Saturday, June 30, 2007

Lost in Joisey

Have you ever watched Chevy Chase’s movie National Lampoon’s Vacation and thought to yourself that it was so far fetched to even be true, especially the scene when they get lost in the desert in Arizona. You must be wondering where I am going with this story, trust me, I do have a story. A few days ago I was driving to work. Quite like this morning it was a nice crisp morning, the birds were chirping, the air was romantic but of course I was going to work! There is nothing romantic about going to work and basically doing geeky stuff.

I usually take this particular Interstate for about 20 miles and then take the County roads. As I slowed down on the exit ramp, which incidentally curves rather sharply, I saw this woman standing beside her car waving furiously. It was about 7AM and she looked like she was dressed for an important meeting or a job interview. She looked completely distressed. I had cranked my window open so heard her scream “Please stop….please stop and help me.” She almost ran in front of my car which freaked me out but like a Good Samaritan I stopped to ask her what was wrong? From her accent, she appeared to be a foreigner though not from my part of the world or continent. She asked me where this particular interstate led. I said that she was traveling to the east and that it eventually led to the Jersey Shore. She panicked and said that she wanted to go to Connecticut! I told her that she was driving in a totally wrong direction. At the same time I checked in the rear view mirror to see two cars waiting behind me rather patiently. I told her to move away so I could pull into the shoulder to allow the other cars to pass and not get delayed like yours truly.

So then I told her that she had to take the NJ Turnpike but that she missed that exit and she had driven almost 15 miles in a different direction. While I was explaining how she could continue and take the northbound Garden State Parkway which eventually met with the Turnpike in North Jersey, she looked past me and loudly yelled, “Don’t worry I am only asking for directions.” I looked through the side view mirror to see an unmarked cop car with flashing lights parked right behind my car. The cop got out of the car and asked me if something was wrong. I told him that she was lost and she had stopped me to ask for directions. The cop smiled and told me that he thought from a distance that we had an accident and that the other woman was aggressively intimidating me! At that very moment, the cop and I asked her simultaneously, “Where are your maps?” She explained to us that she had her windows open and the printouts of the route map just flew out of the window and she didn’t have her bearings and being out of state had no idea where she was! So I requested the cop to give her proper directions so I could leave. The woman was so overwhelmed that she told the cop, "This lady is an angel….was the only one who stopped to help….God Bless you etc.” (I said to myself….stop you are embarrassing me but do go on)

After I left I couldn’t stop laughing and called K to tell him what happened. For some reason that woman’s predicament reminded me of Chevy Chase in that movie. K’s first reaction was that I shouldn’t randomly stop like this as it might not be safe as I didn’t know who the woman might be. I replied that it was 7:15 AM and from her overall appearance that woman, wearing a business suit, clearly didn’t look like someone who would mug commuters!

Moral of the Story: It is worth investing in a GPS System if your car doesn’t already have one OR the cheaper aternative would be to not roll down the windows on a windy day!

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Biking



After almost two weeks K and I took our bikes this evening to the park. We went late at around 7:30 PM and biked for about 10 miles. It was a glorious evening with the temperature around 65 degrees. We were wearing track pants and a jacket. Everyone was dressed similar to us except this group of extremely fit cyclists who looked like Lance Armstrong’s clones and probably were training. That was a very nice sight and so easy on the eye…of course my eye. Poor K didn’t have much eye candy this evening.


This evening was such a welcome change weatherwise from the heat wave two weeks ago. We were in the park then and I saw this guy jogging shirtless with very short shorts. He was pale and peeling and had such a flabby body. It was the most disgusting sight I had ever seen. He reminded me of the Seinfeld episode of “bro.” He needed to be jailed for indecent exposure. Perhaps he could be Paris Hilton’s cell mate. That would be punishment for both albeit a more severe one for Poor Miss Rich Girl. The media needs to give the poor girl a break….like all she did was like get a DUI or something and like drive with a suspended license. She probably thought that "suspended" was some new hot accessory like suspenders, which by the way aren't hot except only when Larry King wears them!

By the way for someone as shallow as Paris, it is “so not hot to see someone so like faaat” while for the guy….well perhaps not so much a punishment for him except of course if he is a language nazi and has to face Paris’s severely limited vocabulary consisting of exclusively expressions such as, “that’s hot” “that’s not hot” “it so like not hot.”

By the way I cannot understand why people who are not in the best of shapes like to show off their flab. Is there is secret competition as to who is flabbier or has the most cellulite? Is there an award for it and is it any good? If so, someone please let me know because I may stand a chance too.

Saturday, June 09, 2007

500 Years of Women in Art

This short video, obtained from Youtube, is an animated compilation of potraits of women from the West over a period of 500 years and as captured during the different Art movements, starting from Renaissance and ending with Cubism and Surrealism.

Saturday, June 02, 2007

My boring life

A few days ago on my morning commute I was listening to this piece on NPR about a war widow who lost her husband last year in Iraq. She moved with her child to her late husband’s hometown in New Hampshire. She spoke about how she kept his memory alive and made quilts out of his shirts etc. It moved me to tears and I started crying. At the signal a car pulled beside me and the guy was staring at me with a very quizzical look. At that time I realized that it must be really strange to see a grown woman behind the wheel, dressed clearly to go to work but crying like a child. Maybe I am a petulant child who still refuses to grow up. Who knows? By the way, I hate commuting and would rather prefer telecommuting at least once a week. Given the soaring gas prices and the associated price hikes; in my opinion this would be an environmentally as well as an economically win-win situation.

Speaking of driving, I must tell you that people in Jersey even after the governor’s horrible accident and miraculous recovery, haven’t learnt their lesson. They still drive like maniacs. Just the other day I was driving to work when some idiot in a sedan changed lanes without looking and caused a pick up truck to drive off the freeway into the grass median separating the east bound and west bound traffic. Thank God it was a grass median and hence a very horrible accident was averted. I was an eye witness albeit at a VERY SAFE DISTANCE. I slowed down to let the poor guy enter back into the freeway, when the idiot behind me slammed on his horn. In case you are curious, I had gradually slowed down to 65 mph from 75 mph…IN AN 65 mph ZONE!!!!! Then the ass flips a bird at me and zooms off only to be stopped by the cops for speeding….AHHH SWEET REVENGE!!!! Being a daily commuter I kind of know where the usual hiding places are and there are a whole lot of them on that particular stretch. These days they don’t drive the typical cruisers, but instead I have seen a few SUV’s patrolling the highway. By the way the guy, who flipped the bird at me, looked like a love-child of Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Trump. In fact I am not even certain about the gender as it seemed very ambiguous….like the character in one of SNL’s sketches.

So then I got off the freeway on to the County roads with a posted limit of 50 mph. I was doing around 60 mph when I noticed a cop car make a turn and follow right behind me. I panicked and slowed down to exactly 50 mph and actually turned cruise control on, a function I seldom use! If you are driving through safe towns where the cops have nothing to do but hand out speeding tickets like they were going out of fashion, it makes sense to use cruise control. I am followed by the cop for at least 10 miles and then he makes a turn….YIPEEE.

Most of the times I am in the zone and talking to my husband, not anything romantic but mundane stuff like, “We need to clean up our place,” OR “We really need to cook these days,” etc., sometimes I am complaining about how things suck while other times he is complaining about how I suck, which makes me tell him how the whole world except him sucks! So this has been my life so far. How about you? Anything exciting you might want to share in the comments section…..please do….this way I can live vicariously through you.