Crash!

Welp, I got rear ended 2 days ago and have nice shiner under my left eye from whacking my head on the steering wheel (OUCH!).

No, my husband does not abuse me. (I'm going to tell people I got into a barroom brawl, to make me sound tough).

I was being pitiful for the last two days, but now I'm doing better. Of course the house is a complete disaster because I haven't felt like cleaning, but maybe tonight I can re-establish some semblance of order.

Why do I get in so many car accidents?
1988-was in a car that got t-boned

1996-hit someone head on (at a low rate of speed, thank goodness, but it totaled my friend's car)

2002-was hit by cute boy who was not amused that I told him he should take me out to dinner (pre-Kevin days)

2002-2 weeks after the other 2oo2 wreck, on my birthday in my 2 week old car. I rear ended a guy, and he was creepy and asked me out. (I said no.)

2006-got rear ended twice by the same person in NYC, on the way home from our honeymoon

2007-car got backed into by my brother (that one was kind of funny)

and now 2008-got rear ended, and my bumper is being replaced so that dent from when my brother rear ended me last year will be taken care of

Ok, that's 7 accidents, 2 were my fault. I don't need anymore thank you.

Some one was mean to me.

It's hopefully pretty rare that someone is literally mean to you. I mean, I can't really remember the last time before today that someone was just mean. This is what happened.

I was pulling into a parking spot today, and misjudged a little, and *tapped* a car on it's bumper. I mean, really, tapped. It just so happened that the person whose car it was, was coming out of the store. She saw what happened and came running to my car, yelling "No, no, no, no" and wagging her finger at me. She was accusing me of trying to flee the scene of the crime because when I tapped the car, I started to back up, as driving forward was not what I wanted to do. I profusely apologized and she was so snotty to me, I became defensive. I won't go into the details, but pretty much, there was NO damage to her car, and she was acting like was on a mission to steal her first born child. I offered all my info, name, number, car insurance, and she didn't take it, and at the end, she felt compelled to give me a driving lesson. This was not a good experience.

I obviously know, I was completely to blame for bumping the car. I can live with that. Sure I feel pretty stupid about it, but I can't unring the bell. And yes, she had the right to be angry. But I think what struck me is her behavior in this situation. It's amazing how poorly people handle things sometimes (me included). It can take the slightest thing to turn people from Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. Some are more vicious than others. It's a good lesson, to remember that no one is perfect and sometimes people do things unintentionally, and that doesn't mean that they are the devil incarnate. My misjudging, and her nastiness are hopefully not indicators of how we are as people on the whole.

I was very upset after the encounter. I called Kevin and cried on his shoulder. That helped. It then occurred to me that the way I could redeem my feeling stupid and being angry at the mean lady was to continue my shopping and be extra nice to everyone I encountered. It really worked. The shopping also helped. (I'm a girl, ya know....retail therapy is good.)

I'm pretty much over it now, and I hope the mean lady is doing ok too. I truly am sorry about disturbing her, and will now be much more careful about parking.

Passwords

For those of you who couldn't care less about the minutia of my life, this is a blog you may want to skip.

So. Passwords. I am sick and tired of carrying around 25,000 user names and passwords in my brain for different applications. They tell you not to use the same password for everything, and you must also base your user names and passwords on certain criteria (e.g. must be 6-15 characters long and contain a number and a symbol and a letter of the greek alphabet). Ugh. It seems to me, the more technologically-advanced we become, the more we inconvenience ourselves.

This is the year 2008, we're in the 21st century, people! Here's what I want to know. Where are the technologies where we use our thumbprint or an optical scan to access everything? If "they" expect us to use technology, they better make it less tedious and annoying. I have much more important things to use my brain power on.

Peapod

So Kevin's friend, Jason, who is a lazy bachelor (love ya Jason), was singing the praises of Peapod, the online grocery store order/delivery thing. Immediately I poo-poo'd him because, well, he is a lazy bachelor, and I thought he would only order groceries online because he couldn't tear himself away from a video game. He was explaining, that yes, there is a delivery charge, but the groceries are the same price. Uh huh. Right.

So in my efforts to PROVE HIM WRONG, I did my own little game of The Price is Right. I went onto the Peapod website to look up items I know. The price of...milk, spaghetti, cereal. I just kept making my list and watching the total on the side. I made a whole week's work of a list, and realized some things:

I was having fun.
I HATE the grocery store and uh, this would be a great way to avoid it. (Seriously, those old ladies in the store may look all sweet and innocent, but they will mow you down if you're in their way.)
When you're not actually IN the grocery store, it's easy to avoid buying things that you didn't have on your list, like chips and Entemann's.
The website makes it MUCH easier to see the sales.
You control your spending, as you can track your total as you're going along.
You can create a list of things you buy all the time, and the website saves it.
If you forget something, you have time to change your order.

and...

The prices were the same.

Color me ashamed for being so judgmental about this! Of course there are downsides, like the delivery charge, but it's not too bad really. And yes, there were some things I could not find. But when you weigh the good vs. bad, the good is far better. So I made my first order on Peapod. (I'm like one of those people who set out to prove there is no God, then became a 100% believer!) Now if only I could get them to stop at Dunkin Donuts on the way to my house, and pick me up a medium french vanilla coffee cream only.


Busy mommies out there....you gotta do this. I know I will love this even more when I'm a busy mommy.

Can't believe I'm doing this

I have a confession to make. I hate Madame Bovary.

I've been trying to broaden my literary horizons. I've read lots of great, good, and ok books. I've been reading Madame Bovary for a while now. And I'm doing something I REALLY don't like to do. I'm giving up on it. I've read about 100 pages and I just can't force myself through anymore.

Kevin tells me that it's fine, I don't have to finish it, but he doesn't understand! I don't "not finish" books! Even books that aren't good, I finish. But unfortunately, I can't choke down one more word of Madame Bovary. It's boring as all hell.

I'm such a rebel.

Taking the easy way out

My husband has provided a perfect example of how people like to take the easy way out. Tonight, he came home from work, his pot pie was in the microwave, almost done. He was so insanely hungry (apparently), that he stopped the microwave 18 seconds early. Then he grabbed the pot pie with his bare hands and dropped it on the floor. I'm still laughing my butt off. (But I was nice and said I'd go with him to the store and get him a new one. He refused.)

Now, if he had taken the time to grab a pot holder, this wouldn't have happened most likely. Apparently the 3 or 4 seconds it would have taken was just too long, and his "I want it now" mentality has ruined his dinner. He has to wait now for something else to cook, and his 3 seconds saved has now turned into about a 20 minute wait. And now his wife is laughing at him incessantly.

But, in a little bit of a serious spirit, it's unfortunate that people do as little as they possibly can to get a certain result. Sometimes it's worth taking the few extra seconds, hours, days, etc. to get it right. We humans can be so silly sometimes, myself included. I would love to hear some of your stories about something you flubbed up because you were too impatient....so I can laugh at you.

Little observations

Have made several miscellaneous observations lately that made me think. Some positive, some negative. See below:

1. Women's pants are complicated. Really. I mean, what is up with all the buttons, hooks, snaps, zippers, etc.? I've learned that you should not wait too long to go pee because it may take you a good minute to undo all of these things. One minute in "pee-pee" time is a long time when you have to go real bad.
2. There are still people who are nice to strangers. Today I was slightly late for the bus and the bus driver was kind enough to wait for me. That meant a lot to me. I don't think she was happy about waiting, but she did, and I appreciate it. Also, at my work, people in elevators actually exchange smiles, and wish you a good day when you exit. In a world where we're being taught to avoid all human contact at any cost (email, auto-attendants, ATMs, etc.), it's nice to know that general friendliness is still out there.
3. I like getting new office supplies as opposed to stocking my desk with supplies that have floated around the office for who-knows-how-long. Unfortunately this doesn't jive with my going green initiative, but it's for sanitary reasons. Example: I knew a girl who would cut slices of American cheese with her letter opener. I feel bad for whomever had to use that letter opener after she left the company.
4. You shouldn't eat too much sugar for breakfast. I know this, but sometimes forget it. It makes you feel yucky and could possibly ruin your whole day.
5. When you like your job, you're a much happier person. Don't really need to expound upon this point.
6. Last, people drop out of your life and don't tell you why. I've done this, and regretted it. I hope I'm woman enough to never do that again. Now, a couple of people who I thought were friends have stopped talking to me. I have been completely unsuccessful in finding out what I did wrong. I've been left to speculate, and in that process I get very angry. Since there is no resolution to this conundrum in sight, I've decided I just need to let it go. I've tried to let it go, but I think I need to do something more that decide. I think I need to have a ritual burning or something...it has to be a tangible way that I can really flush this anger emotion out of my system. I think I'll do this today. Anyone who wants to join me can bring marshmallows :)