Ahh. Fall in New England :)
Pardon the "meh" quality...they're off my Crackberry Blackberry.
 
Saturday Morning in Torrington


This evening on my ride home in the center of Litchfield

A good weekend, well spent I'd say.

I'm still getting used to the concept of not being required to work on the weekends.

Friday, when I got out of work I felt like complete crap with a raging headache, and it was compounded by bumper to bumper traffic on I-84. Usually it's a bit slow at this point anyway because the highway merges from four lanes, to three, then two, but Friday night was obnoxious. It was backed up way further than normal, and I moved the span of an exit [a mile and a half tops] in twenty minutes. And the irritating part? There was no visible explanation for the obnoxiousness either. No accident, nobody broken down, NOTHING.
 
This shit sucks. Happy Friday.

Once I got through that utter clusterfuck, it was off to the vineyard to watch Andrew play. When I got there I was all confused, because nobody I knew was there. Apparently Andrew was running late, and the boy was working til 6. He hadn't shared that tidbit of information with me, and via a cryptic text earlier in the day he says "Phones dead call the store if you need me"...Of course it would have helped if he had shared Walgreens' phone number with me...because sitting at work 40 miles away, its not like I have access to a phone book that would have the listing...*sigh* After he showed up, all was well...and then I intended to go home and crash because my head was still pounding. Instead I was promoted to being the boy's personal chauffeur because he decided to go to his friend Matt's [well one of them] house and become incapacitated. I cursed driving his backwards ass freakin car the entire way back to his house. Every function, such as highbeams, are the exact opposite of the way they are in MY car. The idiots at Mitsubishi decided that it would be more logical to pull the headlight stick BACK to keep your highbeams on, whereas in my car, and the other two I've owned, you flip it FORWARD. So we like to go back and forth cursing the "backwards Japanese" [Me about his car] and the "backwards Koreans" [Him about my Hyundai]. Needless to say we took MY car to my house =P

Because the boy is not a morning person, it took nothing short of me practically shoving him out of bed to get him up and in the shower in time for work when the alarm on my Blackberry went off. When his mom called a few minutes later she seemed quite pleased that I had him up and his ass in the shower :) By the time he straggled out of the shower...he takes for-freakin-ever...it was too late for me to bring him home to get his car, so I brought him to work. We stopped at Dunkin Donuts. I got a Watermelon Coolata for my trouble...and those things are like happiness in a cup.

Shh. Yes, I am driving. It was a straight shot and nobody was coming. Don't worry about it.

After that I watched some old school MTV "Reality" [Laguna Beach] and took a nap, because by god, it was my day off, and I'll be damned if I'm getting up at 7am and staying up :) At about 11:30, my friend Liz texted me and we went out for lunch at 99, and I had the Chicken Sausage Al Forno, which was beastly...I had 3/4 of it wrapped up. Liz and I were upset that our favorite waiter Jared wasn't there. He usually knows what we're gonna get before we order it. If it weren't for the fact that he is quite obviously gay, he would be eye candy =P

After that, Liz required my assistance to change her bellybutton ring for the first time...I think we freaked out a couple of old ladies in the bathroom at the restaurant because she insisted upon doing it there before she had to go back to work. After that, I lolled around town because I thought it was pointless to drive home and then turn around an hour later to go get the boy from work.

After that, we hung around until it was time to go to Matt's house for a party that was billed as a "rager".  It really wasn't. The boy passed out by 10:00, and me not long after. I was sleeping with an eye half open because apparently it was amusing that we were both asleep and people wanted pictures. They kept getting pissed when I caught them =P

Today we just kind of chilled out too until he had to go to work...then I went home to await the results of me and Justin's matchmaking efforts: We set Liz and Andrew up. As of 20 minutes ago, the verdict is in, and it went well, so our best friends being together is a distinct possibility.

Hopefully this week flies, depending on how the money situation looks when I get paid Friday [this getting paid biweekly shit is hard to get used to] I will go see Avenue Q in Waterbury [I've always wanted to see it on Broadway, and this is cheaper haha] and then my friend John wants to go to Salem, Massachusetts next weekend.

With my new job, my daily commute has pretty much quadrupled each way from what it was before. Thus, I am obviously spending more time on the road, and subsequently experiencing more of people's idiocy...especially on the death trap that is Interstate 84 (and sadly I go the span of about four exits, which is not far at all). I have written before about motorists in Connecticut and the state of the stretch of highway I now travel on a daily basis before. [In spite of the fact that I swore up and down that I categorically refused to use it]. I pretty much have to take my life into my own hands during my commute in the morning and afternoon [I've yet to decide which one is worse.] and I am convinced that some corrupt DMV employee [and in this state, they sure as hell aren't too hard to find] is putting licenses in gumball machines and selling them for 50 cents. Otherwise, I don't see how half the people on the road could even have a license, because if they exhibited such stupidity during license testing they sure as shit would have failed.

ANYWAY...

Here is a brief refresher course for people who have forgotten common courtesy and common sense rules of the road:
1. On-Ramps: On ramps are designed for you to try to get up to highway speed. I understand that you can't instantly accelerate from 30 miles an hour to 65 or 70, but that's what the ramp is for. It is not there for you to mosey on up at 35 miles an hour with a stream of cars behind you all pissed off because you won't step on the damn gas. Of course people insist upon doing this when there's a heavy flow of cars already pouring down the highway, thus making it a pain in MY ass to merge because I'm not up to the correct speed to match the flow of traffic because Little Miss Featherfoot in front of me can't be bothered to use the on ramp properly. People are notorious for this on my way home in the afternoon coming off of 84 west on to Route 8 north, where you've got traffic from 84 east and and Route 8 north to worry about, and because of the state of Connecticut's "brilliant" design of the mixmaster, the traffic you are merging into is coming at you from both sides.
2. The purpose of the left hand lane on ANY highway: In most circles this is known as the fast lane or the passing lane. As such, it is beyond me why people insist on traveling in that lane when they are doing 5 under the speed limit. That's what the right lane is for dumbass.
3. Weaving Lanes in a traffic jam: Why even waste your time? Eventually you will get to whatever is causing the traffic issue [in my case, three lanes diverging into two], and have to sit there, thus negating whatever time you think you have saved. Plus people who do this tend not to use their signal lights which brings me to my next point...
4. Signal lights: Unlike DVD navigation, THESE ARE NOT AN OPTIONAL FEATURE ON YOUR CAR. USE THEM! I do not pride myself on my psychic skills. I am not a mind reader, and I would appreciate a little forewarning if you plan on weasling your ginormous SUV into a space the size of my little Hyundai. This does not mean you put it on for a half a blink either, because that's just as useless as completely ignoring the fact that you need to be using it. I swear the horn on my car has gotten more use in the last three weeks than it has in the nearly 7 months I've had it.
5. Lane Changes: Has nobody heard of a safety cushion? When you decide that your lane is going too slow and you decide to cut me off, for the love of God, do it with more than 6 inches to spare between your back bumper and my front bumper...because I swear to god...if you make me fuck up my pretty little Hyundai, I will get out of my car and push you into oncoming traffic...after you give me your insurance information of course. Also, if you're going to merge behind me, leave more than 6 inches between me and you, because you know damn well people are stupid and eventually I'm going to have to abruptly step on my brakes...likely because some asshole decided to merge into the fast lane 6 inches in front of me when they're going slower than I am. Tailgaters suck, hardcore. If I didn't have a brand new car pretty much, I would be more than willing to brake check these assholes.

Most people need a remedial driving course. Bottom line.

In closing, though, truckers, you are not god of the highway, so stop acting like it. I know you have blind spots the size of Russia, but that does not give you permission to drive like an asshole...because you could pretty much obliterate me AND my car.