The Flip Side

I wrote not too terribly long ago about how I seem to have achieved some sort of "Pied Piper of Old Men" status. If they are not following me around telling me I'm "the prettiest girl in the house" or saying "Gosh honey, I just wish you could climb in bed with me," they are chasing me into my office or worse yet, trying to kiss me. However, a few days ago I realized that the ridiculous and ego-inflating praise that usually abounds can also have a darker downside. I learned the other day that sometimes the lack of tact displayed by our older generation can take on an opposite effect...

Everyone was sleepy on Thursday morning. I was doing my best to lead everyone in a rousing round of calisthenics, which was going about as well as a chihuahua trying to tow a stalled dump truck. No matter how I tried, I could simply not get anyone to kick out their legs, raise their arms, or look up at the ceiling. I woke one man up, saying brightly, "Come on! We're exercising! Help us out here!" The man looked at me quizzically and replied, "Why are you exercising? You're not fat!" After I told him that everyone needed to exercise, regardless of weight, he said, "Well, are you chunky?!?" I was considering this question for a moment, but I didn't get a chance to answer before he looked at me sweetly, held out his arms and said, "Aw, come here Chunky!!!!" I felt a little put out until he looked at me innocently and said, "Well, do you still love me?" At that point I felt like he was pushing his luck, but I said yes anyway. There was really no point in explaining to him that I didn't really appreciate "Chunky" as a new nickname! I guess that I should maybe be leading exercises more often, even if no one else does them along with me...

TIHL #18 How to Identify a Car That Belongs to You or Your Kin

Last week my immediate family and 16 other assorted relatives had the pleasure of reuniting in the mountains of Colorado. The mountains were absolutely gorgeous, I had never really seen anything quite like them! (I think that someday I would really like to take a ski vacation, although I do not intend to at any time actually don a pair of skis and go careening down a mountain. However, there is definitely something very appealing about the idea of sipping hot chocolate in a mountain chalet as the snow falls gently outside the window...) I thoroughly enjoyed exploring the outdoors and the town, although climbing the stairs in our condo qualified as a hike in my book, at least at that altitude. Who could have imagined what a little thing like 9700 feet can do to one's lung capacity?

There were indeed some different vacationing styles apparent among the relatives, as many of them seemed to prefer agendas such as running up mountainsides barefoot, renting bikes at the top, racing down the mountainside off-road, then hopping into whitewater rafts and speeding down waterfalls until ending up in New Mexico, at which time they would probably rent bikes again and leg it uphill back to our hotel. I'm pretty confident that I would not live to tell the tale of such an adventure. Call me unadventurous. You would be too, if you were as uncoordinated as I am. Anyway, we did settle at some compromises that seemed to appeal to all, such as hiking up mountains with shoes on and then taking a beautiful ten mile bike ride from Breckenridge to Frisco. To satisfy everyone's thirst for adventure, we did break the law a couple of times, mostly by opening up our own attractions which were closed on account of it still being "mud season." However, we found that it was not that difficult to crawl under giant maze walls or provide our own golf clubs for closed mini-golf courses, so we took advantage of the very uncrowded (ok, "closed") facilities. We also did a little shopping, played lots of pool and pinball, and of course, spent hours trying to take a decent family photo. I think that a good time was had by all.

My sister and I needed to come back to our fair state of MN a couple of days earlier than everyone else, so we rode back to the Denver airport with my aunt and uncle who had decided to leave on the same flight. It appeared that driving 80 miles per hour down a 10% grade did not phase nor concern my uncle, so my sister and I spent two white-knuckled hours praying that our car would not be the next rollover that we passed. About 30 miles after my uncle had proclaimed that we had 28 miles until our gas tank was empty, we finally stopped at a gas a station. Relieved, I got out of the car and went into the gas station to grab a pop and a snack. I bought the aforementioned items, and with some trepidation went out and opened the door to my uncle's huge rental SUV. "EX-CUSSEE ME!" came a somewhat unfriendly voice from the front seat. Well, it turns out that the car I had gotten into was not, in fact, my uncle's rental SUV, but another car that looked quite honestly nothing like it. It was not the same brand. It was not even the same color. The only thing they had in common was that they were both fairly sizable. The embarrassment of getting into the wrong car was only compounded by the fact that my aunt, uncle, and sister had all been watching the incident unfold from their car, and had done nothing about it. They spent the rest of the way to Denver spontaneously bursting into laughter and making wisecracks about my general stupidity. Nothing like a little family bonding over that one proverbial ditzy relative, right? I guess I should study the "Know Your Rental Cars" maunal a little more thoroughly before our next family reunion...

Inquiring Commuters Want To Know....

I recently heard on the news or maybe a car commercial that the average commuter spends 40 minutes a day in their car. I would say I spend approximately twice that daily, and my commute time is only increasing with the unfortunate demise of 35-W. As I have been crawling along at three miles per hour on westbound I-94 over the past few days, it has come to my attention there are at least two disturbing phenomena having to do with the repair of our roads. First, I have sighted several "No Wake" signs along the side of the highway. Are people suddenly driving their riverboats through Downtown Minneapolis? Or is it their jet skis, only in the summer? I have yet to see a water skier go by in my periphery, but hey, I guess anything's possible. At least that might add some intrigue to my otherwise uneventful ride.

The second and perhaps even more concerning detail that came to my oft-wandering attention was a very small and inconspicuous sign on the bridge that goes right past the downtown skyline. The sign measures no more than 4 X 6 inches, and reads as follows: "MN Bridge No. 21454, 1968-1993." Rest in peace, bridge number 21454. This begs the question, "Do I really want to be driving across a bridge that has been dead for 14 years?" Or if it's not dead, was 1993 the year that its bridge-hood license expired? I'm not really sure that I am comfortable with a daily, and I might add, incredibly slow, jaunt over a viaduct in such questionable state of being. I mean, I don't know about the rest of you, but if an expired bridge is going to fall in while I'm on it, I'd prefer to be going at least 80. Then I at least have a chance of some action-movie style car jumping. If I were better at directions, I would change my route to reflect my concerns. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, there are really no other options aside from 35-W, which apparently also expired or died in 1993 or earlier. It would seem that MNDot's repair queue is running about an eighth of a century behind schedule, which I guess in the historical scheme of things is really not that bad. (Being chronically late myself, I'm not about to start throwing stones from inside my glass abode....)

Anyway, it is unlikely that I will change my preferred route home, but I wanted to air my concerns to the general public. If the DBRB (Dead Bridge Revival Bill) comes through in our next election, I would encourage you all to vote YES. I promise you all that this is as political as I will ever get. Perhaps I have a future in bumper sticker sales?!