Holy crap, you guys.
Scotland.
Scotland!
What a minbendingly awesome trip.
As soon as I can figure out how to shrink some of the digi-pics to a size that will fit herein, I will post pictures and recollections.
That’s a threat and a promise.
Scotland Scotland Scotland Scotland…..
I am so excited.
24 hours from right now, I’ll be – well – probably passing the mini-Camden Yards as a pass through 95 in Aberdeen. Our flight doesn’t leave until 8:30 from beautiful Philadelphia.
But 48 hours from now? It’ll be just after 9pm local time, there will be about a half hour os sunlight left, and I bet my bride and I will either be sitting down in a pub with a pint or be in direct pursuit thereof.
Can’t. Fucking. Wait.
This has been a crazy would-rather-eat-actual-shit week at work. I have this theory that the universe makes you earn good vacations and these last few days in the grind have done nothing to dissuade me of that belief. But just a half-day’s more at work and then I’m gone. Like a freight train. Like yesterday. Like a soldier in the civil-war-bang-bang.
Pat yourself on the back if you got that reference.
Here’s the Mike-u-weather forecast for the first 5 days in Scotland: showers, showers, showers, partly cloudy, showers. I think that’s par for the course though. And, although at first I was picturing a rain-drenched time in the isles, upon consulting every weather website I could find I think that ‘showers’ means just that. Primarily a cloudy day punctuated by a short period of precip here and there. Most people I talked to bring up how rainy the UK can be, but check it: Edinburgh’s average monthly rainfall for May is just about 2 inches. Baltimore’s? Just over 4.
So, anywho, I am regoddamdiculously excited to leave. The prospect of being wedged on a plane for seven hours next to a strange and most likely excessively sweaty person does nothing to dampen my enthusiasm. Nothing!
I am a little bummed that I am missing yet another Blogtimore Happy Hour. Snay was nice enough to offer his seat at the happy hour for my seat on the plane, but I bet Emily would catch on pretty quickly. Mumbling about Battlestar Galactica and tossing out random and useless historical knowledge might delay discovery for a bit, but the jig would eventually be up.
Nah, on second thought I wouldn’t trade my seat for anything. Me, my wife, and a new country. Totally awesome.
I go now to the land of the Scots.
I got flicked off this morning.
Happy Tuesday to me, huh?
In the shadow of the football stadium, there’s a little side road that I sometimes use to do an end-run around Russell street on those days that Russell is looking particularly cloggity. There’s a stadium parking lot to one side and so, half way down the street, there’s a cross walk for fans to use while walking to or from the game.
On game day, I’d imagine there’s constant pedestrian traffic and a driver would have to stop to let the people pass.
However. There is no stop sign. There are also, at 8:20 in the morning, no pedestrians present. Anywhere in view. At all. In the absence of a stop sign and pedestrians the crosswalk goes from being a crosswalk to just lines on the pavement.
The road has two lanes, both going south. This morning, I was following a very slow truck down the little side street. We were in the left lane. I decided 10 just wasn’t my speed, so I got in to the right lane to pass the truck. I slid over and found myself behind a maroon sedan. As we approached the cross walk, the truck slowed down to stop. Why, I don’t know. Maybe he thought he had to. Maybe he was lost and was pulling over to look at a map. The maroon sedan in front of me must have figured there was a stop sign and slammed on its brakes. I had to stop too, coming a little closer to the sedan’s bumper than I would have liked.
And we sat there. I checked (I had time); there were indeed no stop signs. There were no pedestrians. We were just sitting there at a non-stop sign waiting for the imaginary football fans to pass I guess.
So I honked.
And her middle finger shot in the air.
We pulled up next to eachother at the end of the street. Me turning left, she turning right. I looked at her. “Fuck you asshole,” she said. “Not a stop sign,” I mouthed.
And then we both smiled and laughed. Got out of our cars and hugged and had a good chuckle over the whole thing.
No, not really.
She yelled “motherfucker”, flicked me off again and peeled wheels.
Don’t get me wrong, I hate getting honked at. But my brain is wired in such a way that if I get honked at, my first thoughts involve figuring out what I’m doing wrong and not finding the honker and overwhelming them with my middle finger of hate.
It wasn’t a long beep and the Civic’s horn is not what I’d call intimidating. It was, I thought, a “hey, let’s get moving again” beep.
To which, I suppose, the only rationall response is the bird. Motherfucker.