Marathons and Exits

Road crews are working on adding a new interchange to the highway I travel in my commute.

The construction got me to thinking about a time in my early childhood when my family used to periodically travel the New Jersey Turnpike to visit relatives.

Exit signs were the primary indicators of progress made - and distances yet to travel. In addition to announcing the name of the secondary road served, each exit sign also provided the number of miles to the next exit.

Twenty-three miles between one exit and another was cause for much moaning and groaning from the backseat. When you're a kid who has already been in a car for over an hour and the next milestone is nearly half an hour away - well that's an eternity.

One particularly hot summer afternoon my displeasure with the never ending ride was heightened by the discovery that a new exit had been added between exits 7 and 8. The new exit was 7A and it was very bad news as far as I was concerned.

In my mind, the new exit meant the distance between exits 7 and 8 had to have been lengthened to accommodate this offensive new off ramp.

Exit 7A could only mean - the marathon ride had just gotten longer.

I wanted to stomp my feet and cry foul - but my Dad would have made it clear that I was going to be the cause of his having to turn the car around.

Triple Thinking

Nuclear Winter, Twilight Zone, Outer Limits. These three things were on my mind as I drove into work this morning.

Twilight Zone and Outer Limits because the world seemed "out of phase". I couldn't quite put my finger on why. Perhaps it was the morning mist that couldn't decide if it wanted to be up or down. There were areas where mist swept across the street, obliterating shoulders of the road - and other places where the mist hung just high enough to make it seem I was driving through a tunnel.

Twilight Zone and Outer Limits because the writers for those two television shows were experts and taking ordinary life and twisting it so to reveal the possibility that something totally incomprehensible could be developing beneath a shell of ordinary appearance. This morning it certainly seemed that something opposite of ordinary could be waiting around the next bend.

Nuclear Winter because as the light from the sun finally managed to push through the mist, the eastern sky turned a alien yellow- green. I imagined that if there enough ash in the air, this dim mutated color could be the most hopeful light the day would bring. A light that could just as easily be radioactive glow as light from a distant star.

Have Cat Will Travel

So there I was cruising along the highway when a motorcycle passed me.

Such an event is not so special - but seeing a cat carrier strapped to the seat behind the rider definitely caught my attention.

While I couldn't take my eyes off the road long enough to really study the cat carrier, I could picture the cat inside. All four paws clutching the wire door while wind blew through the carrier at 70 mph. The cat's tail would no doubt have been fluffed to the diameter of a baseball bat while the cat's fur was whipped in all directions.

Had the motorcycle exhaust not been loud enough to make the floor of my car vibrate, I might have heard the cat's howls of dismay.

Reclaiming Summer

We've been shortchanged.

Remember when the official summer season lasted until Labor Day?

Then school districts and colleges quietly shaved a day here, a day there, - and suddenly the summer season ended seven to ten days sooner.

Let's reverse the trend. Let's restore the official summer season - plus add a few days here and a few days there.

I propose moving Labor Day to the first Monday before the Post-Summer equinox so that summer ends when summer really ends.

Further, I propose the weeks between Memorial Day and the new Labor Day all be changed to four day work weeks. NOW we're talking, huh? Huh, huh?

Now, to identify the right charismatic front person for the cause. Maybe Matthew McConaughey. He has a considerable number of silver screen credits to his name. He also has a rugged, outdoor, summertime appearance. As for leadership skills... well Motivated Mom says she'd follow him anywhere for any reason.

Squirrel Memory

I was watching a squirrel scurry from place to place beneath the trees yesterday. Since he neither picked anything up in his paws nor put anything down, I figured he was taking inventory - making sure he remembered all of his hiding spots.

As I child, I accepted without question that a squirrel was able to commit all of his food stashes to memory.

As an adult I still accept a squirrel's abilities, but no longer without question. Because now that I have trouble remembering where I left my eyeglasses mere minutes after I set them down, I want to know how it is a squirrel can fund nuts weeks and months after burying them.

Ask me what I had for lunch last Wednesday, and the best answer I would be able to provide would be ... food. Yet a squirrel can apparently find that particularly double acorn that was buried twelve Wednesdays ago.

How do the squirrels do it? I really want to know because.....

Oh dear. I've forgotten what I was going to say.

Surging Clouds

It was one of those mornings when I couldn't help but take note of the weather.

Overhead slate gray clouds hung low with dark pregnant bellies. Rather than softly contoured, the clouds were streamlined - slanted hard to the west - as though needing to lean forward in order to drag their burdens of moisture.

Row after row the clouds moved with such speed that they sheared apart along their trailing edges. In a way it appeared the ocean had overrun the shores and was now surging across the sky.

I could only wonder at the strength of the off shore storm that was driving the clouds onward and shivered at the thought of being caught up in its power.

Math and Democracy

First of all - my apologies. I promise lighter reading fare in the days ahead. I know you check in here for relief from the stress of the workaday world. It's just that... I feel compelled to seek an explanation.


One of my personal shortcomings is a low tolerance for stupidity....
...Which is why I seldom follow the news anymore.

Over the past couple weeks, ignoring my own better judgment, I have taken to occasionally listening to news programs during my commute. The resultant simmer of anger and frustration that sometimes boils into road rage has convinced me that a car is not the place to listen to the news.

Is there someone out there who can explain the new math to me?

It's now the "norm" to have 9.875 percent unemployment. (We should be "okay" with this for the long term apparently. We should be okay with the U.S. losing a half million jobs in one week.) Only we don't really have 9.875 percent unemployment, the government just chooses not to acknowledge the additional 8 percent who have given up looking for work and have exhausted their unemployment benefits. - Is this something like what we used to call carrying the remainder or rounding off?

The government will now require people who can't afford health insurance to buy it anyway. Then the government can include the underemployed in the new tax that will be applied to worker's health benefits. Thereby ensuring the underemployed will have even less of the money they didn't have before. Is this the new algebra in which people with empty pockets are represented as x's and y's that cause no moral discomfort?

It used to be that the United States was intolerant of even 4 percent unemployment. And it used to be that Americans had the option of buying food before insurance.

So in addition to the new math, maybe someone can explain the new democracy?