Month: February 2019

Idiot Genes

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What is it about human beings that brings out the idiot gene when driving in bad weather? I had a doctor’s appointment today on the other side of Memphis. I hate driving over there, but it is always more stressful if I hit any sort of traffic. Today, due to the time of my appointment I hit the worse area at after school rush hour. Kids everywhere, running across the road in front of traffic, idiots who do not think they need to obey the school speed zones, and parents who think it is just fine for them to stop in the middle of the road to let their little darling get in the car, while chatting on their phones. And, to make it even more peachy, it was pouring rain. Lovely.

The appointment went well, and I got out of there just in time to catch the evening rush hour that starts at four p.m. In Memphis, every road is full of pot holes, some shallow, some deep. If you don’t know where they are, especially when it rains and fills them with water, you will be taking a chance on losing a tire and messing up the suspension on your car. Today, adding to the misery of too many cars in too small a space, we still had pouring rain. Roads were starting to flood, and all the pot holes were filled to the brim. So what do we have to deal with? A big delivery truck, one about the size of a large U-haul truck, decides to make his own space on the road.

He was in the far right lane, between him and the left turn lane were three lanes filled with people driving ten to fifteen miles over the speed limit. What does the knuckle dragging, chest beating, cave man do? He decides to pull across all three lanes, with no warning – like a signal – making cars do their best to dodge and weave around him. Then to make it even better, he made a left turn on a red light. Fortunately, I had an idea something would happen and slowed down to avoid the other cars. Behind me, I heard two or three big bangs as cars careened into each other. I guess they weren’t paying attention because they were too busy jockeying for position to make it through the stop light before it turned red. I just kept going, I was so stressed by then that I just wanted to get home.

Further down the road were cars filled with moms and kids getting from point A to point B in the shopping district. Why, may I ask, do people drive gray, black, dark blue, dark green, and maroon cars in the pouring rain and refuse to turn on their lights? Maybe they can see in the dark, but the average person does not have cat genes that allows them to do so. Maybe there would be less horn honking and swearing if they bothered to turn on the damned LIGHTS!!! Oh, and using turn signals, you know those funny little stalks on the steering column that indicate which direction you want to turn, would help everyone get out of your way before you run them down.

As I got to Pleasant Hill Road, preparing to turn left from Goodman Road, an old fart moron, the worse kind after young smart ass morons, cut across two lanes of traffic to cut me off so he could get in the turn lane first. No, I wasn’t nice, yes I used the horn and a few choice swear words too. If I hadn’t had great peripheral vision, I would have ended up T-boning the moron. As it was, I narrowly missed the old fart. The HE had the nerve to put his car in reverse and try to back into me. Holy CATS! What is WRONG with people when the weather gets bad? They must save up all their aggression just for a day that is dangerous in which to drive anywhere over the speed limit in bumper to bumper traffic, while it pours rain leave about ten feet of visibility. The idiot gene may be regressive for many, but it comes full force on days like today.

I walked in the door and told the Mr. I was DONE driving in this crappy weather. I was so stressed, he took me out to dinner. I think we now have the weather from California that flooded them last week. I think it brought along its own idiot gene just to rile up the resident idiots. Today, I wished I still drank booze, I could use a glass of wine, chocolate, and time out to watch an entire season of Criminal Minds.

Trying To Explain Love

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Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day. The one day for lovers on the calendar world wide. I find that phenomenal. Of course, it is commercially driven, but the idea of love being celebrated makes me smile. Every year I search for the perfect gift for the love of my life. Every year I end up getting him something boring, like a wrist watch. What I want to give him is something that represents the love I have for him, the memories we share, and the passion that we have for one another. How can I find that and wrap it up in a bow? I get tongue tied when I try to use words, and even though I write them down, it still comes out stilted and awkward. I can bring myself to a bright red blush trying to explain what our marriage means to me. I often use music to describe my feelings, my needs. And that works to a point, but I still feel that I don’t quite make the point. He knows I love him, but I don’t know that he understands how much more there is in my soul.
 
Today, the words soulmate is bandied about a lot. I suppose we are soulmates, but like all lovers, we started out as two very young people who were attracted to each other, and we enjoyed time together. We made each other laugh a lot, and we discovered passion together. He was my first and only love, and he always will be. Through the years, we have fallen in and out of love many times, until we learned, at last, that we were destined for each other, good or bad, and that our souls and hearts were intertwined so closely that without one another we weren’t fully able to find happiness. He is my soulmate, lover, closest friend, confidant, and the one person I can pick a fight with who will stand up to me, forgive me, and still love me through good and bad.
 
He believes in me. He pushes me to the next level when I falter and give in to fear. He teaches me things, and he doesn’t laugh when I balk at taking a step into the unknown. He makes me laugh out loud, and he has taught me to laugh at myself and let go of the need to be perfect and simply be myself. He is the father of my sons, grandfather, and great grandfather to their progeny. His love for them makes me love him even more. He is my lover, who taught me how to be a woman. He is still able, after all these years together, to make my knees weak with his touch. It is how I always thought love was supposed to be.
 
Who knew a blind date all those years ago would lead us to this? Who knew that a soft kiss in the darkness of a drive in movie would bring us such long lasting passion? Who knew that as we neared the end of our lives we would cling to one another more and need each other as deeply as we do? We didn’t, neither of us expected a great and abiding love that would guide, design, and create our lives from young to old. But, here we are, forty-eight years after we met, still madly in love, and finding joy in one another.
 
I spent today listening to love songs, trying to find the perfect song to share with him on Valentine’s Day. There are hundreds we have heard over the years. So many bring memories, good and bad, tears and laughter that choosing one is nearly impossible. There are the love songs from the days we met. There are songs from when we were parents of young children, songs that we listened to when we were trying to navigate the distance that grew between us, songs that we danced to, songs that made us look at each other with tenderness. How does someone hopelessly in love choose only one song when every song seems to speak my feelings? I can only try. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJs5cT4HwjA
 
Happy Valentine’s Day, to all lovers out there and especially to the love of my life.

Road Trip, Or Not.

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Going on a road trip with the Mr. is always a challenge. It begins when we decide we are going to go visit our son or my mother. First there is the decision on what route to take. I hate driving on the interstate. Boring beyond words, especially in southeastern Arkansas. It is so flat there it makes Oklahoma look like it has mountains. The Mr. however, loves to drive on the interstate because he can drive faster than on regular state roads. He doesn’t care about the scenery or small towns. But that is because he gets tunnel vision and becomes totally focused on getting from point A to point B as fast as possible.

Because he is driving, he has something to concentrate on. I am one of those people who gets miserably car sick. I can’t so much as read a map in the moving car without my stomach trying to turn inside out. So I am sitting in the passenger seat with nothing to do but look out the window. I can try to have a conversation with the Mr. but his brain generally isn’t into it. I get bored fast on the interstate. On the state highways, there are things to see like odd small towns, landscapes, and the occasional animal. Sometimes I get to drive if we are on state roads, mostly though, the Mr. drives. Not because he likes to, and not because I am a bad driver, I am actually better at it than him. But, I get tired easily, so I don’t often get to chose the route.

The second issue, once in the car, is the music. The rule in our family is the driver gets to pick the music. Except he doesn’t choose music, he listens to talk radio. Which is fine for a bit, but on an eight hour drive, it gets old and repetitive. With satellite radio, there are hundreds of choices for music. And we have the MP3 options as well. If he does choose a music station, it stays on that station no matter what they play. I, however, like to switch stations -a lot. Why listen to a song that is boring or by someone you can’t stand when there is so much to choose from? But the Mr. hates it when I do that. He also hates the music turned up loud. Why the heck bother to have it on if you can barely hear it? Makes it hard to sing along.

The third issue, do we stop for the night or just keep going? Its a toss up whether the Mr. will stop or not. I can pull the “I don’t feel well” card and he will stop no matter how close we are to the destination. Sometimes, I just get worn out and claustrophobic being stuck in a car for hours on end. We generally manage about eight hours in the car before I start getting stressed and antsy. The Mr. will keep driving until he is too tired to see straight or we get there.

The fourth issues, one that many women of a certain age deal with is the bathroom stops. Look, a woman my age has a bladder the size of a walnut, and we have to have a pit stop every hour or so. We hold it as long as possible, really we do. We can’t help it if that means we stop fifty miles down the road from the last stop or two hundred. Either we don’t drink anything and dehydrate, or we have to stop as often as our body demands. And no, we can’t just stop on the side of the road like guys can, not and be comfortable, private, or safe. So just get used to a pit stop every hour or so, or have a dehydrated, hateful witch on your hands. Your choice. The Mr. stops. He knows better than to suggest anything else.

We haven’t been on a long road trip in a long time. We try to keep it within a day’s drive when we go on short vacations. Once we retire, I want to travel to the seven states we have never been to out of the fifty in the US. Some how I don’t know that we will do that and keep from annoying each other. I guess we will have to give it a go and see how it works out. One thing for sure, I am going to drive as much as possible, take back roads, and turn up the music while I switch stations regularly. The Mr. can just deal with it.