Once an Iowan, Always an Iowan

And now a break from our regularly scheduled preschool stories to relate an event from this morning.

Thomas and I were giving Will a ride into his office around 9:30 am (he had been working at home for a few hours beforehand but had a meeting on campus that he had to attend).

We were stopped at the stoplight near our house, at the corner of Segoe and Mineral Point for those of you keeping score. I was in the right-hand lane, getting ready to turn right onto Mineral Point.

There was a crossing guard lady there, obviously having just arrived, setting out her big orange cones between the lanes at each of the four entrances to the intersection. She was standing to my right, facing the same direction as me, waiting to cross Mineral Point Rd. These crossing guards are a regular fixture in this particular spot on mornings and afternoons during the school year, since there’s an elementary school and a middle school just up the street. Let’s ignore for a moment that it’s nearly 10 am and the middle of summer. I have no idea why she was there today. But she was.

She looked like a nice lady. Mid-forties to mid-fifties, short gray hair. She looked like maybe she could be a preschool teacher.

Finally the light turned green. I looked over at the crossing lady. She didn’t move. But I was not about to blaze into the crosswalk only inches in front of the middle-aged preschool teacher lady who was wearing a flaming orange vest and carrying two giant cones. At least not while the “WALK” sign was so visibly offering her the right-of-way.

I waited. She stood there. This was maybe 10 seconds. Then she looked over at me and waved me ahead with a smile. My suspicions were confirmed. Nice lady.

At precisely this moment, I heard a long and angry honk from the car behind me. I looked back to see a middle-aged guy in a nineties-model Toyota Corolla gesturing at me to go. THE LIGHT IS GREEN AND HE HAS PLACES TO BE!! HE IS VERY IMPORTANT!! TOO IMPORTANT TO NOTICE THE PRESCHOOL LADY STANDING IN THE CROSSWALK!!! (though clearly not important enough to go to work before 10 am.)

For some reason or another I do not handle moments like this well. I can take it when (on the rare occasion) I get honked at when I’m paying attention to Thomas and miss that the light has turned green. If I am at fault in a driving situation, I accept the retaliatory honks, gestures, and shouts as my due punishment. But this kind of thing, where I am doing nothing but obeying traffic laws and watching out for the safety of other drivers and pedestrians, really pisses me off. And it happens to me kind of a lot.

As I carefully made my right-hand turn, keeping the crossing lady carefully in line of sight, I may have returned Mr. Corolla’s gestures with a gesture of my own and possibly a bit of profanity muttered under my breath. (Luckily, even though I did say something particularly inappropriate given the presence of three-year-old ears in the backseat, he misheard me and asked me what “ackyoo” meant. Phew.) As I said, I do not handle this kind of thing well.

As I entered the intersection, though, I was very pleased to see that the preschool lady had turned from mild-mannered crossing guard to Righteously Indignant Protector of the Rights of the Pedestrian. She was doing the thing I always wish I could do when somebody wrongs me in traffic: screaming at Mr. Corolla. She waved both of her arms vehemently, one at him and one at the “WALK” sign, indicating in no uncertain terms the this time, for once, rude, inconsiderate drivers who berate others for following the rules WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. Not on her watch. It was fantastic.

As an addendum, I will only say that for quite a while I have believed that people who use their horns for reasons other than alerting other drivers and pedestrians of an impending emergency should be ticketed. Having a horn in your car should not be license to act like you’re the only one who’s trying to get somewhere.

Alternatively, if no regulations of horn use are to be instituted, then I think that at least the car manufacturers should create a formula for their horn installation such that the size and price of the car is inversely proportional to the wimpiness of the horn’s sound.

Well, Sort of. I made it with generous amounts of assistance from Will’s mom and my friend B.

B. made one too. Here we are at the end of our long adventure in sewing:

We both had bought skirts from this woman in town who sews skirts like these and sells them around town and online. We both love our skirts, but they’re pretty pricey and didn’t look too complicated, so we thought we’d try to make some for ourselves. It turns out that they’re a little more complicated than we thought (only a little), so we needed to call in Will’s mom as our pattern expert. Once she figured out what we were doing wrong (not much, but enough that our first try was unsuccessful), we were good to go. They turned out pretty cute, huh?

Oh, and did I mention that I’m pregnant? Yep, about 15 weeks along. Little Miss/Mr. should be arriving at the very end of December. So anyway, we had to adapt the pattern to include a stretchy band at the top. Thanks to B.’s and Will’s mom’s quick thinking and expert sewing, I should be able to wear this skirt all summer and into the fall.

I’m hoping this post marks a renewed vigor to my presence here at the blog. We’ll see!