An Arizona Cheesehead's Thoughts

I did two round trips on I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson this month and lost all patience with my fellow road warriors and part of my faith in humanity. Oh, the stupid and annoying! I continually remind myself that I have plenty of time to get there or get home and that, if I arrive a few minutes late, it's OK. But, as soon as I get on the road and encounter a driver who violates "my" rules of the road, my blood pressure rises and I start fantasizing about owning and operating a portable rocket launcher. The Left Lane Is the above sign that difficult to understand? Maybe there are just that many illiterate drives on the road? I know I'm a fast highway driver. I don't expect everyone else to be. If you get in the left lane to go past some slower traffic and slow me down for a bit until you can move back over, it's OK. What's not OK is if you pull in front of me and then drive at exactly the speed limit. If you pull in front of me and drive below ...

Continuing on my quest to feel happiness, I'm going to post three things I'm grateful for for 21 days. Summer dress code at work. We're really lucky that we can wear shorts from July 1 through Labor Day. They can't be too short or too tight but, man, is it ever nice to not be a sweat box just from going outside during the day. They felt especially good today since I just spent five days in 70 degree weather and today's high was 108. A bit of a rude awakening back to the summer heat. Phoenix drivers. Yeah, you read that right. I think it's a matter of being used to where you live but every time I spend a few days driving elsewhere, I'm relieved to get home. At least in Phoenix, I know what to expect from the idiot drivers. The Milwaukee drivers were complete tailgaters which we usually don't have. I suspect it's because they're so frustrated at their speed limits. Seriously, 50 on the freeway. Those limits were driving us crazy, I can't i...

As I was driving into work this morning, I caught a partial glimpse of a white car in the lane next to me. I thought, "That's a nice looking car." A second glance and my thought was, "Ha ha, that's my car just in a different color!" Even funnier to me is that it's not the first time that sequence of events has occurred. I still really, really, really love my car. So much so that I ran it through the car wash first thing this morning to get the rain drops off from yesterday. I didn't want it to look messy. Now, if only I could feel compelled to keep my house that clean.

I had two presents left to get for Christmas. Both were available at Tempe Market Place. I pulled out of my complex on the McClintock and promptly got stuck behind a bus. That was stuck behind a gazillion cars going in to the shopping center. It was insane! I decided to go in one the entrances off of Rio Salado. The first one was backed up to McClintock, the second wasn't much better and, by the time I got to the third, I had no stomach for it. I decided to head up to Best Buy at Pavilions instead for the one gift. Yes, it was several miles away but I knew I could get in there without any worries. One slight problem with that plan, though. The Best Buy at Pavilions is closed. Sonova...at least I enjoyed the spin in my bitching new car but it was a bad day to forget to take my high blood pressure meds. (Which I'm now swallowing with wine. That works, right?) I ended up at Wal-Mart where I really try not to shop but I knew they would have the gift I wanted. Sometimes, y...

If it’s not one thing, it’s another... I tried to get in to work a little early today. Tried being the operative word. There was an accident somewhere on the 202 and it took me nearly a half hour to get to Priest from McClintock so I could jump on to Washington and take the surface streets to the office. My usual 11-15 minute commute took me 45. Then, I stopped by the ATM at lunch to get cash for tonight. I opened my wallet and, motherbitches, realized that my debit card was in the back pocket of the jeans I wore last night. I filled my gas tank before going home and didn’t put the card away. My 1 PM meeting was across the street and I needed my badge to get in to the gate. At least I realized that I didn’t have the badge with me before I crossed the street but I had to hike back to get my purse so I could get my badge out of my car. I’ve already gotten used to the remote entry so it didn’t occur to me that it wouldn’t work without the key at least in my pocket. By the time I got the...

I met some friends after work last night at the Rock Bottom in Ahwatukee. That required a change in my usual freeway route and an earlier drive time. Oy vey. The traffic sucked. As I was trapped in my lane behind some yahoo who had to go 10 MPH below everyone else, I had a few thoughts. 1. I’m so glad I don’t live in SE Chandler anymore. I-10 is just as miserable to drive on as I remember. 2. I’m thankful they widened the 202 Red Mountain route. My normal drive home is a breeze. 3. Traffic issues are much more annoying when you know you have friends with beer waiting for you as opposed to a cat who wants to knock your wine glass over.

There has been construction on the 202 Freeway near my house for...I don't know, two years? It's been a really long time, regardless. I've had to deal with lanes shutting down on nights and weekends, exits closed both to and from work and some miserable commutes because the speed limit was lowered to 55 and we didn't always have all of the lanes available. They're nearly finished except for some paving and it is frakking awesome! Lots of lanes and the speed limit is now 65. My drive is 8.3 miles and I can get to work in the morning in 11 minutes. That's the best I could do in mid-day and speeding before then. Even more amazing, I left my office parking lot at 5 PM and pulled into my parking spot at home at 5:14 PM. Fourteen minutes in rush hour! Yahoo! The only bummer is that people (myself included) have been so conditioned to drive 55 that they're doing that speed even with no traffic. Thank you, ADOT, for actually making my life easier. Fin...

The Rocket Scientist, Crime Dog and TFMCD caravaned up to Utah for a house concert with Brent Burns. CD and TFMCD broke away from us at Beaver, UT so they could go to the Cache Valley Cheese Factory. I was all over with the "buy me some curds!" request. There's nothing like the squeaky cheese. It reminds me of the homeland and my family always brings some back at AZ after visiting Wisconsin. They came through with a bag of fresh curds. And, yes, they squeaked when we ate them. I broke them out at the concert to share with my phellow cheesehead, Sue, who now lives in SLC. Yummy! The bag ended up spending a few days in TRS's fridge then another few days in another friend's fridge before I got it home. They're still tasty, but no longer squeaky. :-(

I decided to ride with Annette on Thursday night as we left the Oasis after dinner. I thought it would be nice to give her some company. We followed the Captain as he headed to Cholla Bay. We were chatting and driving and, as we got to one of the roundabouts near the hotels, there were flashing lights and the cops pulling the Captain over in front of us. Annette wanted to make sure they were real cops (there are some guys down there that try to shake down the touristas) so she pulled in behind the cop truck. There were three cops and one came back to us right away to tell us we needed to move ahead of the Captain's car. I can understand why they wouldn't be comfortable with their backs to us. Annette checked out his badge (they wear them around their necks) to see he was the real deal then she started sweet talking. "Why did you pull him over? I'm a vecino (homeowner for my gringo audience) and he's my guest." The cop said, "For running the stop sig...

There's a running joke about what time (and even what day) we will leave for our Mexico trips. While I sometimes get asked my opinion, it matters not because the Captain changes the time and it's just lucky for me that The Rocket Scientist thinks to let me know. TRS said they were picking him up at 3 PM on Thursday. I waited until Thursday morning to start packing but I only had to put my curling iron and blow dryer in my bag to be ready so I didn't need much time after I got home to be ready. After getting antsy at work, I decided to bail out about 1:45 and head to Dress Barn. I need (OK, want) to get some cute stuff for my next weekend of travel. $105 and 30 minutes later, I had two pairs of shorts, pair of capris, new top and a light weight denim jacket that is perfect for the beach. Sweet! That left me with plenty of time to get home, finish up my packing and impatiently wait. I spend that time texting TRS "how about now" several times (which I started about 1...

I really love how several lanes of traffic on the freeway just stop FOR NO APPARENT REASON. It's especially delightful when my exit is within sight.

I love sun. I don't love rain. In fact, more than one day of rain in a row is too much. Not that we don't need the water because all of the water going through George's squirt bottles alone is causing a mini-drought. But, it's not that it's depressing or even that it makes it especially cold that I don't like it. It's that no one can frakking drive in this town if it's raining! And, I am amazed, not by that fact, but because I forget it every time. It starts to drizzle and I should immediately add 10 minutes to my drive time but I don't and then I get irritated at both myself and the other drivers. It took me 60 minutes to make my 9 mile drive home on Monday night. Part of that was due to McClintock being closed south of University (that happens to be my corner so it was hard to avoid the mess). But, the 202 was a parking lot until I got to McClintock so that didn't help. Last night, it took me 40 minutes to make the same drive. No ac...

For the second night in a row, they've closed down McClintock to one lane each way at the intersection with University. I got stuck in it last night and I was annoyed and amazed by the number of people who refuse to just wait their turn in the single lane. There were several people who used the center lane to get to the head of the traffic jam then forced their way in. Like they're just more important than everyone else? I forgot about it tonight and got stuck again. As I was waiting, I noticed a new addition to the getting ahead technique. Some people were actually moving to the left and driving in the oncoming traffic lane. Can you think of anything more stupid? It was inevitable. About three car lengths behind me, one car stopped in the middle lane then tried to pull out to the left (again, into the oncoming traffic lane) while another car decided to go right to that same lane. Crunch! Fortunately, they weren't going very fast and it looked like just a few crumple...

I've been getting crap for making The Rocket Scientist my personal driver. Some people seem to think I'm taking advantage of his (perceived) unreal level of niceness. I'm just going with logic. He drinks less than I do and prefers to drive. So, really, I'm being smart and being a giver at the same time. He's going fishing this week with Pirate Rick and I'm on kitty duty so I needed to get his house key from him. We decided to do dinner and he came over to pick me up. On occasion, I have actually offered to drive (or I rope Steven into it) and I did so last night. It wasn't out of altruism, to be honest. I wanted to show off my sparkling clean car. It's been gathering an increasingly deep layer of dust and dirt for the past few months and I kept saying I was going to get it washed but other things just seemed more important. We headed off to a new restaurant at Tempe Marketplace not realizing that they'd set up a temporary USPS tax spot at the ...

I can get here from there! I was driving home tonight and was startled to see that I wasn't getting detoured off on to Rio Salado. I was almost scared to keep going but I was actually able to get through University at McClintock. The water leak has been fixed! I was so excited that I felt compelled to call The Rocket Scientist and tell him about it (you can take a moment and feel sorry for him). The detour has been making me crazy. I've had to get to University via Perry which is very narrow, dark, lacks lane markings and gets flooded every time it rains. Which it has done quite a bit of late. Having the intersection finally open again is going to take 10 minutes off my nightly commute. And, it's going to make it a lot easier for everyone to get to my place.

If there was ever a morning that I needed a reset button for, this morning was it. First, when I went out to get my paper, I stepped on my front matt. Since the matt was soaked through from yesterday's rain, I ended up with a sopping wet sock. Nice. Second, I had an offsite class today that started at 8 AM. Usually, it would take me 15 minutes to get there so I left at 7:30. Thanks to that frakking broken water pipe on my corner (that I will have to live with for three more weeks), I couldn't get there from here. I got stuck in major bumper to bumper traffic and compounded my problems by taking EVERY wrong turn imaginable. Really, I made not one correct turn. I ended up getting there at 8:15 and had to sneak in after it started. Nice, again. While I was stuck not moving in traffic, I decided to put on my powder and lipstick. Before you think that I'm one of those makeup divas who puts on their face in the car, I'm not. But, since I wasn't moving at all, I ...

I was driving to lunch today with Sugar Daddy. On our way to one of our favorite restaurants, we got stuck in a long line of traffic. Fortunately, I got into the correct lane this time because there was a nasty looking accident backing everything up. On the way back to the office, we got detoured off of McDowell and had to meander through the barrio before we could get back to work. I have no idea why but it was closed off going both East and West between 4 oth and 36 th streets. I think I need to get a helicopter .

As I was driving to work this morning, I noticed that they had McClintock closed off going South and that the West side of the road was filled with water. I even saw some water bubbling up. Since they're ALWAYS doing construction near my house (and my work, too), I didn't think much of it. The Rocket Scientist sent me a link today that said there was a water leak and they were closing the intersection down completely. Being a careful type, I looked for an update on the repairs before leaving work. The leak is on the NW corner of McClintock and University. I live on the SE corner so I was concerned about how I was going to get home. The article I found said the intersection was completely closed and so was University from Smith to Rural. So, I decided to take Rural to Apache (which is a mile South of University for the out of towners ) then turn left on McClintock and get into my neighborhood that way. Well, I got on Rural and was in the left lane (since I was going to t...

There was an article on the front page of The Arizona Republic today about a study that showed that drivers on their cell phones go 2 miles an hour slower than people not on the phone and they don't keep up with the flow of traffic. They also change lanes 20% less so they don't get past slower cars which backs up traffic. I disagree with the study's result. My own study on McClintock this morning said it's more than 2 miles. I based that on the cabbie I got stuck behind as he was chatting. He was going 38 in a 45 MPH zone. So, it's not 2 MPH slower, it's 7. Of course, that's based on a sample size of 1 so my margin of error may be a little on the high side.

Driving to Rocky Point takes the same amount of time from Tucson as it does from Phoenix. I knew I was adding at least 90 minutes to my trip by having to drive back from Tucson on Sunday but I figured I'd still be home by 8 or 9 PM at the latest. Boy, was I wrong. We decided to leave our condo at noon, have lunch at Manny's, pick up some shrimp and do some last minute shopping then head to the border. Everything was going well until we got to the border. Or, near to it anyway. Traffic was backed up and it was literally stop and go for 2 1/2 hours until we could get across and back into the U.S. We amused ourselves by listening to tunes and watching the locals. It was quite the treat to see one of the vendors who was walking up and down between the cars whip out his unit and just start peeing between the cars. Let me add to the picture by saying he was old. Needless to say, we didn't buy anything from him and I hope to high heaven he wasn't selling food. Ick. Onc...