A TRIP DOWN GPS LANE

I'm doing four days of a big commute: Heading south toward Boston then north back past my starting point in the morning, and heading south back toward Boston to turn around and head north again in the afternoon. This means that I am doing the hideous commute morning and afternoon despite my best intentions.

The one thing I learn while doing the practice dry-runs is that my "ignore the GPS and stay the course" back roads route is actually the fastest and most efficient, despite the smatterings of traffic and despite passing several elementary schools and two high schools. To make it worse, my final destination each morning is a combined middle-high school campus with one -- count 'em -- only one entrance and exit for both parent and employee traffic.

Each day I play a game with my GPS. Every time I ignore the voice, I check to see how much time I may have gained or lost. Day One I arrive exactly eleven minutes late, just as the morning announcements are starting. Tuesday I arrive right on the money despite being behind one school bus that stops at every other house, and  despite having to stop for a rather lengthy bus pick-up coming the other direction - I walk in just as the bell rings to send children to homeroom. Wednesday I am also outrunning a rain-wind storm, but I improve my time by almost ten minutes, avoid buses, but do hit some high school traffic two towns away from work. Thursday I may or may not run two red lights (to be fair, two vehicles followed me through both times, so they really ran them), miss every bus, and I arrive fifteen minutes before my scheduled start time.

The afternoon commutes, however, have me stumped. On Monday, I time it well enough that the backed-up traffic is no longer backed-up, but still steady.  Tuesday's traffic is more delayed, but there are several long and useless lights on the commute that interfere with the normal flow. Wednesday I am driving pretty much blind through pounding rain and wind, and the commute is a nightmare, but not horrifically terrible. 

Thursday, the nicest weather of the whole week with sunshine and mild temperatures, both deceives me and defeats me.

Yes, Thursday. 

What starts out as a relaxing and enjoyable commute turns into Hell on Fire. People are weaving in and out of traffic, passing in no-passing zones, changing lanes with no warning, and making lanes where there aren't any. Traffic isn't just backed up at lights; it's backed up for miles in every and any direction including side streets. On a good day, the one-way commute would be about fifty minutes. Thursday I am in my car in the work parking lot at 2:45 to begin the debacle, and I arrive back home at 5:45. The entire less-than-forty-mile commute takes me three hours.

Three.

Hours.

Once I clear the worst of the traffic and believe that I'm home free, though, a transit bus cuts me off. It blocks my commute for about eight miles, and it's going twenty miles per hour in a thirty-five mph zone. I'll be honest with you - at this point, I'm not just losing my mind; I am losing my sanity.

Normally, losing my sanity inside my car with windows slightly open is not a horrible thing. However, I have a two-year-old in the back seat. Yes, I may have said things like, "Just f*****g turn, you f*****g d**k. You're not a f*****g eighteen-wheeler. Make the turn!" I may have said "sonofabitch" a few times, and I know without even having to do total recall that I said s**t many, many times, as well.

I am a relatively well-trusted teacher and a reasonably reliable caretaker, but I'll be totally up front: a five-hour daily commute is going to elicit certain words and phrases not normally used in my everyday vocabulary. Okay, they are used every day, but not in front of minors (for the most part). 

To make a very long story very short: Dear Parents -- Blame me when your toddler spews more colorful language than a drunken sailor on a weekend bender. Sincerely, The Crazy Woman Behind the Wheel

TEENY BIT OF SNOW

We had a teeny bit of snow for about a milli-second.

In a way, it's a relief because my car handles like garbage in the snow. I used to have four-wheel drive, and I enjoyed running out to the store in the middle of a blizzard just because I could. Now, when I see the slightest snowflake, I go into panic mode if I have to drive because I know I'll slide around more than a toddler on hockey skates.

But, I do love the snow. 

That first snowfall is tough at school, too. When those fat flakes fall out of the sky, it's like the kiddos have never seen it before in their entire thirteen years on Earth. Of course, I'm just as bad as they are. Once the snow starts, it's really difficult to reel them back in and equally difficult for me to collect my thoughts enough to try to get them back on task.

I suppose it's a lucky thing that the sun came out by lunch time, except that the heat melted everything away. No fluff stuck to tree branches, no slush clinging to the windshield, and no trace left in the parking lot on the way out at the end of the day.

I should be careful what I wish for, I suppose. I may have said the same thing last blog, but it bears repeating. When one wishes for snow badly enough, it's bound to whack us all at the most inconvenient time. So, when the first seasonal blizzard hits us, I'll be the one hiding around the corner pelting people with snowballs and yelling, "Told ya so!"

WHERE'S THE ICE?

No big freeze here yet.

We've had below-freezing temperatures and mornings of frost and black ice, but so far the ponds and lakes around here remain ice-free. I'm not talking about skateable ice; I'm talking about the crinkling presence of frosty lacing along the edges that scream, "Winter's coming!"

Last winter was pretty much snow-free. Then, the summer came along and was gloriously free of rain. I know, I know; the drought caused all kinds of problems from wildfires to tree farm disasters, but it sure was nice weather, just the same.

So far, though, we've had some decent sunshine here for Fall. 

I've seen it worse: Ice storms ruining Thanksgiving; snow on Halloween; sub-zero temperatures by mid-November . . . But, so far? So far this change of seasons has been remarkably painless and pleasant.

So, when the temperature plummets and the roads are so ice-coated that we cannot drive on them nor walk on the sidewalks, when the cold wind threatens to peel the skin off our faces, when it snows so hard that driving looks like hitting hyperdrive in our starships, when we are struggling to shovel our cars out of snow mounds -- You may blame me. 

Bring it, winter. I may not be ready, but the anticipation is killing me.

END OF A MILK CUP ERA

It's the end of an era. 

My childhood milk cup has finally called it quits. To be fair, the thing has endured decades of abuse by me, my siblings, and my own children, but, still. 

It's a sad day for cold milk everywhere.

My childhood milk cup was one of those plastic ones with the dual color scheme. It seemed insulated, in its own pathetic way, but, in reality, it was just hollow plastic. It did, however, keep milk colder for far longer than a glass or an ordinary plastic cup.

The bottom of it finally cracked, and I feared water getting trapped inside of it in the dishwasher or in the sink. I used it one final time, a "goodbye" of sorts. I may have heard the distant sound of "Taps" being played as I took my final sips of really well-chilled moo-juice.

Poor 1960's era cup.

Breakfast, lunch, and dinner just won't be the same without its retro vibe. Somehow, though, I'll manage to trudge on. I'll have to resort to other cups, or learn to drink my milk more quickly, or, perhaps most distressing of all, drink the last of the milk in any given cup when it has turned lukewarm. (Oh, the blasphemy!)

Farewell, old chum. We've had a wonderful sixtyish-year run. 

Wait. What's that you're saying? There are identical red and purple plastic milk cups hidden in the cabinet? Really?

In that case, bake up some cookies and grab us some fake-insulated cups of ice-cold milk.

POEM FOR NOVEMBER

November:

I don't recommend it.
One of out five stars. 

Gets dark early;

Temperatures are psychotic;

Too cold to swim;

Too warm to snowshoe;

Too much emphasis on turkey.

Football season;

Hockey season;

'Tis the season.

November is one giant hot flash:

Heat on in the morning;

Airconditioning on in the afternoon.

Orb in the sky, 

Full and shiny,

Mooning the people below -

"It's as cold and barren

Down there

As it is up here."

If November had one

(And only one)

Thing

To tell us,

It might be this:

Cranberry sauce is

Better in the can.

BACKING INTO THE FUN

When driving and parking -- I am a backer-in-er. Occasionally I am also a pull-through-er, but mainly I'm a back-it-up parking person.

Recently a friend teased me that I'm just showing off when I wedge my car into a spot by backing it in. Nah! I'm actually untrustworthy when backing out of a parking space because my view might be blocked by another vehicle, or perhaps a pedestrian or bicycle might zoom by. (I just witnessed this the other day at the grocery store and almost saw two idiotic bicyclists get smeared as they raced between parked and moving cars.) 

I also do this to provide a quick getaway. Not that I've robbed the store or anything. Truth of it is that I hate shopping. Detest it. Doesn't matter what it is: grocery shopping is tedious and always has long lines to check out; shopping for other random supplies (ink or hardware or odds-and-ends) requires wasted time hunting and pecking through jumbled aisles; clothing shopping is torture; malls are constructed from the Devil's armpit; I even hate running into the coffee shop for an iced caramel swirl. 

The main reason I back into parking spaces, though, is because even the average driver is a moron. This is on display when I go to meet friends a few towns away in a place called Station Landing. There are some shops and several restaurants, and there is a decent amount of parking. So, imagine my surprise (being facetious here, folks) when a young man slides his SUV into a space, blocking the handicap spot, and leaves his vehicle partially parked with its ass-end hanging sideways.

I snap a picture of his marvelous parking ability, and I also snap a picture of all of the empty spaces around me. Yes, this is hilarious! Except . . . 

. . . Except that it immediately starts happening as if the driver has opened Pandora's Parking Box. Within two minutes, every space is taken, and multiple drivers arrive making multiple attempts to back into, and to pull straight into, the spaces. 

It suddenly looks like a clown circus. It looks like a drivers' ed course. It looks like the opening sequence from the old TV show The Banana Splits.

My friends, who park across the lot in a sensible spot, arrive in the nick of time to witness the madness. As we wander into the restaurant for lunch, we are wide-eyed and giddy after watching the mayhem of the crazy parking party. As quickly as it starts, and once all of the parking spaces have been filled, it's as calm in the parking lot as if the ridiculousness had never happened. We shake our heads, because, in reality, we can describe it to you, even post pictures of it, but it cannot compare to the hysteria of watching people jockey for spots as if they'd won the lottery and had to beat the competitors to the ticket cashier.

And this is why I back into spots. Yes, there are nutty drivers everywhere, and I can exit the space more safely with a front-facing position. Truthfully, though, I would've missed all of the fun and insanity if I'd been facing the street instead of the idiocy occurring in the lot. Backing into the space is well worth the price of admission to the fun!

BABY, IT'S (NOT) COLD OUTSIDE!

Baby, it's coooold outside.

Well, actually, it's not cold outside on the first day of November, also known as The First Day of Christmas Music on the Radio. In fact, it's nearly eighty degrees outside.

Sure, I know it's always eighty degrees where some of you live. Christmas is tropical, and your Christmas grog has coconut in it. 

But, up here? We're all about snow and hot mulled wine and freezing our toes off just stepping across the parking lot to huddle inside of our iced over vehicles.

Bring on the snow.

Bring on the biting winds.

Bring on the pitch-dark afternoons now that the clocks have fallen back.

Bring on the holiday soundtrack.

I'm ready!