Sing along in Traffic

Or, as I refer to it, 'traffuck'.
Yes, I still have the mind of a 12 year old, more or less.

I'm driving about 300 miles a week now.
Yippee.

I don't mind driving, I've always enjoyed it, but I like it better when it's a choice. I also like driving much more when it's not dark outside.

I leave my house about 5:45 AM when it's still very damn dark... and am zipping along on the freeway five minutes later. Out here in East County, they're going about 70. Or 80.

So I cruise along in the center lane since there are a few entrances into the flow and every third or fourth driver has NO friggin' clue how to regulate his or her speed and merge without causing someone else to either slam on the brakes or stomp on the gas pedal to get out of the way.

Idiots.

The lights of the other cars out at that hour are very bright and because I haven't even been up for an hour yet, I'm not awake enough to deal with much. Blech.

By the time I've been on the road for 10 minutes or so, I'm ready to turn on some music.

I've gone through a lot of different genres and eras in music over the past few months. All on CD, I'm afraid. The MP3 thing in the car doesn't work the way it should, I have to turn everything all the way up.

I don't listen to the radio. I hate ads.
Can't stand the talking over the beginning of the songs, either. Ruins the music for me.

Bach and Mozart and other classical stuff.

60s... pop and folk music.

Peter, Paul and Mary.

Did you ever hear the original Hootenanny with the Highwaymen album?
And no, I don't mean the imposter Highwaymen with Kristofferson.

I meant Gil Robbins and his band of merry men from the 60s.

The Beatles. I find the older I get the more I notice what really terrible musicians they were. But they wrote a lot of good songs.

70's hits... all the stuff I heard on the radio while I was growing up.

Neil Diamond.

Gordon Lightfoot. Saw him perform in LaGrande, Oregon when I was in the 3rd grade, so what, about 1968?

The Carpenters. I have always loved their songs. Singable.

Some country music. I love some of the really old country singers. Eddie Arnold, Roger Miller (does he fit country? Guess he was a crossover guy before it became a thing)
Johnny Cash.
Glen Campbell.

I'm a big Randy Travis fan, too.

Billy Joel.
John Denver.

I listen to stuff from the 80s.

I like some newer stuff, too. Jason Mraz, Weezer, Green Day. Ed Sheeran. Plain White Ts.

Lots of karaoke stuff.

Only stuff I really hate is rap (remember, you can't spell C-R-A-P without it) and opera.

I have a few movie soundtracks, too.
My perennial favorite is the score from The Sound Of Music.

I got an email from Google today while I was writing this post. I'm just a few miles short of 900 for the month of November. That's a lot of time to listen to music. And hate the lights in the early morning and the evening when I drive home.

Back and forth and back and forth.

Up at 5. Into the shower and out the door in 45 minutes.

When I get off the freeway, I have to drive down a major arterial street. Many homeless camps line the edges of the street. I've seen some, um, interesting things.

One morning I saw a man perched on the edge of a planter box in front of a business. As I approached, he stood up and zipped up his pants. It was then I realized he had sat there and taken a dump right next to the street.

I've seen camps on fire, people yelling at each other, burning cars. More than one close call with someone deciding to just head across the street when traffic is thick. People slam on the brakes, honk, scream profanities.

It's a little crazy on some days.

So I drive to my school. I usually arrive about 6:15. Then I have at least an hour before Jenna arrives. I use that time to go through things that need to be organized and make preparations for afternoon program. Sweep the floor, clean the sink, find little things I've been missing or that need to be put away. Sometimes the kids leave a game piece on the floor in the afternoon and no one notices. I have a little jar on my table for those items. Occasionally I take the jar and put everything back where it belongs.

This month, I'm making ornament kits in the mornings. I went to Michael's the day after Christmas in 2019 and got a bunch of them. They're always marked down to almost nothing. Definitely worth the trip and the year-long storage. The kids love it.

It was kind of weird not having to do that in 2020, but of course none of it got used that year.

All the prepackaged ornaments to assemble are in one big bag when I buy them, so I get little ziplocs and make packets so we don't have to do it on the fly in the afternoons. Too busy. When the kids want to make one, I hand them a little flat dish and a packet and tell them to go for it. I never have to tell them twice.

School starts at 8. I drop my kids with their teachers a few minutes before the bell rings and go back to my classroom to make sure stuff is ready for afternoon. Lock up the phone, put the lids on toy bins, wipe off the tables. Make sure paperwork for the afternoon is in order. Just preparations.

I drive home and do my best to get a nap.
There are days I have to go grab some snacks for the kids or I have an appointment, but most days, getting a little more sleep is my number one priority. Usually lying down by 10.

I'm up again about 11:45 even though I've relaxed all the way through and I'm warm and could probably sleep for six hours.

I do something with my hair, get dressed again and leave by 12:45 or so.

More music, more freeway driving.
At least it's daylight.

People don't seem to be quite as frantic while I'm heading to work in the afternoon. The freeway isn't as crazy. Usually not as crowded, either.

Parking in the little neighborhood on that tiny little street is usually difficult, though. I end up parking a block away some afternoons. Kind of a pain in the ass when I have stuff to haul into my site.

The afternoons are always hectic and more than a little crazy, but it's a good crazy. I've  said before that the best part of my job is the immediacy, but the most difficult part of the job is the immediacy.

It's never boring.

I've brought so much of my own stuff in that the kids aren't bored either.

When I finally get out of there in the evenings, it's usually 5:30 or so.
And it's already dark and I'm headed back to the freeway.

But I have to navigate that lonnnggg busy street again. There is a large homeless population along the whole corridor, and although I watch as carefully as I can, at least once a week I see a near miss. Or someone decides to step off the curb right in front of me.

So I have a bunch of CDs to go through before I head to bed tonight, trying to decide what I want to listen to while actually on the road isn't my favorite thing to do. I need to focus on the crazy and not be distracted.

So if you're in Portland and you see some fat chick in a silver Toyota singing happily around 6 AM on a weekday, it might just be me.