Signs of....
Aug. 15th, 2021 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogvarious things, I suppose. One sign of this day was a lease I signed over 40 years ago, which began on this day in 1978. I've regarded August 15 as my personal Independence Day ever since, as a time to look back at where I've come and might be going. I've done posts about it so many times, you can pretty much randomly pick an August 15th one from the past 17 years and you'll read all about it.
::checks archives::
Or maybe not.
This one, from 2008, was the first, 30 years to the day after packing up and leaving the house I'd called home for 17 years and never would again. The most recent was ten 8/15s later and three of them ago, and it links to that first one and a few others in between. There's a homage to an Indigo Girls song (collaborators with Nanci Griffith, and Emily has already remembered), vague references to a cabbage, and the first time in my life I had to buy my own toilet paper.
So go read those if you want the skinny on when I was way less skinny.
Today was one of those transitioning August days that Western New York is beloved for. Warm but not hot during the day, cool at night, with just a hint of autumn in the air. I took Pepper on a trail walk just to celebrate the coming of some cool, then did a workout, then mowed the back yard to the sounds of three of Nanci's later albums including her last from 2012. (That whole album is available on the Prime Music app if you've got it.)
I also saw the latest in a series of signs I thought I'd write something about.
----
Driving to the trail with the dog, I passed one of those home-posted, passive-aggressive signs that you often see on side streets used as cut-throughs. I generally respect speed limits in any neighborhood with homes along the road, much to the ire of some speedsters at times, but if I see one of these and I'm below the speed limit, I'll make an effort to accelerate right up to it. This house, I've even seen them leaving their free-range kids out to play at the edge of the street with no adult in sight, no doubt thinking the cosmic power of the sign is going to protect them. Whenever I see one, I object to facts not in evidence. After all, not everybody likes their kids:
----
If you want to go faster, there are roads around here where I am less attentive to numbers on those signs. On the other hand, their NAMES are important.
Most of the major highways around here have names that are rarely if ever used. They may officially be the New York State Thruway, the Niagara Section, the Youngmann Highway, the Aurora Expressway or the Kensington, but all are universally known by number and by use of a "the" in front of them: the 90, the 190, the 290, the 400 and the 33. As close to here as Rochester, the "thes" are never used, so there you take 390 to 590 to 490. But all of them, in those cities and everywhere in the Northeast, are known as expressways. Some take on a proprietary spin on that, such as "the Thruway" here, "the Turnpike" in NJ or PA, or just "the Pike" in MA. But never, ever does one use the term "Freeway."
Until they did:
That's the onramp to the 290 where I get on to connect to the 90 to go to Rochester. They've been repaving it overnight for a few weeks, and when this stretch was finished a week or so ago, some strange beings from another planet put this sign in front of the turn. I have a high school friend who works as an highway engineer in Connecticut (also home to a "Turnpike"), and she told me this is total nails on a blackboard to her as well. She notices any time a tv show is set in these parts and someone mentions a "freeway." Must be some west coast writer who's never been here.
----
These last two aren't signs, as such, but more signs of.
First, of evil:
A friend posted that. I commented that it was perfect, except I'd have used a bar of Dove.
----
And then, of kind (and I don't mean a Kind bar;):
Three Saturdays running, I went into Wegmans around the same time and got the same cashier. Not unusual, because I tend to get smaller orders and they have only one 15-or-fewer staffed lane these days next to the self checkouts. I was struck each time, not by how she was with me, but how kind she was being to people ahead. At least two of those occasions were older customers, yes older than even this fart, who needed extra help with bagging, or running their cards through. After the last occasion, I decided to repay that kindness:
I know, from Eleanor working there, that this form will likely generate a "CARE Card" to Stephanie, with a copy of the compliment and maybe a free food coupon or a nominal gift card. But it tells her, you are noticed; you are appreciated, you are respected.
So if you're in one of their stores, or if your nearby Key Food or Ralph's has a thing like this? If you see something, say something; Eleanor ALWAYS comes home with extra warm fuzzies when she gets one. I can't go to her register ever for conflict reasons, and she has no idea who Stephanie is, but she appreciates the appreciation, whoever it's directed at.
::checks archives::
Or maybe not.
This one, from 2008, was the first, 30 years to the day after packing up and leaving the house I'd called home for 17 years and never would again. The most recent was ten 8/15s later and three of them ago, and it links to that first one and a few others in between. There's a homage to an Indigo Girls song (collaborators with Nanci Griffith, and Emily has already remembered), vague references to a cabbage, and the first time in my life I had to buy my own toilet paper.
So go read those if you want the skinny on when I was way less skinny.
Today was one of those transitioning August days that Western New York is beloved for. Warm but not hot during the day, cool at night, with just a hint of autumn in the air. I took Pepper on a trail walk just to celebrate the coming of some cool, then did a workout, then mowed the back yard to the sounds of three of Nanci's later albums including her last from 2012. (That whole album is available on the Prime Music app if you've got it.)
I also saw the latest in a series of signs I thought I'd write something about.
----
Driving to the trail with the dog, I passed one of those home-posted, passive-aggressive signs that you often see on side streets used as cut-throughs. I generally respect speed limits in any neighborhood with homes along the road, much to the ire of some speedsters at times, but if I see one of these and I'm below the speed limit, I'll make an effort to accelerate right up to it. This house, I've even seen them leaving their free-range kids out to play at the edge of the street with no adult in sight, no doubt thinking the cosmic power of the sign is going to protect them. Whenever I see one, I object to facts not in evidence. After all, not everybody likes their kids:
----
If you want to go faster, there are roads around here where I am less attentive to numbers on those signs. On the other hand, their NAMES are important.
Most of the major highways around here have names that are rarely if ever used. They may officially be the New York State Thruway, the Niagara Section, the Youngmann Highway, the Aurora Expressway or the Kensington, but all are universally known by number and by use of a "the" in front of them: the 90, the 190, the 290, the 400 and the 33. As close to here as Rochester, the "thes" are never used, so there you take 390 to 590 to 490. But all of them, in those cities and everywhere in the Northeast, are known as expressways. Some take on a proprietary spin on that, such as "the Thruway" here, "the Turnpike" in NJ or PA, or just "the Pike" in MA. But never, ever does one use the term "Freeway."
Until they did:
That's the onramp to the 290 where I get on to connect to the 90 to go to Rochester. They've been repaving it overnight for a few weeks, and when this stretch was finished a week or so ago, some strange beings from another planet put this sign in front of the turn. I have a high school friend who works as an highway engineer in Connecticut (also home to a "Turnpike"), and she told me this is total nails on a blackboard to her as well. She notices any time a tv show is set in these parts and someone mentions a "freeway." Must be some west coast writer who's never been here.
----
These last two aren't signs, as such, but more signs of.
First, of evil:
A friend posted that. I commented that it was perfect, except I'd have used a bar of Dove.
----
And then, of kind (and I don't mean a Kind bar;):
Three Saturdays running, I went into Wegmans around the same time and got the same cashier. Not unusual, because I tend to get smaller orders and they have only one 15-or-fewer staffed lane these days next to the self checkouts. I was struck each time, not by how she was with me, but how kind she was being to people ahead. At least two of those occasions were older customers, yes older than even this fart, who needed extra help with bagging, or running their cards through. After the last occasion, I decided to repay that kindness:
I know, from Eleanor working there, that this form will likely generate a "CARE Card" to Stephanie, with a copy of the compliment and maybe a free food coupon or a nominal gift card. But it tells her, you are noticed; you are appreciated, you are respected.
So if you're in one of their stores, or if your nearby Key Food or Ralph's has a thing like this? If you see something, say something; Eleanor ALWAYS comes home with extra warm fuzzies when she gets one. I can't go to her register ever for conflict reasons, and she has no idea who Stephanie is, but she appreciates the appreciation, whoever it's directed at.