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Well, it's official: My little sister Sharon and her girlfriend of two years have tied the knot. *pops the cork on some sparkling cider since Sharon's straight-edge and won't drink champagne* So now she's an old married lady like me with full rights to gripe if Kirsty consistently leaves the kitchen lights on or fails to turn her clothes out before putting them into the laundry.
They're in London on honeymoon and aren't here to see it, but here's some obnoxious marquee spam done in their honor!
Sharon is probably regreting the day that she ever agreed to teach me basic HTML and therefore opened a can of worms for me to discover the marquee tag!
In other news, I'm trying to resist the urge to plunge into my next story--an o-fic for Sharon's birthday at the end of June, incidentally--until I get some stuff done. Namely, the Silmarillion readings for the next two weeks so that Jenni can post them while I'm gone. I've got "Of the Fifth Battle" to do, which shouldn't be bad, as the chapter is not that long...and "Of Turin." "Of Turin" is humongous! It's going to take forever, just like the damned "Beren and Luthien" chapter this past week. Someone should have asked the good professor to at least try for consistent chapter length. Some of the early chapters are, what, two pages? Then the ending chapters are novellas unto themselves.
In baby-bird news, we have another egg! Indis laid another egg sometime over the weekend, and she and Finwe have been busy rebuilding the nest. I'll be checking in often to see if she lays anymore, but it looks like we'll have at least one new baby. We'd planned on taking our plants to my in-laws while we're in Puerto Rico, but it looks like we're going to be trusting ol' Mother Nature to assure that the snapdragon gets watered. Mother Nature and Potter, who might stop by the apartment a couple of times while we're gone. He's free, therefore, to use the Xbox 360...as long as he waters my snapdragon.
Coming to work this morning, a saw a tanker truck slam into the side of a passenger car. The guy in the car was fine...or so I presume, since he immediately jumped out of the car and started screaming at the trucker, running back and forth across the highway, waving his hands and shouting. The trucker never climbed down while I was there, and I do not blame him. I think the guy would have kicked his ass. Really, I don't know what the trucker was thinking. Maybe he wasn't thinking, and that was the problem. He made a left turn right into the side of this guy crossing the intersection.
I told Bobby the other day that--despite the things we enjoy doing that seem like they'd be higher risk than driving a car--I am far more afraid of driving lately than nearly anything else. I still flinch when cars come out of driveways to my right. I have to try very hard not to be a back-seat driver when I'm not behind the wheel and second-guess everything that Bobby or Potter is doing. Three times in the past three weeks, Bobby says, he has nearly been hit by people who act as though our car is invisble. (Our Aerio is bright apple-red; I guarantee you, it is not invisible!) Twice, I have been with him. Once, I was driving. A woman pulled in front of me from stopped traffic while I was driving down the interstate on Friday; if I'd been going 5 mph faster or if Bobby hadn't said, "Watch this idiot," right before she pulled out or if I had stopped five inches closer, I would have hit her.
Those of you who don't drive, you have the right idea. I wish that I could join you.
Is it sad when I ponder the feasibility of riding a bike fourteen miles to work each day? Of course, this still requires me to be on the road with insane drivers.
Our higher-up boss Vernon was nearly killed over Memorial Weekend when he took his brand-new Harley Davidson motorcycle out for the first time, and a guy made a left turn right in front of him. He said that the guy stopped, looked at him, and turned anyway. He broke three ribs and punctured a lung; he only got out of the hospital at the end of last week.
I'm really depressing myself now. But it's hard not to think of these things lately.
On a brighter note, Bobby and I are seeing Spamalot at the National Theatre in Washington tonight. He surprised me with tickets; they'd sold out, but they recently opened more seats, and he grabbed them up as soon as he could. One of his coworkers who went with us to the hockey game on Saturday saw it and loved it. Since Bobby, Potter, and I watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail every six months or so, I think we'll love it too.
They're in London on honeymoon and aren't here to see it, but here's some obnoxious marquee spam done in their honor!
Sharon is probably regreting the day that she ever agreed to teach me basic HTML and therefore opened a can of worms for me to discover the marquee tag!
In other news, I'm trying to resist the urge to plunge into my next story--an o-fic for Sharon's birthday at the end of June, incidentally--until I get some stuff done. Namely, the Silmarillion readings for the next two weeks so that Jenni can post them while I'm gone. I've got "Of the Fifth Battle" to do, which shouldn't be bad, as the chapter is not that long...and "Of Turin." "Of Turin" is humongous! It's going to take forever, just like the damned "Beren and Luthien" chapter this past week. Someone should have asked the good professor to at least try for consistent chapter length. Some of the early chapters are, what, two pages? Then the ending chapters are novellas unto themselves.
In baby-bird news, we have another egg! Indis laid another egg sometime over the weekend, and she and Finwe have been busy rebuilding the nest. I'll be checking in often to see if she lays anymore, but it looks like we'll have at least one new baby. We'd planned on taking our plants to my in-laws while we're in Puerto Rico, but it looks like we're going to be trusting ol' Mother Nature to assure that the snapdragon gets watered. Mother Nature and Potter, who might stop by the apartment a couple of times while we're gone. He's free, therefore, to use the Xbox 360...as long as he waters my snapdragon.
Coming to work this morning, a saw a tanker truck slam into the side of a passenger car. The guy in the car was fine...or so I presume, since he immediately jumped out of the car and started screaming at the trucker, running back and forth across the highway, waving his hands and shouting. The trucker never climbed down while I was there, and I do not blame him. I think the guy would have kicked his ass. Really, I don't know what the trucker was thinking. Maybe he wasn't thinking, and that was the problem. He made a left turn right into the side of this guy crossing the intersection.
I told Bobby the other day that--despite the things we enjoy doing that seem like they'd be higher risk than driving a car--I am far more afraid of driving lately than nearly anything else. I still flinch when cars come out of driveways to my right. I have to try very hard not to be a back-seat driver when I'm not behind the wheel and second-guess everything that Bobby or Potter is doing. Three times in the past three weeks, Bobby says, he has nearly been hit by people who act as though our car is invisble. (Our Aerio is bright apple-red; I guarantee you, it is not invisible!) Twice, I have been with him. Once, I was driving. A woman pulled in front of me from stopped traffic while I was driving down the interstate on Friday; if I'd been going 5 mph faster or if Bobby hadn't said, "Watch this idiot," right before she pulled out or if I had stopped five inches closer, I would have hit her.
Those of you who don't drive, you have the right idea. I wish that I could join you.
Is it sad when I ponder the feasibility of riding a bike fourteen miles to work each day? Of course, this still requires me to be on the road with insane drivers.
Our higher-up boss Vernon was nearly killed over Memorial Weekend when he took his brand-new Harley Davidson motorcycle out for the first time, and a guy made a left turn right in front of him. He said that the guy stopped, looked at him, and turned anyway. He broke three ribs and punctured a lung; he only got out of the hospital at the end of last week.
I'm really depressing myself now. But it's hard not to think of these things lately.
On a brighter note, Bobby and I are seeing Spamalot at the National Theatre in Washington tonight. He surprised me with tickets; they'd sold out, but they recently opened more seats, and he grabbed them up as soon as he could. One of his coworkers who went with us to the hockey game on Saturday saw it and loved it. Since Bobby, Potter, and I watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail every six months or so, I think we'll love it too.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-13 02:14 pm (UTC)Sometimes, I amaze myself at how much I hate the right-turn-on-red law. I do think it's responsible for a significant portion of arrogant drivers on the road. Yes, I know how much it saves in emissions, and that's great. But, on the other hand, it's caused increasing numbers of drivers to think that the red light means that stopping is optional. Even if there's a "no right turn" sign. Or if, say, a pedestrian is using his/her own right-of-way to cross the street. I cannot count the number of times I've been crossing a street on my own walk light and some asshole who desperately wants to turn right starts edging at me and giving me a dirty look. Because, yannow, why should s/he have to wait the three seconds it takes for me to cross in front of his/her car on my walk light? Why can't s/he turn right NOW? Sometimes this happens more than once at the same intersection.
And then there are the drivers who think it's funny to come barrelling up to an intersection at forty miles an hour and then jam on the brakes right at the very last minute. Yes. Ha ha. Wotta knee-slapper.
Mazel tov to Sharon and Kirsty, and may they discover the joys of an entire marriage without once having to remind their spouse to put the toilet seat down.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-06-13 04:31 pm (UTC)Well...sort of. I volunteered last year to lead the Silmarillion reading over at the Henneth-Annun Yahoo group. Knowing how these things go, of course, the only people still reading along as far as I know are those who have read the Sil a half-dozen times already. But I still persist, since my summaries are apparently popular in certain contingents.
But in signing up for the reading at large, of course, I got stuck with Turin too. Also not one of my favorites.
Sometimes, I amaze myself at how much I hate the right-turn-on-red law.
I would agree with you. Turning right from our street onto the relatively busy Route 40, I encounter this sort of thing as a driver too. 40 is three lanes on each side there, and people barrel through at unreasonable speeds (and traffic is always heavy), so I will not right-on-red unless there is not a car in sight for a good distance. The way people fly through there and change lanes willly-nilly without a signal and a cell phone in one hand and a latte in the other, it's not a chance worth taking for me.
There is about a five-second window between when the light on 40 turns red and the traffic on the street opposite gets a green for left turns. But again, I don't try it unless everyone's come to a full stop. Maryland may be the Redlight Camera Capital of the world, but I'm not taking chances that oncoming traffic is going to stop.
The other day, I happened to glance in my rearview mirror and saw the woman behind me throw up her hands in disgust at my failure to take that five-second opportunity to make a right on red. So I turned and smiled and waved.
But really. The opposing traffic literally gets a green light for about 30 seconds, sometimes less, as the light has a sensor. And the next light is timed that you get a red no matter if you take that five-second window or wait to go on green.
My theory for this region is that people are just too damned self-important. Howard County is the seventh richest in the country, and people get delusions of grandeur, living in their "exclusive gated communities" and working for big biotech firms. They assume that world should bow to their whims. If that means that they ride your ass in traffic because you (of course--not the 100 cars in front of you) are making them late for a meeting with the vice-president, then so be it. Or if they weave through highway traffic in their Ford Excursion with a cell phone in one hand and a Starbucks in the other and a backseat full of screaming soccer players...well, at least they won't be late for the game.
The roadwork doesn't help: We sit in traffic wherever we go, and people get frustrated and take stupid chances. Because my life is worth them being on time.
It's really frustrating.
Mazel tov to Sharon and Kirsty, and may they discover the joys of an entire marriage without once having to remind their spouse to put the toilet seat down.
Bwah! How true! Lucky for me, Bobby is good with this too. Unlucky for me, those examples about the kitchen lights and the clothes not being turned out properly came from somewhere....