The Joys of Commuting!

I was up at 0430, showered and dressed by 0530, and out the door at 0540. I should have gotten work at 0600.

One itty-bitty problem... those thunderstorms that would be before noon where well before noon. It was not yet 0545, and the sky was nighttime black, lightning occuring off to the south, thunder rumbling. The moment I got onto Route 80 West, the sky opened up and it poured. It poured like crazy. The visibility was so bad I had to slow down considerably. I thought about pulling over but I have never felt safe doing that. If the visibility is that bad, another car might slam into me. So I was down to 40 miles per hour, but I'm okay with that. Other people didn't like it but hey, too bad. My safety comes first.

So I got into work but it was still pouring out, so I had to retrieve my umbrella from the trunk (yes, I'm an idiot). I managed to get it out, but by then the rain and humidity has undone my hair. I worked very hard on blow drying it so it would look nice and it was ratty then. Hmmmph.

I heard the all-clear sound on the course, but not long after, I heard the siren go off. About fifteen to twenty minutes later the all-clear sounded again. It was a dark and stormy day. Like Snoopy would write, but it's actually the opening line of Madeliene L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. It is a wonderful book, like all of her books. I love her books. Anyway, I was in a meeting with Eric when I heard the rain pouring again. We wrapped it up and sure enough, a good, steady rain was coming down.

Oddly enough, despite leaving work at 1650, I was able to turn right out of the Club drive, onto Shunpike, and I made it out to Morris Avenue with no trouble. Except for the sky opening up again on the trip down Whippany Road, I had no trouble at all with traffic. It was incredible!

It's getting to be near August!

I so love commuting this time of year. Everyone is taking vacation, and the roads are more and more empty. It's not at all like normal New Jersey traffic. It's really great. New Jersey is a great state and I'm completely happy living here, but the traffic does get old. I normally keep the positive attitude that this is part of life and getting upset about sitting in traffic is pointless. (It is... why stress over that which you have no control?) Even I run out of the positive stuff sometimes and need to have a break. Mid-Juoly through the first week or two in September is that break.

It's obligatory vacation month, as I call it. The "I-must-take-my-wife-and-kids-on-vacation-or-she'll-kill-me" month. Business men (especially) spend an inordinate amount of time at the office to escape the small kids thing. By the time the kids are older, the habit is so well-ingrained that it is just life. I can get that, a lot of people do this and kids are annoying. But that is sticking the wife with the onus of dealing with kids all the time. So this is the time of year when men atone for this. They don't realise it and I'm sure that the wives are no more conscious of this than the husbands, although they must get really frustrated that they're not home to help out.

None-the-less, they have to go take them on vacation, or it is divorce city for them. And traffic-free weeks of driving for me!