Mr. Dump just let me knowthat the Southbound rest area on 495 (Chelmsford?) is temprarily closed because it’s poop covered. He started smelling the poop when he got off of Route 3 onto 495 South. That’s a lot of poop smell.
He said there are two big tanker trucks and everything looks “wet”. Oh my God, I can only imagine what it smells like.
So if you’re travelling, pee before you leave, okay?
Okay, time to get all my opinions on various topics out into the open for the world to view and reflect upon. I know you’ve all been waiting.
Massachusetts thinking of raising the driving age to 17.5:
You know, I love my 15 year old step-son dearly, but the thought of him getting behind the wheel in another year gives me fits. I am utterly horrified at the number of fatal accidents in Massachusetts involving teens in 2006 alone. Almost every weekend there’s another one. Why is it so impossible for us to get it through their heads that being stupid in a car can get them killed, or get someone else killed? Why do they continue to think “that can’t happen to me” when left and right it is happening to kids who may as well BE them? The latest crash, with the 17 year old girl and her 10 year old brother? That could be Junior and his brother in exactly 2 years. And I’m not saying all kids can’t handle driving carefully, obeying the traffic laws and limits, but we’re talking about a bunch of kids, many of whom think the laws are for [expletive deleted]s and don’t apply to them. There is no other reason to explain why a bunch of 16 year olds will pile into mom’s car (against the law because a 16 year old driver isn’t allowed to have passengers) and speed down an unfamiliar road until they wrap the car around a tree. My heart bleeds for the father of a local boy who put three of his friends into the ICU – one of whom still isn’t breathing on her own – but really, sir, are you doing your son any favors when you blame this accident on the upkeep of a dirt road that is marked with huge “Pass at your own risk” signs? This is a road NOBODY uses, and your son was speeding on it with a car full of kids he shouldn’t have been transporting. How can you possibly try to blame this on the town? That’s the DEFINITION of “Pass at Your Own Risk” is it not? I feel horrible for the whole situation, but really, there is only one person to point the finger at.
It was hard enough drilling it through the kids’ heads that when they are skiing and snowboarding, they have to look out for other people, not the other way around. The mountain does not belong to you, and people get killed every year – experienced people – because they are trying to avoid some kid doing something dumb or being somewhere they shouldn’t be. Kids just naturally think they are more skilled than they are, and that they couldn’t possibly get hurt or killed. And that applies to everything from driving a car, to rollerblading, to skiing, etc.
Housing Boom in Lunenburg:
I know I don’t live in Lunenburg, but I live near it, and drive through it twice a day. All those proposed homes will hold people who need to get to work by driving through MY town. Are you people insane? There is no way your infrastructure can support all those proposed housing units. We’re talking 868 in various complexes (number courtesy my adding up everything listed on this site of proposed projects, and includes some houses already completed), almost exclusively in the Whalom area. And as a Leominster resident who foresees 1500 extra cars a day driving down Main Street trying to get to Route 2? I say things that can’t be printed. Those roads are overcongested as it is. How the HELL would anyone get anywhere with all those extra people?? I just cannot fathom how the people running that town can think this is all a good idea. And once they are approved and built, it’s not like you can change your mind if it isn’t working out.
So much for the pretty, small down Lunenburg once was if they start throwing up houses in those numbers. What’s it like losing your appeal to people looking for a quiet place to live? 868 new units? Insane.
My 5-year-old niece set me straight. She told me she was signed up to take piano lessons and I asked how she could do that without a piano.
“We don’t have to bring one, they have one there.”
Oh. Silly me! What was I thinking.
She also told me she was going to learn to play Happy Birthday, but it’s a little different.
“How?”
“It’s happier!”
I love that kid.
Now that I’ve had a day for my new gagillionaire status to sink in, I have decide it’s time to change some of the priorities in my life.
There are a few things I want to change, and I’ll give you the short list here.
I think we’ll need to change houses. Sure, we like our cozy cape, but a gagillionaire just can’t live in a 1500sf house. It isn’t “done”. So I’m thinking we need to find something more like this:
I think I could very easily feel “at home” here. I’ve already started picking out what room I want for storing my summer shoes!
And we would give Phantom a dog house cause he doesn’t have one right now. Maybe something with a European feel?
After we get the house thing squared away, it will be time to take a look at our cars. Sure, they’re nice, but a gagillionaire can’t be driving a 2004 Toyota Sienna. As I said earlier, it just isn’t done.
I will probably look for something in this line
While Mr Dump goes for something sportier.
So many things a gagillionaire has to think about…
[UPDATE: Okay, I have to share the following email exchange I had with Mr. Dump after he viewed this post.
Him: Look – if I’m going to bother overcompensating, I’ll buy a Porsche.
Me: But is a Porsche full of wieners? I think not. Unless it’s your turn to drive to lunch. “You know what’s in wieners? Well, there’s cow’s eyes, and dog’s heads, and old phone books, and, of course, *wiener flavor*…. ” (From a Gavin skit on Kids in the Hall.)”]
The dog is irregular. Or maybe he isn’t. It’s hard to tell when he spends the day somewhere else, and she doesn’t follow him around to see when he poops. (*waves at Barb*) So for a week or so now, every few days, he doesn’t poop. So I have to obsess about whether or not he’s got a bowel obstruction or something. He didn’t poop for us last night or this morning (I know, it was about forty below zero as I stood outside last night begging “Please…please get busy!” (That’s the phrase we use from the aborted clicker training we did.)) so I’m in poop alert mode again. But tonight he did a lovely one for me (a little softer than I like, considering he did it on the neighbor’s lawn and I had to pick it up before anyone noticed).
So now I can focus my energy on worrying about something else. Like how nailed we are on our taxes this year. We apparently are gagillionaires. I had no idea. But we didn’t do enough stuff that other gagillionaires know how to do to avoid having to pay a lot of taxes. Bill Gates hasn’t returned any of my calls.
One of the worst things was that we refinanced the house at the end of 2004 to get rid of a horrid 2nd mortgage we had and to lower our interest rate. We lowered it SO MUCH that we killed our tax return. We literally paid HALF this year what we did last year. My accountant refused to believe it had dropped so much. He asked me to go home and make sure there wasn’t another mortgage. I’m not sure how I would have missed paying a different mortgage, seeing that we only have one and I’m the one who pays it.
Maybe I’d rather obsess about poop.
