Packing Up and Getting Out Of Dodge

Looks like we are almost set -- the ipod's loaded with audiobooks for Jake, have headphones for the Leapster, need to pack the on-plane bag (extra clothes and snacks). We're taking a monster-big can of Italian olive oil from Arthur Ave to Kristen and Danny, along with Kristen's birthday presents. Louisiana should be lots of fun! Hopefully the flight tomorrow morning takes off okay and we get through DFW all right... biggest concern is LaGuardia at this point.

Happy Frigid Easter

The kids had a good time. The kids had a good time. The kids had a good time.

Helluva mantra to get me through the weekend.

I really don't like the matriarch of the family job. Really. REALLY. REALLY.

Open Letter to the Driver Who Almost Ran Us Over

To the thoughtless and reckless woman in the light blue minivan, CT license plate 427 TNJ, on Riverside Avenue at 5:25 pm today,

I looked you straight in the eye, and you refused to stop. I was dead center in the middle of the crosswalk, and you drove right on through. If it had been a different day for my boy, he would have been bouncing out just ahead of me, holding onto my hand and pulling me along ... and you would have rammed your 4,000 pounds of metal and plastic right into him. Fortunately for all of us he was tired today and staying close to me -- so you just rolled past my right side as I turned to protect him. Fortunately for us, we encountered you on the way into the daycare facility where my also active almost-3 daughter is. Had I met up with you trying to use the crosswalk with her in one hand and him in the other God knows how many of us you would have sent to the hospital or the morgue. Yes, it was raining -- but we were wearing bright raincoats, the other cars had stopped, and you met me eye to eye and kept right on going. You knew EXACTLY what you were doing.

FYI to you -- I called the police, and they have your vehicle description and your license plate number. They sent an officer to my house to take the information after I spoke to dispatch. If you ever cause any kind of accident or God forbid run down someone else, THEY WILL KNOW. You have a history of being reckless and stupid, and IT'S ON RECORD. They can't give you a ticket today, but if you ever get caught doing this again they won't give you a warning. They will nail your ass to the wall. I will be taking time off work tomorrow to pay the traffic division a personal visit, to make sure they know who you are and that they damn well better watch out for your sorry ass, as well as do a better job of policing and ticketing on Riverside Avenue.

With my luck, you're a parent at my boy's school or worse, at my school. I have gone past the point of actually giving a shit about that, though -- I let the other incidents with other drivers slide including that shit-for-brains woman on her cell phone in the black SUV who flipped me off for attempting to cross the street (same crosswalk but just me and no kids that time). Not this time. When it's assholes against me, that's one thing. You seriously endanger my kid, and I will do what I can to make sure it doesn't happen again.

The director of my daycare facility told me that the only way the town would act to better mark the crosswalk or calm the traffic would be if someone got hurt. Is this what it takes? How many near-misses do we have to have? What child has to go into intensive care over this idiocy? What parent has to put themselves in physical or mortal danger to pick up a child at school?

The bigger question would be why do people in this town feel that the rules apply to everyone else -- except them?

Lord knows no one who doesn't have kids drives a minivan -- so you must have kids.
Lady, if it was your kid in the crosswalk, I'm sure you would expect every vehicle on the street to stop. So why wouldn't you stop for me and my kid?


And this is the clean version of what I have to say about this bullshit.