Not us, thankfully.

But it was almost one of those days. We drove up into the city (we live about 17 miles south of the city and state limits) to run some errands. Nice, sunny day, no inclement weather or anything like that. Midday on a Saturday, not the right time for the inebriated to be on the road. Nowhere near the big college football game of the region, and not near the annual regional fair either, so no likelihood of impaired drivers due to some form of intake.

So why were we inches away from not one but two major accidents? Don't know, except that this city sucks. The first incident was when we exited the interstate to drive up into the eastern part of the city. The same place I turn every single morning on my way to work. We were stopped at the light at the top of the offramp. The light for the cross traffic went yellow, then red. There are a few seconds between the crossing red light and our green. We were in the right lane of two turn lanes, making a lefthand turn (thankfully not the left lane; if we had been a few feet to the left the close call would have become a direct hit). The light was solidly green before we started to move, but we were moving sooner than the cars to our left (they were lucky too). The guy who ran the light wasn't even close to making it. I don't know if he was already moving too fast to stop for the light and so he tried to make it, or if he was gunning it to try and make it and really misjudged, or if the dumba$$ didn't even see it (probably that last one), but in any case he was well exceeding the speed limit and seriously running the light. Everyone at some point has tried to make the light when it has gone yellow and has missed it, but not by this much. He saw us (how the hell you could miss our HUGE maroon Dodge Ram is beyond me) at the LAST POSSIBLE SECOND and swerved just barely enough to miss the front of the truck. I'm surprised he didn't clip our bumper anyway; it was that close. He lost control of his car, almost spun out completely (which would have been another disaster with oncoming traffic), and regained control and continued on his merry speeding way. All the drivers left at the intersection collectively let out a big sigh, shook their heads, and continued on, and so did we. It would have been much uglier for him than us; the benefit of driving a big truck is you have more vehicle around you for protection and you are sitting up above where most other vehicles might strike you (unless you get hit by another big vehicle or a semi--which is also really common around here). He was driving a small silver sedan, and a high-speed impact on the engine compartment of our big pickup would have f*&^ed him up BAD.

We nervously laughed off our close call, ran our errands, and got lunch at one of our fabulous Southern barbeque joints (yes, I know, it doesn't really help out my diet, but hey, I almost died so I'm gonna live it up a little). When we headed home we decided to backroad it a bit instead of staying on the interstate all the way. We were sedately driving down this six-lane road, a major one in town but with a speed limit of 40, and we had only been on it for about a minute when the rest of the excitement commenced. A black sedan several car-lengths ahead of us, just cruising along maybe 5 miles above the speed limit and not doing anything like passing anyone or even changing lanes, suddenly veered to the right, jumped onto the curb, and slammed into a telephone pole literally five feet from where a woman was standing on the sidewalk. Bits of metal, glass, and plastic flew everywhere, and the car rebounded into the street, blocking two of the three lanes of southbound traffic. We were in the farthest left lane anyway, so we were able to pass behind his car and then pull over into the far right lane. My husband whipped out his phone to call the police while I jumped out to see if anyone was hurt. Thankfully, the woman standing on the sidewalk was not injured at all (but startled as hell), and the man driving the car was also OK. He had a cut on one knuckle and was really shaken up, but otherwise he was fine. He didn't know what had caused the car to swerve; he said it was almost like his brakes locked up. It wasn't a cell phone related accident because he didn't even have one; he borrowed mine to call his family. The entire right front panel and the front bumper were peeled off the car. The frame was clearly bent and the passenger-side front post was crumpled along with the hood. The passenger side of the windshield was totally shattered. The front axle was ruined along with the wheel, and there was that heavy grayish-green grease sprayed all over the ground. All of the airbags had triggered, thank goodness. The police showed up to take care of things, and after giving the officer our names and contact information as witnesses we got back in the truck and drove home. We were going to stop at the gym on the way home and work off some of the barbeque, but after our close calls we just felt that it would be safer to head straight home and not leave the house again all weekend.

I almost feel like someone in one of those Final Destination movies, you know, where they somehow avoid the event that is supposed to kill them and then death chases them around for the rest of the show? I hope that isn't the case. Because if it is, even though we don't plan on driving anywhere the rest of the weekend, we do live right on a major highway where everyone speeds, and there are a lot of big semis, and our house is only a few feet from the edge of the road...

If you need me, I'll be under the bed, sucking my thumb.

Wow.

I just finished watching United 93 and I'm finishing drying my eyes.

There are many movies that I wish ended differently. I hate the fact that Bruce Willis' character dies at the end of Armageddon. I watch Mystery, Alaska over and over again, fervently hoping the puck will go in the net finally instead of bouncing off the crossbar. I'm always saddened at the end of Braveheart and Gladiator that the main characters don't live to enjoy the freedom for which they've fought.

But I have to say United 93 is the one I regret the ending of the most, because it is a true story. I'm awed by these people who willingly risked their lives to try to prevent another disaster on September 11, 2001. If I were faced with having to confront men with knives in a confined space 30,000 feet above the ground, I wish I could say I would be as brave and selfless as those passengers were, but I cannot be confident of that fact--and I hope I will never have to find out. But the circumstances were there for them to pull off an amazing save. They had a passenger on board who had some piloting experience, and another who had worked in air traffic control. Together they, if the circumstances were right, could have gotten the plane to the ground. If the story were fiction, they would have successfully overpowered the hijackers, gotten into the pilots' seats, and had a hair-raisingly close call on the way to the ground, but they would have made it in the end. But this was a real event, caused by real evil people. And those real evil people tried to carry out their plan, and in the ensuing struggle the plane crashed with no survivors.

But the passengers didn't lose. They prevented a fourth disaster on September 11, and established themselves in history as people who fought for their lives, their countrymen, and their freedom.

Evil doesn't have a gender, a religion, a country. Evil can come from anywhere, and the only hope we have is that there will always be people who have the faith and courage to fight back.

God bless America.

Land of the free, because of the brave.

God bless America
Land that I love
Stand beside her
And guide her
Through the night
With a light from above
From the mountains
To the prairies
To the oceans
White with foam
God bless America
My home sweet home
God bless America
My home sweet home.



NEVER FORGET.

Being a responsible adult sucks.

Responsibility takes away a lot of the fun in life. You can't just go do what you want, when you want; you can't buy what you want without regard for how much money you actually have...it's just no fun sometimes.

I guess the reason this has presented itself is because my husband and I have recently been doing one of those "responsible adult" type things: looking at houses to buy. We've been renting, either an apartment or a small, poorly maintained house (see previous posts involving vermin and broken-down air conditioners), since we got married seven years ago. Now that we are both in our early thirties, our parents are watching us with interest to see if the "settling down" phase is imminent. Why are parents in such a hurry to get their children "settled down"? Is it because their parenting job effectively ends when you are married, have children, and own property? I've wondered this before, but, as the years have progressed and my mother and mother-in-law have become more inquisitive about grandkids, I've thought about it a lot more. Once the children are married, parents no longer have to feel like the providers. Once a house has been purchased, parents don't have to worry about the children being nomads and being hard to find or easy to misplace. And once the grandchildren have been spawned, they can stop worrying about populating the next generation and starting spoiling their grandkids. It's like being retired from parenting.

Anyway, my in-laws were in town last weekend, and we went and looked at some of the many housing developments being built in the midsouth area. I have heard that there is now a housing slow-down in other parts of the country (and my brother, Hoff, is an unfortunate victim of said slow-down in the SoCal area), but no one has heard of such a slow-down here. There is tremendous flight out of the hoods and ghettos in the city, to the nicer neighborhoods to the east and south of town. This means the housing market within the city, of existing homes, isn't great, but the new houses being built are selling like hotcakes. We found some nice houses, some better built than others--regardless of price range--and some with some cheesy extras, between $170K and $240K. Note: Housing prices in the South aren't all that bad, really. A house we looked at today was 3100 sq. ft. with four bedrooms, a sitting room in the master bedroom, a two-car garage (unusual in the area), and a finished bonus room upstairs, and cost $270K. In SoCal it would have been $800K, easy.

We've found some houses we like, but here's the thing: we can't afford to buy anything right now. We probably won't be able to buy for a minimum of 1 1/2 to 2 years. This is where that "responsible adult" thing comes in. You see, back when we were in college, we were a little, um, let's say reckless, with money. We bounced some checks, racked up some credit card debt, and basically had a whole lot of fun using money we didn't have. That's the problem. It is seriously fun sometimes to spend money. Buying things is great. So we did that, repeatedly. And now we are literally and figuratively paying for it. We've got some residual credit card debt that it is taking FOREVER to get rid of, not to mention $80K in student loans and two car payments with horrible interest rates (that's another downside to the fun you can have with credit cards--it screws your credit rating severely. Your credit rating is like that stupid "permanent record" you were forever being threatened with in high school, only it actually exists, and really can make your life miserable).

We are making ends meet, barely. We do make enough to cover all our bills and expenses each month, with a couple hundred bucks left over for those extraneous things, like food. Our kayaking habit isn't always a good thing, because of the gas our trips require, but we'd probably spend about the same amount of money on entertainment if we stayed home, so it's really a wash. But because we don't have any extra each month, we can't really start setting money aside for a down payment yet. We have to get these other bills taken care of first. The credit cards are slowly but surely getting paid off, but it will take at least a year, I'm guessing.

I did some math (something I'm not good at, or particularly proud of) and figured that, if we get all our credit cards paid off, we'll have enough money along with our rent payment to handle mortgage payments of about $1300 a month. Using one of those "mortgage calculators" online (I have no idea how reliable those are, or how accurate), that figures out to a $200K mortgage loan at 7% interest over 30 years. So, I feel a little better knowing that we CAN afford a house, someday. But I'm still a little ashamed of the fact that we can't afford one right now. We still do silly things occasionally, like going on a random trip or purchasing an Xbox 360, and we are bad about squandering opportunities when we get extra money, like bonuses.

So we have to be better about our finances. When we get extra money, no matter how small an amount, we need to throw it at a credit card. We've already agreed that for birthdays and Christmas, any money we had planned to spend on each other should just get paid to a credit card. Since my parents have already said they're getting plane tickets for us to come visit as our Christmas present, and we are going to skip the gift exchange with each other to save money, it's going to be a sparse holiday. I know that Christmas is not all about the presents, and we'll still get gifts from my in-laws, but it just isn't as much fun. I love giving my husband gifts. He's a techie, so he's all about toys and gadgets, and I like to surprise him with things like that. So, it won't be as much fun, not giving him a present.

Being responsible stinks.