TangleBones
Bad Ideas in Parenting
Today I was trying to talk to Jared about our plans to go see Wall-E (best movie ever - the Godfather sleeps with Luca Brasi), and he kept interrupting to ask when we were leaving. I wanted to explain that we were waiting to see when my special lady would arrive and would then go to whatever the next showing was, but Jared just could not stop interrupting. So, in my frustration, I did something dumb: I spoke Jared-ese.
Jared has his own way of talking sometimes and it’s important to model good speech patterns for him. So I often say things back to him with little corrections: “She bringed it.” “She brought it.” You get the point. But his other habit is that he has little routines for how he discusses things that disappoint him. And it’s an even worse idea to encourage that. But I was frustrated, and just couldn’t help myself. So as he’s interrupting to say, “When are we going to the movie?” I started quickly asking, “Can’t I talk about the plan? Is the plan cancelled? Is the plan over? Is the plan ruined? Do you want to ruin the plan? Are we done with the plan? Why can’t we have the plan?”
And he totally caved. “What’s the plan?”
That’s just going to make it more tempting next time. Bad, bad daddy.
Minus Plus
Another reason to love feed readers: they catch stuff even when they shouldn’t. Still, I love Garfield Minus Garfield. Even with Garfield.
Aiming for Fuel Economy: A new source of frustrations
With gas prices hovering around four dollars a gallon, I, like everyone else, have been feeling the pinch. And it has been particularly bad because my fuel efficiency has been down and my driving has been up, as I’ve spent a good deal of time racing back and forth to Baltimore to see my lady fair. Completely worthwhile, I assure you. But in order to mitigate the cost, I’ve been trying to adjust my driving habits in recent days.
Driving like a madman through the city costs me 14% of my fuel efficiency: that’s a dip from my normal 22 miles per gallon down to 19. Ouch. When combined with the extra mileage of at least 40 miles every other day, it’s been quite a painful experience at the pump.
So lately I’ve been more conscious of my driving habits. No more jack-rabbit starts. No more flooring it to make a yellow light. No more flying up an on-ramp at a greater speed that the cars actually driving on the highway. And it’s done wonders for my pocketbook: where I was getting 19 mpg driving like a jerk, I’m getting 24 mpg nowadays.
And while you might think that saving some gas and money would make me happy, you’d be fooling yourself. I have to drive in Maryland: home of the oblivious driver. As far as I can tell, there are no suggestions made at Maryland driving schools that slower traffic should keep right. Getting into the turn lane before you slow down so that cars behind you don’t have to come to an almost complete stoo? Unheard of. It seems that it’s the goal of the Maryland driver to do everything possible to frustrate everyone else on the road.
But changing all of that just so I could eke out another 1 or 2 miles per gallon seems selfish, so I’m only going to request one tiny thing of the people of Maryland, and it only requires a change of attitude, not behavior: when you cut me off on the highway, don’t get mad when I tailgate you - if you’re going to make me slow down, you could at least let me draft off you.