Wednesday, December 21, 2011
When Jesus said to love your enemies, He probably meant don’t kill them.
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It turns out I was right about the traffic. I left at 7 pm, took the parkway, and the usually 2.25 hour trip took 3.5 hours. Heavy traffic, accident, 10 mile backup at about 5-15 mph. But, I made it, 10:30 last night. I slept very well.
You know, I love this house. It's falling apart - the dishwasher, the deck, the toilets, the A/C, the driveway, all need replacing. It desperately needs a water softener and filter system - the pipes are full of salts and silt, so the water pressure is low. But all that can be fixed. I simply LOVE the way the house is laid out. And the windows. And the quiet. And the forever view. And the huge garage. I even love the sunny clean basement.
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I read an article about how people aren't getting married much any more, and those who do are marrying later. A short excerpt from
http://entertainment.verizon.com/news/read.php?rip_id=%3CD9ROE9JG0%40news.ap.org%3E&ps=931:
Heading into 2012, trend watchers note that barely half of all adults in the United States are married, and the median age at the time of a first marriage has never been higher — slightly more than 26 years old for women and nearly 29 for men.
In 1960, 72 percent of married adults 18 and older were married. The percentage fell to 57 percent in 2000 and today it's just 51 percent, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of census data.
The share of marrieds could dip below half in a few years as single-person households, single parents and couples living together outside the bounds of legal marriage multiply.
IMHO, it's due to two things:
- Women's liberation - when there were few lucrative opportunities for women, they pretty much had to get married to survive. Now, a woman can take care of herself; a husband is nice, but no longer a necessity. Therefore a woman can have higher standards and more choice.
- Collapse of moral values - once upon a time, living with someone you weren't married to was "shacking up", and socially unacceptable. An unmarried woman could not get a prescription for birth control. A young unmarried pregnant woman "went away" for a while, and the secret baby was put up for adoption, so her life wouldn't be ruined forever. That's just the way it was done, as late as the '70s. Now nobody needs a ring for sex. It's free and easy. This makes it easier for men to delay or avoid marriage.
(... until they get older. I'm seeing a lot of men in their 50s and 60s on online dating sites who are or claim to be desperate for marriage. I think they suddenly realize that having someone who cares is important. I am amused that women in the same age group aren't so desperate.)
Maybe that's the point of the suppression of women in much of the rest of the world, the fundamental religion parts. It's the only way to make sure every man has a woman to do his cooking and laundry. Who else would marry some of those guys.
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I spent all day running around. I went to the DMV and turned in the old NY plates for my cars. Then I wandered around Poughkeepsie for two hours trying to find my insurance agent - they'd moved twice since I'd last been to the office, and the letter I'd brought from home was an old one with the old address. I eventually found them, and discovered that even though Travelers' does insure in NJ, they can't simply transfer my old policy. I had to apply for a new policy. And contrary to what the rep at the main Travelers' office had told me, it's NOT cheaper in NJ. The new policy has only two cars (since I'd given Suzie to Daughter) but it's about $500 more per year.
Sigh. Remind me why I moved....
Anyway, they were able to get it all done and I got the "proof of" cards that I need to get the cars inspected in NJ. That has to be done next week.
Then I drove to Saugerties to my attorney's office to pick up the files from the closed estates - Jay's and his fathers. After going through them there, it turned out there was nothing I didn't already have copies of.
In the meantime, three different people over the past two days have tried to kill me, or at least seriously injure Hal. On three occasions, as I was driving down narrow city streets with cars parked along the curb to my right, the driver of a parked car suddenly opened their car door fully, swung it fast all the freakin' way, right into my path. I've heard of this happening, but until yesterday I'd never actually experienced it.
Hal is pretty nimble, so on two of those occasions I was able to swerve left and miss the door. But the third time, there was a car coming toward me on the other side and I wasn't able to swerve. I hit the brake so hard Hal took a nose-drive. I was doing maybe 25, and stopped in three feet, about six inches from the woman's door, stalling Hal. I'm just lucky there was no one behind me. The woman looked startled. I said nothing. Just backed up so she could close the door, and left.
Crazy people. I'm not going to yell at crazy people.
You know, I can't help but wonder if it was because I was driving a car registered in NJ, with NY insurance. Hmmmm. Now that my insurance is copacetic, maybe I will have no more threats.
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