Road Kill Of Another Kind

Speaking of road kill . . . I have discovered that I am living under martial law in my new town. Cops are EVERYWHERE! Especially everywhere where you don't want them to be, like parked surreptitiously behind trees in the morning when you're driving your kids to school and need to break a few rules of the road to get them to class on time.

I fired off this picture last week. When I first saw this traffic cop, I was in the right lane, coming from the other direction, and when I made the turn, he startled me because there he was all of a sudden, off his bike and hiding behind a tree with his radar gun.

Isn't that entrapment or something?

What I'm ticked about is that these cops are going after moms in mini vans who are maybe driving a few miles over the speed limit. Big whoop! It's not like anyone is really speeding because there are so many cars going to the same place, the same school, there's no room to go very fast. Simple physics.

About a month ago, I was ticketed on this very street for driving only five miles over the limit. FIVE MILES! Down in Orange County, you were driving too SLOWLY if you were driving only five miles over the speed limit.

This highly patrolled, small town is going to take some getting used to for this former Southern Californian who was used to breaking traffic laws and getting away with it.

Here's another shot of the Enforcer. Looks like he's going to fire on me with a real gun for taking this picture, doesn't it?

Another Stressful Day In Southern California

This past weekend, I took a very long drive down to my old stomping ground in Southern California. My daughters had a scheduled visitation with their father and I had some business to take care of. At the top of my "To Do" list was getting my hair done.

Yeah, I know. Seems like a long way to go for a few highlights. But you have to understand . . . I have been going to my stylist for more than 20 years! I’m having a very hard time giving him up for somebody local. He’s like a brother to me, or maybe more like a sister because he’s gay. He’s been with me through my single years, and all those crazy perms and experiments with reds. He did my hair for my wedding. He talked me into getting my first bob. And he made me look good through two pregnancies and one divorce. He's worth the drive.

The whole point of this blog is to share with you a certain perspective I acquired from this 400-plus-mile trip. And that is this: Southern California is a meat grinder! Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s the entertainment capital of the world. But it was only after I left it and returned for a short weekend did I also discover that it is the STRESS CAPITAL of the world, too.

The minute I came down off the Grapevine and got into the Mulholland Pass, I noticed a distinct physiological change in me. I gripped the steering wheel tighter and I could feel my blood pressure rise. Or maybe it was bile. Most noticeably, I became angry. Really angry. (How did I live like this for so long?) This asshole behind me who was driving a convertible BMW with a pristine-white leather interior was tailgating me so closely, we were practically spooning. I could see him in my rearview mirror gesticulating wildly and pounding his steering wheel as though that would intimidate me into speeding up.

I could hear him thinking, “Hey, You, the Nobody in the Honda! Move the hell over for me, a very important Hollywood type in a fancy car who just had an illicit nooner with my production intern and now I have to make up the time on the freeway to get to the charity auction that my trophy wife is hosting.”

(I lost track of how many stereotypes I just used.)

So I did the only thing a Northern California girl could do . . . . I slowed down. Just slightly. Ha! Take that, Mr. Prematurely Balding.

Once my wheels hit the 405 Freeway, my daughters noticed the change in me immediately. They had just told me days earlier that since we moved up north, I seemed calmer, more happy. My teen even told me that she thought I had become “less strict.” But once I entered the crazy, frantic gravitational pull of Southern California, I became my old self again. And it didn’t make me happy.

Maybe that’s why people in Southern California seem so self-absorbed half the time. It’s not that they really are, it’s just that they are entirely focused on rushing from one place to the next. There’s no time for niceties and common courtesies, because God forbid you should slow down and get trampled by the angry mob.

And if you do slow down it's usually because you're STUCK on a freeway somewhere. They should post road signs that say, "Welcome to Southern Calfiornia. Now turn off your engines because you're not going anywhere!"

Another interesting observation . . . we noticed the thick smog for the first time. When you live down in SoCal as long as we did, it’s not smog. It’s “morning haze.” Well, I can tell you after living up in a smog-free town that boasts fresh air and bright-blue skies, that stuff they’re trying to pass off in SoCal as “haze” is really disgusting, choking air pollution. Don’t be fooled by the lure of the beaches.

What, you say? You want me to say something NICE about my weekend in Orange County? OK . . . the hotel where I stayed was awesome. The Quality Suites at John Wayne Airport. Nothing fancy, just a nice, clean, roomy room at the right price. For $71 a night (which included a Triple A discount), I got a living room with a TV and a separate bedroom with another TV and a king bed. PLUS, a free, cooked-to-order breakfast every morning. Fresh eggs, hot pancakes, coffee, juice, you get the picture.

The only complaint is that on Sunday morning, the line for breakfast snaked way out the door, as everyone had the same idea: to sleep in on Sunday and rush down to breakfast 10 minutes before they closed.

A stressful start to another crazy day in overpopulated – but beautiful! -- Southern California.

A Tissue Issue

Image via Wikipedia
Over the weekend, my neighbors got TP’d. Their trees and lawn were covered in a blanket of snowy, white tissue. In Maine, this spectacle might have looked quite ordinary this time of year. But with 80-degree temps in November in Southern California, trust me, white is not the color our lawns should be wearing. My shock immediately turned to sympathy. Whatever that family had planned for the day was going to have to wait at least 2-3 hours until they cleaned up that wet white mess.

We all did our share of TPing back when we were adolescents. I remember it being fun and somewhat thrilling, thinking we might get caught in the act. But now, as an adult, I have a whole different view on TPing. I see it from the homeowner’s perspective – it is a nuisance and cleaning it up is a major time-sucker. My teen tells me it’s a compliment if you get TP’d. It means you are popular, and some boy or girl likes you. Couldn’t the smitten young girl just bake my neighbor boy a lasagna, instead?

When we used to TP, we’d spend the night at someone’s house and then sneak out into the dark of night, when her parents were asleep, and do the dirty deed, because we knew it was wrong and that most rational parents would never condone us destroying a neighbor’s property.

Times change. I’ve changed. Today, parents are actually driving these kids over in their big-ass SUVs and letting them scatter, like roaches, out into the neighborhood with armfuls of toilet paper rolls. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?? These parents-turned-accessories watch and wait from the safety of the getaway car while these kids do their business. Then, what? They go home and make root beer floats and talk about how much fun it was to vandalize someone else’s property?

This fuddy duddy just doesn’t GET it! So I’m asking all the parents out there, would you drive your adolescents over to TP someone else’s house? Why or why not? And do you consider TPing vandalism?