I read in the paper that 60% of the American population can’t even be civil to each other at work. I can believe it. I would have guessed it might be even more. You don’t have to be at work to experience someone else’s feeling of entitlement to whatever air space they assume you’re preventing them from enjoying. Lack of civility is one thing, outright nastiness is something else. Recently, I encountered two experiences that left me wondering what the world is coming to. 
                 
My family and I were coming back to our car parked on the top deck of the garage. As I stood waiting for the passenger doors to be opened, the driver of the SUV parked next to us walked to her car, opened the door, and hit our car. It scratched the paint. When I commented to her that she could have been more careful and did she notice she had scratched the paint, she decided to bang her door into our car again. While, leaving the door open, she then dumped the contents from a bag of trash and a bottle onto the macadam between our cars. The slob then backed out, stopped, rolled down her window and proceeded to shout F___U at me several times. “Do you eat with that mouth too?” I
wondered.
                 
The next incident occurred in our very own parking deck at the hotel. I‘ve written previously about the motorcycles terrorizing our neighborhood at night. It seems our deck makes a great place to speed up and down, knowing full well they’re driving guests insane with the noise. I just happened to be walking out of the elevator into the parking deck when one of them roared up past me. I stood there watching him turn around and zoom past me like he was going to run me over. He stopped at the bottom tier to speak with two friends. I calmly walked over and asked him if he was aware this was a hotel. Making a bad attempt at feigning a Spanish accent, he said he didn’t speak English. (Moron, you don’t
understand English, either.) I asked him if he thought it was fun to wake people up in the middle of the night by gunning their motors and drag racing up and down the street. His retort was, “Shut up bitch!” “Oh”, I said, “I see we do speak English after all.” I attempted to hold a conversation with him while he continually shouted, “Shut up bitch,” then  realizing it was futile to try to reason with a hemorrhoid, I gave up. I announced I’d let the police deal with him. I calmly walked away as another of his friends showed off by roaring past me on his Hog. Good news is I can identify both the kid and his motorcycle. If I’d have had my cell phone with me, I would have taken a picture of him, his license plate and the Hog. I might have even been able to get a group shot.
                 
The object of my displeasure was a twenty-something year old little punk with scraggly blonde hair down to his collarbone, with a brain the size of a walnut, and probably a two-inch wanger and  cojones to match. His latest performance had only confirmed my original opinion of him, that being, that he feels powerless and needs a big Hog to give him a pathetic sense of power. He craves the attention the noise attracts because he’s too scanky to attract positive attention on his own. Maybe his father was disrespectful to his mother and that’s why he thinks it’s so manly to tell a woman old enough to be his mother to “shut up bitch.” What kind of mutation had to happen within the human species
before it was able to spawn such pond scum? Makes me think we should start requiring people to pass a test before they can get a license to mate. 
                 
Well, I’m ready for your next move buster. Don’t mess with me, or you just might meet your Maker in Hog Heaven. And, he won't be riding a Harley.

Do I know how to have a great weekend, or what? Boy was I glad I was going north on 95 Friday because the southbound lane was a parking lot from before Fredericksburg to the 495/395 interchange. How do people do this every day? I’d have to shoot myself first before I put up with traffic like that on a daily basis. I made such good time I was too early, and had two hours to kill. Good thing I’d gone prepared with a book. My grand dog
was waiting for me when I arrived, then my daughter and son-in-law showed up two hours later.
                 
The weekend got off to a scrumptious start when we went out to a local family-owned Italian restaurant Friday night. I’d been in the mood for mussels marinara all week, so when a linguine dish with mussels, shrimp and clams hailed me from the menu, it was the obvious choice. I was pleasantly surprised it came in a Fra Diavola sauce, which in Italian means the devil, as in spicey Hot. Since I’m Italian, I can tell you eating this doesn’t send you to hell. Rather, you think you must have died and gone to Heaven. If you can believe it, I saved room for dessert, but that had to wait for a walk to Cold Stone for ice cream. 
                 
I was so looking forward to Skyping with my granddaughter and seeing Harry Potter in 3-D the next day that the fact I forgot to pack a razor hardly fazed me. Who the hell was going to be feeling my legs in a theater? I mean I know things are supposed to pop out at you in 3-D IMAX, but this was hardly the basis for alarm in case one of the death eaters was attracted to hairy legs. Or, so I thought. Anyway, this version of the movie was bloody cool. Having wisps of stuff coming at you is my kind of movie. Having wisps of stuff coming from you is another matter.
                 
My daughter and I stopped to use the ladies room after the movie ended. I was at the sink washing my hands when I heard my daughter calling me from across the room. I turned to see what she was telling me, but she was laughing so hard I couldn’t understand her. I checked to see if I had dragged toilet paper under my feet. No. She was bent over in convulsive laughter and pointing to me. In between gasping for air she managed to get out, “Your pants! Look behind you.” Oh, Lord did I sit in something in the theater? I looked in the mirror, and there hanging out of the back of my waistband was the toilet seat liner flapping behind me. It was one of those Candid Camera moments. How many people
noticed this already? I quickly grabbed my tail to throw it away, and started laughing. I couldn’t stop. The two of us stood there bent over laughing so hard we couldn’t breathe. Tears ran down our cheeks, and our stomach muscles cramped up. It took us a good five minutes to compose ourselves before we left to meet up with my son-in-law. We tried to relay what had just occurred, and then started laughing all over again. I lost two pounds.
                 
And, that was a good thing because next we went out for dinner at an Iranian restaurant. Right off the bat they serve an appetizer of a fire baked pita bread with a very hot sauce. You know you have to eat it even though it’s going to get you in the end later. The dish I ordered consisted of a HUGE plate of Basmati rice with lamb, chick peas, tomatoes, onion and more hot spices in a tomato based sauce topped with thick chunks of eggplant. You were also given condiments to use with your dinner; a green chili sauce and a yogurt sauce. More heat. This required copious amounts of water in a vain attempt to put out the fire that was slowly building in intensity inside my mouth, which of course meant, I had to
use the bathroom again. The tale ends here, because I was not about to exit without first checking to see if I had a tail of another sort.
                 
The next morning we went to Alexandria for brunch. I’d been afraid the kids were going to make me walk there, but we drove instead and parked a block from the Torpedo Factory. We walked a half a mile to get to the restaurant, a Tex Mex place. Apparently, I hadn’t learned my lesson yet, because I ordered grits with jalapeno peppers and cheese to go with my omelet. Eating grits as a vegetable is one of my favorite foods. You can mix some interesting things into it besides the usual butter, sugar and milk. After breakfast we walked back to the Torpedo Factory. For those of you who are not from Virginia, it’s now a
group of professional artist’s studios and classrooms. You can watch them create as well as purchase the art, everything from paintings, photography, sculpture, textiles and jewelry.
                 
It was finally time for me to head home and face the traffic. This time I got stuck in it. It could have been worse, but only if I'd been tailed again. I was delayed about a half hour, bad enough since the temperature was 100 degrees outside and I was driving into the sun. By now, you’d think heat wouldn’t bother me since I’d been consuming it for two days. I made it home in one piece; tired but happy. It’s good to get away every now and then. But, it’s also good to come home.      
 


                 

In case you wondered why I haven't been posting, I'm taking a couple days off to visit with family. I'll be back on Monday, so y'all have a great weekend!

Yikes. I didn’t want to go three days without posting, and it has almost come close to that. I’ve been so busy that my week has flown by.

I haven’t quite figured this birthday thing out yet. Chronologically, we are one age, but mentally we can be another. In my case, the jury is still out on where I am mentally, but I can tell you that I don’t feel my age. Two days before my birthday I was in the lobby grooving, as we used to call it, to Confidante’s, a.k.a. Kingfurst’s original rap music that he had downloaded to his cell phone. Last night, I had a pre-birthday massage and the
masseuse thought I was 15 years younger than I am. Today, on my birthday, I was back to dinosaur status when Squid greeted me with my usual dose of morning insults and back slapping. Of course I know that’s just his brand of affection, but, I realized when this birthday was causing me to have mixed feelings, that I had subconsciously absorbed feeling like a dinosaur. But, as the day wore on, I also realized that a lot of wisdom and experience comes with age. So, all in all, I’m glad I’m the age that I am, and although sometimes I wish I could turn back the clock, it all worked out just as it was supposed to. Tomorrow I’m going to Good Foods Grocery to buy some almond oil for my scales. They’ve been looking a little dried out lately.
                 
I must say, I had a very nice birthday. My friend M. took me out to lunch and then we went to an art gallery. When I got back to the hotel, Confidante had a birthday cake and a card waiting for me, and Dave had a bouquet of flowers. I feel truly blessed to have such good friends. My day was full of opening cards, phone calls, texts and postings to my wall on Facebook wishing me a happy birthday. Every now and then, the Universe lets us know we are loved and connected to each other in truly miraculous ways. Today was a supernatural,
above and beyond, extraordinary kind of birthday. And, it won’t end today. This weekend I’ll be celebrating with one of my daughters whose taking me to see Harry Potter in 3D. It just doesn’t get any better than this. Unless of course, I win the lottery.
                 
I almost forgot to mention, I was even surprised by a birthday greeting from Peeping Tom who wrote “Happy Birthday” on the window over my desk so I’d be sure to see it. Unfortunately, the greeting was reversed, but I figured it out anyway. And, then the rain washed it away.