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25 Things

February 11, 2012 by Jaci Dawn

I just read 25 interesting things about my friend, Jodi, over at the Hidden Springs Hillbillies. Since today’s photos of birds didn’t pan out and I really don’t have much to say about anything else in my life, I thought I’d share 25 things about my self. You may or may not know these things (and some of you may roll your eyes and say, “ain’t that the truth!” about me).

1. I am an introvert. I thrive on being alone and could go days at a time without speaking to anyone. I would love to live in the middle of the desert or woods with no visitors.

2. I wanted to grow up to be a horse. If I couldn’t be a horse, I wanted to be a boy.

3. I wanted to be a singer. I have always been disappointed that my voice is flat and I can’t carry a tune. I have an ear for music, but I have no musical talent at all.

4. I have an excitable temperament. I hate that about me.

5. I love rocks. Sparkly rocks, dirty rocks, colorful rocks: granite, marble, agate, sandstone, lava, obsidian. I pick them up, put them in my pocket and then I can’t bring myself to toss them back.

6. I want to write a novel and I spend a lot of time trying. I have a file drawer of things I have written: short stories, essays, poems, and the odd attempts at novels.

7. I am a professional procrastinator and that is what I am doing right this moment.

8. I am allergic to sagebrush, bitter brush, rabbit brush, scotchbroom and cottonwood. I am also allergic to Timothy grass but I can handle Orchard grass and alfalfa without so much as a sneeze.

9. I want to be an old cat lady with an overgrown garden when I get old.

10. I believe in faeries.

11. I want to see a UFO. I’d like to see Bigfoot, too, but from a distance and only if I have my camera ready.

12. I want to see a mountain lion in the wild (same rules as Bigfoot apply). Also a wolf.

13. I am afraid of horses. I love them, I will ride them, I need to smell them – but I am afraid of them.

14. I wanted to be a veterinarian but I flunked high school biology because I cannot memorize Latin or body parts. It’s some sort of mental block.

15. I am physically weak and have no endurance or ability to hike long distances. I hate that about myself.

16. I am a terrible cook. (Don’t roll your eyes, Levi!)

17. I am a great baker.

18. Once you are my friend, I consider you my friend for life.

19. I’m better at good intentions than I am at actual follow-through. I also hate this about myself. This relates directly to friendships, not work. I’m the opposite at work.

20. I don’t really know all those birds. I have three to four guide books I dig through to identify the birds. Same with wildflowers. I have to look them up.

21. When I am reading a good novel, I become part of the novel. It is inadvisable to startle me.

22. I spent my entire 6th Grade year sick in bed. I cut out paper dolls and designed their clothes while I was home alone. It was psychosomatic but my parents and the family doctor treated it as if it was a real disease. I love them for that because they eventually empowered me to rise above it.

23. I gave myself a personality do-over in the 9th grade. The person I am today is a result of a choice to not be the person I was in 6th grade. No one will ever make me feel that bad about myself again.

24. I open mouth and insert foot and when I do, I feel terrible about it for weeks.

25. My absolute favorite rock band is Led Zepellin. My favorite female vocalist is Emmylou Harris. Male vocalist is probably Hoyt Axton. My favorite music genre is folk/bluegrass and I don’t have a favorite performer within that genre.

I need to quit procrastinating. ttfn

 

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The Devil’s Holes?

February 8, 2012 by Jaci Dawn

I read a short article online today that piqued my interest. I love mysteries, and this one is about as mysterious as a mystery can become. (I love sentences like that, too).

“Eastern Washington Hole is Shrouded in Mystery”

In short, there’s some sort of bottomless hole somewhere in Eastern Washington that goes all the way to the center of the earth (or at least halfway there), but no one can find this hole. However, it must exist because this guy named Mel Waters was interviewed on a radio program (“Coast to Coast” with host Art Bell) in 1997. Unfortunately, the area where the hole supposedly is can’t be viewed from a satellite because the military has placed a large white block on that piece of information.

Well, with that much information buzzing around in my head, I thought I needed to investigate this phenomenon a little more tonight and I really needed to blog about it.

I typed “Mel’s Hole” into my search engine (okay, I typed mel’s hole, no caps) and hit the search button. The fifth hit (fourth, if you don’t count images) proved quite interesting: Mel Waters and the Devil’s Holes.

Apparently, this hole was used as a dumping ground in an eerily similar manner as the hole in The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (except that hole eventually would fill up, but not until many years after swallowing the bones of the heroine). That’s a pretty good book, by the way, and a decent movie.

Mel’s Hole never filled up. No one could ever hear junk hit the bottom of it, either. Mel claimed it was at least 80,000 feet deep (15 miles) having used fishing line and a roll of lifesavers to determine this.

Mel wasn’t the only person to make claims about the hole. A Native American named Red Elk made claims about the hole and its properties, and he claimed the hole was a whopping 24-28 miles deep and was connected to Mt. Rainier somehow (in effect, it wasn’t all vertical drop).

The story includes Men in Black, those nifty little white lights they shine at people to erase memories, and flying saucers. OK, the nifty little white lights were in the movie with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, but the Men in Black and flying saucers figure into Mel’s Hole.

I guess the Men in Black won because Mel moved to Australia for awhile and rescued wombats. Yes, wombats. Adorable little marsupials which can leave very nasty bites on human beings that cross it (from the Wikipedia article: Humans who accidentally find themselves in an affray with a wombat may find it best to scale a tree until the animal calms and leaves.) Charming little marsupials.

Mel Waters returned to the US for some reason and ended up living among the Basque sheepherders of Nevada. Mel and the Basques discovered another hole somewhere in Nevada (and it wasn’t a mine shaft, although abandoned mine shafts are rife throughout Nevada and some of them plummet hundreds of feet straight down: my mother used to warn us as we went out the door to hike in the sagebrush to “beware of holes in the ground and rattlesnakes.” Well, she left off the rattlesnakes part because that was a given, but she always worried about one of us kids falling into a mine shaft).

How was that for a run-on sentence?

Mel and the sheepherders experimented with the new hole and – well, read the link above. I don’t want to spoil the story, but it sounds like the plot to a Sigourney Weaver sci-fi horror flick.

Of course, that hole’s location is hush-hush according to the code of the Basque sheepherders.Or else it is hidden in Area 51.

Somehow Charles Manson figures into this mystery as well: he made reference to a “bottomless pit” from which he and “The Family” would make their raids. Anyone who was old enough to read the newspapers in 1969 knows that OJ Simpson’s trial for the murder of his wife was not the “Trial of the Century”: the trial of Charles Manson and the Family for the Tate-LaBianca Murders was. Simpson just got top billing because people used to like him and he sold orange juice on television. Nobody ever liked Charlie Manson except the immediate members of The Family. And he’s ugly.

I digress.

The point is… Wait, there’s a point?

It’s a mystery. Is there a hole (or are there holes) that go deep into the center of the earth? Does StarGate exist?

One thing I can tell you for certain is this: if I ever stumbled onto a deep well that I couldn’t see the bottom of, I would *not* be even remotely interested in spelunking down into it to see where it goes. I’m claustrophobic and have a hard time going into lava tubes with my husband and family. I survived Ape Caves (another mystery story that involves Bigfoot) 0nly because I was with a group and there’s a light at the other end.

Still, it makes you wonder if there is a government cover-up or if Mel was just a really good liar.

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Spa is Open!

February 5, 2012 by Jaci Dawn

Well, my female Ruby-crowned Kinglet did not make an appearance this weekend, the little hussy. She could have had the courtesy to make a second appearance at the bird feeder, especially after I dutifully put out thistle seed.

harumph.

However, the American Robins (Turdus migratorius – sounds like something that got it’s Latin name on an episode of The Road Runner) made a huge showing on Saturday morning. In fact, you could say they decided the spa was open.

It started with one bird.

Then a second one flew in.

“Whew! What a flight! You could move over and let me land, Buddy!”

Then there were five.

Three in committee and two out there doing the scouting work.

A pair of naturalized citizens dropped in to share some gossip.

Mrs. English House Sparrow (Weaver Finch) and Ms. European Starling whispered over the bugs in the grass.

The Dark-eyed Junco enjoyed a spot of peanut butter suet.

Mrs. and Mr. House Finch were just shopping at the big warehouse store, stocking up on sunflower seeds.

Ms. Pileated Woodpecker was soon beak-deep in the dried insects stuck inside the suet.

She’s more than twice the size of the robins and considerably shier.

The opposite spectrum of the woodpecker world popped in to check out the amenities at the Spa.

Hello, Master Downy Woodpecker. Fine day to look for a mate?

OK, that was rather dorky commentary, but it has been a long day.

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Well Dang.

February 3, 2012 by Jaci Dawn

Jaci:

Thank you for sending the photo. Your bird is actually a Ruby-crowned Kinglet. The female kinglets lack the ruby-red patch on the head and can easily be confused with vireos. You can see photos and read about kinglets here:

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Ruby-crowned_Kinglet/id/ac

I have updated your report to read Ruby-crowned Kinglet instead of Cassin’s Vireo. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Happy FeederWatching,
David Bonter

Project FeederWatch

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

www.feederwatch.org

 

**** But all is not lost. I now know the Kinglets are back and possibly nesting, so it is time to put out the thistle feeder again. ****

 

 

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Breaking News – Lab Questions Vireo Sighting

February 1, 2012 by Jaci Dawn

HA! Cornell Lab of Ornithology is questioning my identification of a Cassin’s Vireo. Now, I probably should be all nervous and upset, but I am pretty durned excited.

I sent them both photos I took of the bird in question.

This one – which is the one I posted in my blog the other day.

And this one, which I didn’t post because it is too fuzzy. It’s still good enough to prove my point (I think).

I told the Lab that I am 95% sure of my ID, but if they have a different ID, I would love to hear back from them. After all, they are the bird experts. If I am right, I get to add Cassin’s Vireo to my life list.

I don’t have an official count on my birding life list – I keep it for fun, not competition with other birders.

I will keep you posted on this breaking news.

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Birds!

January 28, 2012 by Jaci Dawn

I am so jazzed tonight: new bird in the bird feeder – and a rare one for a bird feeder, at that.

It was actually a pretty slow day for the bird feeder. It started frosty and cold, but once the sun was up, it warmed wonderfully. The birds tend to forage on their own when it is nice out.

Still, I had a couple Eurasian Starlings come in.

I was raised to hate starlings. They’re an invasive species, introduced from Europe, noisy and rather obnoxious. I have known a birder or two (or three or four) to take drastic measures to keep starlings out of the feeder. In fact, I have been known to quit feeding birds until the starlings move on.

This winter I decided to watch them. I am beginning to see them in a different light (my dad would roll over in his grave if he was in a grave – probably a good thing we cremated him). They’re a rather showy bird with an interesting repertoire of songs. I don’t think I will ever actually like starlings, but I think I can get used to their presence. They are, after all, here and here  to stay.

Two Band-tailed Pigeons dropped in. They didn’t stay long: my house is on a corner lot and people sometimes top at the stop sign for long minutes. Today someone got out and readjusted the load in the back of their pick-up and the pigeons decided not to hang out. They’re very shy birds, not at all like the rock doves you see congregating on public statues, under overpasses and on power lines. They are also native birds, unlike rock doves. And cleaner, I might add.

I don’t like rock doves much.

But that was it for birds until around 4:15 this afternoon, just before the sun went down. Then all the chickadees and usual little birds started filtering in. Or is that flitting in? They’re a nervous lot.

My friendly Townsend’s Warbler always takes time to pose for my camera.

But then there was the Stranger. At first I thought I had a lone Bushtit, but that would be unusual and this bird was considerably larger and slightly more yellow. It was too gray for a Goldfinch, but maybe a Lesser Goldfinch?

I snapped a photo and hoped that it would come out.

This was the best photo of the ones I took. The bird would never turn sideways to me and was entirely too nervous out in the open. I didn’t have the tripod set up to stabilize the camera (with the 75-300mm lens on it, the auto stabilization is not guaranteed to work). But the photo  is adequate.

I thought it might be a vireo because of the eye, but seeing a vireo in the feeder would be entirely unusual: they eat insects. Still… that is insect suet, full of tiny bug parts for the bug-lovers.

I usually check my birds against a couple different field guides when I am unsure about what I am looking at. Our old Peterson’s Guide that sits in the kitchen is reasonably reliable but I wasn’t satisfied with the choices. So I turned to the computer and the Cornell All About Birds web site.

Ta da! I have a definite ID on this fellow: Cassin’s Vireo (used to be Solitary Vireo, which is what Peterson’s Guide called it).

I’m jazzed.

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Letters From the Dead and Other Dreams

January 26, 2012 by Jaci Dawn

I am going to do a little cut-and-paste project tonight. I have to because I simply can’t remember all of the words. And this is important to me: to remember the words.

It started with a dream I had which I posted on a homeschool forum that I have been a member of since, um, 1997. I think 1997: I joined when I first started homeschooling my kids who are now grown and moved away. The women on the list are old friends and some I know in real life (IRL). Kris is one I know IRL.

I have a photo of us somewhere in my vast collection of digital photos, but I have no idea where.

I posted my dream, Kris posted an interpretation of that dream that brought tears to my eyes (I think she was very close to right), and then Kris had a dream. The following are excerpts from those exchanges:

ME – “My dream is really bugging me.Most of it was the usual dream stuff: rooms and loud noises and things you can’t control. But the interesting part was when we went into the living room of the house. It was dark: dark wood, like all the houses I lived in as a kid. Curtains could all be open but it still seemed dark. There was a flagstone hearth in one corner but no fireplace. The house was a MESS: visibly dirty carpets, litter, things not put away. Not really as messy as dad’s old house is now in real life (with my nephew the pig at the helm), but certainly not presentable. I felt overwhelmed and wondered WHERE to start???  I decided to go with picking up, then vacuuming afterward. I zeroed in on the flagstone corner and went there to pick up newspapers &… Christmas ornaments? Silver, gold & blue glass balls with red curling ribbon, neatly arranged on the hearth by my mother’s hand. i thought how sweet: my dad never put the Christmas stuff away after Mom died (in reality, he got rid of it all or gave it to the mice in the garage). As I started to pick up the ornaments, I noticed there were several creations made out of heavy duty aluminum foil. I called my brother over to show him: Dad made little aluminum foil replicas of our baby shoes (Terry’s, mine, Deni’s), but he converted them into silver sailing ships with long “sails” of aluminum foil. There was also a pair of either my mom’s shoes or my dad’s shoes (the dream gets fuzzy, but I think it was Mom’s). I wanted to preserve these perfect little replicas but you know how fragile aluminum foil is? We had to figure out a ways to store them so the foil wouldn’t dent or the shoes lose shape.
I cut the “sails” away, deciding to preserve the foil shoes only. Then we boxed them individually in shoe boxes: one foil shoe per box. And stacked the weightless boxes in a corner in an attic, labeled. We couldn’t even put tissue paper in the boxes for fear the shoe-boats would crumple. And we were going to pull them out again next Christmas.

There was much more to the dream, but that part was so vivid. My mom felt much the same about Christmas as I do, so no surprise on the Christmas theme. But my dad creating little aluminum foil shoe-boats? My mom was the creative one. My dad sometimes rolled his eyes at her creations…”

KRIS: “A couple of things occurred to me, ornaments are fragile, especially the foil ones you found.  The ornament represent people, loved ones, and people are fragile.  Ornaments also represent memories, Christmas is a ritual that unites family.

 Your dad was a keeper of memories but your mom was an active memory maker.  She made the most fragile ornaments, also the ones with the most meaning.  They are extremely personal and individual.  They make those people part of every Christmas and the care you took with them is what you give to the memories of those people.
The fact that your dad never put them away seems to say that although he valued them he wasn’t sure how to handle them.  My dad, being from the same generation of men, was sentimental but uncomfortable being so.  The sails, to me, represent mobility.  I think with your father’s passing it could feel that those bonds are slipping/sailing away.  Taking the sails off means they can’t take off.  You needed to remove the sails and take possession of the ornaments/memories and keep them safe.
You know, already, that these cannot be taken from you but some part of you needs reassurance, needs to make sure they are safe and preserved.  You’re coming to terms with physical death but also that memories and love are more concrete than items.
That was the picture I got when I read your dream.”
And KRIS (again): “My dream…was about Jaci!  Last night I was thinking how cool Jaci’s dream was, so detailed and full of forward motion.  I guess I have dream envy, lol.

Anyway, then I was sitting in my living room (not my actual living room but a different one that, in the dream, was mine).  Jaci came in and said that she had been told that I had a letter from her father that he had sent.  Even though I had no clue what she was talking about I felt guilty, then I realized that I DID have the letter and that it had been opened because I had spilled soda on it.  I was afraid she would think I had opened it to read it but she didn’t really care why it was open, she just wanted to read it.
I handed it to her, it was stiff like paper that has been wet and then dried.  It was on blue paper, was hand written and had a title like it was a short story or poem.  The title was “Tears Of the Son”, interesting because I had just seen something on TV where the people were watching a movie called “Tears Of The Sun” but this was spelled S-O-N.
Jaci, read the letter then asked where the “signature page” was, I looked and there WAS another page with her dad’s signature on it.  I gave her this and she read it as well.  She then put her hand, still holding the letter, in her lap and began to weep.  I stayed with her and held her hand.  We sat there for some time and then went shopping at Big Lots and were talking excitedly about living frugally.
So, perhaps it is the curse of being the “dreamer”, I have only a couple of clues on what it means.  Of course, it could be just a jumble of my thoughts over the past few days.”
Now, I don’t really have a clue why we were shopping at Big Lots and talking excitedly about living frugally, but what the heck. I’m just excited that my dad thought to write me a letter, even though he sent it to Kris (a woman he never had the privilege of meeting). And I can guess at the meaning of Kris’ dream and the letter my dad wrote me, but once again Kris jumps in with deep insight:
“The only part that seems clear to me is that the dream was from your dad.  The title being significant, Tears Of The Son, seems to be an explanation of how his childhood and generation left him less able to express love and sentiment.  He sees it clearly now and wants you to know.  I didn’t read the letter, no idea what it said, obviously only you and your dad would be able to know what he would say to you.

Maybe because my dad had childhood trauma and came from the same generation, God was able to give me the dream to share with you.  Who knows?
As for the shopping, I think it just expresses how you and I are both on a journey of taking on the power of what we allow into our lives.  It’s about taking positive control, going out towards the world and expecting to find what we need.
Whatcha think?”
What I think is this: Kris & I need to meet for coffee & shopping in the near future. She lost her mom last year, so her grief is just as palpable as mine. That reads like chocolate and coffee and a shopping date at Big Lots.
Whatcha think??

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Rainy Days and… um, Fridays

January 21, 2012 by Jaci Dawn

I had Friday off. It wasn’t for fun that I had Friday off, but on-going research into the deep mystery of the Kidney Stone That Will Not Be Moved (I had a procedure called an IVP which is, simply put, a series of x-rays taken while an iodine dye solution courses through my kidneys.

But that is not what I am going to bore you with.

Since I had the day off and we were on the tail end of one whopper of a “Pineapple Express” (which followed our brush with snow), I knew that the Willamette River would be running high and it might be a good time to go down and take a few photos. I was not the only person who thought it would be fun to stand and watch big trees cascade down the Willamette Falls: the little parking lot overlooking the falls from Highway 99 was packed with sight-seers.

Willamette Falls is the second-largest water falls in the USA and 18th largest in the world (the latter is by volume, not size).

This is what the Falls look like on a nice day (photo was taken 11/11/2009).

This is what they looked like yesterday, as the river was working its way up flood levels. The most recent article I read put the Willamette at 64′, which is just shy of major flood stage (67′).

Panorama of a calm Willamette Falls (November 2009).

Compared to the flood stage Willamette Falls.

And then, because I am such an astute sort of person, it dawned on me that my new camera also takes video. VIDEO.  As in, I could take an amateur video of the flood…

 

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The Conclusion (of Winter Weather Reports)

January 18, 2012 by Jaci Dawn

Sorry I missed yesterday. I was going to write about the “o-my-god-it’s-snowing!” drivers but, really, once I got into a lane that was going faster than they were, I got to work on time and without any scary moments. All the snow that fell melted as soon as it touched the ground, and what’s the fun in that?

It was still spitting snow off and on all day yesterday and sometimes it was sticking. The REAL storm was supposed to move through last night, dumping up to 4″ of snow on the hills around Portland and up to 8″ in Seattle. There was hope early in the evening that we’d get real snow, but it all moved north and east of us.

I read on Facebook that, “Washington (State) stole our snow! Who’s in favor of demanding they give it back?”

I’m not. Seattle can have the excitement.

That isn’t to say it wasn’t sort of exciting here.

Sometime around two in the morning I woke up and looked for my alarm clock. My alarm clock is hard to miss. Sometimes I lay it on its face so the red LED lights don’t blind me when I wake up in the night. Since I couldn’t see it this morning, my first groggy thought was that I’d done that. But I looked for Don’s alarm clock and it wasn’t there, either.

“UGH. The power’s out.”

Don groaned. “I have a travel clock but I don’t know where it is…”

“I have a cell phone.” I said this in my most smug ‘don’t-you-wish-you-were-part-of-the-21st-Century’ voice because he does not have a cell phone and he doesn’t know how useful one is when the power is out.

I set my cell phone alarm for 4AM so Don could go to work. When he left for work at 5:15, he brought me the flashlight. I reset my cell phone for 6:30. I figured I probably wasn’t going to be taking a shower in the cold, dark house… But I did get to light all those odorifous candles that people have given me over the years and the house smelled pretty while I tried to put make-up on in the dark. I even managed to put on matching shoes and socks (I can’t do that with the lights on some mornings).

It was still very dark when I left at 7:20AM. Dark, not as cold, definitely raining hard.In short, except for the little trace of last night’s snow on the ground, it looked like a very normal January morning in the metro area.

And there, traced across the remnants of the snow, were the tracks of a burglar.

He’d been casing the parked cars.

I hopped to it and took several photos of the evidence before deciding I’d better put the car in gear and see what traffic was like.

I’ll spare you most of the details, but I probably would have made better time with an outboard motor on the back of my car. Wheeeeee!

So Seattle got our snow and we were without power for hours so I didn’t get to shower before I went to work. It was a brutal winter snow storm in my neighborhood. That’s usually how it goes when all of our news stations tell us to be prepared for the “Big Snow Event”: it doesn’t happen.

But now we have a Pineapple Express bearing down on us instead and the predictions are altered to lots of flooding.

And in that, they will be accurate. lots of wind and lots of rain. I may invest in that outboard motor.

Meanwhile, I am wondering about our early morning burglar…

I got a pretty clear hand, er- paw, print. Rocky, we have you “red-handed”!

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Day Two – Portland Winter Weather

January 16, 2012 by Jaci Dawn

Here’s the article on preparing your car for winter weather: Read the comments. Best.Comments. Ever.

I got up this morning hoping for at least a dusting of snow. No go, except on my windshield which I foolishly neglected to scrape on Sunday. If I had brushed the snow off on Sunday, I would not have had to wait for the defroster to thaw it out enough to move the wipers.

It was a tad bit slick on my street (clue to Portland drivers: test the street before you drive ten feet. It’s easy – slam on the brakes at 10mph). But de-icer had been applied everywhere else and the snow had melted, so the roads were pretty darn clear. I had to follow a woman in a minivan who stood on her brakes all the way down the hill.

Winter driving tip: do not stand on the brakes, especially going downhill. If you’re on ice, you just tend to go faster because your wheels are locked up.

I down-shifted. Do you know that you can down-shift in an automatic? It’s called Drive 1. In theory, it will hold your engine back just like putting it into first gear (if it was a manual). It doesn’t really work quite that well in some vehicles but in my Kia Sportage, it works exactly like it is designed to and holds my speed at 25MPH or less on on a downhill. I love it in dry weather because I live in a hilly area where the speed limit is 25 and I dislike riding my brakes any time. It isn’t good on the brakes.

The freeway was pretty wet. In theory, the more vehicles that pass over the asphalt, the lass chance there is for black ice. Friction creates heat and tires against pavement create friction and busy freeways dry out quickly. But there are overpasses (notoriously colder and icier), shady spots where the water never dried out, and acts of God. I wasn’t scared or worried about it, but when the guy in the big 4×4 dually pick-up started tail-gating me at 65 MPH, I did get sort of irritated.

BACK OFF. You can’t see black ice. It looks like dry pavement. If it’s inclement weather and there’s a remote possibility of ice, do not tail gate. Tail gating means you are driving so close to the car in front of you that your headlights light up their dashboard. On a normal, dry day you should observe the 2-second rule; on an inclement weather day, you should increase the distance slightly. That’s in case the car(s) in front of you suddenly do amazing things like sliding sideways. Or you lose control.

Okay, I couldn’t do anything about that idiot besides getting out of his way as soon as the opportunity arose (and since I was driving the speed limit around people who were obviously petrified of driving because there were snowflakes in the air, that took awhile. I didn’t want to have to suddenly drop my speed to 45 because it was SNOWING).

Then there was the racing duo. Okay folks: that’s not terribly smart on dry pavement. Zipping in and out of lanes, trying to beat the center lane before the gap closes on the slow lane…

No wonder there were accidents and fatalities in the area. People in big, heavy SUVs assume they are safe because of the size of their car and the 4×4 on-the-fly feature zoom on down the road over the speed limit, tail-gating. Oh, wait – SOME of those drivers I had to deal with today were driving lightweight compact cars and gas-saver pick-ups! Dang: stupidity is pretty much across the board, isn’t it?

As it was, it really wasn’t a bad commute, just a normal one. No close calls, a few nasty words exhaled under my breath as I watched idiots weave in and out, and no sudden braking.

Now, they are telling us that tomorrow’s commute will be a huge mess. But I have a question: if we know it is coming, why don’t we have the de-icers and snow plows at the ready? As soon as that snow/ice starts to stick/form, roar to life.

Oh. the news article. I always travel with most of that stuff in my car during the winter. I also have my Sorels, several blankets, and car chains. And most importantly, I try to remember common sense.

Now, if we would really get that awful weather they are predicting…

 

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