I'm just sayin'

I hate it when I call someone and they answer their phone, only to tell me I've called at a bad time.
So don't answer, ya big jerk.  That's what VOICEMAIL is for.

The telephone part II - sometimes at work, we dial a wrong number.  Shocking, right?  You know what I don't understand?  Some people will see that our number came up, and CALL US BACK to find out what we wanted.  Sorry, wrong number.  I'm not inviting you for supper and you didn't win anything.  And then one day a lady called us back and before my co-worker could even explain it was a wrong number, the woman was all vicious and DON'T YOU EVER CALL THIS NUMBER AGAIN!  And she hung up.  I mean, wow. Really? 

I love it when I pass a home selling blueberries on a table at the end of their driveway. 
No one is there, just a sign saying how much, and a Becel container for you to put your money in.  This is where I live.  This stuff fills my heart.  Not that other stuff.

I hate it when I'm trying to merge onto the highway and the drivers in the lane I need won't move the hell over into the - empty - passing lane.  (Seriously, are they afraid to change lanes?  Is that too risky?  Or are they just clueless and inconsiderate?)  So you have to slow down and wait for them to pass, which is just not what an On Ramp is for - a way for drivers to reach highway speed in order to merge with highway traffic safely.  You know this.  I know this.  So who taught these people to drive?

And Part 2 of this - when I'm on the highway already and someone is merging with highway traffic, I move into the passing lane (if I can.)  Then I see the vehicle still in the merge lane driving merrily along at 20 km/h under the speed limit until the END of the merge lane, at which point they follow the little white line right onto the highway without so much as a shoulder-check.  Luckily for that guy, I'm the sort who MOVES THE HECK OVER, so we're both still healthy.

Ahem. 

Highway part III - I love it when the median is filled with lupins, it's like driving to work through a giant flower garden that nobody has to maintain.  Gorgeous.  Then, you see some well-meaning innocent who has parked his car and is picking them.  You laugh, because BUGS live in them there purdy flowers.  LOTS of bugs, but they don't come out until the flowers are unattended in a vase on the kitchen table.  All the other drivers are going by thinking MWAH-HA-HA, you sorry fool.  

/rant
:o)

A storm

"Mom?"

Midnight, a thunderstorm.  I stood in the hall, watching the clouds explode in the night through the window over the front door.  The sky was continuously alight, and yet it was eerily silent.  No thunder.  And with no electricity, even the house was quiet - there was no hum of fridge or gurgle of fishtank, and this is when Pebbles called out to me.

"Yes, Boo?"  The room, of course, was pitch, except for the outline of the window around the shade, which flickered and burst with light. 

"If there are no colors, what color is that?"

"Black."  I held out my arms and she climbed into them, sweaty and sleepy and mine.  I took her back to the window.  We watched the storm together, she and I and my husband, who circled the upper floor restlessly, eyeing the towering Jack spruce and pine trees around our home. 

The storm moved on and the thunder came, crashing and booming and shaking the house.  We checked on her brother - who was snoring - and she smiled.  All her life he has been there.  He is her best friend, her worst enemy, and the yardstick by which she measures herself.   He does things without her - school, sports, sleepovers - but seldom does she have experiences that he does not.  I watched her take this one and tuck it away for sharing the morning.  In our bedroom I opened the drapes and we climbed into the big bed, where we cuddled watched the lightning until our eyes wouldn't stay open any more.

So I'm sleepy today, and I wouldn't change a single thing.