We had a restful Christmas with Su’s mom in South Carolina and got back on the road to DC early yesterday morning. Our northbound traffic on I-95 moved along at a good clip but the other direction was another story. At around 9 am an accident involving some semi-trucks really backed up the southbound traffic for about 10 miles. Hopefully everyone was okay. All the vehicles seemed intact but there was stuff all over the place. Traffic was being rerouted by police onto a side road thus the really bad back up. Several miles from the crash where the cars were bumper to bumper we saw something rather unexpected. One person stuck in the jam decided to try a u-turn across a deep and wet median strip but unfortunately the vehicle just got completely stuck in the muddy mess.
I was really struck by how incredibly embarrassed that driver must have felt. There were hundreds of people stuck there watching the whole thing. Mired in muck, and nothing to be done about it until a tow truck could arrive. But then the more I thought about it the more I realized that I had no idea how the driver felt. In other words, just because my reaction would have been one of sheer horror at everyone gawking at what an idiot I was, perhaps other people in that same situation wouldn’t have been embarrassed at all. This is giving me something to think about. I also assumed that every other person witnessing this from both sides of the highway must have been thinking “what an idiot” but then again, maybe they didn’t think that at all. So my reaction would have been to what I assumed others thought. Again, something to think about.
Anyway, we brought our little kitties Harley and CJ back with us. They seemed to enjoy their 4 week vacation at grandma’s (we went there at Thanksgiving too and instead of transporting the cats 4 total times we left them there so they’d only be subjected to the 8 hour trip two times.)
Did you know that cats can operate the windows on cars? Or at least we learned Harley can. We don't leave them in their carriers for the whole time so they were sort of like "free range" cats at times. The window went down around an inch and Su heard the rushing wind right away. I think he was more scared than we were. Fortunately using the control buttons on the driver's side, I was able to return the rear window to its secure and upright postion, and the window lock button was quickly engaged. Susanne and I filed away another lesson learned for travel with cats (and children). They are both happy to be home, and last evening we were not too surpried to hear a familiar crashing sound. Our curious cats. Yeah, they’re back and it's a good thing our house is cat-proofed!
Susanne is doing well—she’s at week 16 now and even though some people can begin to feel the quickening at 16 weeks we are figuring it will take a few weeks longer. I love watching how her body shape is slowly changing. Sometimes she seems to look obviously pregnant and other times she looks the same as always. She is still wearing her favorite jeans, but not too much longer we expect. But that doesn’t mean anything. After this week of delicious meals and desserts my jeans aren’t fitting so well either! -Monica
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