Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I had one sort-of good day this week ... fortunately it was while my cousins were still here so I did get to see them. And that was good, even if I do wish I'd been feeling better at the time. (I actually spent parts of two days in Bowie -- when folks went off the aquarium, I stayed at Mom's house to try to sleep before driving home, and I wound up sticking around through that evening as well.) I really wish I could've spent more time.

When I got home in the wee hours of Saturday morning, there were traffic cones set up the entire length of my block, right down the middle of the road, blocking off the left side of the street. It took me a moment to notice that there was a double-yellow line down the middle of the street, where there hadn't been one before.

As long as I can remember, Lombard Street has been one way westbound (and Pratt Street is one way eastbound). When I first moved in here, there were Great Big Signs about a proposed change to make Lombard two-way between Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Fulton Ave. There was a phone number to call for more information or to voice an opinion. I called it, and got ahold of someone who acted like I was stupid or strange for not knowing that the matter had been settled two years earlier. (Hey, I'm not the one responsible for taking down the signs, eh?) That was a few years ago, and nobody had any clue when the change was going to happen. To be honest, I'd mostly put it out of my mind. I've gotten used to living on a one-way street and parking on the left side. Now it's a two-way street, and I have to remember to come up Fulton and turn right, instead of coming up Mount and turning left, if I want to park in front of my house.

This is intended as a "traffic calming" change, the idea being that with one lane each way, a) folks looking for a bigger-seeming street will go up to Route 40 or something, and b) folks won't feel as though they can drive quite as fast. Speeds unreasonable for a residential neighbourhood have been pretty common as long as I've been here. (I drive fast, but I do it on the highways.) I don't know whether this is supposed to (or will) reduce the number of trucks coming through at night. There have been signs up (at MLK and a few places between there and here) prohibiting trucks on this stretch of Lombard between 7:00 PM and 7:00 AM, but I've never seen any enforcement when eighteen-wheelers rumble by. Perhaps truckers will be less likely to choose Lombard now that it feels narrower? Dunno. We'll see. I'm really not sure whether I like the change. Part of me wants to dislike it merely because it's a change. I'm trying to remind myself to wait until I have had time to observe the effects before making up my mind.

Anywho, if I've given you directions to my house and you want the ramifications spelled out, bug me for revised directions, ok?

I didn't get much done Saturday. Today (uh, "phenomenological Sunday" even though my clock says it's Monday -- I'm just headed to bed) all I really accomplished was keeping the cat company. (I wasn't even especially good at that Saturday). I did finally start on the Large Pile Of Dishes. Didn't get very far, but it's a start. (I don't like to let dishes pile up, and when I lived with housemates I tried to be very careful about that, but when I have a few Bad Days (fibromyalgia) in a row, they accumulate. This time there were some I didn't have time to wash before Pennsic, so I gave them a quick rinse and stacked them. Then I haven't had very many standing-up-that-long days since getting back, and on those days I haven't been home. So this is the largest pile of unwashed dishes that I have ever accumulated on my own.)

I've got some political observations, some cat observations, and meme-age to pass on, but I think I'll post those in a little while if I fail to get to sleep, or sometime in the afternoon otherwise. But I'll tack on one more item:

badmagic missed tactisle's Wednesday five o'clock poetry meme last week, so he's trying to get his own started for this week. Same basic idea as the original: at 17:00 (5:00 PM) Eastern Daylight Time, post a single line of poetry in your journal. That's Wednesday, 3 September.