STOP! In the Name of the Law!

Tonight I was reminded of a story from my high school days which I gladly share at this time. It is a homeschool science lesson in the making, mixed with art and civics. Thank you for bringing this story to the forefront of today’s news, Connie, my partner in crime more than once in our late teen years.

It has escaped me where I obtained this gem of a fashion statement, but somehow I got my little 17-year-old hands on a pair of these stop sign sunglasses.

This is EXACTLY the pair that I chose to wear in high school. See how they have shatter-proof lenses? Safety first! See how it says for children 5 years or older. It should have said for children ages 5-15… let me explain.

The lenses on these beauties were green and they were quite dark, which aided my shielding of the bright California sunshine while donning them. One bright shiny day, I was cruising down El Camino Real in Sunnyvale, California (But not cruising at night on El Camino Real in Santa Clara….. that was naughty) minding my own business… wearing the above glasses… because I was fashion conscious. I’m sure I had on a red or white or royal blue Izod polo shirt with the collar turned up with a matching cherry red patent leather belt in the belt loops of my 501 Levi jeans. (Button fly! Rock on!)

Unusual, to be sure, the stoplights were out on El Camino that day! I was quite surprised that so many in a row were out… block after block. I approached each intersection with caution, stopped, looked both ways and proceeded with care.

Next thing I know there was an officer of the law flashing his blue lights at me in the rear view mirror. Odd. I had never seen them only flash blue. (Not that I had much experience being pulled over… ahem.) After pulling my car to the side of the road the nice police man came to chat with me. He asked why I was running all the red stop lights on El Camino. WHAT? “They were all out, officer! That is why I treated them like stop signs.”

Then I pulled off my awesome stop sign sunglasses and realized his patrol car WAS flashing red and blue… but I couldn’t see the red lights with the green lenses in my fashion eye wear. Figuring he would believe me as I made the discovery and explained it to him….. he simply stood there looking at me like I had used too much VO5 hairspray for too long in too small of a bathroom.

Finally, I handed him the glasses and offered, “See for yourself!” He did. He put them on, glanced around at his police car lights and the red street light in the next intersection, removed them and handed them back to me shaking his head.

The kind public servant did not give me multiple tickets for running multiple lights that day, but did instruct me to NEVER wear the stop sign sun glasses while driving! OKAY!

Here is the science lesson part of this story from physicsclassroom.com:

A pigment that absorbs a single frequency is known as a pure pigment.

Pigments absorb light. Pure pigments absorb a single frequency or color of light. The color of light absorbed by a pigment is merely the complementary color of that pigment.

And so, dear students, green lenses on fancy sunglasses shaped like stop signs absorb red traffic lights because green and red are complementary colors on the opposite sides of the color wheel. You cannot see red lights with these glasses on! Don’t try this at home!

Be safe! Don’t drive with green or red lenses! And there you have it, from the archives.

Post Wreckage Wisdom

Before this past Saturday, the previous car accident I participated in was in 1999 in Anaheim, California.  Thankfully I have been fender bender free for 14 joyous years. (However, in my current state of narcotic use, I could easily and most probably be missing large periods of my life in my memory banks.)  When one meanders through life without hitting other vehicles, you tend to forget many important facts regarding collisions.  This morning, at 4:06 a.m., I am here to inform all those who need informing on said subject.

1.  Accidents happen when you least expect it and when it is not convenient in your life.  In my case, I was casually  heading to Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase a much needed shower curtain liner for the main bath due to visitors who were scheduled to arrive at my home in exactly four hours.  My daughter and two friends were descending upon our house for Spring Break from college in Tulsa, Oklahoma, a mere 14 hour drive to Phoenix, Arizona.  Two days after their arrival, three Canadian relatives were also visiting for a week.  Hence, the new shower curtain liner was MANDATORY.

2.  Teenage drivers are a danger on the road.  Out of a neighborhood shopping center driveway (right next to Charming Charlie’s purse/accessory mother ship store) a small white vehicle came flying directly into my lane from the right without any warning time, hindering me from doing all those things you know you should do when you figure out you’re are going to hit another car, i.e. brake, scream “Sweet mother of God!”, brace yourself so as to increase muscle injuries, curse the driver’s day of birth, yell at your kids “Hang on, Mommy’s going to hit someone!” or any other such nonsense. I glanced at the car and slammed into it.  That is all.  I never saw the driver’s face as she was looking to her right the entire time she was entering the four lane road, planning on crossing two lanes of traffic.  The kind police man asked me how long I had between my visual awareness of the other car and impact.  “One second.”  I have since wondered about her actions.  Did she just find the queen mother purse to match her favorite hot pink and cheetah print shoes, and couldn’t wait to get home and unite the two, creating the perfect ensemble?  Did she just eat at the Mellow Mushroom and was in a pasta induced coma with garlic permeating from her pores?  We will never know, dear reader.

3.  When the kind police man finished my inquisition and then glanced in the back seat of the van to witness a tear-stained little Latina child, he should have used his kind policeman voice and asked a politically correct question like, “Who is this little sweetheart?” or “I see we have a princess in the back seat.” or “Honey, are you ok?”  But NO.  He got the wrath of the blubbering adoptive mother when he blurted out, “Who is THAT?” like I picked up an illegal alien down by the border and was transporting her color-coordinated, well manicured dimpled self like a criminal. I will admit I answered a bit tersely, “SHE’S MY DAUGHTER!!!!”  My tone set him in his place and his kind police man voice surfaced as he praised her for being in her booster seat and wearing her seatbelt.  I am a protective mama first, and an injured car passenger second. Don’t ever forget that!

4.  Auto injuries are curious beasts.  Due to the impact of the airbag underneath the steering column of our van, my shins took a real beating.  I did not know there was an airbag under there, nor was I aware that it was hinged from the bottom and the molded plastic cover was capable of shaving your legs so thoroughly upon explosion, you might never need to shave them ever again due to the absence of several layers of skin and hair follicles.  Thank God I was wearing jeans.  As was predicted by my ER doctor friend, other injuries will surface when the most intense injuries subside.  After four days of lying on the couch with my legs elevated and iced every hour around the clock, I was able to stand without tears accumulating in my eyes.  Then I realized my right shoulder was not working as well as it had been performing before the white car jumped in my path.  Yesterday x-rays were had and after two days of icing my shoulder every hour around the clock, we will hopefully have some answers tomorrow as to my gimpy limb.  When that is concluded, I do not know what will make me cry next…. the seatbelt bruise line across my entire torso?  Or some other area still in shock waiting to surface.  I will surely keep you posted, even though I am aware of “women’s tea rules of courtesy” of not speaking of sickness or operations.  This ain’t a tea…. it is my blog, and where else can I complain with my sense of humor intact for the enjoyment of others?

5.  God takes care of His children.  When God found our new-to-us van on November 30, 2012, He was testing my thankfulness at receiving such a good and perfect gift from Him, despite it being red.  Red is my least favorite color.  But I WAS thankful for the van… the low miles, the reasonable price, the stow-n-go compartments to haul more junk, the awesome air-conditioning, the radio controls on the back of the steering wheel, etc.  And I was content knowing that I couldn’t see that it was red while I was riding in the van. I imagined that it was a purty royal blue color.  So I am pretty sure I passed the red van test and now get another new-to-us van that is not red.  I will keep you posted.

Currently my pain meds have once again done their duty and I am ready to drift back to a psycho-dream filled sleep.  Good night for now.

dis-obey: to fail to obey

If you’ve been reading MySistersJar for several years, you will remember my story about the trips to the dump when the road was closed.  (https://mysistersjar.wordpress.com/2008/04/04/frazzled-mother-goes-ballistic-at-city-dump/) That road is Dixileta.  That short-cut, albeit crazy-bumpy, has been used in our digs for several years.  It’s right near my parent’s home and is the quickest way onto the freeway heading into Phoenix.  Nora refers to it as “la avenida de montaña” …the mountain avenue!  The drop on that crazy pavement is rollercoaster worthy if you are speeding!

A few weeks back, the city put up signs telling all of us who use that road, that if we weren’t driving a truck we were breaking the law.  WHAT?  How can they do that?  Easy.  Slap up a few signs… and post a policeman.

With my mother in the car, I disobeyed (that’s what the ticket said!) and took the shortcut anyway.  Not a good idea with the nice officer of the law waiting for me.  He did kindly explain the reason for the signs.  Seems the road does not belong to the city.  It is owned by the gravel company that is located just east of the signs.  It was put in for the gravel trucks, which is good because then they don’t rumble down through our neighborhood.  The city told the gravel company to do some repairs on their road.  They replied, “No, get your traffic off our road.”  And up went the signs.

So, because of my glowing flawless violation record I had the option of choosing traffic school.  yippee…..  BUT, things have improved over the years and I was able to take it online… in my pjs… while wrapping gifts, folding laundry, washing dishes and feeding the fish.  ALSO, I found one that is called Improv Driving School.  Yes, you read that right… IMPROV!  All that means is that they added sarcastic comments after the real rules of the road… and they offer 5-10 minute videos of traffic jokes at the beginning of each lesson… that aren’t required.  I thought the videos were dumb at first (well, I still do) but each of the ten lessons is timed.  They are approximately 23 minutes each… WAY more time than is necessary to read the information and answer the three questions EVEN if you are only in grade four at the present time.  So I skipped the videos, read the info, did the review and clicked on ‘take the test.’  It told me that I didn’t spend enough time reading the material… there is a clock that counts down for you.  Good grief.  If I read the whole chapter S L O W L Y, pronouncing every syllable from 25 feet with one eye covered, I would still have to wait for the clock.  This IS just the same as wasting my time in a class, except for the fact that I can go get things crossed off my to-do list while I wait for the clock to count down.  Sheesh.

Did you hear the one about the driver who died from being hit in the head by a kleenex box? (Seriously, that was on there!)

Only at MY House!

Yesterday, one of the items that topped my To-Do list was to phone our health insurance company and figure out if my husband could get a physical and medical update for our adoption BEFORE September 16th.  Last year he had one on September 16th and his doctor was going to slap on an extra $200 charge because the dates weren’t a year apart. 

Here is a brief sidenote on Rick’s doctor:  I used to go to this same doctor.  I liked him alright, but he seemed to be a bit heavy-handed with his prescription pad.  I would return home from his office and call a friend of mine in pharmaceuticals and ask which of the four scripts I truly needed.  Anyway, I don’t have to do that anymore because I coincidentally happened upon aforementioned doctor at a local resort.  Brace yourself.  He was donning a purple Speedo, sunglasses from the 80’s and had the solid white sunblock on his nose.  It did me in.  I could no longer use ‘Purple Speedo’ as my physician.

Back to yesterday.  I did not have my glasses within reach when trying unsuccessfully to read the phone number on my health care card.  I handed it to my daughter and asked her to read me the number.  She started reading, “9-1-1-8-4-5-3-8-5-3-2-0-0”, and I obediently dialed…. until I realized there were too many numbers and hung up. “Oh,” she exclaimed, “that is your group number.”  I retrieved the card and found the PHONE number myself and dialed correctly.  The phone call lasted about ten minutes, but at minute number nine, there was a knock on our front door. 

Another side note:  my two nephews were over at our house along with my three children…. and I was still in my pajamas with decidedly Ace Ventura bed-head hair going on.  Not exactly the get-up to be answering the door.

Back to our story.  I peaked through the eye hole and saw a police man standing on our front porch.  I remembered my hair and attire and made a dash for the back of the house.  All five kids met me there, with the phone still stuck to my ear, and I told my 16-year-old daughter (yes, the one who read the group number to me) to go answer the door while  I hid in the laundry room.

Mr. Police officer asked the five children staring at him if everything was OK at the house.  “Yes!”  they all answered in unison.  Mr. Police man continued, “Someone dialed 911 from this house and hung up.  We were unable to call back so we came to make sure everything is alright.”  I’m sure he got responses that included but was not limited to: “Sure!”  “Yeah, that was mom calling her insurance group number.”  “She’s in the laundry room in her pj’s.”  “She couldn’t answer the door because her hair is scary.”  “She’s been on the phone all morning.”  “We are waiting for her to make breakfast.”  “We’re all OK!” “We’re hungry.”  “Is that a real gun?”  And the nice police officer left the premises, wondering what in the world just happened.

I tell you that story to report that I’m impressed with the police service in our area!  In less than ten minutes from the 911 call, there was someone at my door to protect me and my children.  Or is it protect my children from me?  Anyway, thank you, Phoenix Police force!