I Love Lyft
I've always been the DD or the guy people call for a ride. I love driving and love people. I have spare time, or like an excuse to get away from the computer screen. Ridesharing was a no-brainer. And Christina said I would be good at it. And I think I am. A few weeks ago it came officially to the Buffalo area, one of the last cities to embrace the future (though not without extorting fees for people going to or...
Almost a Past Life
Almost didn't go to my 30-year high school reunion. The idea felt weird in an age of already keeping in touch with Facebook or people you already see regularly, and many of whom you really didn't know well enough to keep in touch with in the first place, and have become essentially different people. But it was good. It brought back warm feelings, and even those few who were, let's say 'rough around the edges', are...
Cars
Last year I met with a couple regarding a wedding, and having already postponed it once due to weather I went out in a blizzard. I turned into a plaza, but my car didn't. I displaced quite the boulder on a median, but apart from smelling but not seeing some fluid, I wasn't too concerned. I made my appointment and an hour later I was back on the Thruway coming home. I didn't give thought to any such idea that a...
A Bright Change of the Years
The air lately has seemed oddly like Spring and it whets my appetite for it. But I would have wanted a touch more of a snowy Winter I thought to myself, and so it happened -- we will have brilliantly white snow on the ground for Little Christmas. I never did switch over my accounting as planned during my usual seasonal "shutdown", and the usual backups are automated on the cloud these days. All I have to do is...
Second Summer, Then Winter
People wearing shorts yesterday, snow tomorrow. About a month ago, the leaves finally turned and now they're almost gone. Heating and cooling companies have noticed very little break between air conditioners and furnaces the last few years and when I asked a knowledgeable entymologist how long a trend that would be, she said it won't be back to four seasons in our lifetime. Four seasons. That's the reason most...
To Have a Pet, or Not Have a Pet
I love animals. Part of me wants to take most of the ones I see home, cuddle with them, love them. But the reality is different. First, I never liked caged pets. Logically I understand that most of them don't mind and feel safe in a limited space, being well cared for otherwise. But eventually they die and I always have the same regret that I didn't interact with them more, take them out to play or let them roam a...
The Year is Dead; Long Live the Year
For me, I'm not sure when one year ends and another begins. It's bad enough they often assign a Winter to the year it ends rather than beings, in spite of a Solstice (or Equinox) being in my own opinion the middle of that season and not it's birth. Whatever. I usually end my personal year the day of the Little Christmas party, sometime near January 6th. My later Holiday party photos do not go in the calendar year...
Finally Snowing
It's dark and the recycle truck is finally picking up. And it's finally snowing -- really snowing to where it doesn't melt when it touches the ground. It's felt like Mother nature hit the pause button for too long. It just didn't feel right and I've been out of sorts. It's been often warmer here than in Arizona. Even the Holidays thus far have been off, between the mid-week Christmas and our usual Christmas Day...
My Bastille
If we do not grasp who our true abusers are, we do not understand why we are victims, or often know that we are victims at all. The sheep pens of humanity are filled with people who think they are victimizing and being victimized by each other. But they are not the source. They are the grunts with rifles and bombs and machetes, forced by conscription or blessings or praise from the masses who only parrot or put...