What Would You Do?

On my drive to work this morning, I had an experience that made me think. Here's the set-up: I was coming up to a red light, going east, in a lane to go straight, with two left turn lanes next to me. There was a divider in the road separating the east-west traffic. After the light, all the cars in my lane were getting onto the freeway, so the left-turn traffic was kind of the last chance to get off the road before the freeway. On the other side of the road, but down the road a bit (where the left turn lane leads) is a Walmart. It was 8am and my car's thermometer said it was 16 degrees outside. Walking away from the Walmart parking lot was a man, probably in his late 40's, fairly well-dressed (jeans, jacket- looked like he could be anybody's next door neighbor). He was carrying several bulky grocery bags and having a hard time handling them all. As I got up to the light and first saw him, he had just dropped a few items and was trying to reposition everything in his hands. And he had no gloves. He was walking towards the freeway underpass, meaning he had at least a little ways to go to get home, since there aren't any houses or parking lots between there and the other side of the freeway. Now think about it- everybody on the road at that time of day on a weekday has someplace to be. When I saw him, I started going through the possibilities in my mind- could he get across 4 lanes of traffic to my car before the light switched? Could I switch enough lanes to get over to him in time? Would it be safe for me to pick up a complete stranger, even if he looks innocent enough? Do I have time to pick somebody up and give him a ride to wherever he's going on my way to work? In the few seconds that I had to process the situation, a man in one of the turn lanes made a u-turn and went and picked the stranger up, and helped him load everything into his car. It made my day to know that there are people out there who would take time out of a freezing and busy morning to help out a complete stranger who obviously needs it. I'd like to think I would have helped if I hadn't seen the other person help, but I also know I felt some relief when I saw somebody else doing it. What would you do?

Cars

I live in a car-centric world. I've known this since 1986. I remember we had a roll of aluminum foil that was in a cardboard box, and the box was advertising some kind of contest. The grand prize was a 1987 Ford Mustang Convertible. Back then, pictures on boxes were just drawings, but even with just a drawing, I remember thinking what a beautiful car that Mustang was, and I was so mad that as a 6-year old I couldn't enter the contest. I begged my parents to enter, but they wouldn't. That 1987 Ford Mustang Convertible was the first car I ever loved. About the same time, my dad pointed out a neighbor lady down the street who had two Mustangs from the 60s, and I remember thinking she must have been a pretty cool lady to have two such cars. The next car I fell in love with was a Jeep Cherokee (what a dream that 20 years later I got to work on its successor!). I don't remember where I first saw it. I probably just started seeing them around, but I thought they were great. After that, it was the red Miata convertible that my parents' friends bought (first model year). From there, my car-love list has grown exponentially. One day in college, my five roommates and I were squished in one of my roommates' cars going somewhere. As we stopped at a light, we were all buried in our own thoughts, and somebody asked what we were all thinking about. We each told what we had been thinking about in that moment, and got a good laugh at how perfectly each girl's thoughts fit her personality. I had been thinking that the Lexus sitting next to us looked exactly like a Camry (this was before I realized that Lexus was part of the Toyota brand), and I was wondering why somebody would pay luxury prices just to get a Lexus name plate on a Toyota.
My car thoughts haven't lessened any with time. A bad commute can be made better based on the cars I see. If I see a really great Sports car, or even just more Audi TTs than usual, I might forget that I got held up in traffic. I very often base my lane choice on the car that I'll be following or watching in my rearview mirror. And way too often, I have to remind myself to watch the road rather than the cars. So if anybody is really stuck on what to get me for Christmas...

You Know You're A Grown-Up When...

You know you're a grown-up when, when your car is getting some regular maintenance done and you don't want to sit in the waiting room for two hours, rather than walking half a mile to the mall to kill some time, you walk a mile to Home Depot.

You know you're a grown-up when you look forward all day to the squash you're going to have for dinner (and it's not even covered in butter and brown sugar!).

You know you're a grown-up when you've been racking your brain for ideas to put on your Christmas list, and the best you can come up with is a new frying pan.

You know you're a grown-up when a day off work means you can finally go get that flu-shot you've been meaning to get.

You know you're a grown-up when the best time of day is bedtime.

Speaking of which...

Crusades

Warning- this post may not be interesting to anybody except me. Don't blame me if you read it and then want those 5-10 minutes of your life back.

I have a few crusades in my life, and since I have nothing else particularly to write about just now, I thought I'd get the message out about a couple of my crusades. Sorry if you've already heard the spiel on one or both of these before.

1. Tomatoes. I feel very strongly about the proper treatment of tomatoes. The Deseret News had an article this week that briefly went over how to care for tomatoes after they've been picked, and I want to go over this in more depth. Tomatoes should never be kept in the fridge. People put a lot of effort into growing or buying the best, juiciest, most flavorful tomatoes, and then they get them home and stick them in the fridge. The flavor compounds in raw tomatoes start breaking down when they get below 40 degrees. That's why tomatoes become mushy and bland (I'm assuming they started good- if you bought a tomato from Walmart in February and were surprised when it was mushy and bland, you've got bigger issues). But if you have a good tomato from your garden DON'T PUT IT IN THE FRIDGE! STORE IT ON THE COUNTER! If you can't eat it before it goes bad, give it away. It's like the Mackinaw peaches on Seinfeld. You've got to eat them while they're in, and share them if you can't appreciate them. Your new tomato mantra should be, "Cold makes it old." Don't forget it.

2. Sweet potatoes vs. yams. These terms have become interchangeable in society, and that bothers me. Sweet potatoes and yams are two entirely different foods. When I was in college taking my fruit and vegetable science class (not only does that class exist, but it's the best class ever!), my professor told us that we would probably never see a yam in North America. But now that we have a more global economy, I'm sure you could find one in an international market in a big city (on a tangent- 10 years ago you would never have found a durian in America, and maybe things were better that way. But if you find one now, make sure it's fresh. Trust me). Anyway, sweet potatoes are the orange or sometimes white tubers you see in all the grocery stores, both canned and fresh. Even if the can says 'yams', they're sweet potatoes. Sweet potatoes are either firm or soft varieties. To distinguish between the two, back in the early days of production, American slaves sometimes called the soft varieties yams, because they kind of looked like the yams they knew in Africa-that's where the confusion started. Sweet potatoes are in the morning glory family; yams are in the lily family. If you need a sweet potato mantra, try "yams from foreign lands".

Dreamy

Last night I met the man of my dreams. He was super cute, witty, charming, smart, and clearly smitten with me. And then I woke up. By the time I went to the bathroom and fell back asleep, he was gone. So I guess the secret to holding down the perfect man is to drink less water before bedtime.

Michigan

Aaaaahhhh.....Michigan. What more can I say? Except that is was a dream vacation. Catching up with great friends. One week in a condo with cable tv and no facebook/email. Fireflies. A two-mile walk through home-towny neighborhoods and a forest to get to the beach. 85 degrees and blue skies all week. Warmish, clear lake water. Clean, soft, sandy beaches. The fourth picture down was one of my favorite views. The walk to the beach takes you through a neighborhood with nicely manicured lawns and people doing standard yardwork, etc, and then suddenly you turn a corner and there's Lake Michigan in all its splendor!

Special Talent

I have a secret talent that I don't think many of you know about. I've kept it secret all these years because I don't like to brag. But I think it's finally time to go public with it. Ready? Drumroll....I can walk really fast. When I worked downtown, and then in DC, I would race the other commuters after we got off the train. I'd pick one or two people each day who were going in the same direction as me, give them a little headstart, and then blow them out of the water as I caught up and passed them so fast they only saw a flash of color go by. I can't remember a single time the other person won the race. And, one of the rules of the race was that we had to maintain an appearance of just walking to work. We couldn't look like we were trying to run down the other walkers. As you can imagine, this required an astounding level of concentration to maintain a steady walking rhythm and upright posture, but I mananged. I admit, it probably helped my position that they didn't know we were racing, but I'm the clear winner regardless.