My Car Got Hit...

Yesterday, I’m running some errands with my daughter and we stop at Walgreen’s to pick up a prescription plus some last minute camp things for her. We walk out door and the first thing I notice is a huge white scrape down the back of my car.

I was livid!

I don’t know how you are about your cars, but taking care of mine is a big deal to me. I might go for weeks without washing them, but that’s about it. I think it comes from working as a mechanic in high school and college, but the fact of the matter is things like this on cars is a HUGE deal to me.

I get to the front of my car…there’s no note from a sorry and regretful driver. There is nothing or no one anywhere around. After being calmed down by my daughter, thank you Macy for keeping me from flying off the handle, I angrily, but calmly drove home. If she hadn’t been there I probably would have gotten a speeding ticket too…so thanks again.

When I got home I reassessed the damage and found not only scrapes, but also a nice sized dent just behind the door. The fact that the dent has two creases going in different directions suggests that this person (and I use that term lightly) hit my car, stopped and had to readjust their wheels and then move again. This is on the passenger side of my vehicle, so there is no way this person didn’t know they had hit my car.

I’ve only hit a car in a parking lot one time. However, I managed to find a scrap of paper and leave the guy my name and phone number. He called a day or two later and was so impressed that I had left my name that he said just forget about it. It was an old truck with several other dings, but I left my information all the same.

Now for the “glass half full” assessment:

1. The damage goes right up to the door, but the door only has a small scratch. Damage on doors usually hikes up the price of repair.
2. Also, after using some rubbing compound to clean the white paint off, the once glaring, almost neon, blemish on the side of my SUV is now only marginally noticeable.

BUT IT’S STILL THERE!!!

Next week I’ll go to Herb’s Paint and Body to get an estimate, then decide if I even want to speak with my insurance company. I can’t imagine I will, but you never know.

And to the “person” who hit my car:

If by some strange and quirky twist of fate you actually can read, and you actually happen across my blog, and actually are able to figure out that I am talking about you, and you actually feel some remorse for the grief you have caused me…

Don’t call, don’t write, don’t try to contact my in any way. You see, with me, it is too late to do the right thing. You missed that chance when you drove off without leaving a note.

However, what you can do is this. The next time you hit a car in a parking lot, take the high road and leave THAT person a note.

This is the only apology I will accept.

Just me on my soapbox.

Thanks for reading.

Don't Mess with Texas

Have you ever been driving somewhere when you get a really fun idea? It happened to me just the other day.

Don’t Mess with Texas is an anti-litter campaign that was started several years ago. There are signs and billboards on the highways, bumper stickers and even t-shirts with this logo. I don’t know how successful the campaign has been in reducing litter, but it is highly recognizable by most Texans.

A few days ago Melissa and I are in the car when we see a big SUV in front of us with not one, not two, but three Don’t Mess with Texas bumper stickers…and of course I start wondering about the driver of this car.

I imagine he was thinking something like this, “If I put only one or two of these stickers on my car people might not pay attention and really stop littering, BUT if I have three stickers in a line across the back, then that is sure to make a difference.”

I mention something along those lines to Melissa and we chuckle a bit. It could have stopped there, but the antagonist within me took over and here’s what came next.

At the next light, we pulled up next to this guy and I rolled my window down. Just as the light turned green, I tossed my mostly empty Starbuck’s cup right at his car. It hits at eye level on the passenger’s side windshield and slides across to the driver’s side with coffee splashing out as it went. It bounces off the windshield wiper and rolls down the hood. That’s when I wave and hit the gas.

Now, before you start thinking that I’m crazy, or some kind of monster, let me assure you that while the events mentioned above did both cross my mind and bring a smile to my face, they never actually happened. Yes, common sense mixed with a healthy dose of self-preservation kept me from seriously considering my trashy idea. (Pun intended) I mean for all I know this guy was a pistol packing, anti-litter vigilante with a chip on his shoulder.

But you have to admit…it would have been funny.

Picky Trash-man???

Dallas has those big grey cans that either gets grabbed via remote-control by the driver then hoisted up and dumped, or they have a couple of guys who pull the cans over to a lift on the back of the truck.

In our old neighborhood, we had the driver/remote-control system and it didn’t matter what I put in that can. As long as the top closed, I could have put a person in there and nobody would be the wiser. (I’m not admitting to anything here, I’m just saying…)

In our new neighborhood, we have the guys pulling cans to the truck.

So I’m heading down the driveway just as the trash truck pulls up to empty our can. They’re blocking the driveway, so I just sit in my car and watch.

The guy gets to our can, opens it and looks inside. He shoots a half-frown glance in my direction, then reaches in and pulls out some pieces of wood and throws them on the sidewalk. Next, shaking his head, he yanks my can over to the lift on the truck.

I was dumbfounded.

By definition trash is: discarded, unwanted, or worthless material or objects.

This was a trash-man working on a trash-truck, does he get to decide (for me) what materials or objects are worthless or unwanted? Or shouldn’t he, by definition, simply pick up the objects I deem to be “trash” and haul them away?

The gauntlet has been thrown down, but I promise you this…somehow, someway these few boards I have WILL be taken by this picky trash-man.

Once again, I’ll keep you posted.

Month to Month

We recently moved into a new house and we all love it. The new house has a family room and we had to buy some new furniture. The sofa we bought has six, 36 inch square pieces. Three of the squares have a back on one of the four sides, two of them have a back on two of the sides that forms a corner, and one piece has no back at all.

When we first picked them out I had the idea of having a different pattern for each month of the year. That way we’d always know what month it is based on the arrangement of our sofa. We kind of laughed about it, but in the back of my mind I thought, “Hmmm, could I really do this?”

The sofa arrived on about the 15^th of May and we set it up like the pictures below.

As June was winding down, I just didn’t have the gumption to move anything. I started to see my monthly seating arrangement as nothing more than a pipe dream. A nice idea, but one that I would never see actually happen.

Then it happened.

I was sitting at home, with all of my honey-do projects finished for the day, when I had a new sofa arrangement vision. It was a work of art! So unconventional, yet so practical, so easy, and so user friendly. Check out the pictures below.

Now I see that I’m going to have to open my mind and let the month’s sofa pattern find me. To tell the truth, August is Melissa’s turn, so I’m sure it will be great.

As for future sofa patterns…I’ll keep you posted!

First Time's a Charm...

I did something today that I’ve never done before…and baby, it felt good!

It was 8:00am and I’m out cutting the yard. I don’t know where you are, but I’m in Dallas and it was hot. Not “HOT!” but hot all the same.

Let me put this in perspective: It was eight o’clock in the morning and already 85 degrees, with a projected high of around 102 for the day. To me, that’s hot.

So anyway, I’m cutting the grass on our new, much larger yard. On our old house, cutting the yard took me about 30 minutes. This new and improved bad boy takes me every bit of an hour. Needless to say, when I got done I was HOT and sweating like a pig! I was so hot I was beginning to get a headache.

That’s when I get the idea to jump in the pool.

It’s never occurred to me to do this before, simply because I’ve never had a pool before.

I was headed that direction and started wondering if my sweaty body would get the pool dirty. Then I thought, “Who cares! I mean isn’t that what the chlorine is for?”

I jumped in, crossed my legs, sank to the bottom and sat Indian style on the bottom for what felt like an eternity.

I came up, wiped the water out of my eyes, ran my hands through my hair and I felt incredible.

Yep, I do believe I’ve started a new tradition.

Now I get it...

There’s this guy at my church, who reads this blog. I’m not sure how often, but I do know that he reads it, which puts him in a very exclusive and rather small collection of individuals known fondly to me as “My Readers.” I’m quite certain you can count them all on one hand and still have fingers left over.

But anyway, at church there is this guy, we’ll call him Pablo.

Pablo and I teach Sunday School together and we were just hanging out and taking attendance before the lesson started, and our conversation went something like this:

“Let me see your hands.”

“What? Why?”

“Well, I assume they’re broken, or burned and bandaged.” Looking down and toward my hands. “Nope, hmm? I just assumed since you’ve posted nothing since May that there must be some kind of problem…but I don’t see anything. It just makes you wonder.”

“Hey! I’ve been busy. I’ve had all the end of school stuff, we just moved and …”

Pablo just rolled his eyes and nodded his head.

And that’s when it hit me.

Pablo is a nice guy, a little socially inept, but a nice guy all the same. I’ve been posting here for three or four years, and in that time I’ve had a couple of posts that “tons” of people read. I don’t know how they found them, but these few posts had more than their fair share of readers. And that felt good. However, unlike my brother’s RLP blog, I didn’t really have any true Third Grade Mind followers…not until Pablo.

So for Pablo I’ll try to do a better job of keeping up with my writing schedule.

Note: Don’t you worry about Pablo. He’ll read this, but he won’t have any idea “Pablo” is really him.

Exemplary

In Texas public schools we have the TAKS test.  For teachers, it’s the equivalent of a mandatory, educational prostate exam given by a doctor with a frozen finger.  Students, schools, districts and even communities are rated based on these scores.  

The TAKS test has four scores.  The highest is Exemplary, then Recognized, Acceptable, and finally Low Performing.  For the schools, this is a pass/fail test and each school is ranked based on how many of its students pass or fail. 

We got the preliminary scores back from the state and it looks like my school, Moss Haven, is Exemplary for the second year in a row.  

It’s funny, but I have mixed emotions and I’m not sure how to feel.  On the one hand, I’m feeling pretty good.  My students take Reading, Math and Writing tests and all of my students passed all three tests.  

However, there is a part of me that despises these tests.  This is the same part of me that screams, “Traitor!” at the top of its lungs every time I look in the mirror.   For you see this part believes I’ve turned my back on true education and sided with the “Let’s teach them how to take tests,” faction of the education war.  

I hear the rationalizations everyday…”We’re not teaching them to take tests, we’re teaching them educational life-skills.  Life-skills they will hone throughout their public school experience and then use to be successful either in college or out in the workforce.”

I want to believe it…

I try to believe it… 

I think some days I do believe it…

But then I go to school and I see the faces of my third and fourth grade students.  These are faces whose biggest worries should be about things like Barbie, GI-Joe, ballet, and little league.  Not whether or not they are going to pass some huge, scary test.  

Yes, my school is Exemplary for the second year in a row. 

And I’m very proud,

I guess…