In The Shadow of The Flag

Yesterday, as is our tradition in the days preceding Memorial Day, we placed flowers at the grave of Little Girl's daddy's father, who served in the Korean War.

We also took some time to "visit" other family members who are buried in the same cemetery, and when the opportunity to take part in Penny B's May 23 photography challenge using shadows in photos suddenly presented itself ... I took it:



(Name and dates purposefully distorted: this is the military marker belonging to Little Girl's great-grandfather.)

Where Do We Go From Here?

Because I'm an erratic spaz—and a redundant erratic spaz, at that—my tales of Corporate Bathroom Woe contain a rather impressively huge GAP. Which is to say that I haven't written about The Puker yet. But because that story has more of an overall tone of desperation to it—and desperation just isn't that funny—I'm going to move right along, past the molehill mountain I manufactured out of this little incident, skipping over The Puker, and on to a more personal episode.

While I could just come out and TELL YOU that this here blather only happened as it did due to MENSTRUATION, I am really quite uncomfortable being that direct. Seriously. There are SO MANY WORDS in the world; why would I reveal my entire agenda for this post with just one? So instead of coming straight to the point with a straightforward—but suitably genteel, introductory CAUTION—I would instead like to suggest that those of you who are happy pretending that the female orifice otherwise known as "The Happy Place" is always pristine and ready for fun (you know, as opposed to GET THE HELL AWAY FROM ME, THE AMUSEMENT PARK IS CLOSED DUE TO EXTREME FLOODING AND BY THE WAY I WOULD ALSO LIKE TO KILL YOU FOR LEAVING THE @$*%$%@^&@$ TOILET SEAT UP AGAIN, YOU @#$*#@&%^$, GOD WHY DON'T THEY MAKE INDUSTRIAL-STRENGTH MIDOL®?), well. This post may not, in fact, be for you.

(Mind you, I'm not going to go into excruciating detail about THE MENSES—no more than I just did, anyway—but the fact remains that without this particular facet of BEING A GIRL, I would have a story to tell here. Or here, but that little episode was supposed to be a surprise.)

ANYway, not long ago, in a Corporate bathroom not far away, I had occasion to use the feminine hygiene disposal unit situated handily in the stall. If you are unfamiliar with the stunning array of styles of such units—and if you are a BOY, you might well be—I shall briefly describe said device as, in this case, a metal box situated between the stalls, with flappy, swinging lids accessible from either stall, lined with plain brown paper bags. In this way, you see, efficiency of space is maximized, although a little assembly is required to cut a hole in the wall and install these ugly—but necessary—devices.

Anyway, there I was, with something to dispose in one hand, my stunningly unfashionable Corporate-approved pantaloons in some disarray, and one free hand. It's a typical issue for us females, so do TRY to have some sympathy for the awkwardness of the moment, while I rejoice—YET AGAIN—at the fact that The Pill permits me to experience these anti-joyous moments only FOUR times a year now, and then imagine what would happen if, in such a moment, one discovered that the swinging flap-door of the aforedescribed between-stall feminine hygiene disposal unit DIDN'T SWING.

Huh, I thought, grateful for the deadly silence of the bathroom (I was alone, thankyouverymuch), it's stuck or something.

It wasn't really even a conscious thought, being SOMEWHAT PREOCCUPIED as I was with the task at hand (so to speak), and so I rather distractedly and not-at-all thoughtfully prodded a bit harder at the non-swinging lid. Hello, I just wanted to trash the trash in my other hand and return to the copy-paste coma that WAS my task du jour! So in a matter of about a second, I went from a standard tap to a bit of a poke—certainly nothing to write the Ironman competition abot—and then, with a sound that can only be conveyed accurately as a SUDDEN SHRIEK, LIKE THE LAUNCH OF A GREAT AND POWERFUL ROCKETSHIP ...

... that entire between-stall box blasted out of its between-stall resting spot, flew into the commode in the next stall, and clattered to the floor with an UNHOLY metal-to-porcelain-to-tile racket that HAD to have transcended the hallowed, quiet, sanctity of the phone booth bathroom stall.

I crouched a bit, to peer through this new window—with intense and renewed gratitude for the resumption of crypt-like silence, and saw the formerly between-stall box lying haplessly on the floor directly in front of the next stall's toilet, which appeared to be injury-free. In fact, it had a bit of attitude, like, "Oh yeah? You think you can take ME? Why, your flappy doors didn't even have the balls to COME WITH YOU on your stupid attack, you dumbass feminine hygiene disposal unit."

As for me, I still had a problem. Well, now I had several problems, and it's surprisingly hard to concentrate when your pants are askew and you have something to dispose of but can't quite reach the garbage, because it went and JUMPED THE FRICK OUT OF YOUR STALL. My other problem was that, after briefly sputtering for the right invective for such a situation, I could NOT. STOP. LAUGHING. That's right, despite full-onset of menstrual mortification—also commonly experienced when a tampon falls out of your purse—and a rising tide of introvert embarrassment avoidance—OH MY GOD DON'T LET ANYONE COME IN HERE NOW—I was laughing like a hyena at the dentist. It was tear-inducing laughter, no less, which is the only thing that makes it possible for me to commit this tale to cyberspace.

Anyway, I did manage to one-handedly pull my pants together, wrap the other THING up in a wad of toilet paper, and zip into the other stall unseen. I made a deposit in the on-floor disposal unit and then shoved it somewhat crookedly back into place, not stopping to confirm that the flaps were flapping or that such a power-shift would not occur again.

And now, I'm on the hunt for a DIFFERENT Corporate bathroom. Because one's got The Puker and one's got Unstable Disposal Units, so despite a fairly major case of trepidation, I'm thinking there's got to be quite a range of bloggable features in the various other bathrooms on campus.

Who knows? Maybe one of them is even a NORMAL BATHROOM.

Meat Hunter

If you haven't heard the term "meat hunter" before—and even if you have, because I know how you people think, and it can be a wee bit warpy—it means simply this: a hunter who's purpose in partaking of the predator/prey process is, entirely or primarily, to consume the hunted. While the term doesn't carry an obligatory negative connotation, it's my opinion that those who consider themselves "true sportsmen" (regardless of gender), more often than not look down upon the lowly meat hunter.

I could get into the ethics and philosophy of the various factions of hunting fans—and I would have a good time doing that, too—and from my general and blather by-product-specific perspectives, I can understand virtually any hunting style—with the notable exception of trophy-hunting—but again, that's not exactly related to my point.

A "sportsman" will be the first to tell you that hunting is about more than meat. There is a spirituality to it, though it varies on just as many levels as any other spirituality, from the deep and devotional followers who live in constant anticipation of their next, profoundly sacred pilgrimage, to the casual, weekend-worshipper whose interest is evenly divided between getting out of routine household chores and the somewhat-droning sermon at hand.

Thus, the True Sportsmen tend to disdain—to some degree—the Meat Hunters. Even if the meat hunter might tremble with the same fervor that the true sportsmen experiences from time to time, they are not the same, for the meat hunters will not make an effort if to for the fact that they intend to eat what they kill ... they are less likely to seek new sites, pursue new game, or pass up on a Sure Thing for the chance at a Maybe Bigger.

As a (lapsed) meat hunter who lives with a true sportsman, I am very well aware of the distinct differences in our philosophies. I no longer choose to partake of the (often dubious) "thrill" of the hunt when faced with inclement weather, or an increased density of hunters in the field, or even an increased fee for a license. I do not have so great a need to hunt that I see a fair exchange in my comfort—and hours of sleep—for a chance to stalk wild game in the great outdoors, as opposed to Little Girl's daddy, who will happily make do on three hours of sleep during turkey season, for example. As for me, well, I no longer concede that wild turkey tastes THAT much better than an on-sale Butterball®.

Of course, neither does Little Girl's daddy, for the opportunity to put meat on the table was never his primary motivator in hunting. While we both enjoy the rawness of nature and the challenge of providing food in the very basic sense of such a venture, to me, it's more of a necessary evil than a way of life. I do not enjoy practicing the necessary techniques and calls, and I certainly do not savor the expense of time and energy involved.

No, when I hunted—mainly pheasant and pronghorn antelope, and all of it in Wyoming—I hunted for food: for the ability to take my necessary ingestion of calories all the way from the field to the dinner table, getting my own hands dirty and, in so doing, acquiring complete and total understanding of what it took to put a steak on my plate. There was no hiding behind a plastic tray, neatly wrapped in cellophane and presented with the clean, gloved hands of a grocery-store butcher ... not at all. There was sweat, there were tears, and there was blood—the sight of it, the scent of it, and the slowly-cooling warmth of it.

As it should be for everyone who chooses to eat meat, I think, but I was not going to go there, was I? :)

Musically, I make a more enthusiastic meat hunter than I did with respect to wild game—I don't mind investing my time at Amazon, listening to samples and comparing notes. I don't mind the discomfort (and the chair that sits before the computer can only dream of rivaling the lousier goose blinds I've had the distinct displeasure of crouching in, I'll have you know), or the effort of tracking down a snippet I've heard on the Internet or radio (ask me about the time I got enthralled with a defunct band called Shun). I do what I have to in order to procure music that moves me, and I do it with the single-minded focus of the dedicated religious zealot.

However, while I can wax poetic and go off and on and on and on about my favorite styles or qualities or songs, I cannot discuss it with knowledge so much as I can with instinct, and I cannot analyze it with surety born of intellect so much as heart.

In other words, dear musical sportsmen, I can savor the steak or the hamburger just as much as you can, but I can't tell you if the beast was corn or grass fed. I like what I like, but I don't like it because of the notes of flavor that are well-understood by the musically-literate ... I like it because it feeds me, fills me, and nourishes me. All of which are excellent reasons for liking music, but none of which will place me in the haloed spotlight streaming out of the clouds of expertdom and thus make me look and sound like I know what the heck I'm talking about.

I thought I'd mentioned it before, but as my search of the archives has not turned it up, perhaps I have not: I once attended a presentation by my old graduate school compatriot, The Professor (this professor, not this professor, whose excellent-metal acquaintance I made much later) that addressed, in very technically impressive terms, The Physics of Music. I was never so good at The Physics as I was at The Math (or even the Chemistry, which makes it all the more ridiculous that I went after The Physics in graduate school), but I may never have been so in love with The Physics as I was that day, when The Professor—a double-major in physics and music—dissected, with deep and adoring abandon, the conjugal relations of the two.

I don't remember the details, but I remember the surprised thrall in the room, and we were (the lot of us) rapt, which was particularly remarkable because we all hated the class—a torturous, required course that was intended to improve our largely limited instructing abilities—so that we might better serve as Graduate Teaching Slaves Assistants. When The Professor took his turn on the assignment that included a real, live presentation, though, we all forgot about the annoying course instructor—whose favored disturbing habit was quoting HIMSELF to us for our edification, or maybe just to piss us off—and we basically just tried to keep up.

The Physics, as it pertains to music, you see, is freaking AMAZING!

And when it was over, and The Professor's praises were being sung in off-key but ravingly-enthusiastic tones by He Who Quoteth HisSelf, I remember my own awed and congratulatory response. I also remember knowing that I would never really understand that which I had just heard ... I knew it with absolute and profound certainty, too, because I knew it with my HEART—yet another supporting fact behind the "never really understand" feeling, 'cause if my head HAD been capable of wrapping around it, I would have had at least a little glimmer of "a-HA!" to go with my embossed impression and glittery amazement.

The true sportsman—of game or music—may find it hard to imagine (and sometimes, to accept), but I think that there are those among us meat hunters who are able to nurture our spirits simultaneous to nourishing our bodies. But given the physical reaction that I have to certain songs and specific musical phrases, it's blatantly obvious to me that even though my taste may be deemed hamburger-chic by the musical elite, my soul's savoring it with the same worshipful reverence as if it were tenderloin.

Now if you'll excuse me, all this babbling has made me awfully hungry ...

On a Certain Special Day, I am Awarded a Certain Special Cup

I have a little pop quiz for you guys today, and it doesn't really require its own title, which is a good thing, because I can't think of one that's appropriate and yet doesn't totally give the answer away. Although maybe stating the obvious would be just fine here, because I don't think there's anyone unfamiliar with Murphy's Law or its direct application to the days of the week.

Anyway, the object of the quiz is for anyone who so wishes to correctly identify the day of the week upon which the events I'm about to hyperbolically describe took place. Are you ready? Good, then wipe the sleep out of your eyes and the drool off of your chin and let's begin.

So there I was, class, heading straight to my very first physical therapy appointment for my fuckered-up shoulder. It was a lovely day, with a light breeze and a hint of itchy-eyes/watery-nose in the air—happy spring, and gesundheit!—and I'd never been to the Bent Building, but I had me some highly adequate directions from my referring physician and I was eager to make some progress away from not missing a single allowable dose of anti-inflammatory medications and sleep constantly interrupted by each and every ill-advised roll-over.

Up the stairs I went (and up and up), because there wasn't anything wrong with my legs, and into my appointment I was promptly ushered. My therapist was bright and smiling and efficient, and she showed me stuff to do and told me what was wrong—regular readers may recall that it was basically, "Your posture sucks and you could have dealt with the strain of that, but bashing your shoulder into concrete was just the last straw for those poor, abused muscles."—and then she massaged it. The massage was deep and intense, and it brought tears to my eyes as the therapist easily identified the tense, mottled ball of muscle that I'd been whining about for weeks.

Suffice to say, perhaps, that it was a very productive—if somewhat painful—appointment, and when it was over, I hauled ass back to work because I had a lot to do, fresh from my very first Corporate-sponsored business trip, where I'd done a LOT, but none of it the routine, mind-numbing, soul-depleting busy-work I was typically paid to do.

And there, dear snoring readers, on my keyboard, was a note. The note was from Boss Lady. And the note said: "When you get back, see me."

Being a sensible person and a mature adult, I experienced a moment of sheer panic, rapidly overwhelmed with anticipatory pissed-offedness. She's going to tell me I'm laid off again! I'D BETTER NOT BE FREAKING LAID OFF AGAIN! What? Common sense? I would have none of that stuff, thankyouverymuch, but I had no interest in prolonging this unexpected, shoulder-tensing, stress-laden moment, either, so I promptly made my way through the Cube Maze and stopped inquiringly at the entrance to Boss Lady's substantially-proportioned workspace.

"Hello!" she said with a warm smile that I copied with only an entirely overt air of suspicion.

She folded her hands and continued to force a grin, which didn't do much to ease my concern—nothing, in fact, which is rather less than "much"—and she offered me a seat, which I promptly took.

"Well, you're it today!" she said.

"It?" As in, "TAG, YOU'RE IT?" I hope I won something. Because I'D BETTER NOT BE FREAKING LAID OFF AGAIN! I thought, as I continued to grimace grin.

"Oh?" I said, with unstated benignness, and I neatly folded my hands on the table in front of me. And then forced my knuckles to unwhiten by methodically relaxing my hands.

"Yes," Boss Lady nodded, her smile still in force. And then she sighed, and I could finally smell the hint of wryness behind the smile, JUST as the Boss Lady got down to the task of Revealing The Truth:

"You've been selected for a random drug screening."

And I tell you—HEY! WAKE THE HECK UP! This is where it gets funny!—I was never so happy to have my civil rights trampled upon by Corporate's Self-Righteous NEED To Know What I'm Ingesting On My Private Time. Because, HEY! I'M NOT GETTING LAID OFF AGAIN!

Yet.

I was smiling now in earnest, but I quickly shook off my sudden and over-happy relief, and paid attention. Which was good, because Corporate had quite the well-structured "random" drug-testing procedure, of course, and I had a mere hour to accomplish my second Pee-Test inside of my not-quite-six-months of employment. At which point I was intensely grateful for my on-going Morning Diet Pepsi habit.

"Do you know where the Bent Building is?" Boss Lady sweetly inquired.

"Actually, yes! I just came from a physical therapy appointment there."

Whereupon Boss Lady—who was already aware of my graceless, shoulder-smashing incident and the flurry of medical follow-ups—kindly inquired how that had gone, and I briefly but enthusiastically answered her.

"You just need to go up to the Xth floor ..."

"I just came from there!"

"... and go to the Occupational Therapy desk ..."

I truly couldn't help myself now, and I laughed.

"That's right across from the Physical Therapy desk!"

Boss Lady laughed, too.

"I could have called you there!"

(And she could have, except I hadn't given her my personal cell phone number, and I still haven't.)

"Well, I'd better get going, then," I said, still chortling, and obviously not concerned with the fact that Corporate had their suspicions about me.

(Little Girl's daddy, when I relayed the story to him, simply said, "They must know what music you like. Hell, I'd drug-test you, too!")

And so, off I went. Back to the VERY BUILDING I'd come just from, back to the VERY FLOOR I'd just been to—though I'd never, in 39 rather odd years, been to that building OR that floor before—and at the desk across from the desk where I'd just been, I marched up and grinned at the guy behind the desk, and I said:

"Hi! I just won the prize at Corporate! Do you have a cup for me?"

(He laughed, and not even in a "Oh great, another freak that thinks she's funny" kind of way.)

AND NOW, class, pray tell ... what day of the week was it?

(As if you didn't already know, but the answer's in the comments just in case.)

Class dismissed.

The Road More Traveled

Little Girl told me about it, and I'm glad she did. I would never have guessed that the trails the worms made along the edge of the road during a spring rain would be so interesting, prolific, or photogenic:

Products and Services

It was just one of many news blurbs during the morning commute—typically, they splattered against my ear drums like heavy rain onto pavement, visibly discoloring the surface but causing no real damage in the process. THIS one, however, distinguished itself immediately: not because the newscaster and attendant disc jockeys mocked it (they mock everything, and that's why I was still listening to them instead of pressing PLAY on some mood-lifting metal-raging) but rather because of its legal significance.

What should have been insignificance, in my opinion, was worth arguing in the Arizona state Senate and—oh yes indeed—creating a LAW (or trying to; I have not bothered to see how this bill did in the House, and I'm not sure I want to know). And while it irked my Libertarian sensibilities to hear about what seemed to me to be a colossal waste of time and unnecessary government involvement, it also tweaked my sense of the ridiculous and made me bristle with the same indignation sparked by the alteration of common terms to suit the politics of the time.

And so I made a note—first mental and then physical, because I don't know where I keep putting them, but it doesn't really matter because those damn mental notes need WAY better adhesive anyway—to find more information on the Internet, and eventually, that's what I did. (As an aside, I'd like to note that when a site, such as the one in the preceding link, demands for you to REGISTER with them—"It's FREE!"—for the privilege of printing their fine article on the political debate over whether a breast implant consitutes a "product" or a "service," then do not fall for it, but go ahead and use that fine tool known as COPY-PASTE, right into another program that cares not for the registration of people it will likely never see again.)

Anyway, here are the words of Senator Pamela Gorman, R-Anthem, on the subject:

"We're just trying to say: 'Listen. If you have surgery and they have to put anything in your body that wasn't original to when you were born, it doesn't make it a product,'" Gorman said.

"It's still a service," she continued. "And we're just trying to clarify that."

See, this more than anything else—like the fact that previously, the law made a distinction between breast implants put in "for strictly cosmetic reasons" and those inserted "to correct a medical problem"—is what bothers me. Let's say, for example, that I hire "Dirt Sucks" to come clean my home. I think we can all agree that if they clean it and leave nothing behind but dust mites trapped deep underneath the disgusting surface of the carpet, then what "Dirt Sucks" provides is a SERVICE.

However, if "Dirt Sucks" comes and installs a central vacuum system in my house and leaves that behind for me, I would have to say that they had provided me with a PRODUCT. Sure, you could argue that the installation itself was a service, and I'd be okay with that, but that GREAT BIG HONKING DEVICE that remains, THAT, my friends, IS A FREAKING PRODUCT.

I can understand the state of Arizona wanting to do the right thing here, and I have to agree with Ms. Gorman that there CAN be a "gray area" between what constitutes "purely cosmetic" and "reconstructive." Granted, I would guess that it's not all that difficult to see the difference, but hey, maybe I just don't know boobs as intimately as I think I do. Regardless, I simply do not understand how it can possibly be argued that a THING is a "service" ... it's not! IT'S A PRODUCT.

Which brings me to my beef with the tax system as it currently stands in general. Fairness is a noble goal, and I would not argue against it as a principle if my life depended on it, although, if there were cheesecake involved, I might have to rethink that stand. But if, in our zeal to create more fairness in a world which admittedly doesn't seem to give a shit about the concept, we start weaving a hideous web of "exceptions" that require so much maintenance (i.e., TIME and MONEY) to maintain and enforce by virtue of sheer complexity, are we really promoting fairness, or are we serving to create chaos out of simplicity?

When we start redefining inherently obvious terminology to provide a small tax break on an item that—whatever else it may be—is, in fact, an ITEM, I have to believe there's something wrong with the picture. The inherent unfairness of our existing taxation system aside—and, really, the code's ever-increasing exception list only serves to emphasize the disparities and general sloppiness of the massive beast—it isn't fair to anyone with common sense to present an argument that shouldn't need to be made in the first place: because regardless of your reason for getting it, surgery is a service, and a "medical device" is a product.

And there is just no way that those definitions should constitute "news" to anyone.

Not-So-New Glasses

Long-overdue photos of Little Girl's "new" glasses.

She has a pink pair:



and a purple pair:



(both of which have been lost, sometimes for days at a time. *sigh*).

Caution: Contagious

I don't think I'm going to actually do it, but it did occur to me that my blog could use a new name. Something like, "Erratic Digressions of the Boring Kind" or "Occasional Depressed Digressions." (That last one has the bonus of acronyming down to the simple but appropriate "ODD," but it's a little too far away from the established pattern to be tolerable in the anti-change corner I do so adore inhabiting.)

The other thing I've been wondering in my blogging absence—well, ONE thing, as there are many things that I wonder, not the least of which is WTF is WRONG with Corporate's many bathrooms, because I seriously do not believe my trials there will cease until or unless they decide to become the third company to lay me off, not that I'm obsessing about that or anything, although, yes, I AM—is why "catching up" sounds so much like a noxious disease, at least in my head, and/or when applied to blogging.

As you can kind of tell from the title of this here blather, I've concluded it is simply the obvious, literal root of the beast that has struck me so—not unlike, perhaps, the SCARY-ASS TREES that totally stole the battle scene in Prince Caspian, which I just saw on opening day with The ListMaker, because HELLO? when ELSE would two long-time fans of The Chronicles of Narnia see the next movie in the series EXCEPT on opening day?—and not anything deeper or more profound than that.

Which doesn't make for much of an interesting blog entry, perhaps, but excuse me, since when is this blog about entertaining the masses? Right. Pretty much never.

Anyway, it's not that nothing's been happening here in wyo's world—quite the contrary, in fact. Alas, it appears that nothing more enthralling than an average, ordinary mid-blog crisis has kept me from blogging, and it's only moderately less boring that my mid-blog crisis has extended fat tendrils of tenatitivity into my other writing endeavors as well. (It's not even "just" my novel that's been affected ... the limited writing that I do by day at Corporate has been liberally coated in the contagions, too, like a peanut-butter sandwich assembled by a three year-old, using his fingers as the spreading implement.)

However, I haven't been petrified by fear of failing, or flummoxed by inability of interesting. No, not this or any other mixed-metaphor of blended alliteration has stymied my ability to get the heck out of bed and pound the keyboards on a semi-regular basis—I just haven't done it. I've been obsessed with my apathy and I've been SO into not-caring that I haven't even questioned why I don't care ... because I just don't care!

(I'm not even embarrassed to admit this, which is almost embarrassing in and of itself.)

How DO you—the "general" you, unless a particular "you" has some significant or perhaps amusing personal insight to offer, in which case, please feel free—convince yourself to care about something that you do not care about? You may well be able to give a fair performance of caring, but I'm not sure it's possible to invent an honest interest in something. Even if an interest has previously run rampant—like a raging fever that burns up all other considerations in its own egomania and self-centeredness—it's a difficult proposition, at best, to reconjure it up where it has vanished.

I have to think there's some magic involved behind the scenes when it comes to interest and drive: some unquantifiable, precious, LIVING magic. You can wish for it all you want, but it rarely responds to your wishes, preferring to arrive unannounced and unexpected.

And that is, perhaps, exactly why you can't stop preparing to receive it, even when it deserts you, even if such desertion comes at a very painful time ... a time when you might say you need it the most, and you are left alone, bereft, and echoingly empty. Creativity of any sort is a great boon at such a time; it doesn't ease the pain but at least it keeps it company, while apathy only serves to invite greater pain, with longer echoes.

(Just so you know, I kind of thought this entry would be funnier than it's turning out to be. Because I really did fully intend to discuss how "catching up" is a bit of disease, firing up like a rash on one person and spreading to the next, and the next, and then the next thing you know, ALL the kids are wanting to jump off the same cliff, although because the vector is electronic, it's only a virtual cliff.)

I do feel better now, though. And I will agree—however grudgingly—that it's better to write without motivation than not to write at all. But I will not even begin to suggest that it's better to read something that was written that way.

Changing My Spots

Because I know at least one of you—which might, in fact, be ALL of you, especially after so many recent and repetitive hiatuses (or would that be hiati?)—reads this sporadic site through a feeder, I also know that you might not notice the fact that I've changed my spots here. Unless, that is, I ANNOUNCE the change, and ask Little Girl here to assist me, thereby exponentially upping the blog's Cute Factor (however temporarily ... hey, THAT works!).

(Here she is!)



So if you can't see it through your feeder, please check out my actual site and—if you're feeling especially bold—let me know what you think of it!

(A real post is coming later today. Yes, really. And then on a REGULAR BASIS ... really ... possibly even while Little Girl and I are BACK IN WYOMING for an upcoming week-long VACATION! Where we will be taking oodles of pictures, and trying to avoid the GIANT PUMA that is roaming the woods near the cabin where we'll be staying with The Ornithologist.

We Can't. WAIT!)

Picking the Moral of the Story

The behavior of cellphone-talking, traffic-weaving, non-signaling blonde in the beige luxury car was virtually indistinguishable from any other obnoxious driver with whom I consistently find myself sharing the road. And despite some habits that any after-school children's show host would frown upon, she and I DID share the road. In fact, we were neighbors more often than not than during the 15 minutes after which I initially noticed her.

She flew by me right after the point where the posted speed limit took a nose-dive from 65 to 45. Considering that I was going 55 at the time, I can't say for certain that she had let up on the accelerator at all, although I would be willing to bet a round at the bar—*waves to The ListMaker*—that she had been going substantially faster than 65 prior to that point.

I saw the car seat handle sprouting up out of the center of the back seat when I caught up to her, and spotted the towheaded child on one side. Still, the woman was clearly deep in conversation with the party at the other end of the cellphone, and I wondered whether the baby was sleeping, and if not, if the other child was amusing, annoying, or ignoring the baby.

I wasn't in a cursing mood, being absorbed in my own exhaustion and unwillingness to drive to work at all, much less SPEED there. I noted what I saw in an absent-minded sort of way, although some annoyance clearly wormed its way into my dark soul despite my purported ennui, because when I happened—without trying—to pass the woman a mile or so down the road, I found myself smirking broadly. I thought, I really should pay more attention to the speed-demons who feel it necessary to cut in front of just ONE MORE car, so I could see for sure whether they are (as I've often suspected, or at least hoped!) more often than not unsuccessfully in getting THAT far ahead of those they seem so hell-bent on passing.

Of course, the logistics of such a study would be impossible, because unless you DO keep the driving villain in sight, how do you determine if they have reached their destination an appreciable time ahead of you, or if they have simply turned a different way? I pondered that for a bit, as well as my delight at the sight of a mini-van ahead of me refusing to let the beige-car chatty chick cut in front of it to make a certain popular turn. And of course I felt chastened by Fate—or some facsimile thereof—because there she was, ahead of me again, and so SOON after I'd been so smugly pleased to have passed her.

I switched CDs at the next light (okay, I did it WHILE MY CAR WAS IN MOTION, whatever ... it was slow enough that it COULD have been at a light) and frankly forgot about the woman, who I was sure had it all together and was probably taking her kids shopping in the nearest metropolis and had oodles of spare time and no need to pass me anyway. Screaming metal mayhem often has the happy effect on me of removing my obsessing mind from routine annoyances.

I did see her turn off ahead of me at one point, but I was working hard on shrieking in harmony with the beautiful chaos that IS my precious IN FLAMES (I do love their latest album, but we will talk about that another time, my dears). I drove on and I made my turns where I needed to, and even waved at the construction crew that smilingly directed me around their work area.

I almost didn't notice the beautifully-coiffed beige-car driver when I saw her again, waiting for ME to turn at the intersection one block from Corporate parking. And although I admit that I laughed evilly then, I stopped when I saw her turn into the daycare across the street. For all my assumptions were just that: ASSumptions—the evidence in my rear-view mirror showed just another working mom like me ... better dressed and more comfortably charioted, to be sure, but more alike than I would like to admit.

It was a warmly moral moment, I tell you, and I mean it. Although less due to the fact that I'd made erroneous assumptions—which I admittedly have been known to do—regarding the driver, and more because the tortoise DID beat the hare.

Yeah, well, I know which moral of the story I am going to focus on ... you do what you like. ;)