PRETENDING TO WITNESS A DIFFERENCE

This afternoon while coming home from work, I barely miss being involved in a multi-car collision on a busy and dangerous major thoroughfare.  My co-worker is in front of me by about forty-five seconds.  I stop in the parking lot, hesitating before I pull on to the school’s long driveway, so I can fish around for my glasses.  I need my glasses for reading, and I’m on my way to vote.  It’s imperative that I be able to read the ballot.

I lose sight of my co-worker’s small blue car, pass by another co-worker’s red SUV, and head further north, my mind completely on the election. Up ahead of me I see a black car across the road, as if it is trying to turn and has been blocked, so I slow down.  The car is not in the middle of a turn, though.  It has been spun around sideways.

As we all come to a stop in the middle of the four-lane road, I quickly scan what’s going on.  Someone is lying down in the dirt on the other side of the road.  She’s not badly hurt as she throws herself onto the ground then quickly stands up again.  Shock, I surmise, she’s probably scared out of her mind and dazed at what just happened.

There are several people on that side of the road there to help her.  A construction van of some type has pulled over, so I go back to the business of letting people cut in front of me to go around the scene to the right.  The dumbass driver in front of me and to the left, though, ignores my flashing lights and obvious gesture to let him or her into the traffic pattern.  The driver seems completely absorbed in looking over the scene and drives way too close to the disabled black sedan. 

As I come around the accident, I see the other half of what is going on.  A read car has been completely smeared, its entire passenger side destroyed, scraped, pushed in.  I cannot see if anyone is still inside.  Several cars have pulled over onto the sidewalk, and someone’s horn is beeping … beeping … beeping.

I make the split-second decision to continue on my way.  I don’t really know much first aid, I don’t recognize the cars involved, and I didn’t witness the accident.  If I am to stop now, I’ll be in the way.  Seriously.  When I am asked, “Why did you stop?” I doubt “Because I’m a gawker” will suffice.  The police will tell me to get my stupid ass right out of there.  So, without waiting for the middle man, I get my stupid ass right out of there.

This accident, though, is moments old, perhaps only seconds.  No emergency crews have yet arrived nor do I hear any sirens.  I take a few breaths and thank my glasses for once not being on my head, for delaying me just that much longer that neither I nor my colleague managed to be involved, or at least she wasn’t because I don’t see her car – unless it has been catapulted somewhere off the street.

I poke along behind some slow-bees all the way to the polling place in my town, about seven miles from the accident scene.  I am extra-vigilant looking for traffic patterns, doubting directionals and easing up on my lead foot.  That could have been me had I left on time.  I feel as lucky for myself as I feel horrible for those involved.  I sincerely hope that there are no major injuries … or worse. 

Yes, I vote.  I vote in this crash-and-burn political arena that I’m not sure will be any better than nor painless than the massive collision I have just passed.  I doubt the police and firemen can help out this major collision of self-absorbed professional and perpetual career politicians.  At least here in the polling place while standing in the voting booth, I can pretend to witness a difference.

CORRECTING ESSAYS AND ... OH, SHINY!

I fully intend to do some correcting tonight.  Grades close Friday, and I have a pile of semi-coherent essays to mark up and put commentary on, essays that have been mocking me for a couple of days.  Okay, 25% of them are done, so 75% of them are mocking me still.

Today is the first workday after Daylight Savings Time, which I still wonder why we do, but that’s not my real issue today.  My real issue is that I feel like taking a walk after work, so I have to rush myself home in order to get my walk in before darkness descends.  Sure, sure, sure.  I should be correcting papers, but it’s a beautiful fall afternoon – not too cold, somewhat breezy, and I know the walk will do me good.

Of course, about a block into the walk, my still-swollen Achilles tendons start squawking.  I don’t know what their deal is.  It has been months, and still they’re bugging me.  I’m bored of talking about them but even more bored of living with them.  I’m walking, though.  If I don’t keep walking, I’ll have to come home and grade papers.

Once I get home, I decide I’ll eat dinner before I shower before I grade papers.  I put together an excellent meal of chicken with barbecue sauce and sweet potato on the side.  I like my sweet potatoes with a hint of salt and a pound of butter melted all over them.  I fail to see how anyone can eat sweet potatoes all ruined with marshmallows or brown sugar – or worse, both.  This thought about sweet potatoes and the travesty of further sweetening them keeps my brain occupied long enough to keep me from correcting papers.

Of course I must update myself with social media and all.  Can’t let that pass me by.  I see my friend post, and, knowing she has just returned from a day trip to the snow-covered part of Maine, I feel I certainly must call her.  I must also tell her about the strange spitting-yelling man who sat next to me at a trivia fundraiser the other night because I suspect she knows his wife.  I am correct.  I tell her that the man was lucky to escape from the trivia table with his balls still intact because had he spit on me one more time, I was going to castrate him with the plastic knife the hosts so generously and willingly allowed me to carry.  The conversation about my possible jail time prevents me from correcting papers.

Then I have to call my son about some mail that arrived while he is away at college.  Does he need me to bring it up to school?  No?  Not yet?  Okay.  Yak yak yak … I only end the call when he insists he is on his way to study.  I pretend that I am going to correct papers, but I open a bag of Sugar Babies from the trivia night (I stole the small bag and shoved it into my purse along with a miniature Three Musketeers candy bar) and decide that counting the number of Sugar Babies is far more crucial than correcting papers.

I’m still sweaty from my walk, and I am also staving off a hot flash, so I sit in front of the fan for a few minutes.  I can’t possibly correct papers with the fan on.  They’ll blow around everywhere, and I’ll just end up making a mess or something.

Oh, look.  The clock says it’s after 8:00 p.m.  That means I probably should write the blog so it will post on time in the morning.  Important stuff going on.  I mean, I’ll be totally distracted thinking about the blog if I even attempt to do any correcting.  I cannot have distractions while trying to read through the essays.  I’ll be all, “Oh, what was the topic sentence again?  I keep thinking about spitting-yelling trivia man and where I might bury the body.”

Tomorrow afternoon I need to vote.  Hmmmm, somewhere in my mess of papers is the booklet about the issues.  I really ought to read through that so I can make some educated decisions tomorrow on the ballot questions.  I don’t want to make a state-wide mistake on account of some essays that muddle up my thought process.  I’d better dig up that booklet and make myself a political genius.  The essays surely understand the importance of political activism, right?

Ugh.  Just got a whiff of myself.  I really should take that shower.  I meant to shower when I finished my walk in the almost-dark at 4:40 p.m.  I should jump in the shower and then correct some essays.  Of course, it’ll be a little late to get started then.  I need to get to sleep at a reasonable hour because I’m staying up late Tuesday for trivia, a different trivia, though.  No spitting-yelling man at this trivia, at least not that I’ve ever seen before.  I’ll be fighting with the bartenders to keep the Bruins game on the whole time.  Thank goodness baseball is done.  Imagine thinking that baseball trumps hockey.  Who thinks such a thing?  These jumbled thoughts keep my brain from thinking about essays.

Wait … am I talking about a shower or trivia or correcting papers?  This conundrum alone bothers me so much that I cannot even think about grading essays now.

I know!  I’ll think about grading essays tomorrow, for tomorrow is another day!  At Tara!  And I’ll be Scarlett O’Hara.  You know my favorite part of that movie?  When the little girl is riding the horse and …

Face it.  Those essays won’t be getting done anytime soon.  Oh well.  I have until Friday.  Bets are being taken, folks.  I’m betting I’ll be kicking myself in the ass trying to get them all done Thursday night.  But I think there’s a Bruins game on Thursday night … and … ooooooooh ….. shiny!  So much for good intentions.

NO SNOW HERE YET ... BOOOO

Everybody gets snow but me.  Honestly, I live in the strangest pocket.

Years ago when we got hit by The Great 80’s Ice Storm, I lost cable and phone service, but I never lost power. I had to drive a kiddo home mere miles away.  It looked like another world, all gray and colorless and totally iced over, powerless and lightless.  But everything was fine in my neighborhood.

Sometimes it’s the opposite problem.  Neighborhoods and towns around me get a few inches of snow, but I live in a wind tunnel neighborhood (which surprises me that we don’t lose power more often).  The wind tunnel effect creates areas of huge snow accumulations sometimes.  My side of the shared driveway is the worst, and the snow piles against the fence, creating inches, sometimes feet, of more snow.  (One of these storms, I’m going to kick that fence down and pretend the wind did it.)

Today, though, we get our first snow.  Well, some people do.  The most it snows here is a small spattering of mini-flakes for about a half-a-milli-second.  I see people posting pictures on social network about the snow piling up.  My friends in the city (Boston) tell me it’s snowing like crazy there.  I see posted pictures of Gillette Stadium with snow completely coating the field.

I look outside expectantly.  Nothing.  Like Yukon Cornelius searching for gold and silver, silver and gold …  Nothin’.

When the rain lets up, the wind is so strong that the patio furniture I left outside dries almost instantly.  I pile up the plastic chairs that have survived well-past their prime already, leaning them against the part of the fence that does not annoy me, then I bring in the metal table and chairs.  I finally manage to get the air conditioners out of the windows with some help from my daughter and son-in-law.  (Don’t judge me – it still gets miserably warm and humid sometimes in October.  I like to sleep in comfort.)

Still, no snow, though.

I am minding my own business when I see online posts from nearby friends, bemoaning via cell phone that they cannot watch the Patriots game because the power has gone off.  Listening to the wind, I decide I should probably crank up the heat for a few minutes and jump in the shower before I, too, lose power and run out of hot water.

Silly me. 

It won’t snow here, and I probably won’t lose power, either.  But now at least I smell all clean and my hair is all damp-wavy because I didn’t bother blow-drying it … you know … in case I lose power while drying my hair and only one side of my head looks decent. 

Remind me in a month or two or three or four or five, remind me when I’m pissing and moaning about shoveling mountains of the white crap, remind me when I’m frozen through from the icy Nor’easters that are sure to come – Remind me then of what I am about to tell you now:

It didn’t snow here today, and I’m damn sorry I missed it.

NOT MISSING THE HOUR

It’s 11:30 p.m. at my house. 

Wait.  No.  I lied.

It’s 10:30 p.m. at my house.

I have already run around and turned back all of the clocks.  I never wait until the following morning, and I always stay up too late when DST ends because I’m getting that extra hour … and wasting it right off the bat.

Wait.  No.  I lied.

I’m not really wasting time because I overslept this morning.  I was ready to get up at 6:30, rolled around for a few minutes believing I couldn’t get back to sleep, then zonked out for almost three more hours. 

Technically, that means I’m still two hours in the black, right? 

It will be dark early during the Patriots game.  Of course, it’s November now; it’s dark almost constantly this month with the later sunrises and early sunsets.  November’s sunlessness does to the soul what March’s extreme winds and chill do to the body.  The whole buckling into winter in early November, the whole unbuckling again from it toward the end of March.

It may be 10:30 p.m. at my house, but I’ll use my time carefully to ease myself into the first few weeks of winter.  It may not be here officially, but the raw wind, icy rain, and plunging temperature do not believe that any more than my senses do.  Once I adjust to it, it’s just about the time the days start to get a little longer again, anyway, and by then it’s not so bad.

By then, I’ll have adjusted to the weather and already gotten excited over the holidays and the snow and the New England winter.   By then, I won’t be missing that hour so much anymore.

SUNRISES AND DAYLIGHT SAVINGS

No more sunrises on the way to work.

Oh, sure, I’ll still get to see some unbelievable skies, especially those when snow is near and the clouds are purple and pink and teal.  But I am hopeful that after we fall back again, my life in the morning will improve.

Right now it’s so damn dark when I leave the house for work that I have to lock the front door by guessing.  Every car’s headlights are on, and I have to adapt my rearview mirror to avoid direct hits into the eyes by vehicles behind me.   By the time I arrive at work, the sky has lightened, and I watch the sunrise bust out over the sky.

No matter.  That’s all over.

I probably won’t be seeing the mist rising eerily off the pond as I creep through the semi-dark behind the police barracks and down the back road that circumvents the state forest.  I probably won’t be able to sneak into work under the cloak of pre-dawn.  I probably won’t have to worry about being seen standing on the heaters and window sills in order to open windows while my room lights blare into the morning grayness.

I’ll be going from headlights to sunlight blinding me on my way toward the long, solitary street of school traffic that backs up for an hour every morning – but usually after I’ve already arrived as long as I leave twenty minutes before I really have to because I’d rather be in my room being productive than sitting within view of the parking lot but unable to actually get there during the rush-hour blockade.

Thanks for ending, Daylight Savings Time, and good riddance to you.  Take those damn dark mornings with you.    Too bad you’ll be taking those startling and magnificent sunrises with you, too.

Thank you, though, for giving me a beauty of a view from my room on Friday morning.  Perfect ending for us both.