July 2, 2007
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Miscellaneous thoughts...
Well, darn. I missed thinking about it. No biggie, but yesterday marked the 28th anniversary of our buying our house. Actually, IIRC, we technically bought it a day or two earlier but moved in on July 1st. Still, these days staying in the same abode for 28 years is not common! It's been nice here. In the twin house directly behind us, our neighbor has lived there for around 25 years, and the man next door has been there for at least 10, maybe even 15 or more. Long time, anyway.
What the deuce happened to getting out and putting the hood up if one's car breaks down? This morning while taking Dmitry to school I was aways back in the right lane of Montgomery, so I could turn and get on the freeway. Light changed but the line didn't move. Looked as if a pickup truck up front was determined to go left and was willing to block everyone until the traffic cleared.
Okay, that was unjust of me, as it turned out there was a car ahead of him with its hazard lights on, obviously stalled, so everyone had to go around him to turn right. It's good he put his hazard lights on, but would have been better to have also put the hood up. I pointed out to Dmitry it's fairly easy to miss the blinking lights when there are cars behind the stalled vehicle, but more difficult to miss a raised hood, and that's a nigh-universal signal for "This vehicle isn't moving anytime soon, folks." It's becoming less and less common to see hoods up, however. Most people settle for the blinking lights only, thus causing longer lines behind them as approaching traffic can't see that there's a problem needing to be avoided.
Dmitry spent the night with the Waybourns on Saturday and he told of their finding a couple of turtles on the road, and moving them so they weren't smushed by cars. Haven't seen a turtle in ages. Nor garter snakes. Nor frogs. Nor horned toads. Nor lightning bugs. When I grew up maybe a mile and a half away from here we regularly found all those, often shoving them into boxes or jars and putting them in our bedrooms as "pets". Used to love being able to lay in the dark bedroom and watch lightning bugs flicker on and off over where the dresser was. Happy times!
Comments (18)
We used to have turtles in our yard all the time. Our house backed up against Bal Lake, so we'd have all kinds of critters. Even saw a fox one day!!
I agree...PUT YOUR HOOD UP!!! Then again, that area behing AHHS isn't what it used to be, so maybe the driver didn't want parts of his engine stolen!!
Have a great week!! Tim
You should see the farm fields out here. At this time of year there are so many lighning bugs hanging out over them that it looks like the stars came down for a visit. You have to go out into the woods and fields to see this stuff now. But the creeks are full of turtles, frogs and other critters. I was just telling Meg on the way home yesterday that I love roadsides in farm country. They are full of secrets because no one ever stops to look at them, so you'd be surprised at the plants and creatures you can find right by the road.
It seems that our area is of the "hood up" variety (thank goodness!)
A great number of people in our neighborhood have been here forever. We've been in our house for 13 years, a few houses up the people have been there for 15 years. The neighbor whose husband just passed away has been in her house for 22 years this month, the people one house up from her have been in their house over 20 years. There are many new people but there are a surprising number who have been here since the mid 70's to mid 80's.
We have a fox that comes through daily, we found a marmot hole in our side yard. The other night there was a bear cub bawling. But we don't have lightening bugs, nor do we have turtles, or much in the way of frogs. Snakes we do have and one must watch out for the rattlers.
I'd rather skip the bears, actually. =8^o
Not to mention the rattlers!
I think one of the reasons people don't put their hoods up is that those light panels on their dashboards tell them what's wrong and they know they can't do much about it. Electronics in cars have changed a lot.
We have critters of all kinds - you might recall that we had a mink in our yard (at least this one was seen - there may have been more) a couple of years ago. And Faron tells me there were two fawns in our "nursery" this year. And of course, we have lightning bugs and frogs and snakes and all sorts of critters. You'd be surprised at the number of critters (and variety) that commit hari-kari in Hazel's pool and end up in the skimmer.
Sounds like your neighborhood has gotten urbanized. I think it's happened to the neighborhood where we grew up, too.
Sad.
One of the joys of childhood is collecting all those critters, or watching them develop, etc.
me<><
He also could have just been out of gas or needed to change a tire, in which case, there would have been no need for the hood up. If it wasn't for all o of the trucks and SUVs getting bigger and bigger, you probably would have been able to see the stalled car in front. Instead, all you can see is the pointless Hummer in front (as if he's ready to go to war or just drive right over traffic, I never understood the point in those on everyday streets). You would absolutely hate driving here in Japan. There is not much parking anywhere, and the streets have 1 lane each way. When someone wants to stop to run in to a store or house or something, they just stop, turn on their hazzards, and hop out of the car, leaving a big line of cars behind just waiting for the other direction lane to be clear so one car at a time can pass by and continue on their way. It gets very frusterating.Busses have their own little lane at bus stops, but they refuse to pull all the way into their lane. They leave their front bumper half way in the lane, adn when they are ready to go, they go, wether you are letting them (or even know they are ready to drive) or not.
It's funny...a lot of the things I don't miss about the states (particularly DFW), I look forward to getting back to after being here in Japan for a while). The strangest thing I miss is the 100 degree summers. At least it is dry. Here, it is normaly in the 80s for the heat of the summer, but witht he humidity, you can't step foot out your door without needing another shower from all the sweat dripping from your body. Yucky!
And, our version of critters here are Centipedes (which we found in our hallway of our 7th floor apartment). There are also Geiji Geji's, which look like a big Centipede with great big spider legs (and lots of them). The Geji Geji's are not poisonous, but they sure are creepy.
The hood up would still be necessary for either of those situations, I'd think. The point is not that the car's engine is broken, it's that the car isn't going anywhere.
So I take it you and Hannah are not popping Geji Geji's into containers to keep as pets?
They SOUND creepy. Ick!
We get oppossums and Domino kills them. We also get snakes, lizards and a multitude of frogs. (he also kills those) We were planting grass the other day and we had to till the land first so I sat down and worked my way around digging up weeds and hand tillling. I had my bathing suit on (we have a pool). All of a sudden the ground under my leg started moving. It was a frog coming out of his hole. I screamed like a little girl and my family full of males started teasing me. Domino came over and took care of it. Thank God for the great hunter.
I think Beth and I have something in common here -- neither of us were aware that "hood up" is a recognized signal of immobility. It makes sense that it is, but it was lost on me for 41 years.
My problem would be that I always have trouble working those under-the-hood latches, even after the inside latch is released. So it would never have occurred to me to put the hood up except when necessary, and maybe I wouldn't even have been able to do it then.
Maybe it's a western-US thing, then, since Cheri is familiar with it in Colorado?
So THAT'S what those are called! Geji-Gejis. I saw my first here in Italy and was pretty freaked out by it, but I've since learned to pretty much ignore them. They don't do any more harm than a potato bug. But we find scorpions now and then; I think they live on the grape vines, and mostly start coming towards habitations in the fall when the temp goes down. CREEPY. We also have tons of little lizards, rather large grasshoppers (3-4 inches long), a praying mantis now and then, sometimes hedgehogs. We've also been finding some very large caterpillars this year and it's a great mystery as to where they come from, as I haven't seen any nests at all. One of them is inside his cocoon incubating at present, so hopefully someday in the future, I'll be able to see what kind of butterfly he makes. Hey, have I ever grown up? Noooooo.
Hedgehogs? How cool!
And would either you or Beth post a photo (or send it to me and I'll post it here) of a Geji-Geji?
28 years in one place that is impressive. Congratulations! We have been in 4 homes in 13 years. Heather gets the itch to move every 3 years or so but we've made it 6 years in this house. We hope to be in the next community for 20 or more years. Hope you enjoy your home for another 28 years. Blessings to you and yours.
We've lived in 5 different homes in 2 different countries and 3 different states since Alex joined the Navy 3 years ago (I think 3 years ago is right). As much as i would love to get back to Texas, I am very excited to NOT be moving this year.
I'll post a creepy Geji Geji (I'm not sure it's spelled right, but that's how it's pronounced).
Well, here in IN, we DO have centipedes with big long hairy, spider-like legs-- and they ARE venomous, but they are fortunately not interested in big critters like people-- they are like spiders: interested in nabbing bugs. I still don't like them. These are seen more out into the rural areas, though.
http://park2.wakwak.com/~negibouzu/ikimono/kirai/gejigeji.jpg
Yup, that's the buggy Beth's talking about! =8^o
Creepy's the word, alright.
Yeah...ours look like that, only longer, ecch.
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