Navel Gazing

I've missed you! I hope you haven't missed me too much. I can't believe it has been nearly a month since I have posted, but mostly it's because I can't seem to focus on one thought long enough to develop it into a meaningful post. So, instead, I'm just going to give you a smattering of the things I've thought about lately that have made me say to myself, "Hey, I should blog about that" and then I don't follow through because I often don't have much of a point.

1. Most people think they are good drivers, when in fact a great number of people are really very bad drivers. Or, at least, they're mediocre, inattentive, and inconsiderate in their driving efforts. I am actually a good driver, and I believe I can credit that to the fact that, when I was fifteen, my high school offered Drivers' Ed as a course of study, at a reasonable price, and I actually learned the rules of the road in a real class--and in a real car--with a real teacher. (Dick Claypool, former shop teacher, a.k.a. "Tricky Dicky" for reasons which completely escape me now. Sweet man. He let me and my friend, Karen, borrow his tandem bicycle to ride around town one summer.)

2. Also on the topic of driving... just last week, I was walking from my car to my office when a minivan passed by, and in the front passenger seat was a woman holding a sleeping toddler. Okay, I know that it wasn't that long ago (when I was a kid, even) that people did that all the time. But it just shocked me to see a small child riding in a car but not in a car seat. And not riding in the back. Similarly, I occasionally will spot some tiny little head, just barely visible over the door frame of someone's front seat window in their car, and it takes my breath away. It seems so reckless, and so wrong! Don't even get me started about the jerks who smoke cigarettes with their kids in the car. Just because you cracked your window open does not mean that your kid's lungs are not being polluted. Some people don't even bother to do that!

3. Pregnancy news. I am thrilled to report that I am now able to feel the baby moving occasionally--not big kicks at this point, but lovely little goldfish flutters that let me know s/he's there. Oh, and I finally admitted to Ted that I hope we're having a girl. Of course we will be thrilled either way--I've always thought I'd be a great Mom of Men--but I've been gazing wistfully at little girls lately, and wishing for one of my own.

4. Thank GOD the weather is warmer this week.

5. Thanks for listening. More coherent thoughts to come. Some day.