The Wednesday Whine (Introducing An (Alliterative) Weekly* Collection Of Things That Have Annoyed Me Most In The Past Week)

For this, the premiere episode of The Wednesday Whine, I'll begin with the thing that annoyed me the absolute most this past week and then continue in no particular order:

A. Due to prior commitments to beings I brought into the world who think this fact somehow entitles them to huge chunks of my time and energy and commitments to other people I did not bring into the world but who nonetheless seemingly ceaselessly clamor for my (limited) time and energy, I was unable to begin The Wednesday Whine on an actual Wednesday but had to wait instead for Friday night after a stressful volleyball game and, therefore, am too exhausted to self-edit thereby producing this amazingly long, essentially senseless, if not actually run-on, sentence.

B. Church sign I saw last Saturday night: "NEVER BE AFRAID TO TRUST AN UNKNOWN FUTURE TO A KNOWN COD." Yes, it said "COD," just like that. I drove by, did a double-take and actually backed up to double check. Heck of a "typo," but that wasn't really what annoyed me. What annoyed me was they left it up like that all week. Who knows? Maybe it was a recruitment strategy: lure people into calling to report the "mistake" and then invite them to Sunday service.

C. When I mentioned the church sign to Cranky Boss Lady she said, "A known cod? Would that be Van De Kamp's or Gorton's?" That annoyed me, because it was fast and funny and Cranky Boss Lady's not supposed to be either of those things.

D. In other more typical Cranky Boss Lady news: After making the harrowing drive in to work during a winter storm, she said, "I couldn't help noticing that everyone off the side of the road was driving an SUV" in a tone suggesting there was some kind of karmic justice being wreaked out there on the road--arrogant, overconfident, four-wheel drive driving drivers, blah, blah blah getting what they deserve by winding up stuck in a snow drift. Great theory. Would've meant a heck of a lot more were Cranky Boss Lady not the proud owner & driver of a four-wheel drive vehicle who only last month found herself off the side of a snow-covered road, stuck in a ditch, needing towed out by a tractor. As she rambled on about irresponsible SUV drivers, not for one second did her own overconfident navigation of her own SUV cross her judgmental little mind. Errrrrgggg.

*No promises.

Happy, Happy Inauguration Day To You

On every birthday up to a certain age, someone invariably would ask me, "You're 4 (or 7 or 10) do you feel any different?"

And, of course, I didn't feel any different than I'd felt the night before when I was still 3 or 6 or 9 because the essence of being 4 or 7 or 10 can't be compressed into a single day or a single moment.

I was thinking about that today, as our 44th president was inaugurated: We have a new president, do I feel any different?

Well...the truth is that a new president will affect the day-to-day facts of our lives very little in the immediate future.

But...the other truth is that I do feel different and I think that feeling is called hope and I think and believe that the man who was sworn in today along with the team he has assembled around himself, can live up to that hope.

PS--Obama's speech was moving and perfectly delivered and I think that's great because I think a good 65% or so of the presidency is about public relations (at home and abroad), but still the best words I heard all day were on the AP radio feed: "A helicopter carried former President Bush away from Washington toward Andrews Air Force base..."

Two Observations For The New Year

--Flannel sheets are the double-edged sword of linens. Good: they are amazingly warm and fuzzy and comfortable. Bad: they are amazingly warm and fuzzy and comfortable so you never want to get out of bed, which severely compromises your ability to function in your normal life. But it's okay because flannel sheets are way better than functioning normally.


--I have grown increasingly perturbed in recent weeks by the fact that windshield wash comes in gallon jugs while the reservoir in my car apparently holds three quarts. I started thinking about it and I've never driven (or filled) a vehicle that did hold the whole gallon. At this point I have six quarts of windshield wash in my garage in six separate containers because I always forget about the leftovers. Shouldn't someone in the wash industry get with someone in the auto industry and hammer out a plan to address this disparity? Maybe we could use a couple million out of the bail-out money to finance that little project, it would make about as much sense as some of the other stuff that's come out of it.