Randomly Saturday

Random thoughts for a Saturday night:

  • For those of you who may have been concerned about this, the secret ingredient in Wednesday’s cake, while no particular improvment to it, also proved not to be particularly detrimental either. In other words, no one (myself included) really noticed.
  • I spent today in Columbia with my parents, visiting an elderly cousin I hadn’t seen in a good twenty years or so. This being the south, we’re ALL cousins here, so I’m not 100% sure of the relationship. She was my grandmother’s first cousin, which makes her (I believe) my first cousin twice removed. Yes, this being the south, people also pay attention to distinctions like that. Makes it easier to keep up with who’s off limits for breeding.
  • Is it just me, or do truck lane restrictions actually make driving on the freeway MORE dangerous rather than less? Around here, trucks are restricted to the right two or three lanes of urban freeways. In theory, I assume it’s supposed to make drivers in the left lane feel safer. In practice, however, it just makes truckers behave like assholes in lanes where other drivers expect to be moving at a slower pace. So you end up with big rigs riding your ass at 70MPH when you’re not even IN the fast lane because (a) they CAN’T pass and (b) they WON’T slow down.
  • Why is every freaking freeway interchange in South Carolina NAMED for someone? And why is it always someone with a stupid nickname in quotation marks, like Jefferson C. “Buzz” Dingleberry, or something similarly idiotic? As honors go, having your own memorial onramp must rank just slightly above having a toilet in New Jersey named for you.

Mmmm. Cake.

I’m baking a cake. A carrot cake, specifically. It may be a very interesting carrot cake, because I accidentally sprinkled garlic powder into the mix rather than the ground cinnamon I thought I had in my hand. I think I managed to scoop most of it out, but you never know how much of a great new taste treat I may have developed here.

Stuff

It’s off to Greensboro tomorrow to take care of some business for a friend and to install a new printer and scanner for my mom. I wanted to do this earlier in the week, but my life is sort of on hold thanks to the leisurely pace at which so many medical professionals seem to operate these days, particularly when it involves getting in touch with patients.

Of course, my aversion to technology which facilitates people getting in touch with me may be making this all a bit more difficult, but I’m comfortable with that.

This, by the way, is hysterical, and comes to you via here.

Death Be Not Painless

I’ve always had a problem with the death penalty. Vindictive old cuss that I am, I’m still a little squeamish at the idea of a civilized society killing individuals in peacetime as a matter of justice. More importantly, I’m horrified at the very real potential for error given the irreversible nature this particular sentence.

That said, I also believe that states which use the death penalty should go ahead and do it, without the constant obsession over the most “painless and humane” means of execution. Here’s a clue: there is no humane and painless means of execution. The knowledge that one is about to die is probably the most painful thing imaginable for most human beings.

As Chief Gillespie said (yes, as a matter of fact I was inspired by an “In the Heat of the Night” rerun, thanks), the only way to execute someone without torturing him in the process is to tell him he’s forgiven, set him free, wait for the smile to cross his lips as he leaves the room, and then shoot him in the back before he realizes what’s happening.

I had an boyfriend once who was not a vegetarian, but who would only eat ground beef or sausage, because it didn’t “seem like” part of an animal. The touchy-feely approach to the death penalty seems a similar contradiction to me. If you’re going to kill people (or eat meat, or have sex with members of your same sex, or practice copyright infringement, or whatever), at least have the goddamned balls not to delude yourself into thinking you’re doing something else.

Don’t blame the mechanics of the act when it’s the act itself that you really have a problem with.

Winston-Salem, Family, and Boy

We went up to Winston-Salem again this weekend. Have I mentioned what an attractive and interesting place it is?

Anyhow, I took Mark to the airport this morning so he could return for another two weeks in the City of Doom. I miss him already. The past two weeks went by way too fast, with lots of food, more travel than usual, etc. Now it’s cold, I have no one but Edgar (who generates very little body heat) to keep me warm, and I need to get back to the neglected job quest.

I love my boy. And my mom and dad. Especially after the past ten days or so.

Triangle Weekend

The above was, of course, a photo opportunity which couldn’t be missed.

We spent the past weekend in Durham, with a quick side trip to Raleigh. Mark excelled at keeping my mind off something that was bothering me by feeding me regularly and driving me around in the snow all day on Saturday. We ate at Honey’s and Grayson’s and The Angus Barn and Le Coco and Spanky’s. The Angus Barn was particularly fun, because I’ve been driving by the place on the way to the state fair since I was a kid, and I’d never once been inside.

On Sunday, we got to see Becky, who I hadn’t seen in over a year, and who showed us more of Chapel Hill than I’d probably ever seen before. Then we headed home, loaded down with newspapers I’m still reading. Aside from our accommodations at the worst Red Roof Inn in the country, it was a very good weekend.