Unexpected Blessings

We had been waiting all week for them to arrive, and today was the last day they could have made it before Christmas.  Her mother said she mailed them last week, the cookies that we love, because she loves to bake and we never do.  It is not that we can't.  It is more because they taste so much better when someone else does, and her peanut butter kiss and thumbprint with strawberry jelly are our favorites.

She sent them the week before Christmas, as is her custom, but the snowstorm struck and the mail wasn't delivered, and the days passed by.

And today they still had not arrived, and soon we will be leaving, so she called back to Nebraska, to lament her disappointment.  It was then that her mother informed her that included in the box were three large onions, that her father had added at the last minute, because they were from their garden and he did not want them to go to waste.

"But Mom," I overheard her say, with a bit of whine in her voice, "don't you think they will make the cookies taste like onion?"

"Well honey," her mom said, "I guess I hadn't thought about that."

And I thought to myself, as she fussed on the phone, maybe it is better that the postman didn't bring that package after all.

~

Post Blizzard adventures

AJ made it home on Saturday after working until 4 pm. The roads were terrible but she was able to maneuver around and there wasn’t a lot of traffic. She had to work again this morning, but my office is closed so I get to stay home.

Yesterday we shoveled out the rest of the driveway and our sidewalk. We started late in the morning and finished by early afternoon. Our house sits across from a T intersection in a valley of three hills.  As we shoveled we watched the road as drivers barrelled down the hills, either because they couldn’t slow down or thought they could drive what the speed limit sign allows – plus an additional 10, of course. It is facinating to watch people who have limited driving experience on unplowed roads filled with deep snow. Two rear wheel drive vehicles, a panel truck, a minivan, and a Chevy Silverado, which must have had it’s 4WD lock up, all got stuck in front of our house yesterday trying to turn the corner at the T intersection and head up the steepest hill.

People! If you plan on turning at an intersection to drive up a hill, slow down way in advance but don’t stop! If you were just heading down the hill at warp speed and haven’t decided in advance that you plan on turning at that intersection, then don’t!!! But if you do feel the need to turn after you have almost passed by the intersection, please turn into the skid, unless you enjoy doing donuts in the intersection. And then, when you do get stuck, don’t just sit there spinning your wheels. Get out of your vehicle, shovel a little, apply non-clumping kitty litter around your wheels, then rock the vehicle back and forth as you try and drive out of it…. What? You didn’t bring those things? You don’t own a shovel? You didn’t even wear boots or gloves?

All day yesterday there were lots of neighbors helping neighbors, pushing and pulling and chains hooked up to other trucks that could pull them out. The Charger that we saw stuck on Saturday morning came back and got stuck again yesterday, but this time at the intersection at the top of the hill! Guess he didn’t learn the first time.

There have been no plows on our street yet, so the snow that has been packed down from all of the vehicle traffic yesterday is even more trecherous and icy today. Our mailbox may not survive the antics of the non-drivers today!  AJ called and said the major roads have been plowed and the interstate is dry, but I won’t be able to get up the hill and out of the neighborhood with my car. Guess I will have to walk if I need to go anywhere today.

I walked around a little in the backyard yesterday.  The snow was up to my knees, some places higher where it drifted.  I laid down and made a snow angel, but then I almost couldn't get back up.  It didn't help that I started laughing out loud at myself and my predicament.  I could imagine the story in the newpaper:  Woman found in her backyard, buried in the snow.  She tried to make an angel and then couldn't get up!   :-)

 

 

~

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Oh yeah!  No doubt about it.... we are going to have a White Christmas in Virginia this year!  This is not just light fluffy melt by tomorrow snow.  This is heavy, wet, snowman building, igloo-fort creating, honest to goodness snowball packing snow!

C'mon down Santa.  We are gonna be able to see your reindeer's tracks this year!

Woo Hoo!!!

{Picture happy dancing by two non-Virginians - a native New Yorker and a Nebraskan}
~

Our Blizzard of 2009

Friday, 6:00 pm - AJ gets home from work (I telecommuted). She heard that radio that there should be lots of snow, maybe a blizzard, starting tonight and getting worse tomorrow. She has to work tomorrow. Her one way commute is 50 miles. She calls our friends who live closer to her office and asks if she can stay overnight tomorrow if necessary. They say absolutely.

7:00 pm – After pizza for dinner, AJ packs up her sleeping bag, toiletries and her cute fuzzy blue snowman pajamas (they just make me want to hug her). Then she starts packing her snow pants, jacket, gloves, hat, neck warmer, ski socks. She realizes does not have any winter boots that are tall enough for deep snow. She takes my Salomon’s that I have only worn twice. She says they are very comfortable. She says she will buy me new boots when we go to visit my parents next week. I find my old boots in the back of the closet.

7:20 pm – We get in the hot tub. It has just started to snow on a windless night. White powdery fluff is balanced daintily on the Nadina’s thin leaves and it’s clusters of bright red berries. Tiny snowflakes fall silently and land on our heads, accumlating on top and making our hair wet. We stay out in the warm water a long time, talking about everything and nothing. We watch the curtain of snow fall gently in front of the streetlamp’s amber circle of downcast light. When we finally decide to get out, the towels that we spread on the ground in front of the tub are covered with snow; it is a cold shock to our feet as we jump out and scamper back into the warm basement.

9:30 pm – I go out onto the front porch and unplug the Christmas lights. Maybe an inch or three on the ground. Time for bed.

Saturday, 4:30 am – AJ gets up and looks out the window. More snow on the ground. No car tracks on the road.

4:40 am – I feed the boys (our cats) and clean out the litter box. I notice blood in Cloudy’s stool. Why does he have to do this during a blizzard?

5:30 am – We both go out and push the snow off her truck. Looks like about 6 inches so far. Across the street a car is sitting crossways in the middle of the intersection with it’s flashers on. It looks like it may have spun and bumped the stop sign. Nice car – is it a Charger? It is covered with snow. It may not look so nice if the other cars can’t stop when they are coming down the hill. I kiss AJ goodbye and she pulls out of the driveway, around the Charger, and up the hill. Her tracks are one of the first on the road. I watch her drive up the hill, then I start to shovel.

6:15 am – Tell me again why we wanted a long driveway… I am not even finished on one side when it starts filling in with snow – blowing it all back into the driveway where I just shoveled.

6:20 am – I give up shoveling for now. The weather reports predict 10 to 20 more inches. I am not going anywhere today with my car. I hope Cloudy is okay. I will call the Vet this morning to see what they think. Maybe we can take him to the emergency tomorrow if AJ can get home with the truck.

7:19 am – My Superhero made it to work. She said the backroads were not plowed and the snow was deep because of drifting. Lots of cars in ditches on I95, some stalled in the middle of the road, lots of sports cars and cars with rear wheel drive that can go no further. The interstates were plowed, but the snow had already drifted back into the road. She said she heard on the radio that I95 was closed about 15 miles south of us, due to a 50 car pileup in Carmel Church. The 4WD on her truck came in handy today. She even had a chance to stop for donuts - at least someone else made it to work! Not many other vehicles at her office yet. She is hoping postal management will tell them to just case the mail and not carry it out to the street. That would be 8 miles of walking in blizzard conditions, but Christmas is the worst time of year to not make deliveries. She says she will call.

It looks like the boys and I will have to deal with this blizzard alone.

From my kitchen window - 8 a.m.

Just the beginning.

~

AJ's Office Party

This will teach me that I should not complain about my office...

AJ’s union representative came around at her work today and told everyone in her section that management was allowing them to have the office Christmas party on Saturday during work hours. It will be a potluck, and anyone who wants to participate should bring something in.

The rep also informed them that the "party" will be during, and no longer than, their 10 minute break, which the entire section will take at 8:30 a.m..

AJ plans on bringing a donut.

Slugging and Bodysnatching

I never knew about slugging until I moved to Virginia. Slugging is hitchhiking in groups and business suits. The terminology is pretty simple – there are slugs (the riders) who stand in lines at designated locations waiting for a ride with a bodysnatcher. The bodysnatchers are the people who drive their cars and need 1 or 2 people to ride with them so they can meet the High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) minimum person requirement. To ride in HOV lanes during rush hours - 6 a.m. – 9 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m., you must have 3 persons in the vehicle. The lanes are separated by the rest of the traffic in I95, so once you get in the HOV lanes, you cannot get out until you reach a designated exit. And the lanes are heavily patrolled by the VA State Police and heavy fines are involved if you get stopped with less than 3 people in the vehicle during these hours. Not that people don’t risk it, but the cost and the time involved (if you get pulled over), is added incentive to pick up a slug. This differentiation of lanes and the inability to move in and out of the HOV lanes and the rest of the traffic is what makes the HOV lanes on I95 much more effective than other interstates where the HOV’s are located within the other normally traveled lanes. This is also what makes bodysnatching slugs for the trip up I95 more attractive to drivers.

Now, however, the state of Virginia wants to hire private companies to create create toll lanes to replace the HOV lanes. If you want to ride in these lanes you will have to pay a toll if you have less than 3 people in your vehicle; you will still have the option of riding free if you have 3 or more. No one is sure yet how this will effect slugging but of course it will depend, in large measure on how expensive the toll is. Time is money everywhere, and given a choice of sitting in a line to pick up a slug or being able to hop on the toll lanes without waiting will be no choice, given the right price, especially if employees are reimbursed by their employers.

If they aren’t reimbursed, I wonder if that will be considered a tax deductible employee expense?

Also, as an added complication, a few years ago if you bought a hybrid vehicle you received a special license plate that allowed you to ride in the HOV’s for free. That incentive stopped in June 2006, however, as long as you still own the hybrid, and the vehicle has the special HOV plates, you can still drive in the HOV lanes during the restricted hours with only 1 person. And a lot of people bought hybrids between 2000 and 2006 just for that reason. Once that policy stopped, the dealerships couldn’t give the hybrids away. I got a great deal on my Prius after I could no longer get the HOV plates. Of course that was all before gas prices shot way up and the recession (depression?) kicked into high gear.

But now one knows for sure if the hybrids will be allowed to travel for free with one person or if that policy will be changed. Again, I suspect the private companies will push for a change, especially since the volume of hybrids in the HOV’s causes these lanes to slow down considerably. But the HOV-plated hybrid owners have a strong lobby and although this free pass on HOV’s was supposed to stop in 2006, it has been extended by Virginia’s legislature several times, so who knows.

But if the hybrid option goes away, the HOV lanes will probably move rather quickly. The tolls lanes are supposed to adjust the price based upon the volume of traffic. Therefore, if there are not a lot of vehicles in those lanes, the toll cost will go down. If the lanes are congested the cost will go up. So you could argue the owners of the private toll lanes will prefer to have the hybrids with the free passes in their lanes since they will be able to increase the toll prices for the other drivers. Again, who knows how that will play out.

But I wonder where that will leave slugging. I used to slug, and I did it every day for quite a few years. I would probably still be commuting this way except the bad economy and high gas prices caused a lot more people to start slugging a couple years ago. The lines to catch a ride became too long for me and I could no long estimate what time I would be able to get to work. When I first started slugging I didn’t have to stand in line so long, but I started a dozen years ago when it wasn’t so popular. Another factor was that my employer started offering subsidies to take public transportation, like the bus or the subway. After the subsidies started, the buses started running more often because there were more riders. So a combination of time and less cost made slugging almost obsolete for me, but for some commuters on a limited budget without transportation subsidies from their employers, slugging is still their only option.

But not completely obsolete for me. There are still times when slugging is faster than the bus, especially if there is an accident on I95, or my bus is not operating it’s regular route because of a demonstration or a parade. Other times I just know the bus will be too crowded and I will probably not be able to get on it. This happens a lot the day before any holiday, or during bad weather, when everyone gets released early. During those times, slugging usually works out to be the better option. In fact there are many times that I have slugged when I didn’t have any other choice for getting home within a reasonable period of time. It has been a wonderful emergency plan B.

Now the toll lanes may change all that. Won’t it be ironic if, in an effort to help citizens ease their commute, Virginia, in effect, renders obsolete the one method of transportation that is, at times, the most reliable, and also the least costly for the most disadvantaged. I guess time will tell.

Going Green with a Red Tree

In her home, my coworker keeps her Christmas tree plugged in,colored lights burning brightly, all year long. She differentiates between the holiday and non-holiday season by moving the tree from one corner of her family room to the other.

I however feel that the most environmentally friendly option is to only display Christmas cheer over the holidays – so I have only agreed to allow a blinking red tinsel Christmas tree to adorn my desk between Black Friday and the day after New Year’s.

I must admit this Charlie Brown tree has grown on me. I suspect my office will look bare after New Years...not :-)

If you look closely you will see a gold strand of beads that were my sole contribution to the tree's decorations. That strand of plastic gold was my Mardi Gras necklace in February, then reused as a party necklace for a baby shower in August, and it is now being reused as Christmas Tree garland in December.

Reuse, recycle, rehabilitate. That's my motto.

Our Office Party

I laughed when I read in the newspaper that several businesses are scaling back on their holiday parties this year because of the economy, and instead of giving employees elaborate door prizes (such as flat screen tv’s) and renting party rooms at swanky restaurants and hotels, most businesses will just have catered events at their boss’s home with less expensive door prizes.

Although I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, (because I am so, so happy I have a job), someday I would like to work at a company that throws a catered holiday party complete with door prizes.

Then again, I am thinking maybe it would turn out to be one of those politically charged forced fun things and I wouldn’t like that too much after all.

But I needn't worry. It is just potluck at our office, sometimes in the hallway if the conference room is already reserved, with whatever food the staff decides to bring in. We used to collect money throughout the year by charging a quarter for a cup of coffee and use those funds to buy a ham and turkey, but we stopped doing that last year. I am not sure why or exactly when it stopped but I never liked how strong they made it anyway, so I would prefer to just chip in for the party at the end of the year.

We have the party during our lunch break, but management gives a couple extra hours that day for set up and clean up – so this year it will be between noon and 3. We also get to dress casual that day… no slinky holiday dresses with sequins for us.

Door prizes – hah! That’s funny.

And our holiday parties have a theme because apparently “holiday” is not enough, and it can’t be anything religious because of various legal restrictions and personal beliefs. So this year our theme is football tailgating and the party decorations, games, food, etc., will follow this theme. We also play 3 or 4 team games during the party.

Last year I think I developed a bit of a reputation for being a scrooge because I didn’t appreciate the musical bells playing “We wish you a Merry Christmas”over and over, every day, from Thanksgiving to New Years, outside my office and I suggested that maybe they should be turned down a tad. Actually I think I may have been misunderstood as saying “turn those damn bells off”. I really don’t recall my exact words, but I am pretty sure I said please.   However, after I made that comment, coworkers noticed that and I had never decorated my desk, nor did I volunteer to hang tinsel and garland in the hallway. I was summarily branded a grinch.

This year my officemate took pity on me and decided she would take it upon herself to soften my bah humbug reputation and bring in decorations for me.  When I started to protest she became adamant and said that I was going to decorate this year – Dammit! I decided it was probably best to go along. A blinking, red tinsel Christmas tree on the corner of my desk is quieter than the bells, I guess.

So this year, in an effort to show that I, too, could be a team player, I volunteered to create one of the games for the Holiday Tailgate Potluck (hope no one gets salmonella poisoning) party. I decided to modify the TV game show Deal or No Deal. I am going to design it so that all teams play, one at a time.  Each team chooses a captain who, after input from the fellow team members, chooses which of the boxes to open. Like the game on TV, at certain intervals the captain will be offered the opportunity to either take the deal of an amount offered by the “guy in the booth”, or keep on choosing boxes. Unlike TV, there will be 32 boxes (for 32 NFL teams) instead of 26 like on TV. The team with the highest score will win.

Initially I was thinking I would be the “guy in the booth” and offer the amounts that the teams could accept as their final deal instead of choosing more boxes. I seriously considered whether coming up with the number off the top of my head would be considered fair and impartial. Hmmm.

Maybe not fair to the others, I decided, but way more fun for me…

Hah!  I may enjoy this holiday festivities teamwork thing after all…

So does anyone know where I can find 32 gorgeous models willing to wear cute little cheerleader outfits and open shoe-boxes decorated with NFL football logos?

~

Changing Seasons

From my kitchen window this September I saw this:

This morning as I looked out I saw this:

Winter in Fredericksburg has arrived.

:-)

~

Please read and follow the memo

What is it with some people?

As I left the gym yesterday afternoon I was walking along the sidewalk and heard up ahead the long, loud bleats of a car horn.

This is in DC, and although it is a larger city, you don’t often hear a lot of long, loud horn honking. Sirens, yes, you hear them quite often, since convoys of dignitaries are shuttled up and down Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capital on a regular basis, but horn blaring is usually reserved for those who should get out of the way quickly, like me, when I am feeling lucky and occasionally j-walk.

As I continued walking up the street I noticed the driver that was laying on the horn was an older man driving a older model dark colored mid-sized car – a blah type of car like a Caprice or an Impala. He was honking at another car that was double parked on the road alongside him, with the double parked car’s right rear bumper next to the honking car’s left front bumper.

The double parked car was also driven by an older man, in an equally nondescript mid-sized vehicle. He was looking up into the rear view mirror, at the car honking behind him, but he wasn’t moving.

Apparently the driver next to the curb wanted the double parked driver to move forward but for some reason that driver refused to budge. Of course, the driver next to the curb could have backed up because there were 3 open parking spaces behind him, but I guess he wanted to make the point that the car beside him should move forward.

The honking continued until I walked down to the next block.

These cantankerous old coots apparently did not get the memo that during the holiday season we should try and count our blessings and cut each other some slack.

Geez!

~

Commuting and Plan B

When I ride the commuter bus in the morning I usually listen to my Ipod and take a nap. Sometimes, though, I get wrapped up into reading a book and forgo the nap. That was what I was doing this morning when a woman sat down beside me. I didn’t even need to glance to my left to know who it was, and I groaned inwardly.


The bus I ride does not have assigned seats, and since morning buses run about every 10 minutes I do not always catch the same bus or see the same people. But I do know some of the regular riders, and this woman has sat beside me before on four or five different occasions.


On a scale of 1 – 10 (with 1 being the best seatmate), she probably rates a 4 on my Commuter Bus Annoying Seatmate (CBAS) scale, but that is if I am taking a nap and listening to my Ipod. She is a 4 when I am napping, because although she will occasionally disturb me, it is not usually enough to interrupt my sleep for long. But if I am reading, she shoots up to an 8.


Why?


She exercises in her seat.


She doesn’t always do the same exercises. That is why her CBAS rating has a high and low range. Sometimes her exercises only consist of hand-clenching, or neck twisting or knee lifts, and usually it is only one type of exercise a day. So if she starts hand-clenching when she sits down, she will be doing that until she gets off the bus about 30 minutes later. Also, to be fair, she is not a large woman, and she seems to try her best to be careful about not bumping into the person sitting next to her while she performs her morning routine.


But this morning, out of the corner of my eye, I saw her exercise of the day involved her stomach and hip muscles; arching them out, and then relaxing back in, while making little puffing noises in-between. So it was arch out, puff-puff-puff, relax, puff… arch out, puff-puff-puff, relax, puff…and on and on, over and over.


I tried to focus on my reading, but after a few minutes I just couldn’t ignore it.


Damn.


I understand that multitasking is a necessity in a busy commuter’s world, and barring production of dangerous weapons, what a person does in the seat next to mine is none of my business. I try my best to be agreeable, especially since I have to ride the bus with these same people every day. Consequently, I would never ask her to stop exercising in her seat.


I figure it is my hang-up, and not hers, that I find a 50ish woman performing 30 minutes sessions of natural-childbirth-breathing-type exercises in the seat next to mine annoying.


So I stopped reading, put on my headphones, and took a nap.


At least I don’t have to sit next to her every morning.

~

Priceless privacy

When I was a teenager I used to think I wanted to be famous but now when I am older I know how much I value my privacy. I am thinking about this as I am listening to yet another news story (that is not really news) about Tiger Woods.

I wonder if he and his wife ever feel like they are in a prison. I know some people crave the attention and have no privacy issues, like most actors and actresses, but I am not sure that would be true for an athlete, especially such an exceptional athlete in a sport where mental focus may be more important, or at least just as important, as athletic ability. I am sure he wants to be the best and respected for his ability, but it doesn’t have to follow that he would want everyone to watch his every move once he is off the playing field.

What kind of life would you have if you had all of the money in the world but very little privacy with respect to your personal life. If you have an argument with your wife, the public demands that they be informed.  Or maybe it really wasn’t an argument, but the public wants to think you had an argument because no one is allowed to have a perfect life, right? And maybe it was a small argument that could be easily resolved between you and your wife the next day, but you lost your temper the night before, and you hit the gas a little too hard and had a minor accident, and although you can pay for all damages with ease, the press keeps the incident alive. The rumors start because of course if no one fills in the blanks the media will just make up an imaginary story, which causes more stress between you and your wife. Wouldn’t you just want to escape from it all? But you can’t, ever, because to do that you would have to give up golf, which is your life, and what makes you happy. It is what makes you, you. And besides, even if you decided you were never going to play again, this would be even more fodder for the press, which you wouldn’t want to talk about, which would lead to more invented facts, and more stress.

What kind of life would you have if you can’t even walk around the block in your neighborhood, by yourself, without the fear of being accosted, by the media or some crazy stalker, not to mention your concern for your family’s personal safety.

And then I think about Susan Boyle, the 48 year old frumpy woman from Britain’s Got Talent (who wouldn't even be allowed to audition on American Idol because she is too old), who surprised everyone in the audience with her ability to sing, but didn’t win the contest. Did she really know what she was getting into when she stepped onto the stage that night. Should anyone be surprised that she got admitted into a hospital after having a mental breakdown. She explains that it was exhaustion. More than likely it was because her reaction to losing the contest and all of the news reporters’ inane questions about the contest and her second place finish finally made her lose her cool. And losing your cool is not allowed once you are in the public spotlight. Whereas a week before she sang I Dream A Dream she could rail and rant and no one stopped to notice, now her every facial expression has the potential of drawing the wrath of a fickle public.

How would you ever learn to be politically correct all of the time. Tiger Woods has it a little easier, perhaps, since he has been a phenomenon since he was a child golfer. So he has had time to adapt. But I think about Susan Boyle and how much harder it has to be for someone who has lived, up until now, without such restrictions.

I bought her album last weekend, and I really like it. But the song I like the most on the album is named Who I was Born to Be.

Who I was Born to Be:

When I was a child
I could see the wind in the trees
and I heard a song in the breeze
it was there, singing out my name

But I am not a girl
I have known the taste of defeat
and I have finally grown to believe
it will all come around again

And though I may not
know the answers
I can finally say I am free
And if the questions
led me here, then
I am who I was born to be

And so here am I
Open arms and ready to stand
I've got the world in my hands
And it feels like my turn to fly

When I was a child
there were flowers that bloomed in the night
Unafraid to take in the light
Unashamed to have braved the dark

I am who I was born to be
I am who I was born to be.


I wish her the best. Her story has been inspirational and moving. I have no doubt that someday her life will be a great movie.

I hope she always believes that this is who she was born to be.