Monday Musings

I spend a lot of time looking out my window while I'm working. That's the one plus to our house here in Lincoln. My office is upstairs instead of in the basement. (A complete CON during the summer since it's ALOT hotter, but I don't know that I want to move my office every 6 months) So back to my point, I spend alot of time watching the neighborhood. Not as a voyeuristic sort of thing but more out of curiosity and mind wanderment to escape my life for a minute. My thoughts of today have consisted of the following:

I watched the guy across the street washing his car, and I wonder....Why would you fill up buckets of water with the hose on the side of your house to wash off the soap instead of dragging the actual hose to the driveway. Strange isn't it.

I counted how many people jog/walk or walk their dogs passed my house today. If you are curious, 16 joggers, 10 walkers (including the scrub wearing dental assistants from the dental office on the corner who walk by at lunch) 11 people walking 16 dogs.

Everyday the guy across the street comes home at 12:15, changes his clothes and jogs backwards down 3 houses and then continues around the neighborhood, forward. His teenage daughter everyday from 3-5pm swings on their swing in the back yard, rain or shine, snow or humidity. Very strange...always from 3-5pm. Not a moment more, not a moment less.

Funny thing about pronunciations in the US....Everyone in the Midwest drops their G. So they are Fixin' Fishin' Goin' Ridin' Playin' or if they don't drop they G, they make it a hard G. So they are FixinG-uh, FighinG-uh, GoinG-uh, RidinG-uh, PlayinG-uh....Ash, you know what I'm talking about. In California the city of Lancaster is called LAN-CAS-TER, in Pennsylvania it's LANG-CuhSTER, In Nebraska the county is different depending on how old you are...if you are old it's LANG-CuhSTER, if you are young it's LAN-CAS-TER.

Driving in Lincoln is a chore. Every street including main thoroughfares are 35 miles an hour. You rarely see a stop sign in a neighborhood on main streets, so you better just slow down because no matter if you go North-South or East-West the other person always thinks they have the right of way so they'll blow right past you. There are hardly any turn lanes, so no matter what lane you are in you are pretty much in a bad lane and will have have to come to a full stop eventually. And if you are lucky enough to have a middle yellow lane, you run into 2 problems. Old people in Lincoln don't think you are EVER supposed to go into it, EVER...So they make a left turn from the left lane and young people think the yellow lane is to drive in.

When I was taking drivers ed, one of the laws of California, for whatever reason stuck out to me was, you can't use headphones, like with a CD player (yes back then there was no such thing as ipods) while you were driving in the car. I asked my teacher why that was the case. It really bothered me. He said it was because you might be distracted and you might not hear sirens or things that might be going on around you that you might need to avoid. So today as I'm walking around the house listening to my ipod/iphone I realize I'm late for PT and go to hop in the car but quickly took my headphones out because, well, isn't it illegal? You would think wouldn't you? But I then realized my headphones are also my "hands free" device for talking on my phone. So as California's law has changed to require no talking on cell phones unless it's with a hands free device, did they also change the law about not wearing headphones while you drive? Something to think about huh?

As I sit this afternoon with my thoughts I get sucked into Oprah today. Today she and Lisa Ling did a story on Tent Cities, Homelessness and Foreclosed homes. I have such a hard time wrapping my head around homelessness. Lisa Ling went to a tent city in Sacramento and spoke to some of the people there. Alot of people were close to my parents age, they had grown children, they had been middle class workers their whole lives and when asked if they had families or someone that could help them, most of them said yes they had grown children but none of them knew their parents were homeless. I know there is a certain amount of pride involved, but if faced with living in a tent in the middle of a field with no running water, no potty, no food or kitchen. At what point do you swallow your pride and ask for help? The story that made me sit up and pay attention was a 33 year old woman from Monrovia who lost her 70K a job 2 years ago, lost her home and all her things she valued as prized possessions. She has 2 kids, no job, close to being kicked out of her rental apartment and can't find a job. It hit home with me. I always have a fear in the back of my head, my job is a totally luxury item...in tough times like these we've seen a decrease in business. I, like the 33 year old women in CA , am uneducated, and pretending like it will never happen to me, but knowing it might. But I think to myself, Would I be too prideful to ask for help? Probably for a while, but I know our parents would do whatever they could for us. Although we are a single income-struggling student family for the next few years I hope that my family and friends know that they are welcome where ever we are.