draggonlaady

And a full moon.
Great combo, yes? So it's now 8:40am.

On the way in to work this morning (a grey, freezing-fog sort of day), I flashed my lights at a guy who was driving with his off. Now, to be clear here-by flash, I do not mean "dazzling brights in your face", I mean that I switched my lights off and then back on. Does bucko there accept the reminder and turn his on? nope. Does he ignore me and keep driving? nope. He rolls down his window, reaches out, and flips me off. What the bloody Hell?

Bah.

Now, just answered the phone and a woman gives me her name, and tells me that she just wants to let us know that she's taking us to small claims court. She hangs up before I can transfer her to DocBoss, who was the one working on her critter.

Great start, I tell ya.

You know, it's February. We've had snow on the ground for months. You would THINK that people would have figured out how to drive in the stuff. Apparently, this is not so. Heading home from my folks' last night, going a comfortable 30mph (speed limit is 50 there, but it was dark, and snowing, and downhill at a pretty good angle). We come around a blind corner, and there, in my lane, was a car. It was going SO SLOW that I thought it was stopped. I brake and pull into the left lane, there being no oncoming traffic and no way I was stopping before I hit them.
And then the !(@$&)&*#$()*@#!@##%-ing #)473902-er flips on his left turn signal and turns left across the lane I've just pulled into to try to maneuver around him. Turns out I DID have enough space to stop after all, but not by a lot, and not without riding the edge of putting the car into a skid. So I reverse directions and dodge back to the right, and dumb-ass pulls off to the left, and as I go past, I see his reverse lights come on, so apparently he was only going left in a misguided attempt to get out of my way, he was NOT going so slowly because he was turning, and his reaction to someone trying to get around is apparently to cut in front of them. I did not wait around to see if he got himself backed out of the un-plowed driveway he'd just pulled into, because I'm a bitch like that.

I swear it. The other drivers are conspiring. I was driving along quite peacefully with the Bruces yesterday, in the left lane quite legally passing a pair of cars going slightly less than that speed limit. Suddenly, the marshmallow-brained moron driving the red mini-van in the right lane SWERVED INTO THE LEFT LANE EXACTLY WHERE I WAS DRIVING. I slammed on the brakes, swerved off the road onto the shoulder and laid vigorously on the horn hoping the snot-breathed fuck-head would get his fat red mini-van ass back in his own lane and let me back on the road. Instead, he blithely continues into my driving space, forcing me completely off the road, and then accelerates to pass the car that had been ahead of him in the right lane.

Thankfully, there was nobody behind me to rear-end me during this.

So after passing the car, he switches back into the right lane, AND DROPS BACK DOWN BELOW THE SPEED LIMIT. Mother-FUCKER.

So I quickly caught up to him, handed Bruce I my cell phone, and let him play photographer. This apparently confused the hell out of bat-shit-insane-driver-man, but hey, let him worry. Also, it seems this is not the man's only random disregard for safety while driving, as the left front fender was crumpled in from some prior impact.

And if any of you see this bastard on the road, watch yourselves, and feel free to flip him right the Hell off.

Okay. So in case you haven't noticed, I don't like it when people do stupid, inconsiderate, dangerous things while driving near me. Therefore, you all get to listen to me bitch about it. Aren't you lucky?

So this bloke was in front of us on a recent drive. Can't quite make out the license plate, sadly, but he's stopped completely past the stop line, and taking up both lanes.

Okay. So, I remember as a kid getting light snow in early October, heavy by November. The past couple years, we've had nothing until December. And then it freezes hard as hell.

So last week, we had the fun and exciting 5-6" on top of freezing rain.

Yesterday, it was snowing sideways. Got another about 6" before I got home, hard to tell because it was drifting. Snowed all night. Still snowing today.

Some news from Spokaloo (which is 50 miles south and several thousand feet lower than my house).
http://www.krem.com/topstories/stories/krem2-121508-winterwatch.66e9126f.html
http://www.krem.com/topstories/stories/krem2-121708-roads.71771550.html

Police have requested that nobody drive unless they have 4-wheel drive AND snow tires/chains. And then only if you absolutely have to.
Now, this is NOT Seattle or Portland. This is a city that is used to and equipped for dealing with snow. They have had plows out and running. We do NOT shut down for an inch and a half of fluffy.

But when I left for work this morning, the road I live on had not been plowed yet (not terribly surprising, the county has a lot of roads, and lesser-used/dirt roads get short shrift on plowing when they can't even keep up on the highways). And it was deep enough that I was plowing snow out with the front of my car, and flinging it up over the windshield. Makes for some fun driving that; trying to keep a straight line when you can't see well through the snow on your window, and there's no distinct edge to the road anyway--the snow just covers right over from the road across the ditch. Happily, there is only a short run on that road, and the rest of the way to town was plowed out.

We had 4 appointments total booked for today. For 2 doctors. And we've already had one cancellation. I suspect that I will be going home early, as will at least half the staff.

ETA: There's another cancellation. 8:28am and half of our appointments have canceled.

So I'm stopped at the gas station to feed the work truck on my way to work. The gas station provides great visibility of the intersection up the road, where the espresso stand is. Sitting in the truck, idly watching traffic...

Pink car is north-bound, stopped and signaling left to turn into the espresso stand. Truck is south-bound. Black car is north-bound behind the pink car. Black car is NOT stopping. Truck passes intersection, black car pulls into south-bound lane, apparently attempting to PASS the pink car which is now turning left to cross the south-bound lane. Anybody else seeing where this is going? That's right, they fail their dodge rolls. It's a sick damn feeling in your stomach when you KNOW what's coming and can't do a damn thing about it. Black car plows right into the driver's side of the pink car. I'm still attached to the gas pump, but have the cell phone out and got 911 dispatching at about the same time as the "thud" reaches me.
Pull in to see if I can help, and to wait for the police to give a statement if they need one, and discover that the pink car is driven by the teen-age daughter of a co-worker. So several stressed co-workers are hugging and mother-henning.
A gent driving into town promptly pulls off and starts directing traffic like it's what he does for a living. I suspect he's a volunteer or off-duty firefighter, because he's soon got a radio out of his car that looks (to my un-trained eye) just like my da's, and is talking to the emergency folk that are on their way. (He declined my offer to spot him a coffee or tea for standing in the cold and rain.)
Good news, appears that nobody was seriously injured. Co-worker's daughter had to climb out through the passenger door because the driver's door is trashed. And her dad's taking her to hospital to be checked out despite her protestations of being fine. Other driver was also apparently okay; with luck the worst injury will be the bloody nose the passenger got.
Made a mess of the intersection and everybody late to work though; maybe now the city will finally cough up for a light for that intersection? Doubt it though, not like this is the first time there's been a similar wreck there.

For those who don't know, I went over the hills and through the woods to my grandmother's house for the weekend. Sorry all, I didn't see anybody that wasn't immediate family--short trip, pushed for time, all that. Made it home safely, roads were just fine, but I'd like to send a very long thank-you note to the drug-addled, slug-brained beaurocrat of dumbassville that thought it was a good idea to have a manditory stop and check for traction tires on all cars heading east when there was NO FUCKING SNOW ON THE ROAD. added about 3 hours to the normally 6 hour drive as we had to go up about 15 miles of the mountain in first gear.

From The Olympia Olympian

Just 45 minutes after Theresa M. Wilson, 43, of Curtis, Wash., found her boyfriend with another woman, she says, she saw him driving on the road. She rammed his car three times and forced it off the road, state troopers say. "Oh my God, oh my God, that's not my boyfriend," she allegedly said after the crash -- she had mistaken a stranger's car for her boyfriend's. Wilson was arrested and charged with assault. "We've got an anger management issue," the arresting trooper said.

An anger management issue? I hereby declare that comment the understatement of the weekend.

So I'm sure everybody out there has asked this of themselves, but is there something in the air in Seattle that makes people forget how to drive? Is it really that difficult to travel a steady speed? Figure out that if you've been passed by several people on the right, maybe the fast lane isn't where you belong? That you've got to be going the same speed as the traffic you're trying to merge with, and it's helpful to aim for a spot between cars, not try to merge into one? Having just driven 405 twice on holiday, I'm reminded yet again of some of the reasons I dislike Seattle...