The Particular SUCK of SNOW

I went home for Christmas; which was nice.

Plenty of food. Comfy bed.  Good company.

No snow in sight.

And then, on the day I was to leave. Snow. Yuck. I hate snow.

We ventured out early on...the roads were shitty and hadn't been salted.  Turned around, went back to my parent's house. 

A few hours later we tried again. The roads were still shitty but had been salted.  So we decided to press onward.  At a roaring 25 to 30 mph on main arteries through Amish county in low gear in the Little Yellow Car that Could.  Low fear for hold back...otherwise...the Little Yellow Car That Could...likes to take off like a Rocket Ship and we would have ended up in the ditch like lots of other people.

At blazing speeds we made a treacherous and scary journey to Wooster, OH and then to Ashland, OH.  I counted all the tiny, small burgs as Glorious Victories.  SUVs weren't faring much better. They just had better ground clearance and more weight.  The Little Yellow Car that Could is made mostly of lightweight fiberglass and plastic.

The other drivers, even on the Ohio Turnpike (Yet another Glorious Victory!!!! We made it to an INTERSTATE!!!!!) were fairly courteous.  The closer to Michigan we ventured, the less courteous and more scary the other drivers became.  Yes, blaze past me on slickery road just to slam on your brakes because there are SNOW PLOWS in all the lanes....and somehow, you didn't manage to see all the hulk and flashing lights. Don't know how.

I gave up the driver's seat ten miles after the Michigan border at the first available rest stop.  I had driven with total tunnel vision, utter concentration and steady on the pedal...on and off the shifting in and out of low gear for a grand total of...6.5 hours...which wouldn't have been so awful if the roads had been less treacherous.  I was spent.

Jon then took over for the remaining hour and a half.  He kept saying how interesting the roads were, so I'd look over, check his speed and tell him, the roads would get less interesting at a slower speed.  The other drivers were plenty miffed at us...but they SHOULDN'T have been going as fast as they were driving and they shouldn't have been driving so close to our car as they were.  We mainly just stuck ourselves in the slow lane (when there were lanes)  behind some steady but slow semi truck.  If those guys are going slow and steady, the roads aren't safe.

At last check, when I walked in the door and called my parents to let them know we were home safe, they had about 8 inches of snow...which I would have been stuck at their house unless someone plowed out their driveway for me.  Yellow Car that Could bottoms out at around 8 inches...10 tops. It was still snowing when I called, so no idea what their total really was.  Here, we had a good 5 inches...so I had to go out, find the show shovel and scrape off our porch.

Stupid snow.

I also need to shovel off the sidewalk, do the porch again, and buy salt.

I think idiots walking in the snow in front of other people's houses should be aware they could potentially fall on their asses and hurt themselves.  I am not a store. I do not offer a public service. Therefore, they should have NO RIGHT to sue me..however, in this awesome country we live in, they somehow have that right.  I think I should have signs made up that read 

"Warning: there is snow. You may fall on your ASS and hurt yourself" 

 

 

 

School Shootings and Christmas Muzak

Fairly annoyed with lots of recent happenings.

Firstly, I have been listening to irritating Xmas music for...four solid weeks now...it does not put one in the Christmas spirit, or...whatever its supposed to do....it just grates one's nerves and causes visions of taking an axe to evil Musak box while I am subjected to the idiotic music for 40 hours a week--more if I am at any other retailer.  I know its not making the shoppers any less crabby...in fact, I think it only reminds them that they have little money and little time to spend.

School shootings and the way simplistic folk like to place simplistic solutions on a very serious issue.  Somehow, (according to most of my friends, family and acquaintances via Facebook)  its because of the following:

1.  God, the Existence or Lack of, Satan, the Existence or Lack of,  and the absence of religion and prayer within the school system. 

I find this one troubling.  Of course religion and prayer in school is absent.  We, in this country that was founded on religious freedom, have made a choice to separate church and state.  Pray to a Christian God, then you must then pray to a God/Goddess/Deity from EVERY faith so as not to show favoritism.  Also, I fail to see exactly how prayer in school would have stopped an armed, mentally ill person from being deranged.

There have always been good and bad things in the world.  Every religion has yet been powerless to prevent the bad.

2.  Gun Control (because, as we all know, the mentally deranged often obey ALL the laws)

Also troubling since I have a gun and so have most of my family, friends and acquaintances for all of my life.  All of us have been trained, since childhood, to treat ALL guns as if they are loaded and to NOT point them at anything/one that you do not intend to kill...meaning we were taught properly to respect things that cannot be taken back. Once that bullet leaves the chamber, someone or something is going to be hurt or die. 

There have been no gun accidents in my family.  It is a hugely large family who all own guns, and several have Concealed Carry Licenses.

There was one suicide.  A properly trained Vietnam Vet who INTENDED to end HIS OWN life. Not someone else's.  And yes, he was mentally ill.  After all that, it would be more surprising that he had come home unscathed.

The U.S. Constitution gives us the right to have and bear arms.  If the government does somehow manage to outlaw them, most of us will still have and bear arms, just illegally.  This country is nothing if not a country filled with rebels.  Just because the government says something is so does not make us all follow along like happy, trusting sheep.

The guns in the shooting were LEGALLY OBTAINED by a teacher.  Shooters can always find guns, legally or illegally; according to the pattern, it just doesn't matter. Timothy McVeigh used explosives, the 911 conspirators used airplanes....the HOW doesn't matter so much as the WHY.

THE WHY

It is NOT done purely for notoriety, which is what apparently Morgan Freeman has suggested.  I don't remember ANY of the names for ANY of the school shootings since Columbine.  Notoriety, is probably involved in some, weird twisted manner, just how, I cannot say.

I would say the availability of mental health services, the lack of mental health institutions, the lack of affordable treatment, and the lack of health insurance would be more to blame than guns.  Always, in these tragedies, some form of mental health help would most likely have been beneficial and perhaps prevented them from even happening, or at least given the parents of these individuals some options.  I read a really really interesting article about it today.

I am going to post it.

Here It Is

The fact that this is a cycle that keeps occurring makes me wonder just what can be done to stop it.  What are each of us NOT noticing about our own daily lives.  Small things somehow always become big things when ignored.  I know in my own marriage its always the small things that come back to bite us in the ass when we least expect it because, at the time, they weren't large enough issues to have been addressed properly.

Okay, enough of my tirade. I've probably bored everyone stiff...but, if I don't get to vent, I would surely spontaneously combust.

Whine

I am tired of being the girl with the stiff upper lip...and the one who makes do, the survivor....the one who decides which bills to turn off and which to keep...the one who keeps going into survival mode every time something crappy rears its ugly head...and it does, seemingly all too often for our means.

Nothing is really wrong.

I'm tired of arguing with Jon over stupid crap simply because I ask too many questions simply because he hasn't given me any pertinent information and he is grouchy.  Seemingly the most innocuous subjects can cause him to become angry as of late.

I think he is tired of me taking control and running with it...only...I'm the main reason we have survived financially the past few years...and his judgement with money is questionable--on his own admission.  I think he is tired of me being the head of the household and yet utterly proud that I am so good at what I do at the same time.

He whines incessantly that we don't have much time off work together and yet tonight made plans with people I don't know or even like to stay out until they feel like driving him back to wherever the hell he parked his Jeep so he can come home.  It just makes no sense to me. 

I am supposed to fix all ills. It's my fault the dryer and the oven don't work simply because I don't really care that much if they do work.  We've done fine without a dryer for...7 months...and the oven's been broken for...I dunno...a year or more?  But Jon whines about this a lot for someone who hasn't lifted a finger to fix either one. I know if I was truly bothered by the fact that either was broken, I would have fixed them by now. I truly just don't care.

I am supposed to be a key finder, phone finder, finder of inhalers, glasses and anything lost. Only I don't want to be a finder of anything that I didn't lose.  No idea how he can't recall where he sets things down.  It's not my responsibility to locate objects.

I am expected to wash the dishes, vacuum the carpet, clean up after the animals, and in general do the laundry and yet the trash sits from last week because someone never managed to walk it to the curb. The one chore that is his besides the shopping and the cooking (because he cooks, he gets to shop) and takes the least amount of time...he rarely remembers to do it.  He cooks more rarely than ever as well, preferring to eat greasy garbage then arguing with me when I complain that I'm hungry too and that I can't eat loads of things out.

I guess I'm feeling under appreciated by the one person who is supposed to appreciate me the most.


And all I can think is that I want to go play in the rain under some trees...or walk in the rain under some trees like I used to do on days where I'm feeling moody and just breathe in the clean air. Only, there is no clean air, or peaceful quiet trees...there are only streets with people and cars where I don't feel safe wandering about after dark.  I used to wander at all hours with no fear of anything.  There's no going back, really, and that makes me sad.

Neighbors and Religious Zealots

I have new neighbors.

Yes, I know, uck.

Especially when my previous neighbor was a nice octogenarian whose most annoying attribute was that he seemed to constantly be raking and maintaining his yard because he had lots of time on his hands. He was quiet and never once complained that we were making noise, kept to himself, mostly, but was pleasant, well mannered and interesting.  So Jon and I were both sad when we realized he had died.

So far the Replacement Neighbors are fairly quiet and keep to themselves....if I ignore the bit where they tried to convert the neighborhood to whatever religion they practice.  Yep. Knocking on doors with literature. Sorry. Go away. If you want to come over and knock on my door, then fine. Introduce yourselves and say hello...don't try make me a part of your religious quota.

And yes, The Replacements have three cars with a large two car garage and yet, none of the cars manage to park in the garage. Weird, but I really don't care that much about that. What DOES annoy me is The Replacements are constantly turning around at the end of MY driveway when turning around in their OWN driveway should be sufficient since only one vehicle parks in the driveway so they have plenty of space in which to turn.

So I have been parking lengthwise across the driveway behind Jon's Jeep. Yes, that's right. NO ONE is parking in my driveway, not even ME because I am irritated that The Replacements don't want to maintain their own driveway to the point that they have decided they can only turn around in mine.  I bet The Replacements won't get the hint...but hey, its that or I make my own tire spikes from a two by four and some 6 inch spikes...and that's really inconvenient because I'd have to move it every time I left the house or arrived home. 

An automatic gate would really be ideal...but I don't have the money for that, and would definitely take the gate and the opener with me if I ever manage to move away from the too many people.

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Jon stopped to help a man in a disabled vehicle that was blocking a busy stretch of Beech Daly yesterday.  The man immediately asked him if he was a Christian. Jon said "No."  The man then, while fiddling with his battery cable, proceeded to ask "Do you know Jesus is the Savior?" Why not a simple, "thank you for stopping to help"?  The car started, it WAS a loose battery cable, but why not just thank someone for offering assistance instead of asking about religion?  People are so weird.

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All I can get out of all the crazy zealots lately is that Jon and I must look like we are going to hell. Ah, oh well. At least we try to be good people and not be hypocrites.  Also, if we are required to convert a certain number of people to make it into heaven, maybe we don't want to go there anyway. I have enough quotas and standards at work to need them in my afterlife.

Let's Do the Time Warp, Again

Dreams are an interesting time warp.

I haven't seen my grandfather in 17 years due to his being deceased but I saw him this morning; in a dream.

There I was back at the tiny trailer where they lived standing over the sink and he was there asking if I was going to wash the dishes that I'd dirtied.  I said, yes, of course, never missing a beat, but so glad to see him. Tiny, wrinkled, but sharp of mind which wasn't the case in his last few years and pain-free which I vaguely recall him being--back when I was five--before his heart surgery. He just was never the same after that.

I was an adult in the dream. I was 18 when he died but, looking back, I have grown up a lot in 17 years.  I was  hanging out talking to him about nothing important or substantial when I realized I had let myself into someone else's house.

I used to live there, after my Grandmother died and before I moved to Michigan.  The neighbors bought the land and trailer in the mean time and one of their daughters are living there with her family.

In the dream I had "broken in" but all my grandparents' things were still there, even though I realized that I had cleaned out the trailer and taken loads of those things with me in the move.

I was standing at the sink doing the dishes when the owner of the house pulled up. I knew she was coming because she had been making soap or something on my grandparents' table (which my cousin Shelley has) and so had to greet her and apologize for breaking in. Handed her the key (which I don't have)  and explained that I had been talking to my grandparents (who she knew).

Really, really strange.  And then I woke up.

My grandmother died just before Thanksgiving in 2007. And my grandpa died just before Christmas way back in 1995.  And yes, I still miss them both.