Pet Peeves #2

I know I am not off my beam with this one. I'm writing this at 4 o'clock in the morning. An hour ago, I was rudely awakened by the repeating sound of "Warning, the police have been called / Warning, the police have been called." Yes, it was a car alarm - the noise seemed to be coming from just outside my bedroom window.

I wasn't sure if the police had, in fact, been called; so I did. The helpful dispatcher informed me that police were on the way but when I asked if they'd be able to shut the alarm off, he told me, "I hope so". Not exactly reassuring.

Why aren't car alarms like house alarms? If your house alarm goes off, the monitoring company calls you. Too many false alarms result in a fine. Car alarms should be no different. Then the owner of that blaring vehicle would also be awake at 3 and 4 in the morning. Oh, and did I mention that the car went off a second time? Yes, right after the police left from the first incident; and right about the time I was heading back to bed.

So instead of dreaming and renewing my cellular materials, I'm writing this blog. And, as you have now seen, I am completely ON my beam!

Pet Peeves #1

Littering.

There, done.

Okay, I'll write a bit more than that. There is a beautiful conservation area not too far from home called Rockwood (just east of Guelph). This park is used for camping, canoeing, swimming, caving, hiking, and many other activities. Camp Rock was even filmed there. And yet, despite the fact, or maybe because of the fact, that it is used and enjoyed by so many people - it is full of garbage. When the glaciers receded, they left behind these natural formations called potholes. Potholes can be a few feet or hundreds of feet in diameter; always a perfect circle. And the visitors to Rockwood use these potholes as receptacles for pop cans, cigarette packages, granola bar wrappers, and even diapers.

Here's another example: Algonquin. Beautiful, raw nature. Untouched, unspoilt wilderness. If, that is, you overlook the cigarette butts. Campers who are otherwise scrupulous about keeping the site clean and removing all garbage, will ignore the cigarette butts they've tossed here and there.

We've made drinking and driving socially unacceptable. I realize that littering is not a matter of life and death, and that perhaps it shouldn't be compared to driving while intoxicated. The point I'm trying to make is that we've used positive peer pressure to discourage our friends and family from drinking and driving; so can't we use this same peer pressure to discourage them from littering? It would make for a much prettier world.

As for the folks at Rockwood - maybe you could put a garbage can or two at the beginning and ends of the trails. And maybe you could contact an area school and ask them to "adopt" the park - then they could rack up volunteer hours by cleaning out the potholes.

Is this rant a valid complaint, or am I off my beam?

The First of Many Rambling Thoughts

Both my kids have ADHD. I always thought they inherited it from their father's side of the family, but recently, I find myself exhibiting the same symptoms as my children: losing my train of thought, blurting out random thoughts, being distracted by the slightest thing. So maybe I can't continue to blame this on their father.... that's okay, though, there's still plenty of other things I can nail him for.

But back to these brain glitches I've been experiencing. Let me give you a couple of examples. I'm in the middle of a conversation with a good friend. We're talking about, oh, say, her kids and their careers, their spouses, their dogs. A random thought about the website I wanted to check out pops into my head. A normal person would ignore this thought, or tuck it away in the memory bank to be pulled out later. But my brain is not acting normally, so I blurt out, in the middle of my friend's description of her children's dog-training woes, "I could Google it!" And the conversation screeches to a halt as we both try to digest what I've just said. Second example: I'm talking to my Pastor. I notice something uncomplimentary (say, for example, he has bad breath). Instead of keeping this observation to myself, I announce it to him (probably too loudly as well). "Hey, did you know you have really bad garlic breath?" When did the governor between my mouth and my brain get shut off?

I know you are all thinking this is an age thing. But I refuse to believe it's a sign of getting older. If I have to choose between senility and ADHD - between an old person's disease and a young person's disease - well, guess which one I pick?

So, it's up to you, dear Reader, am I off my beam?