But Call Me Betsy

Why did we have to set the clocks back? This time change has negatively impacted my life in the following ways (these are the same words that are used on the show Intervention when loved ones are trying to explain how their relatives addiction to Nyquil is a problem). Well, there's really only one thing. I don't like driving in the dark. I find myself trying to get out of work just a little bit earlier each day while there's still a tiny bit of light in the sky--mostly, it's twilight by 4:45 p.m.  I race to my car and quickly zoom out of the parking lot. As the minutes tick by, it gets darker and darker and my anxiety increase. I find myself clutching the steering wheel and glancing at the sky. My goal is to get home or even just to Scudder's Mill Road before full dark. It occurred to me the other day that I was acting like the vampires are coming, the vampires are coming! If I don't get home and board up the house before nightfall, they will surely land on my...

Remember back in the day when I used to take pictures of kitties in windows on my walk in to work? I no longer have a walk in to work. I now have to a drive (see previous post...) and though I'm getting better at it every day (until I die in a fiery and violent car crash), I don't have any windows to satisfy my voyeuristic impulses. Instead, I have windows in a condo. Here are four of them. This is the window in the dining room with the ornate curtains still intact. They remind of that scene in Gone with the Wind when Scarlett decides to make a fancy dress out of ruined velvet curtains. I may do the same and show up for work on Monday with gold fringe on my skirt. Another left-behind window treatment. We probably won't keep this one either. It has suede and two large tassels that could potentially be used as ponytail extensions. The view of the parking lot from my bedroom window. This is the best window view in the house--this is from the second bedroom...

I had a dream last night that I owned two polar bears and the one trick they could do was to drive a car in the snow. I believe like almost all of my dreams, this one is indicative of my fear of driving--a fear that I have to face now that I'm living in Jersey and commuting across highways to get to and from work every day. In defending my scaredy-catness to Dan, I realized that most of my fear comes from not having driven very much at all for the last 17+ years. I lived for 5 years in Chicago without a car, then 6 years in State College without a car until my last year, and then 6 more years in Philly only using the car to drive to Acme and Target, essentially stop and go city traffic where you never get up past 25 miles an hour. So, making this adjustment to one of the worst routes in the country (Route 1) in a place with many of the most aggressive drivers you'll never want to meet (Jerseyites) along a stretch of road that has numerous places where people merge...