Okay, so I don't THINK I'm going to be incarcerated on Friday at 5PM, but there's more of a chance of that happening than usual. Don't worry, I already have a volunteer to bail me out if it comes to that.
I got a blasted notice from the city taped to my door. This didn't exactly seem like a casual notification either. First off, they bothered to waste two whole pieces of tape on sticking the page in the middle of my door. You know they mean business when it's not even a windy day and they tape it from above and below. Also, the officer who signed it did so in blue ink. It clearly wasn't just copied there. Someone took a whole .3 seconds to scribble a signature at the bottom of the page. On a side note, why do teachers bother teaching cursive? I swear third grade teachers are practically the only ones with legible cursive these days anyway. Whatever. Back to my criminal ways. The page is totally watermarked with a code enforcement something or other symbol thing. Looks official to me. Lastly, I have a case number. It is right up there at the top of the page. I'm 5-11-3574. Hide your kids, hide your wife!
I violated ordinance number 9-3-2** (Why the heck are there asterisks in ordinance numbers? It seems to me like there are ten perfectly good numbers to choose from if you want to make it longer...) and if I don't correct the violation by June 3 at 5:00 I will be "SUBJECT TO IMMEDIATE CRIMINAL CITATION WITHOUT ADDITIONAL NOTICE." Yikes! I'm guessing that probably means a fine, but "CRIMINAL" is in there. Criminals go to jail. Sometimes. Come on, it's not TOO far of a stretch.
Well, off I go to hack down my backyard full of waist-high grass and weeds. Yep. They've all gotta be under 6 inches in 6 days or else I'm gonna get busted!
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Phone Numbers and Freeways
Most Sunday evenings I head up to visit my family and join them for dinner. Tonight was no exception. I headed home and had a good time chatting and sharing the evening meal with the fam. I kinda stuck around up there for a bit cause I wasn't feeling the greatest and wasn't in a terrible hurry to return for anything this particular evening. I did head back and I suppose this could be called good timing.
I was merging over to get on the freeway and this guy in the lane next to mine was looking at me. That may not really even seem worth mentioning. No, he wasn't picking his nose. He wasn't dancing and singing to music or really doing anything that unusual. He was going faster than I was (I just was entering the freeway, after all) so he was passing me, but was still looking back at me. A little perplexing. It was more of a hey!-I-think-I-might-recognize-you look, not like the I'm-a-creepy-werido stare. Regardless, the guy speeds a bit more than I do and off he went. Whatever. Like 5 minutes later I end up next to this car. I recognized it since I don't suffer from severe short term memory loss and looked over. Same guy. He's looking at me again. We play the typical freeway leapfrog, catch up to a cop and slow down, change lanes to go around annoyingly Sunday-ish drivers, etc... A few miles later over again since this fellow is now driving right next to my car and he mouths something about calling or getting my number or something. Um, hello, I'm driving on the freeway... The guy is attractive and seems normal (as if looking at someone 3 times on the freeway can really tell you anything), but what?!? He starts fingering his number to me. What!?! Then he ditches that idea and writes it down and shows it to me. WHAT?!?! I couldn't make out the last few numbers and he wasn't exactly suffering from a lead foot like he had been back a few miles. We had turned into the poky drivers and were taking up two lanes driving side-by-side, so I sped up and got in front of a semi (I didn't cut in front of it, I've been reading those billboards in addition to the phone number digits scrawled on paper in cars next to me) and figured he knew how to catch up. That he did with a more legibly written number. This whole thing seemed funny and harmless enough. I called the number and got a voicemail. Just the "you have reached 8-0-1-yadda, yadda, yadda..." and looked over again. He was still there and was motioning to roll down my window. What on earth? I did and he said something about how his phone needed to be charged, he'd text later or something. Quick side note, It's surprisingly easy to hear someone in the car next to you on the freeway. I kinda thought it would be impossible, but it wasn't at all. Back to the story, he exited and I was almost to my exit. I've got to admit it was one of the more unique and amusing drives back from Sunday dinner. I told my roommates and one of them asked if I had left a voicemail. Nope, I didn't. If his phone was dead, he maybe didn't get the number. We were all quite amused by the sequence of events, so I sent a quick text just cause why the heck not? He apparently found a charger cause we communicated a bit. I'm not so sure we have a billion and a half things to talk about, but I can't say that it didn't make me laugh!
I was merging over to get on the freeway and this guy in the lane next to mine was looking at me. That may not really even seem worth mentioning. No, he wasn't picking his nose. He wasn't dancing and singing to music or really doing anything that unusual. He was going faster than I was (I just was entering the freeway, after all) so he was passing me, but was still looking back at me. A little perplexing. It was more of a hey!-I-think-I-might-recognize-you look, not like the I'm-a-creepy-werido stare. Regardless, the guy speeds a bit more than I do and off he went. Whatever. Like 5 minutes later I end up next to this car. I recognized it since I don't suffer from severe short term memory loss and looked over. Same guy. He's looking at me again. We play the typical freeway leapfrog, catch up to a cop and slow down, change lanes to go around annoyingly Sunday-ish drivers, etc... A few miles later over again since this fellow is now driving right next to my car and he mouths something about calling or getting my number or something. Um, hello, I'm driving on the freeway... The guy is attractive and seems normal (as if looking at someone 3 times on the freeway can really tell you anything), but what?!? He starts fingering his number to me. What!?! Then he ditches that idea and writes it down and shows it to me. WHAT?!?! I couldn't make out the last few numbers and he wasn't exactly suffering from a lead foot like he had been back a few miles. We had turned into the poky drivers and were taking up two lanes driving side-by-side, so I sped up and got in front of a semi (I didn't cut in front of it, I've been reading those billboards in addition to the phone number digits scrawled on paper in cars next to me) and figured he knew how to catch up. That he did with a more legibly written number. This whole thing seemed funny and harmless enough. I called the number and got a voicemail. Just the "you have reached 8-0-1-yadda, yadda, yadda..." and looked over again. He was still there and was motioning to roll down my window. What on earth? I did and he said something about how his phone needed to be charged, he'd text later or something. Quick side note, It's surprisingly easy to hear someone in the car next to you on the freeway. I kinda thought it would be impossible, but it wasn't at all. Back to the story, he exited and I was almost to my exit. I've got to admit it was one of the more unique and amusing drives back from Sunday dinner. I told my roommates and one of them asked if I had left a voicemail. Nope, I didn't. If his phone was dead, he maybe didn't get the number. We were all quite amused by the sequence of events, so I sent a quick text just cause why the heck not? He apparently found a charger cause we communicated a bit. I'm not so sure we have a billion and a half things to talk about, but I can't say that it didn't make me laugh!
Friday, February 11, 2011
Exciting Shopping Trips?
So, back in the day (like 3 years ago) if you would've asked me what the worst store in the world was, I wouldn't have missed a beat with my reply of Home Depot. I loathed the thought of going to that store. Never did anything ultra traumatizing happen to me. I have never had a problem with any employee or rude customer there. I think I just got dragged there one too many Saturdays (I think I had gone like twice) and there was not a single item in that store that interested me. I really had no logical reason besides that to hate the place, but I did. Tonight I found myself at Lowe's, which for all intents and purposes is Home Depot to me. Sorry to anyone who has stronger loyalties to one or the other. I love that store now. I guess I grew up or my interests have changed a bit with owning a house or something, but I wandered around that store and with the exception of the annoying teenagers there, I had a most enjoyable trip. I thought of dragging my date along with me tonight after dinner, but decided to just go by myself since I like to just wander around that store too much. It's ridiculous how much things have changed, but I don't know if I'd be more excited about a gift card to Home Depot/Lowe's or my favorite clothing store, and I love clothes shopping. The only other disappointment from the shopping trip this evening was the fact that the 60+ year old transvestite I saw there last week who asked me a question as if I was a Lowe's employee wasn't there to harass me today. That was definitely a highlight of that shopping trip. Maybe next time!
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Winter Weather
I hate winter. I don't hate everything about winter, but I feel like there are enough things that I deeply dislike, that it's only a mild overstatement to say that I hate it. One thing I truly do loathe is driving in snow. I guess I don't quite understand why people think it's normal to not mind participating in an already risky enough undertaking: driving (unfortunately I'll get more into that later) and throw in reduced visibility on top of a dramatically decreased coefficient of friction. It's just stressful and I avoid it whenever possible. I'd probably consider missing my own wedding if getting there meant I had to drive in snow.
Anyway, because of this completely rational fear, I check the weather. A lot. My phone, google, weather.com and ksl.com are checked on a regular basis from about October to April. Every once in a while I'll check somewhere else too. On Tuesday night this week, I was going through the daily weather perusal on ksl.com. I am not quite obsessed enough to have the weather page on that site bookmarked or anything, so I went through the homepage and was immediately distracted by the headline about a 2-year old child that was hit in her driveway in Sandy. I live in Sandy. I teach in Sandy. This was a heartbreaking enough story, but I just had the feeling that it was more than the headline was telling me. I read through the article and the approximate coordinates of the accident were given. They were in my school boundaries. That feeling didn't go away.
At school earlier that day I had addressed 5 envelopes to send letters to parents of some of my students. I have a kinda random memory. One of my little sister's friends from high school who I've maybe seen 3 times in my life was born on April 8. The phone number of one of my friends who I used to play Barbies with growing up and I haven't called in probably like 12 years is/was 292-8924. Don't be offended if I don't know your name after I've talked to you like 7 times though. I think my brain likes numbers. The address of the tragedy on the website was approximate, but it was approximately exactly where I had addressed one of the letters to. This little mom had accidentally hit and killed her 2-year old daughter. She just didn't know the baby was outside. SO SAD! No names were given, but it just seemed like that was my student's family.
I went to school on Wednesday, still thinking about that and wondering what I'd find out. Before school started, one of the other teachers came into my room with red, puffy eyes and I knew I had guessed correctly. I went and talked to the principal per her request and that was the start to quite a day. Things like that really put things in perspective. Some things matter. I think some other things matter, but they don't really. On Tuesday, the day of the accident, we had been talking about the Mormon pioneers who moved to Utah in Social Studies in my class. This student volunteered information that made it clear that he is LDS. I am so glad that this family has the gospel. I hope and pray this little family is okay. I cried last September (maybe October) one time. Wednesday, while telling my class about what had happened, I teared up again. People matter.
Anyway, because of this completely rational fear, I check the weather. A lot. My phone, google, weather.com and ksl.com are checked on a regular basis from about October to April. Every once in a while I'll check somewhere else too. On Tuesday night this week, I was going through the daily weather perusal on ksl.com. I am not quite obsessed enough to have the weather page on that site bookmarked or anything, so I went through the homepage and was immediately distracted by the headline about a 2-year old child that was hit in her driveway in Sandy. I live in Sandy. I teach in Sandy. This was a heartbreaking enough story, but I just had the feeling that it was more than the headline was telling me. I read through the article and the approximate coordinates of the accident were given. They were in my school boundaries. That feeling didn't go away.
At school earlier that day I had addressed 5 envelopes to send letters to parents of some of my students. I have a kinda random memory. One of my little sister's friends from high school who I've maybe seen 3 times in my life was born on April 8. The phone number of one of my friends who I used to play Barbies with growing up and I haven't called in probably like 12 years is/was 292-8924. Don't be offended if I don't know your name after I've talked to you like 7 times though. I think my brain likes numbers. The address of the tragedy on the website was approximate, but it was approximately exactly where I had addressed one of the letters to. This little mom had accidentally hit and killed her 2-year old daughter. She just didn't know the baby was outside. SO SAD! No names were given, but it just seemed like that was my student's family.
I went to school on Wednesday, still thinking about that and wondering what I'd find out. Before school started, one of the other teachers came into my room with red, puffy eyes and I knew I had guessed correctly. I went and talked to the principal per her request and that was the start to quite a day. Things like that really put things in perspective. Some things matter. I think some other things matter, but they don't really. On Tuesday, the day of the accident, we had been talking about the Mormon pioneers who moved to Utah in Social Studies in my class. This student volunteered information that made it clear that he is LDS. I am so glad that this family has the gospel. I hope and pray this little family is okay. I cried last September (maybe October) one time. Wednesday, while telling my class about what had happened, I teared up again. People matter.
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