Cascading downwards

There are a few things I picked up from old friends/acquaintances/boyfriends that just seem to stick. More than the people I got them from. Books I read, bands I listen to, catchphrases I say.

One of the more noticable ones is stuff yelled at other drivers. Feel free to use them yourselves:

At someone stopping at a yield sign (unnecessarily): "It says Yield, not die!"

At people going too slow/braking unnecessarily: "The skinny one on the right! Not the big, fat one on the left!"

Somehow, those are more fun to say than random swearing. And suitable for all ages.

I was doing really well at posting regularly for a while, and then there was a crackdown on surfing at work, and I felt it would not be a good idea to go to LJ. And at home, it's such trouble to dig out the keyboard to the tablet, and the handwriting recognition editing gets old quickly, so....

Anyway. The latest news is that there was an opening at work in the department I've wanted to work in for several years (Branch Libraries' Information Systems - internal QA, kinda), so I jumped right on it. I'm still waiting to hear, since the application period only officially ended on the 30th. I got my first interview about a week after applying, and my second a week or so after that, so it's very promising. And I heard that only three people got a second interview. Cross your fingers for me.

In other news, my poor car got its hood crumpled, again. This one was not my fault. In fact, I wasn't even there - it was parked, and the person left the scene without leaving info. Lucky for me, there were several witnesses, and one took down the plate number. Can I say how much I love this neighborhood? The most annoying part was it evidently happened not five minutes after I parked it. Guess I should have been late to work that day, huh? All fixed now, and I didn't even have to pay the deductible. I love my insurance company. Just hoping to get reimbursed for the rental now.

I think that hits the high points of September. I'll post again if I can think of anything else noteworthy.

You know, I could see the torrential rain (and the backup on the Cross-County Expressway) this morning, so I very carefully listened to the traffic report. There appeared to be problems on Long Island, and in Manhattan, and with the trains, but no problems were mentioned for Westchester.

So imagine my surprise to find that the Hutchinson Parkway was closed for flooding! Why was this not part of the 1010 WINS traffic report?! Is Westchester not part of the metro area?

If I had known that, I would have taken a different route from the beginning. But by the time I saw the traffic cones, it would have taken too much time to go back to that other route, and I just had to follow other cars and trust that they were headed where I wanted to go (since of course there were no detour signs).

Sorry, had to get that off my chest.

And the first thing that happened to me today after getting out of the house was ... a flat tire. Oh, such a good way to start the day. Let's hope it can only get better from here.

So, as I left work to go to school and then begin my three-day birthday weekend, I got in a fender-bender. Way to begin life at 30.

And, of course, it was my fault. And it was almost just like the bump incident before, where I was going maybe 5-10 mph, except this time, the guy in front had a minivan. Which means his bumper was significantly higher than mine, which means I hit him (actually her) not with my bumper, but with my grill, headlight, and hood. So now my car needs like $4000 of work.

On the bright side, USAA is being very good about it. I am definitely with them for life.

And, I continued onto class, which was interesting enough that I managed to completely forget about my car for 2 hours.

But I was still so wired from the accident and the Coke I has during class that I couldn't sleep until like 5 in the morning. So Friday, I'm trying to sleep in for my birthday, and my Dad calls at 7:30 (am), to wish me a happy birthday before I leave for work. Who the heck goes to work on their birthday? And on other occasions when he calls, who leaves enough slack time in their mornings to have a phone conversation? Not me. But he always calls in the mornings, not the evenings. I didn't answer the phone, but it still woke me up. And then other people called later on, but while I was still asleep.

So, it wasn't the best birthday ever. But, it was my 30th, so it wasn't going to be. I was depressed for a little while, but everyone I talked to said they had that too. And I felt better by the end of the day.

So, I have finally been in my first car accident ever (well, that I remember - mom says there was one when i was an infant). Luckily, it didn't even qualify as a fender bender.

I was in one of those hellish merge situations that occur only in New York - cars coming in from the left, wanting to take the right lane, cars coming in from the right, wanting to take the left lane, with a whole 20 feet to effect this switch). I saw the guy in front of me start to move forward, so I started to inch and glanced back to check for a break in traffic. meanwhile, someone cut off the guy in front of me and he slammed on his brakes. And since I was still looking behind me, I bumped him.

So, we pull over and get out. He looks at his back bumper and says, "I don't see anything wrong here!" I look at my front bumper and say, "I don't see anything wrong here!" And we shook hands and got back into our cars. And really, it wasn't like my little Corolla could have done anything to his SUV anyway.

So, is that like the best "accident" possible or what? I'm almost happy to have it over with, since it's almost inevitable that everyone is in an accident sooner or later. I felt like I was on borrowed time.