I Can't Complain

Nature vs. Nurture

Despite our best efforts and our hardy yankee genes, we are apparently raising ourselves a southerner. Not only does the child y'all and ma'am with the best of them, but he cannot STAND to be cold.

On Sunday Larry and I hung our outside Christmas lights while the Bomber watched.  He started out dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt and a sweater. Then he asked for his winter coat. Which he promptly zipped all the way up to his chin. After his first trip outside, he came back in and asked for a hat. Five minutes later he demanded mittens. Then he climbed up on a chair on the front porch and started rubbing his arms, saying "I'm SO cold!" with each word punctuated by a dramatic shiver. It was an award-worthy performance.  Since I didn't want him to expire from the cold, I went inside and grabbed a blanket to wrap around him. When I was all finished he looked like this:

Pitiful, isn't it? I know, I'm a terrible mother, subjecting my child to such frigid temperatures just for the sake of Christmas decorations.  In case you were wondering, here's what the weather was like on Sunday:

Brutal, wasn't it?

You're All Driving Me Crazy

It looks like it's time for another driving lesson, people of South Carolina. And as promised, this week's topic is traffic lights.

First, something specifically for the fine people of Charleston. (This one's for you, Beth.) I know you're all very important, hoity-toity old Southerners. I understand that, really. But you're not going to get where you're going any faster by blocking up the intersection. Really. If the back end of the car directly in front of you has not crossed all the way out of the intersection, you shouldn't move your car into it. Believe me, I understand that wherever you're going, it must be very VERY important. God knows you don't want to be late for your golf game, and the Starbucks may well run out of grande, low-fat, double shot lattes before you get there, but the people coming the other way? They also have important manicures and lunch dates to get to.  So maybe we could all be a little more considerate of each other (not to mention the traffic laws), and not block the intersection after the light has changed. Mkay?

And stop chuckling and pointing at your neighbors to the south, there, Columbians. You're no better. You know those lights I've been talking about in that last paragraph? Yeah, those apply to you. Yes, you. The red one? (For those of you who haven't learned your colors yet, that's the one at the top.) That means STOP. Even my three year old knows that. It does not mean everyone but you has to stop because you have someplace better to be than at this intersection. It does not mean stop for some shortish period of time, and then decide the light is "broken" and run it. (And if you're the person that did that at the intersection of Gadsden & Taylor last week, yes, that was me laughing at the fact that you almost got creamed.)

It also does not mean stop but then slowly inch forward until you are halfway into the intersection. It means stop. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Stop. Moving. Your. Car.  If you roll halfway out into the intersection you're not going to get where you're going any faster. You're much more likely to get clocked by a car coming the other way. And it's likely to be by me, since I've been here 6 years and I still don't get this whole roll forward at the stop light thing.

And finally, let's talk briefly about turning lanes. I know I've already mentioned this before, but it appears there's still some confusion. When you're in a lane with one of those curvy arrows painted in it, you're expected to turn. And here's the really crucial part for you to remember: you're expected to turn IN THE DIRECTION THE ARROW POINTS.  In other words, if you come to an intersection with two lanes, one that has a curvy arrow pointing to the right, and one that has a curvy arrow pointing to the left, and you get in the lane with the curvy arrow pointing left, you are supposed to turn LEFT. Yes, even if the lane to turn right has a really lot of cars in it. Even if you're in a big hurry. Even if you think you're too important to wait for the 10 people in front of you to turn. Not only is turning right from the left turn lane dangerous and against the law, it's also downright rude to everyone else. And seriously, if a damned Yankee tells you you're being rude, you're being pretty freakin' rude. 

So let's review, and maybe break this down ever further for those of you who still can't get it. 

When you see this:

 

you need to STOP moving your car, unless and until you see this:

And when you see this:

or this

 

you need turn your car in the direction the arrow points. No exceptions. 

I hope everyone is now clear on these simple-to-follow rules. Next time maybe we'll try to cover an advanced topic like "why you should look before changing lanes." Don't forget to fill out your teacher evaluation forms on the way out.

Thursday 13: Thirteen Things I Love About South Carolina

A couple of weeks ago, prompted by a vicious and unprovoked attack by an as-yet-unapprehended palmetto bug, I wrote a list of things I really hate about living in South Carolina. At the end of the list, I promised to write a list of 13 things I love about South Carolina, but instead, the next week I wrote about robots and cake. Neither of which really have anything to do with South Carolina, so I guess that didn't count.  Anyway, I really do like living in South Carolina, palmetto bugs notwithstanding, so here are thirteen things I love about South Carolina:

1. The weather. For a large portion of the year, the weather is lovely. For three months it's ungodly hot, true, but that's why they invited air conditioning. And the rest of the year is generally fabulous. There's nothing like hanging out on your back porch in shorts and short sleeve t-shirt, waiting for your Thanksgiving turkey to cook.

2. The people. Driving aside, Southerners are a wonderful group of people. They'll talk to you on line the supermarket, they'll hold the door or the elevator for you (instead of madly punching the close door button the way people did in NYC), and they'll inquire about your baby or your mother or whatever you talked about, next time they meet you.

3. The cost of living. Moving from NYC to Columbia, SC was a big culture shock, but it came with a huge advantage. We went from barely scraping by to living a pretty comfortable existence, with only a small increase in our overall earnings (at the time). It was awesome! Which brings me to...

4. The Money Eating House. Yes, it eats money. Yes, it's drafty and creeky and unlevel and out of plumb. And possibly haunted by an overweight ghost. But I've always dreamed of owning a Victorian in an awesome neighborhood full of old homes and great people, and coming to Columbia made that possible.

5. College football. Goooooo COCKS!

6. The pace. Everything moves a lot slower down here, but it's a nice change from the frantic pace of NYC. There's a lot to be said for taking things a little more slowly.

7. Good friends. A lot of the people we knew in NYC were transitory, so it's nice to have friends who are going to stay around.  It's especially nice to have great friends just next door.

8. The Bomber. Okay, he's not specific to South Carolina (though he is technically a southerner), but I never would have considered having a child living in NYC. And I'm so grateful to have him.

9. Palmetto trees. I don't know why, but I get a huge kick out of living someplace with palm trees. Maybe because growing up all we had were the usual oaks, elms and pines.

10. Magnolia trees. While I'm at it, magnolia trees are pretty awesome, too. Gorgeously green and glossy-leaved, with amazing white blossoms. And I get to look at them whenever I want.

11. The beach.  When I lived in NJ and PA, I was never much of a "down da showr" kind of person, but the beaches here in SC are great. The water is warm, the sand is clean, and the people are polite and courteous (except the visiting yankees, of course). And it's way cheaper to rent a house at the beach in South Carolina than it is to rent a similar one at the Jersey Shore.

12. Grits. Grits are easily my favorite Southern food, especially with cheese. And the grits they serve up north are a pale imitation, at best.

13. The airport. Yeah, you can't fly direct to anywhere from here, but it's 10 minutes from my house, and there's never a line for check-in or security. And last time I flew by myself with H, one of the TSA agents helped me corral H and get myself back together on the other side.  Coming back the other way through EWR, no one even looked twice at us, much less offered to help me.

So there you go. All in all, I think South Carolina's a pretty great place to live.

The Vine That Ate the South

The other day when I was bitching about the South, I closed by saying I'd had a hard time coming up with 13 things to complain about.  That was true, but after I finished that post, I remembered one more thing I hate about South Carolina... the kudzu.

For those of you who don't know (and I had no idea until I moved here) kudzu is a fast-growing green vine that was introduced to the southeast from Asia around 130 years ago. As I understand it, it was originally brought to the coastal areas to slow a soil erosion problem, but it is so fast growing that it quickly became a scourge.  These days kudzu is everywhere down here and it grows at a rate of 9 feet per second. (Or possibly some slightly slower pace, like a foot a day.)  It's impossible to kill; all you can do is poison it, burn it, yank it out at the roots, and then pour concrete over what's left in an attempt to slow it down. And you have to keep at it. If you go more than a week or so without napalming your yard, you'll end up with this:

I think that's the governor's mansion under there, after the gardener went on vacation.

(Actually, the photo was taken near Cleveland, GA and is courtesy of Jack Anthony.)

Thursday 13: Thirteen Things I Hate About South Carolina

This morning while I was working (before dawn had even cracked, which is not my finest hour under the best of circumstances), I was the victim of a vicious and unprovoked attack. Right in the middle of my last cardio set, a GIANT palmetto bug flew at me and landed on my back. Just typing that makes me want to shudder, so it probably comes as no surprise that I screamed like a little girl and beat myself about the shoulders and back until I got it off.  Poor Larry jumped out of bed and came barreling down the stairs to find me quivering and stuttering "p-p-p-p-p...A BUG! THERE!" Of course, by the time I got that out, the vile creature had escaped to parts unknown, although the cat did appear to be on the case. I'm hoping when I get home, there will be nothing left but the legs, which she steadfastly refuses to eat.

Anyway, these enormous flying cockroaches are one of my least favorite things about living in SC, and I thought they'd make a good first entry for a Thursday Thirteen. So here are thirteen things I hate about living in South Carolina:

1. The palmetto bugs. These are the foulest, most disgusting creatures to ever skitter across the face of the earth. Of course, the fact that I had a close encounter with one this very morning may be coloring my opinion a little, but really only a VERY little. They're so gross, they make me nostalgic for the little German roaches we had in our apartment in NYC  (which was unfortunately located adjacent to the garbage chute). Those suckers were plentiful, but they scattered when you turned the light on, and they never EVER once tried to attack me.

2. The heat. Sweet mercy, it's hot here. Oh, it gets just as hot in the northeast, but only for a few days at time, maybe a week, and then it cools down to a reasonable temperature again. Here in SC, we have weeks and weeks and weeks of excruciatingly hot weather, where overnight lows are in the 80s. I'm sorry, but 82F is NOT a low. It's a high. There's a reason for the saying "the only thing between Columbia and hell is a screen door." Which leads me to...

3. The humidity. Dear GOD, the HUMIDITY. It starts building up in April and it doesn't let up until November. My hair is absolutely hopeless for a good three months, and taking a shower is all but pointless, since you end up as sweaty when you get out as you were when you got in. Walking outside from an air conditioned place is like walking into a wall. Which leads me to...

4. The supercooled public areas. In response to the overwhelming heat and humidity, every public place in the state is air conditioned within an inch of its life. I think it might be a state regulation that all public areas must be cooled inversely proportionate to the outside temperature; when it's 104F outside, it has to be 52F or cooler inside.  How dumb is it to have to carry a sweater around in 98 degree heat, just in case I have to into a store and don't want to get frostbite?

5. The driving. I believe I have made myself fairly clear on this issue , so I won't belabor this point.

6. The pizza. Or lack thereof. There are finally a few passable pizza places in town, but I had to suffer though six years of pizza deprivation before their arrival. It's not that hard, really... dough, tomato sauce, cheese, maybe some other stuff. WHY is it so bad here?  And by the way, Parmesan cheese does NOT belong on the crust of a pizza. (Yes, I'm taking to you, Mellow Mushroom.) Which brings me to...

7. The bagels. The situation with bagels is not nearly as dire as the pizza, but still, it's damn hard to get a decent bagel around these parts. Publix does a fair job with their bagels, but I do miss a warm, soft, round one from Hot & Crusty.

8. The jaywalking. I actually don't know if this is state-wide or just a Columbia thing, but good grief people, if there is a vehicle driving down the road at 45 MPH, don't walk out in front of it and expect it to stop for you! And by the way? Those parallel lines right near the intersections running from one sidewalk to another? Those are called cross-walks, and THAT'S where you're supposed to cross. I know that's not as convenient for you as darting out from between parked cars in the middle of the block to get to the pawn shop on the other side, but imagine how inconvenient getting creamed is going to be. For both of us. Also, if you see a green Beetle coming down Assembly St., I don't recommend you jaywalk in front of it. I've heard the driver's one of those crazy yankees; she might not stop.

9. The lack of motorcycle helmet laws. I guess it should be no skin off my nose (or my skull, for that matter), but it makes me insane when I see people on motorcycles without helmets. Don't people care if they scramble their brains?

10. The politics. I hate living in a big old red state. Yes, I live in the bluest part of the teeny blue dot in the middle of it, but it bums me out that my vote is essentially useless. 

11. The lack of caselaw. I admit, I was really spoiled practicing in NYC. In New York, practically every decision, from those rendered by city courts, all the way up to the Court of Appeals (which is the highest court in NY - the Supreme Court is actually the trial level court. Don't ask me why...) is published, so it's easy to find a case that says what you want it to say. Yeah, a decision from the Otsego county traffic court might not be binding precedent in Supreme Court, Kings County, but at least you can find something to hang your hat on.  In SC, only the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court cases are reported, and there's only been a Court of Appeals since 1983. That makes precedential case law slim pickings, indeed.

12. The distance from home. I miss my family, and I hate being 700 miles away from them, especially now that I have the H-bomb. Yes, this isn't poor old South Carolina's fault, and it didn't force me to move here, but I never said I was rational.

13. The palmetto bugs. Yeah, I know I did them already, but I really, really REALLY hate them. Really.

And before any of my local friends get their knickers in a twist, mostly I really enjoy living here in SC, and I promise to do 13 things I love about it next week.

It Was More Like Perpendicular

So today I had lunch at a sidewalk cafe downtown. It was a little chilly, but the inside tables were all taken and as it turned out, the outside tables came with a floor show. The parking in this area of downtown is always tough, and today the only spots left were the parallel spots along the curb where we were eating.  I am AMAZED at how few people down here know how to parallel park.

And I don't mean, it took them a lot of cuts, or they didn't get the car in perfectly.  I mean, of the four cars that attempted to park in the spot nearest us, THREE attempted it by pulling in head first.  The fourth? Gave up without even trying. And these are HUGE spots.  They're not right up against each other; there's a big buffer zone between each spot. In my Philadelphia-dwelling days I could've parked a Mack truck in one of those spots. (And by the way, the absolute best parallel parking I've ever seen was by Larry. When we lived in Philly, he could park his old Subaru in spots so tight you'd swear someone just dropped the car in there from above. But I digress...)

The first guy was driving a Audi TT. This is not a large car by any means. He came in head first, jockeyed around a bit and then abandoned ship in hopes of finding a head-in spot farther up. The second person only briefly considered the problem before moving on.  Then a Passat or a Jetta (I'm not up on my VW models anymroe) pulled in headfirst and gave it a half-hearted two cuts.  Finally a woman in a Mercedes SUV got her car in (sort of, she still ended up like 9 feet from the curb).  She, too approached it head on, and since she had the biggest of all the combatants, I thought there was no way she was going to make it. But no, she solved the whole problem by simply driving up onto the sidewalk and then back down until she was in.

I guess when finesse fails you, there's always brute stregnth. 

Sir, You Are No Gentleman

We were watching part of Gone With the Wind tonight on TV.  I've seen this movie at least 10 times (including once on the big screen in NYC), and read the book cover to cover twice. I've always loved the story, but since moving down here to the south, every time I watch, I think the same thing:

"DEAR GOD, they must've been hot in the summer." Seriously, moving to South Carolina has pretty much ruined the movie for me, because all I can think when I see the women dressed in chemises, pantalettes, corsets and petticoats under those voluminous dresses is how incredibly uncomfortable it must have been.  I mean, it gets HOT down here. I find it uncomfortable in shorts and a t-shirt, and if wasn't for my ceiling fans and air conditioning going full time, I don't know how I would stand it.  And yet people lived down here, quite happily by all accounts, long before the advent of either, and in time periods where it was considered scandalous to show one's ankle.  No wonder they all had to lay down in the middle of the day. I get a case of heat exhaustion just looking at them.

All that said, I do love Scarlett's dress and hat at the Twelve Oaks barbecue at the beginning of the movie. "I only wore this old thing because I thought you liked it."

 

And isn't the expression on her face absolutely priceless? Well fiddle-dee-dee.

Wordless Wednesday: Flat Stanley Visits the Statehouse

More Driving Lessons

Okay people of Columbia, now that we've covered stop signs (and oh, in case you're not sure, you do have to stop at them *all the time*, even at 5 AM), let's move on to signaling. (Yes, I can and do bitch endlessly about the crappy driving here in the Capital of Crash.)

Most of you apparently do not realize that your vehicles have come equipped with turn signals. In point of fact, the federal government requires car makers provide these nifty little gadgets to you free with the purchase of any car.  Ideally, you should use your turn signal whenever you are making a move that someone else on the road might need to know about.  Let me say that again, in case it wasn't clear: the idea is NOT to keep your intentions a deep dark secret until the very moment you change lanes or make a turn or whatever. The idea is to LET others know. Got it?  You are not a sooper-sekkrit spy being pursued by a bad guy. There is no reason why your upcoming left turn or lane-change should be considered a state secret.

Also, while I'm on the subject, there appears to be a small, but equally annoying minority of you who, instead of never using your turn signals, use them randomly and far too frequently.  Normally I wouldn't bother with you folks, but I seem to get stuck behind you an inordinate amount, so here goes.  You do NOT need to signal to let me know that you intend to go around a curve, even a really sharp curve, while on a road on which there is no other place to go. I damn well HOPE you're going around the curve; if you don't, that means you're going to abruptly stop, and I'm going to plow into the back of you or run off the road trying not to.  You also do NOT need to signal to tell me you're staying on the same road instead of turning off at another nearby road. Signaling right while passing a left-hand intersection will only make me wonder why you're planning on driving into the woods and whether I can loot anything off your car before you regain consciousness after hitting a tree.

Next week's lesson:  Traffic lights - all those different colors mean something, they're not just pretty. Class dismissed.

(Also, there's a new Stinky Diapers. Don't click if you're not interesting in potty training yourself or others.  You've been warned.)

"Snow" Day #2

Today we had "snow" day number two here in Columbia. In case you couldn't guess, snow is in quotes because there was no actual snow.  At all. It's currently sunny, bright, completely dry and, according to Forecast Fox (my Firefox weather widget) 46F.  Yes, last night there was some rain, and it was cold enough that it was a little frozen as it fell (more slushy than snow-like), but as soon as it hit the ground it turned into rain, and by this morning it was completely gone.

Nonetheless, public schools in the two counties that make up the Columbia metro area were closed.  They made the decision to close them yesterday around 5 PM, long before the "snow" was even expected. I know have written about this before in a humorous way, but I no longer think it's funny that our counties' administrators are so completely unable to address this issue without resorting to overreaction bordering on hysteria.

WHY did the schools need to be closed by 5 PM last night?  Why could the decision not wait for the storm to at least get closer, so a better analysis of the outcome could be made?  When I was growing up in the northeast, that's how school closing decisions were made - the school administrators made a decision at 4AM or 5 AM by looking at the ACTUAL CONDITIONS and the current projections for the rest of the day. They weren't always right, but they were a hell of a lot more accurate than this city's current 0 for 2.

And if our school administrators aren't early risers or for some reason not apparent to me a decision really needed to be made that quickly, why not a two hour delay?  Do our school administrators not realize that even though the schools close, most business take a wait and see approach?  Or do they simply not care that they are placing parents in a position of having to take a vacation day (or for some, an unpaid day off) for no good reason.

I have seen some comments today claim that the early decisions are "for the children's safety" but for the life of me, I can't figure out how our children would be less safe if we simply waited to see what happens before deciding to close. I'm certainly not suggesting we send our little darlings out in a blizzard, but surely we don't need to protect them from a clear, bright day like today.