mild winter so far here in the wilds of suburban New Jersey. In fact, there was only one other storm that I recall, and it was before Christmas. But today the Gods of Winter decided we could not escape completely, and proceeded to dump snow followed by sleet and freezing rain on us.

In my usual fashion, I stayed late at work because the traffic is always worse earlier in the day when it snows. So I finally meandered out to discover a winter wonderland.

Unfortunately, because of the mild winter, I think people were even worse at driving in the snow than usual, from being out of practice. And my calculation was wrong: there were still plenty of them on the road. All driving badly.

My route home involves a rather poorly-planned interstate highway that goes up and down some major hills. This highway was not plowed. Nor was it salted. Traffic was bumper to bumper, crawling up and down the hills, with cars sliding back and forth and weaving in and out.

I took my place in the line and sluggishly moved along, wearing out my clutch as I repeatedly had to stop and then start again because people were driving so slowly. This is especially dangerous going uphill, since stopping results in getting stuck and spinning one's wheels. Luckily this did not actually happen to me and I managed to get off an exit and get onto the back roads - back roads that blessedly had no other cars on them.

From then on I was able to drive sensibly and consistently in the snow and made it home - an hour and fifteen minutes after I'd departed work. Usually it takes 20 minutes.

So in honor of my grueling trip home, here are some haikus, or haiku as I guess they are more properly called:

Snow and sleet falling
Many cars crawling uphill
Danger lurks ahead.

Don't stop here, idiot!
It only makes your wheels spin
Your car will get stuck.

Get your foot off your brake
While driving down the steep hill
You will only skid!

Get off of the road
If you don't know how to drive
You're holding me up.

Driving in the snow
Is not very hard to do
Following cars is.

My Very Bad Day - and a Meme!

Sunday was beautiful - the skies were blue, the sun was shining, the humidity was low. It was a perfect day to sit out on the deck and enjoy the Sunday paper, followed by performance of various tasks that I had been intending to do. But it was not to last. At 10:30 my in-laws (whom I love dearly, don't get me wrong) called and asked if they could come up and visit. How can we say no? So they did. And thereby my whole afternoon was shot because by the time they left I was no longer in any way motivated to do the things I had intended to do. I did manage to plant a couple of flowers, but that's it.

After walking Diva in the park we went grocery shopping. DH took Diva around the block a few times while I did the shopping. And here is where my Very Bad Day really got under way.

I was going along minding my own business in the paper products aisle, and realized that we had toilet paper on the list. So I looked around and saw that the type we use, Scott's Extra Soft (in the handy 6-pack), was on the top shelf. I am very short. In fact, I barely make 5 feet. So anything on the top shelf is always a big challenge for me. So I decided I'd carefully pull the pack that I could reach, out from under the top one that I couldn't reach, and hope the top one just slid down to take its place. I've done this before, really I have. And it's worked.

However, it didn't work this time. The upper pack catapulted off the top shelf and landed on my face. Yes, my face. Not my head, not my shoulder, but my face. And I was wearing a pair of these:

...which you can imagine are not really very sturdy. "Sh#t," I said, more loudly than I'd intended, as I felt the instant decomposition of my glasses take place and saw the earpiece tumble to the floor. A woman walking up the aisle kindly handed me the earpiece and I sheepishly said, "This is NOT my day!"

I put the earpiece in my purse, tried to balance the rimless glasses on my nose with only one earpiece, and finished my shopping. I figured we could just glue it back for now, enough to last until the eye doctor appointment I happened to already have on July 9th.

But that was not to be either. DH informed me that the glue we had would not work on the earpiece and lens. He refused to try. So I said boldly, "I'm sure I can do it!" and grabbed the glue. I opened the glue improperly, managed to drip some on my perfectly good capri pants, and also found out that he was right, it wouldn't stick. In the meantime the glue on my pants was soaking through to my leg...and I discovered it was eating into my leg like acid and burning!

I pulled off the offending piece of fabric, realized my pants were ruined, and stomped off in a huff to order more capri pants off the Internets. I am very spontaneous in this way. Later DH told me acetone could probably get the glue off, but by then two pair of capris were already on their way to me. (Because of course if I wreck one pair of pants, I deserve to get two new pair!)

So today, I just came back from my emergency eye doctor appointment, having put in an order for $750 worth of brand new Silhouettes brand rimless eyeglasses - in purple titanium. Really cool. I needed a new prescription anyway so at least if I was going to wreck my glasses the timing was right.

Now...on to the meme!

Kuanyin of Who's Yo Mama has tagged me for this meme, in which I answer a list of questions, then tag 5 other people to do the same.

The Instructions: Remove the blog from the top, move all blogs up one, and then add yourself to the bottom. So here goes:

Life With Heathens, What Floats My Boat, Homespun Honolulu, Who's Yo Mama?, and Mauigirl's Meanderings.

What were you doing 10 years ago (5 Things)

1. Helping to start a neighborhood association
2. Worrying about my dad's upcoming open heart surgery
3. Traveling to San Francisco during Fleet Week (in October)
4. Spending time with my half sister
5. Working for a different boss (two bosses ago, same company)

What were you doing 1 year ago (5 Things)

1. Helping my mom move into her apartment
2. Traveling to Canada to be in a friend's wedding
3. Enjoying our first year with Diva
4. Trying to save a historic house
5. Starting my blog

Five Snacks You Enjoy:

1. Cereal
2. Oreos and milk
3. Ice Cream
4. Fruit
5. Potato Chips

Five Songs That You Know The Lyrics To:

1. Anything by Simon and Garfunkel
2. James Taylor's Fire & Rain
3. Meatloaf's Paradise by the Dashboard Lights
4. Most of the Clancy Brothers' hits
5. The Weavers' Good Night Irene

Five Things You Would Do If You Were A Millionaire (I'm changing this one - to Billionnaire - a million is nothing nowadays!):

1. Save old historic houses and fix them up for adaptive reuse
2. Pay for my friends' kids' college tuitions
3. Buy an apartment or house in all my favorite places: Hawaii, London, Paris, Amsteredam, San Francisco and Lisbon and travel around the world, staying for long periods in each place.
4. Get a massage every day (Kuanyin, I'm leaving your answer here right as it is! I agree!)
5. Give money to environmental and animal welfare groups

Five Bad Habits:

1. I'm a slob
2. I don't exercise
3. I chew my cuticles
4. I procrastinate (on work and other things too)
5. I get caught up in things and get very enthusiastic but don't follow through

Five Things You Like To Do:

1. Read
2. Travel
3. Post on my blogs
4. Spend time with friends
5. Play with my dog

Five Things You Would Never Wear Again:

1. Shoes that hurt my feet - my goal is eventually to only wear flip flops!
2. Clothes that aren't my colors - any time I buy something on sale that is in a color that doesn't look good on me I end up never wearing it. So I have to stop buying these things.
3. Pantihose (except on very rare occasions)
5. Shorts - in public anyway
6. A bikini

Five Favorite Toys:

1. My new Samsung phone that opens in both directions and has a QWERTY keyboard
2. Our digital camera
3. My new wireless laptop (thank you, Big Corporation)
4. Anything my dog finds enjoyable
5. Can't think of #5

Five Things You Hate To Do:

1. Actually get dressed and go to work (it's OK once I'm there)
2. Answer the phone if I don't know who it is
3. Go to the dentist (does anybody like to go to the dentist? I don't know anyone who does!)
4. Take the dog for a walk in the rain
5. Go outside at all in the winter unless it's the day after a huge snowstorm and everyone is off of work and there's that camaraderie you get among neighbors who are shoveling out. But I'd rather pay someone else to shovel it.

Now I'm passing this meme on to others.

Liz of Finding Life Hard
Elizabeth of Inside Betty's Head
Amanda at It's All About the Walls

I'm just doing 3. If anyone else wants to join in and do it, go for it! And anyone I tagged - it's just for fun, only if you want to! ;-)

Facts or Fiction?

This morning I looked at the front page of the Star Ledger, which is a legitimate newspaper in northern New Jersey, and saw this headline: "Idol Voters Crown Jordin." On the front page. As news.

I've been noticing this phenomenon more and more lately, even on my favorite news radio station, 880 WCBS. They mention who won this week's American Idol as part of the daily headlines.

When did this start? How did an entertainment show become part of our reality? Something mentioned in the same breath as headlines about Marines dead in Iraq?

Perhaps it all started when CNN was created and the producers realized they needed to find something, anything, to fill the 24 hours that had to be filled with news. As a result we got the non-stop coverage of the OJ car chase and subsequent trial; the Mormon girl kidnapped from her house; Jonbenet Ramsey; the Unabomber; but at least these were actual news events, however hyped up they were.

But the ratings needed to be pushed higher yet...so 24-hour news started covering entertainment figures such as Jennifer Lopez, Britney Spears, and Anna Nicole Smith. This must be where it started to go downhill. Now it has come to this - a popular TV show's events are reported as news on the front page of the paper. And don't even get me started on the non-stop coverage in our papers of the final season of The Sopranos!

But to me it all has a kind of surreal feel to it, like watching Nero fiddle while Rome burns. TV and other media have become the "opiate of the masses," keeping the citizens happy and ignorant while dark forces are working behind the scenes changing our country while no one is watching.

Luckily, many of us have not been sucked in to this vortex. We may be unable to avoid the constant barrage of trivia completely, but it doesn't mean we have to support the "news" sources that keep pummeling us with it. We do have a choice. We can watch The Daily Show.

Yes, The Daily Show is considered "fake news." But in reality, I get more "real" news from The Daily Show than I ever do on regular TV news programs, which, even when reporting real news, focus only on local events (Toddler Falls From 3rd Floor Window; Family Left Homeless by Fire in the Bronx).

Jon Stewart actually shows real clips of real news, including the latest news from Iraq (usually bad, and therefore not shown on regular TV news programs), or press conferences featuring "W" and his latest pronouncements, which again, get very little coverage on regular TV. Stewart's commentary, while witty, is always right on the mark and skewers both sides of the political aisle for different reasons. Often I hear things on the Daily Show that I wouldn't have heard about otherwise.

The interviews are also frequently insightful and serious. Tonight he had Al Gore on the show talking about his latest book, The Assault on Reason, which is what got me thinking about this subject in the first place.

Gore's book is all about how reason has gone out the window and decisions are being made that have nothing to do with the facts at hand. He argues that "the marketplace of reasoned debate our country was founded on is being endangered by a variety of allied forces: the use of fear and the misuse of faith, the distractions of our entertainment culture, and the concentrations of power in the national media and the executive branch." (from Amazon's review). That pretty much sums up the mess we are in right now, and it is getting harder and harder to imagine being able to pull the country back from the precipice.

Sometimes I wish I were like my husband. He has developed some kind of specialized filter on his consciousness. He has no inkling of the existence of the icons of popular culture. He reads the newspaper every day and somehow any mention of J-Lo (or Bennifer), Anna Nicole Smith, or Britney Spears, let alone Paris Hilton, never enters his conscious mind. Even my mother, who abhors the entertainment-as-news phenomenon as much as, if not more than, anybody, cannot avoid knowing who these people are. But DH? No. He has no idea. I'm so envious of his blissful ignorance!

Pondering on Peeves

I like alliteration, did you notice?

Ruth has tagged me for another meme - fair exchange, after all! I'm not going to tag anyone on this as I'm running out of likely suspects. So whoever reads this and wants to participate in this meme, just write me a comment and let me know so I can see it on your blog!

This one is easy: Name 5 pet peeves that you have.

This is so easy for me because I once wrote down every pet peeve I had about driving. Although I can't seem to find the list, I think I remember enough to choose my top 5 of all time! Here goes:

1. Pet Peeve #1: When you're driving behind someone who is poking along at about 10 miles per hour below the speed limit, and just as you get to a light that is turning yellow, they slow down enough to make you miss the light, but they suddenly speed up and get through it while you sit there fuming.



2. Pet Peeve #2: When you're driving along, minding your own business, at a nice clip, and someone suddenly pulls out from a side road, cutting you off with little room to spare, and proceeds to go 10 miles an hour below the speed limit. Oh, and on top of that, there was no one behind you for miles and they could've just waited until you went by to pull out.



3. Pet Peeve #3: When you are late for a meeting, and it never fails that it is THAT day that a road is blocked off, the traffic is piled up, the police are checking inspection stickers, a lane is closed, you get stuck behind a schoolbus that stops at every other house, or there's an accident on the highway. Sometimes all of the above. If you weren't late, none of these things would have happened.



4. Pet Peeve #4: People who tailgate you when you are in the fast lane going 85 miles per hour.
   


5. Pet Peeve #5: Buses. As you're driving along a crowded road in the middle of a downtown area, the bus that is pulled over to the side of the road picking up passengers completes its task and proceeds to pull back out into the road without any regard to your car's existence.

It's all enough to give me Road Rage!

Not necessarily the news

One of my pet peeves about both the network and cable news channels, which I'm sure is a pet peeve of many concerned people, is the lack of real news on any of these shows. What passes for the news in the United States is pitiful.

When returning from other countries I am always struck by the fact that our news stations are so limited in their scope and play up so many trivial things while people die and wars go on elsewhere.

In that spirit, the wonderful creators of JibJab have come out with a new video mocking the media and making this very point. Check it out here:

JibJab