Sometimes Karma can be as obvious as a lady in a Honda CRV
Posted on November 30, 2009
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So, I ran out of gas on Saturday on Lawrenceville-Suwanee Rd and for the first time in recent memory there were not six cops parked at one block intervals just dying to catch anyone going five miles over the speed limit. Running out of gas is the most embarrassing of car problems; you know you’re at risk - you know you should get gas and yet you try to squeeze out just one more mile. In my case, I was actually on the way to the gas station when my car sat down and refused to go any further.
I accepted my fate. This was my fault and it was an easy, if time-consuming, fix; walk the mile to the gas station, buy a container (fingers crossed that they had one), get some gas and walk back with fingers crossed that my car hadn’t been towed because I pulled over as far as I could but I was still blocking part of a lane.
I didn’t expect anyone to pick me up. In the suburbs people don’t do that. Walkers are viewed with a little suspicion and assumed to be shady characters - what’s wrong with this person that they don’t have a car and must walk? Best to stay away. And, frankly, I’m a little suspicious myself so I’d question the motives of most people who might have stopped to help and probably turned them down.
That’s why the perfectly normal looking woman who passed me going in the opposite direction, make a u-turn and stopped to ask me if I needed a ride was such an incredible, incredible surprise. She told me she stopped because she knew the closest gas station was a good mile away and that I probably wouldn’t accept help from anyone who wasn’t a woman and didn’t look like a normal person like she did. Which she did. She looked very normal. I was almost moved to tears and I gratefully hopped in her car and she drove me to the gas station and told me she’d wait around and take me back to my car!
The gas station did have containers but they were so child proof as to be completely incomprehensible, but (and this is perhaps the greatest miracle of all), the one guy working there was not a sullen, little punk, but a happy, helpful little punk who figured out how to open it up and put it together for me. Filled with joy at the kindness of people, I let my new friend Amanda drive me back to my car.
The whole incident ended up taking less than 30 minutes, showed me the good side of a lot of people and made me feel good about the world. And from now on, I’ll get gas as soon as the red light comes on.
An Open Letter to Anderson Cooper
Posted on November 18, 2009
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Dear Anderson Cooper,
I wake up every morning at 5:30 to get my son off to school and so I turn on CNN everyday just in time for what I really hope, for your sake, is the most cringe-inducing portion of your show — the part where you and that girl exchange what I think you guys truly believe is witty banter over allegedly cute pictures and videos from the Internet. There’s nothing you like better than a sweet little kitty or a kid trying to act like a grown-up, is there Anderson?
And I was incredibly dismayed to discovered, the one time, the one time!, you showed a video that I liked enough that I thought to myself, “I will post that on my blog to share with my world”, that you, Anderson, do not regularly update these videos on your website. The video in question that I wished to share had been shown on the broadcast of November 16, 2009, but when I went to your website, the latest cute clip of the day (which I had to hunt for — apparently the rest of the show is focused on actual news) was from November 12th. Anderson, in the words of George Michael (you know him, right?), if you’re going to do it, do it right.
I had to find this all by myself on YouTube. It’s the delight shown by a dog (named Gracie, like my dog) when her owner came home from Afghanistan. It made me laugh and cry and we should all show our soldiers this much love when they return home.
Yet Another Sign of the End of Days — I Again Feel (a Bit) of Sympathy for Sarah Palin
Posted on November 17, 2009
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So Newsweek, which I used to read every week, and which I stopped reading after their redesign to get more people to start reading it, is covering Sarah Palin’s new book with this picture on the cover. The post and comments about it at Jezebel cover the issue more fully and fairly than I can here, but I’ll have to say that I’m torn about it. On the one hand, a news magazine shouldn’t take a picture like that which was made for a running magazine and use it out of context. On the other hand, she allowed the Runner’s World Photographers to photograph her like that. It’s the flag, the flag, that gets me. Imagine with me, for a moment, what would be said if Michelle Obama posed for a running magazine leaning on the American flag as a prop. And if you see the original photos from the shoot, six out of the seven are perfectly appropriate for an almost vice-president. What judgment does it show that you would agree (or dear God, please don’t tell me, suggest?) to take the final shot?
But Newsweek, nonetheless, is going New Yorker here and that’s just slutty and the fact that the photo exists doesn’t mean it was right to use it in this context. That’s blaming the victim. I don’t think the reason they did it was sexism, as she claims, however. I think if this had been a similar story about, say, John Edwards, there would have been every effort made to find a photograph equally as controversial. And I’m betting they could. And if that had happened, that would have been something that I would have really wished I could unsee.
P.S. I didn’t notice it until several of the commenters pointed it out in the Jezebel post, but she is very clearly wearing shiny pantyhose in this picture so that makes the picture even weirder.
And in related news…
Posted on November 16, 2009
Filed Under Uncategorized
I’ve found some posts around the Internet that are similar in topic or further expand on things I’ve written about lately. Enjoy:
- I suggested everyone write a novel using Google’s autocomplete. The Huffington Post went me one better by posting the most inappropriate Google suggests of all time.
- I praised the value of the consistent, half-assed efforts and Megan from Not Martha shares the secret of losing weight slowly.
- And finally, something I’ve written about on Facebook, but not here: the astonishing radical idea that people, regardless of their income or job status, should be able to get health care.As it turns out, Roosevelt face a similar issue when he proposed the socialist idea that everyone in the U.S. should have access to electric power and that there needed to be a government run option to help the competing power companies keep their prices low. Who was most vocal in their criticism of the “government interference”: the competing power companies. And it’s been the slow removal of those restrictions that led to companies like Enron. (via Rebecca’s Pocket)
Succeed!
Posted on November 13, 2009
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My son made me proud (and ashamed of myself) the other day when he told me that he didn’t really like the sites like the one I was laughing to him all about (and so I’m changing my ways and I’m not even going to tell you what it was). “I don’t like the sites that get their humor from make you feel superior to other people,” he said. Well put and it opened my eyes both to how many sites there are like that out there and how there are alternatives that can make you smile and feel better about the world. Here’s a few I’ve found:
- Succeed Blog. The tagline says it all: A collection of the world’s most epic, awesome, mind blowing Succeeds. File this as #7,987,678 in the “Why? Why didn’t I think of this?” list in my head. From the blog:
Roomba Pacman
I’d just like to mention again that I am obsessed with all things Roomba and that I believe that the Roomba makes the perfect gift for people, such as, say, myself, who do not have a Roomba. I said it before on my birthday and now Christmas is coming up. I really do not know how much clearer I need to be. I’ve also said it a few times around Mother’s Day and the response I get is always something like, “Oh, yeah. It would be awesome to have a Roomba. We should totally get one.” - My Parents Were Awesome. I’m absolutely submitting this picture of my father, who was apparently the world’s happiest FBI agent:
and this one of my mother, straight out of the cast of Mad Men, posing here with her pet beagle:
- The Etsy Blog. This is my QVC and should never be browsed at work or any other time where I really can’t look up to find that hours are missing and I’ve spent $500.
- The Happiness Project and communicatrix and fussy. Three great blogs that go great together.
- The Best of Ask MetaFilter. For my son’s graduation gift, I posted the following question on Ask Metafilter:
So I want to send my son out into the world with the best possible advice he can start up with, meaning I want to send him out with all the best advice I’ve found over on my years here. I’ve saved a ton of things, but I’m old so I’d love to hear from people who are in college or just out or people in their 30s - so basically everyone, including people my age and older - can you give me the link to the best advice you’ve ever read here, something that actually changed your view of the world or made you a better person?
I got 21 answers with 42 links ranging from What do you wish you’d known when you were 18 to a disturbingly detailed description of how to get rid of a dead body. The enthusiasm and caring of the Ask Metafilter community makes me not want to tell you about it because I kinda want to keep it a secret and it’s a sign of my total geekdom that it still means something to me that six months later my question is 9th on the list of Most Favorited Ask Metafilter posts of all time. In your face “I’m looking for examples of insanely overbuilt, reasonably-priced consumer goods“!
By the way, if you want to ask questions you have to pay $5.00 to join to show you’re serious about participating and you have to answer more questions than you ask. But I’ve gotten good answers to such pressing issues as how much to tip a carpet installer? Need to know today! to What did I do to my computer to make it squeal?
So there are some sites that can amuse and inform you without making you feel dirty inside for laughing at the mistakes of other people. Enjoy!
One Photo a Day for a Year Made Easy and Awesome
Posted on November 12, 2009
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Every year I vow that I will document my wonderful life by taking one picture each day for 365 days and every year I don’t even take a picture on January 1st. But this year will be different! Because I have found Shuttercal (via Photojojo) which lets you upload your photos to a handy calendar and then prints them out and mails them to you once a month so you can store them in their cute little shoebox. It’s everything I’m bad at in terms of picture taking and organization all handled for me! Yes, this year will be different for sure.
The Price of Doing Good is a Chik-Fil-A Sandwich
Posted on November 11, 2009
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I was driving down Chamblee-Tucker yesterday on my way back from getting some lunch in the pouring, pouring rain when I saw a Mom and a tiny, tiny little girl trudging along the road; completely soaked and carrying their packages in a “we’re just going to get through this way” and before I even thought about it, I pulled over and opened the door to the sounds of 20 cars behind me honking their horns because, apparently they couldn’t be inconvenienced by someone else stopping for two seconds in front of them to help out somebody else. When they got in my car, I discovered to my horror, that they didn’t speak English and I don’t know why this would have been a surprise to me considering the area but as soon as I realized this, I had this vision of a long awkward car ride filled with silence, tight little smiles and lots of pointing.
Fortunately, it turns out that they were only going to to the train station, which was only about a 1/2 mile down the road so there was very little pointing and I was glad that I had stopped because the little girl had what my mom would call a “croupy” cough and it was so wet and so cold. When they got out, the mom said “Thank you” and I felt a little funny, like I had been waiting for the thank you and I would have deducted points from the encounter if she hadn’t said it.
But no matter. I started to grab my sandwich out of my bag to eat it (I hadn’t wanted to eat it in front of them) and it was gone. Gone! The bag was still there and I had seen the sandwich in the bag so I knew I had gotten it but now the sandwich was gone. I had moved the bag to the back seat while I was making room for their packages so it had been in the back with them. My first thought, of course, was “Oh shit, my wallet.” and what all my friends were going to say who are always telling me how naive I am and how I should be more cynical and assume that everyone is a thief and bad. But my wallet and everything in my purse was there. Only the sandwich was gone.
My next thought was, “Well, shit. My sandwich.” I was hungry. I had been craving a Chik-Fil-A sandwich. I had actually driven a little bit out of the way to get it. Of course, the thing to think then was that clearly they needed the sandwich more than I did which may or may not have been true. But instead I started thinking about the inequality of good deeds.
If my car broke down on the side of the road in the pouring rain and I was having to walk up the street to the train station and someone picked me up, I would be happy and grateful and I would come away from the encounter feeling like the world is a good and happy place. But why? I would feel that way because I would know that my situation was temporary bad luck and that someday I could do the same thing for someone else. But if, say, my life was just one long trip to and from the train station, well, maybe I would be little resentful of the people who could decide to pick up me up or not whenever they felt like it.
I was reminded of a friend of mine who was working as a social worker in an inner city after school program right after we both got out of college. She was probably making $12,000 a year, if that, and the kids stole money from her constantly. It wasn’t until she got to know some of the kids and took a few of them to her house that it stopped. It stopped because the kids were horrified by her living conditions; they had been stealing from her because they thought she was so wealthy she wouldn’t miss the money. They didn’t know she was so poor.
Anyway, maybe they were so hungry they really needed the sandwich. Maybe the little girl took the sandwich and the mom didn’t know. Maybe I’ll find it under my car seat tomorrow from where it fell out of the bag and my next post will be about not making assumptions. At any rate, I got a Dairy Queen burger on the way back to my office and I’ll try to remember that you should help people because they’re wet and they have a croupy cough — not because you like the way it makes you feel. And you should keep doing it even it even it makes you seem naive.
And there’s one more thing. The girl at Chik-Fil-A accidentally put one of their brownies in my lunch bag. Those things are so bad people won’t even steal them.
