Mysteries of the Road

There are many things that other drivers do that I can sort of understand. Like when someone speeds... they are probably either in a hurry or they enjoy an adrenaline rush. When someone cuts me off--heaven help us--they are likely either mad at me for something they perceive I have done or they are judging my driving speed by my inconspicuous car. Or they are rude. It happens. When someone texts while driving, they are deluded into thinking they are the world's only safe texter/driver. However, being that I am someone who loves to understand, there are a few mysteries of the road that I have yet to grasp. If you are one of the culprits, perhaps you can help me out. (If you drive slow in the left lane, then I have no hope for you. You are either the thickest or stubbornest group of people, so I give up.)

1) After all the lit-up signage around here lately; the ones who persist on driving with their wipers on and their headlights off.

2) Attempting to back into a parking space when you know darn well you are not very good at it.

And the ultimate...

3) Lane-crossing during an intersection turn.

And for you pedestrians...

4) Walking up or down a vehicle lane.

And now to try to convince you to change your ways. Let's move it on back to the Debate or Ethics Team, and give you some reasons.

1) It is illegal! I can't imagine you haven't seen the signs. If so, you need to pay more attention when you drive, and since that's coming from me, that's saying a lot. There are far more of you than I would think could be an "oversight." Plus, law enforcement's reasoning behind this is, probably, two-fold. When it is raining, it is overcast, and therefore is darker. When it is raining, your view is obstructed, and seeing oncoming cars is therefore limited. Make yourself visible! At least until the signs are down. Come on.

2) There is nothing wrong with backing into a parking space, per se, but let's all admit that it is unnecessary. So when you know that you are not very good at it--putting safety and the body of the cars next to you at risk--then why would you attempt it? And every day during car pool? You astound me.

3) It is illegal! Totally. For one thing, switching lanes (nonchalantly) without use of a directional is illegal. For two, changing lanes in an intersection is illegal. It is dangerous! Like really dangerous. I have seen so many accidents almost caused by this behavior. I do NOT get why it is so prevalent. By sheer numbers, it seems that you people are not just randomly shifting half-way into lanes on regular roads, so why do it when you are turning a corner? Did you forget this is not bumper cars?

4) What the heck?!? (Oh, my Ethics coach would be so proud.) I don't want to kill you, so please don't set me up for that. I furthermore promise that your feet will not melt if you walk on the side of the road or even in the grass. If you can not turn on your own brain, let the rest of us do the thinking for you: DO NOT USE THE CAR LANES IF YOU ARE NOT A CAR! (or a bike, but that's a blog for another day).

Chastity

Alright, I'm just going to come out and say it...

I think a large part of Christians having difficulty making it to marriage without premarital sex is a cultural (and personal, perhaps) obsession with sex. Well, duh.

I know tens, if not hundreds, of couples who have waited until marriage (some of whom are still waiting). We were one of them. And here's the deal... if you can accept that sex is just a part of life--like family and education and soccer and literature--then you are on your way to embracing celibacy. Wake up America. Not only is sex not necessary for a full life, it is NOT THE CENTER of human experience. It can be cool. It can be fun. It can even be spiritual. (And it can also be abusive and horrifying.) But living without it can be as cool and fun and yes, even spiritual.

Plus, not being sexually active does not mean you are not a sexual being. They are different things.

But I am SO TIRED of people orienting their lives around sexuality like it is the north star. Just a star, people, just a star. End the fixation, and you'll find there are lots of great things out there besides. Sex as god is a very poor substitute.

Standards of Living

I have shared before on my blog that we survive on $20,000 per year. That has actually decreased to $16,000 per year. Recently, I have been dragging my kids all around Wake County touring houses for sale with my mom and step-dad, who are hoping to relocate to the area. Just the other day, I was standing in a house that they are looking at. It is very nice, owing not just to its size and price point, but also to its owners' attention to detail, sense of style, and desire to live the good life. I was at the moment standing between the kitchen and family room, looking out through the four-seasons room to the muti-level deck, pool, and meticulous landscaping. After several weeks and many houses, it suddenly hit me: I will likely never be looking at houses like this, in this way. To be standing there nit-picking the counter top and the lighting in the cupboards, commiserating about which house had the better pool... well, not a lot of people get to do that. And not saying my mom and step-dad aren't grateful, because they are grateful, and humble to boot.

But the moment sort of got me thinking in a pessimistic vein, until I came to a great, big aha! moment. I won't bother to detail how I got there. The point is, we are NOT living on $20,000 (or $16,000 per year). When our income goes up, most likely next summer, everything over that number will not be additional income. Oh. no. it. won't.

How is that? Well, because we are low income, there are so many ways in which the government pitches in to help us. In the end, this is awesome. But it can give a person a wrong idea about how much it really takes to make it through the day. When I do the (really) rough numbers, we are going to have to FIRST make up about $15,700 in tax returns, Medicaid, and Food Stamps before we can even think about having a few additional dollars. Then you figure in student loans and the things that we are avoiding paying for even though they don't really change our expectations (like medical insurance), and we are easily "surviving" at the $40,000 level. One could reasonably argue that anything less than $45,000 (maybe even $50,000) is not going to change our standard of living one little bit. Of course, it will change our sense of accomplishment and self-respect, as well as decrease our stress over paying our bills.

But nonetheless, that is a wake-up call.

Refusing to Wear the Tee

Are people really that stupid? In the past 24 hours, I have seen a second grader with a Red Bull in her school lunch pail, three elementary-age kids walking to school in short-shorts in 40 degree weather, and a parent who pulled all the way to the front of the carpool lane, got out of the car, and walked away into the school, effectively blocking tens (or hundreds?) of cars behind it. In the worlds of Amy Poehler, Really?!?

So to temper my angst, I thought I would list 3 things that I have done in the past 24 hours that have been (or may have been perceived as) stupid. I gave my kids each a doughnut an hour before they went to bed on Tuesday. (It was a holiday!) I spent more time reading and watching a movie than "working" (read: freelancing). I remembered to recover my bag of groceries from my sister's fridge, but dropped the defrosted lunch meat out and didn't notice until I got home.

At least I didn't send my beloved child to school with nothing but Daisy Dukes between her and the winter.

Winter Apologetics

Why Southerners Should Panic When It Snows

1) They do not know how to drive in snow, which is understandable, seeing as how it is a learned skill which evaporates without regular use. Therefore, most drivers on the road around here--even with the slightest bit of ice or sleet or snow--are dangerous. If they go into a small slip or slide, they would have no idea how to handle it, technically speaking. A Northerner driving down here on a snowy day should prefer that all the Southerners stay at home and off the roads.

2) They do not have the resources to deal with the snow. They do not have many (some communities, any) salt trucks or snow plows. They don't favor salt anyhow, but stick with the sand and that liquid salt stuff (which in my Northern opinion is a bit of a joke). When there is a considerable snow, the infrastructure does not exist to quickly or efficiently deal with slick overpasses or snowy roads. Think of what might happen if an earthquake or hurricane suddenly hit Detroit. No, stop it. Be realistic. When the Detroit River came crashing up onto land, there would be nothing in place to deal with flooding, etc. Cities don't just pour money into events that happen on the off-chance. If you don't have a severe allergy, you don't carry an epee-pen. On the plus side, the bodies of their cars flourish in the salt-less winters.

3) Snow turns often to ice. Because the temperatures here in NC rarely stay much south of freezing, melting and re-freezing can lead to a really slick situation.

4) The plant life does not support the weight of much snow, or ice. It grows, instead, in the rain and sun; straight up, long and lean. In the event of a heavy snow or an icing, the trees bend and break with the weight and cause a lot of problems with roads, roofs, and power lines.


What Southerners Do Wrong When It Snows

1) They don't use granulated salt. They mainly seem to use either some sort of liquid (a salt solution?) or sand, neither of which work very well. In the case that they use salt, they have a propensity to dump it all in one spot and hope for the best.

2) They cancel too early. As all of us Northerners know, there is no point in cancelling the day before a snow. Seriously. Just throw something on the news or on the school website to remind everyone to check back the next morning, and then wait. The school super gets up early, checks out the weather, and then posts the possible closing in plenty of time for people to either stay home or get moving. All this pre-cancelling is not only laughable, but it often ends up as a waste of a perfectly good school day. And--in my opinion--just quit with the delays! Cancel or don't, already. Delays are just confusing and destroy an otherwise useful school day.

3) They panic. They rush out to the stores beforehand, causing huge clogs of people and traffic across town, and then they stock up on things that make no sense. People; if the weather storm of a century is going to hit, perishables are NOT the thing that you want to have around. Just make sure you have canned goods, batteries, firewood and matches (or another battery heat-source), a battery-operated radio, and flashlights/candles handy (which should already be in your house), and stay in. Milk is just going to rot in the emergency that involves the loss of power... and why the sliced bread? Do you really all not have enough food to eat for a few days?

4) They overreact. This problems starts with the weather people. The sane locals know by now that "winter weather" in all likelihood means a possible, minor dusting that melts by mid-morning with no real repercussions. When the weatherman REALLY gets skittish, you can count on a decent snow, which may or may not be able to be navigated. This seems to be a weatherperson disease, as most weather events seem to now be exaggerated and over-reported. Ratings, anyone? And what about when the boy really does see a wolf? You know what happens, then.

5) The law enforcement gets a bit too involved. Curfew? Really? How old am I? For a real disaster, I will be completely happy to cooperate. But when I, as a newly transplanted Northerner, wander one block to a Waffle House during an icy day, you really don't need to call out the troops to send me sulking back to my apartment. Yikes.

Fantasy As I Know It

So, I have been really "in to" fantasy for the last couple years, what with my daughter's re-re-re-readings of Chronicles of Narnia and voracious appetite for Harry Potter movies. When my favorite aunt handed me a copy of Once and Future King, I started a King Arthur binge, as well... And besides seriously considering writing a series (or two) of my own, this is where I am (not THAT many books later).

As in a lot of genre fiction, I am disillusioned by all the crappy writing that sneaks in. But I have stayed to "best of" lists and books that led to other books. As a kid, I loved Madelaine L'Engle, but I can not stomach either Tolkien--oh, the horror!--or, so far, Lawhead. Yikes. Perhaps I can't get past the detailed writing to see the imagination (and knowledge) for the forest. But I have already discovered some shining gems, which is what I look for when I sift through all the dregs of literary fiction, too.

My Short-Short List of My Favorite Fantasy Books

1. Till We Have Faces, C. S. Lewis.  This was my first real fantasy love, although I didn't realize it at the time. I read it for a Lewis seminar, and I never hear people talk about it or see it listed anywhere. But in my very limited and therefore humble opinion, it HAS to be one of the best fantasy books ever written. Seriously. A must-read (and a quick one, at that). And great fun for us grown-ups who are past the Chronicles series. My husband agrees with me, for what it's worth.

2. The Once and Future King, T. H. White. And then you can continue on with the series, but in the future I will probably stick mainly to re-reading this one book. When I first put my hands on it, I thought all Arthur books must be beautiful, but I was in for a nasty shock. This book is exceptional as the kind during which I would suddenly pause, out of breath from the sheer beauty of a passage of text. How often does that happen?

3. The Harry Potter Series, J. K. Rowling. I know I am a world-class wiener for including this, but there are two main reasons that I have read it twice in the past year. One; the ability to immerse the reader in a complete world, mostly separate from their own, which is both full of normal things like annoyances, food, sports, and bad hair days and also full of fantastical places, objects and beasts, heroism, and magic. Two; an amazing consistency and wholeness from page one through to the end (in my version, at page 4167). As a writer myself, I marvel at the way that everything from the first chapter makes its way to the very end, and nothing is ever off. How on earth did she release as she wrote?!? It's baffling. I can understand why some people say she sold her soul for the story. It's that perfect. On the downside... the prose is only adequate and occasionally quaint. But what I wouldn't give to have that story, imagination, and steel trap mind... Plus, it is clearly addictive.

Let's Get Clinical, Clinical

Again, I am full of excuses for why I have not been blogging regularly. And once again, they are totally legitimate.

So, a few weeks ago, my husband came to me and said that due to adding clinicals to his already-80-hour-a-week-plus schedule, he was going to have to cut back a shift every week at work. He asked me to do whatever it might take to start generating some money. I had just set into another month--posted the schedule, filled the calendar, planned the menu, purchased the groceries--and so announced to him that it would take me about a month to re-route our lives. I became immediately obsessed with re-working the schedule. (I may have mentioned the schedule before: I started scheduling instead of listing about a year ago, and it has been ground-breaking for me.) All day, I was clicking away at the computer and poring over cookbooks, because that was my brilliant idea, my great sacrifice: I was going to give up gourmet cooking and convoluted meal plans for a stream-lined version of feeding the family on a low income. Once that was done, I would squeeze "work" into as many spaces as possible in the schedule, trimming down meal times and chucking anything else that could go. (That, and I had already filled out the forms to get preschool assistance for Boy next school year.)

Then Kevin quit the shift and he sort of looked at me like, "Now, what?" We were only about a week into whatever, and I had readied the schedule but was waiting until we could actually switch over (since the schedule and groceries still had weeks to go). So, I made another move. I pulled the schedule (but not the meal plan, 'cause what are you gonna' do at this point?) from the fridge and threw it away. Three weeks were now "free" to follow job leads and bury ourselves in dirty laundry and paper plates, while we waited for the new schedule to take effect (which always starts the Sunday after the 11th of the month).

Therefore, my long-winded excuse is that I have been dusting off my resume, re-working my curriculum vitae, scanning in written works, and shooting off emails to publishing houses. This is step one in my grand scheme; get back into freelancing. I have also been doing things like applying for renovation assistance, inquiring about home mortgage rates, and pricing the sale of scrap metal. I have spent days and days and days just buried in paperwork, the phone glued to the side of my head, and the computer screen burning holes in my retinas. Poor Boy has bore the brunt of my concentration.

So the deal is this: I have finally relented to a schedule where all the food is the same, every two weeks. I compiled our healthiest and easiest meals, snacks, drinks, etc. copied them and put them in a binder in an order concurrent with the schedule. Right on the schedule is the food to make and at what time. This should cut back on preparation time (since making the same, easy food will become automatic), and also on planning time (since I usually make a new meal plan and grocery list every month). I also pre-made the grocery list that I will take to the store every two weeks, from now until forever. And I discovered something else: making the same things over and over makes it easy to pre-make batches of things. I make coleslaw on Monday, it becomes the side dish for three dinners. I make a bunch of granola, we have breakfast for four. This has always been a principal I used, but it's easier to do this way.

I suppose I've rambled enough for now. I might have more to share about it later. Next week we will actually be on the new schedule and eventually I might have employment news to share.

Here are some Facebook posts from the past couple weeks:


2/6  So Boy was doing something in his room that probably included throwing his body from heights and holding and gun, and I walked in and said something like, "That is so weird. Just so amazingly different."

He's no dummy; he lowered his voice about an octave and came back with, "That's 'cuz I'm a guy. A boy-guy. A man-boy."

What's not to love about that kid?


1/31  Boy is in the back seat of the car yelling "STOP IT! STOP IT!" so I pop off the radio and he says, "Mom. It's indescribable." "What is, honey?" "Later."


1/24  Girl yells, "No, Boy! You don't NEED anything except food and a house and clothes and your PARENTS!" and Boy yells back, "I already have on my PANTS!"