Tuesday June 12, 2007
Warning – The following story may not be suitable for the small.
This morning on my way to work I was confronted with the bitter reality of both, my coffee before I had put sugar in it, and of life and death. I was driving away from the coffee shop with my coffee and a slice of lemon pound cake and was preparing myself for the day ahead. In front of me there was a minivan driving at about 20-25 mph. From the left side of the road darts a furry tree rat (squirrel). I have often pondered what spurs on squirrels (and deer) to decide that the best time to cross the road is when a car is approaching. Perhaps it is due to their shortened life span and lack of an eternal soul that gives them a small view of the value of life. Life’s short – run out in front of cars. Perhaps squirrels have very little self esteem and cannot turn down a dare and risk injuring their reputation. I don’t think that we will ever know why squirrels do what they do…. they’re squirrely that way. Anyway, this squirrel runs out towards the minivan… does that little juke move where it looks like he’s not sure he can make it and then he thinks he can and…. he can’t. That’s right, the wheel rolls right over him, but the suspension on these new mini vans is so good that the unsuspecting squirrelicidal minivan driver was none the wiser. But not me, ... I was the wiser and disturbed-er. But…. it got worse.
In the time that it took for me to overtake and overpass the victim I had enough time to see that while nearly all of him had been “affected” by the tire, his head, upper body and left leg had not been. And then I saw him put his little left foot down on the ground and try to push himself up ( I imagined him looking at me while mouthing “help me” as he did this).
So… I found myself realizing three things. One, that was probably one of the most disturbing things I’d ever seen (I nearly threw up a couple times). Two, I was a little unhappy that my seemingly wonderful start to a day was ruined by this image… but then I thought that maybe I was being a little self-centered as my day had not been nearly as inconvenienced as the squirrel’s. Three, I should have run him over the rest of the way. It was the right thing to do and I failed him.
Thursday January 11, 2007
(setting: our 3 year old wakes up early in the morning and comes to watch tv in our bed until we wake up…he watches pbs kids, we sleep)
Imagine waking up to this as I did this morning:
(coming from the tv audio while Evan was watching a curious george episode unrelated to flying)
“Control tower, this is Flight 157, over”
“Flight 157, this is control tower, what is the situation?”
“Yeah, control tower, we have a woman sitting in the emergency exit aisle who is having a seizure…we think we have it under control, but she’s definitely having a seizure. Don’t worry though because one of our flight attendants has EMT experience”
“Flight 157, we’ll have EMT’s waiting for you at the terminal”
Evan: “Daddy, what was that?”
Me(half-asleep): “It’s just a plane trying to communicate with us”
Evan: “Can you turn curious george up, that plane is loud”
-Live Tyler
Wednesday January 10, 2007
I met a guy today named Brian Ashpole…(pause for a minute)...say the name outloud (say it)...(pause)...(return to reading). Never heard this last name before and I apologize to all the Ashpoles out there if I offended you by using your name in this post. After all, you are the Ashpole’s of the world. Go forth and make more Ashpole’s so we can have a world full of Ashpole’s. I’d love to see your family tree of Ashpole’s one day…email me at: not.an.Ashpole@ashpoleless.com
-Live Tyler
Friday December 22, 2006
yesterday, driving down a fairly busy 4 lane (each side) road my eye was caught by a man riding a 10-speed down the sidewalk, steering with left hand and holding a small tree in the right hand. the tree was not potted, stood 5 feet tall and still had dirt and roots attached to trunk. also to mention, no houses along or off this road.
by the way, do you distinguish a road as a whole or one side? for instance if it was 4 lanes on one side and 4 lanes on the other…4 lane road or 8 lane road? Most would say 8 lane road. If this is the standard rule and logic then what happens when you have 2 lanes on one side and 1 lane on the other…3 lane road? cause some people might think a 3 lane road is a road with 1 and a half lanes on each side and they might want to travel down that road more often because they have a lane-closeness-phobia and would like the excess room. do you think there is such a phobia as lane-closeness? do they have meetings every week and none of them make it there because they can’t get out of their neighborhoods and onto an 8 lane highway(6 lanes on one side, 2 on the other)? i think al gore should back the lane-closenessaphobics…make them a website and a memoir movie to be played on Lifetime: television for women with Meredith Baxter Bernie starring opposite Kirk Cameron.
also seen today at wendys: an Asian man yelling at a Caucasian woman who kept responding: “no speak-a asian”
-Live Tyler
Thursday October 26, 2006
Sons of Roy (aaron for the slow people) sent me an email this morning about being busy and the google ad associated with it was as follows:
Grumpy Girl Clothing – www.grumpy-girl.com – It’s finally here: The Grumpy Girl Auto Bird Turd Emergency Kit.
-Live Tyler