**********************

Hi:

As you know, we (the moms on this street) have an issue with how fast you drive down our cul de sac.
We know that you feel that because you are driving the speed limit, you are being safe.
However, we want to share that California law states the following:

“You may never drive faster than is safe for current conditions. For example, if you are driving 45 mph in a 55 mph speed zone during a dense fog, you could be cited for driving “too fast for conditions.”

Regardless of the posted speed limit, your speed should depend on:

• The number and speed of other vehicles on the road.
• Whether the road surface is smooth, rough, graveled, wet, dry, wide, or narrow.
• Bicyclists or pedestrians
• Whether it is raining, foggy, snowing, windy, or dusty.”

You are no doubt aware that many children play on this street. We are appealing to your good sense and asking you to please slow down because the posted speed limit that you are driving is too fast for the conditions (children playing) on our cul de sac.

To us, this isn’t a matter of “who is right” and “who is wrong.” Or whether we “should” or “should not” allow our children to play in the street. The reality is that our kids do play in the street and as a driver, it is your responsibility to slow down for them.

You know the kids are there. The kids do not know that you are behind them in a car traveling 35+MPH. Please drive more responsibly.

If there is a continued problem with this issue, we plan to contact the neighborhood police station and have an officer explain the above law to you more fully.

Thank you,

The moms on Blah Blah Blah Lane

Still, it takes a lot for me to seek conflict. (Unless it’s with The Rock, and for the record, he says, THAT blows.)

But today, today, I chick fought the heck out of it. Oh I attempted to stay out of it, I really did. But there’s just those cases where you can’t, you know? Like if someone cuts in front of you at Cold Stone?

THIS was one of those times.

There’s this mean mom, see. For a visual, she looks like Christine Baranski if Christine Baranski were a crack whore.

Oh my God. Total resemblance.

At any rate, she drives her freaking minivan down our suburban cul de sac street every day to pick up her child at a home daycare and she FLOORS. IT. I’m talking 40mph in a kids-are-playing-zone.

She’s been nicely asked several times to please slow down. Her answer? You should put more “kids are playing” signs up. What I’m thinking? You can see the kids playing, butt nut, take your crack-whorey Christine Baranski foot off the accelerator.

But still, she speeds, literally speeds, down our one-way street. With kids on it. Every day. She obviously is trying to prove a point. But her point? You can’t tell me what to do. Our point? Please don’t kill our children. Kinda trumps her Christine Baranski crack whore point.

Anyway. Today.

Today, my neighbors and I were talking about oh I don’t know, banana bread and Jagermeister (oh! the suburbs.) and we heard, rather than saw, the Christine Baranski whore rounding the corner (the blind corner may I add) and continued to stare aghast as she sped to the end of the cul de sac, narrowly missing three-year-olds and a tetherball.

Well, this was it. My neighbor, who had spoken to this lady many times about the lead foot deal, asked me to speak up today. And instead of stepping up, my stomach roiled and my sense of propriety peaked. Why, I couldn’t! Christine Baranski whore might not like me! What? Save innocent childrens’ lives? What if I don’t have any friends as a result of doing so?

I’m a real insecure number.

BUT. BUT. This lady comes back around on her departure, and as my neighbor flags her down, Baranski flashes this tight, purse-lipped, judgmental bloodless smile and I knew we had a chick fight coming. I cannot stand stick-up-your-ass sorts. Know-it-alls. PTA moms with superiority complexes. Bloodless Christine Baranski whore smiles. It was so, so ON.

And what happened next? Raised my rankles in such a way that I approached the car with purpose, with verve, with CHICK FIGHTINESS, and I’m still breathing hard.

So this lady says? THIS. LADY. SAYS. “Don’t you have backyards? Why don’t you put your children in the backyard?” AND. THEN. “I’m going the speed limit. The rest is up to you. Get your kids out of the street.” AND. ALSO. “I don’t let my kid play in the street and you shouldn’t either.” And it was there, right there, that I strode to the car and said, “IT DOESN’T MATTER IF YOU ARE GOING THE SPEED LIMIT IF IT IS NOT APPROPRIATE FOR THE CONDITIONS, I.E. KIDS PLAYING IN THE STREET, SLOW THE HELL DOWN. and “YOU HAVE BEEN ASKED MANY TIMES TO SLOW DOWN ON THIS STREET AND SO ARE AWARE THAT IT IS AN ISSUE AND SO SLOW THE HELL DOWN,” and “YOUR CHILD IS 6 MONTHS OLD. WAIT UNTIL SHE IS 3 AND TRY TO KEEP HER IN THE BACKYARD, AND MEANWHILE SLOW THE HELL DOWN” and “WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE A CHRISTINE BARANSKI WHORE, YOU CHRISTINE BARANSKI WHORE?” and “THIS IS A CUL DE SAC SMACK DAB IN THE MIDDLE OF SUBURBIA, AND THERE WILL BE KIDS PLAYING IN IT AND IF YOU ARE THE SORT TO KEEP YOUR KIDS IN A WHITE-CARPETED STERILE BORING SILENT HOME AND REFUSE TO LET THEM PLAY OUTSIDE THEN PITY THE CHILDREN WHO GROW UP WITH YOUR TIGHT-LIPPED ASS,” and “SLOW THE HELL DOWN.”

Right, So that was my chick fight.

Christine Baranski strode on in her minivan with her 6-month-old sure-to-be-like-Reese-Witherspoon-in-Election and I stood in the middle of the street with my mouth agape, dying to put on my fringe leather jacket and rumble like it was 1988.

And in all seriousness, how would you handle this? My more assertive neighbor wants to buy a crapload of “Kids At Play” yellow signs and place them in an obstacle-course-like configuration so Christine Baranski has to slalom her way through our street. I say we put up road blocks and charge her a “bitch toll” to pass through. Either way, I’m thinking I’m about to rip her pursed lips right off, which wouldn’t be very suburban of me.

Please post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.

First time to PROMPTuesday? Read a bit about it here.
Want to see what’s been written in the past? Catch up on the PROMPTuesdays archive here.

And a teaser: I get to give away a holiday dinner package! For people to eat! There will be eating by people. Of the holiday package. Of course, someone will need to cook it, which may or may not freak you out. I’d enter this thing myself, but The Rock pays me not to cook (including, but not limited to preparing foodstuffs that require mixing, combining ingredients, and heating items that are supposed to be edible after removing them from a heating apparatus) and I really need to make a salary this month.

In other news, I’m so awesome!

(Just doing my positive affirmation for the day.)

I’ve long been frustrated by my astrological sign. As a November 22 birthday, I dangle on the cusp of Scorpio and Sagittarius, and oft wish to be one or the other so I’m not loafing about in no man’s land. I feel identity-less, especially when people say, “He’s such a Taurus,” or “Well, what do you expect from an Aries?”

Me? I’m neither one nor the other, not here or there, a little bit wishy and a little bit washy. Honestly, I think I’d rather be a Sag, because they seem so fiery and joie de vivre, unless you totally piss them off, rather than a Scorp, which…wait, is that the one you don’t want to piss off?

Eh, whatever.

For this week’s PROMPTuesday, write your own horoscope. Make it reflect your hopes and dreams, or go 180 and David Lynch with it. Whatever you do, make it yours. I’ll just sit here and wait. ‘Cuz that’s how us Scorp-Sags roll.

Please post your submission in the comments OR post in your blog and leave a link to your blog in the comments.

First time to PROMPTuesday? Read a bit about it here.
Want to see what’s been written in the past? Catch up on the PROMPTuesdays archive here.

Me: OK. Don’t tell me right now.

Toots: Enrique tried to kiss me last week at school.

Me: And?

Toots: I told him it wasn’t a good time.

Me: When did you tell him would be a better time?

Toots: Later.

Me: Like later this year? Or later in 2025?

Toots: I KNEW I shouldn’t have not told you!

(We had more conversation about this particular topic. And I’m pretty sure I blew it.)

Recently, I decided to give a listen to some “world” music and other tunes completely foreign to my element because I wanted to jump out of my skin a little. I tend to listen to angsty, melancholy, folky, inner soul kinda stuff, and thought I should mix it up and tune my ears to something else, which I’m sharing here (although some of it is still angsty and melancholy — just in another language).

Due to extreme Sunday laziness, I am posting a link to my iTunes imix…but here is a list of the songs in textual (that word cracks me up) format:

I feel more cosmopolitan and loungey already.

I met some interesting people. Most I don’t talk to anymore. One doesn’t talk to me anymore because she didn’t care for The Rock and would be really pissed to know I’ve married him and bore his progeny. And one I remember fondly because he was a down-to-earth (hard to find in LA at that time), nice guy. This guy, J, would light my cigarettes (I’m really making myself sound like a trashy ho-bag, aren’t I?), tell me when Ben & Jerry’s started carrying the Blondie Sundae flavor, and even helped The Rock move me out to San Diego. Good stock, he was. Also creative and liked music as much as The Rock and I did. So we wanted to keep him in our friend queue.

But things happen. Life travels along like a river (or barrels by like a white water rapid) and you lose touch with people. I recall one trip to LA in 1998 where The Rock and I went to visit J at some hip establishment where he worked and he alluded to a cool gal he was dating who was a stylist to the stars, and that was one of the last times we saw J.

But you know, Facebook can change all that. And so it was. I friended J a few months ago, and was delighted to see he married the LA stylist and is the father to two beautiful boys. And then? I discovered the LA Stylist has a blog and a Twitter account and that she was funny and gave fashion advice and egad! what more could I want in a virtual best friend? (She does not know that she is my best friend yet. I want to be the one to tell her.)

Even better than that? The LA Stylist gave me certified advice regarding what to wear to a black tie event. I thought I could wear a burn-out velvet dress. She assured me I could not. I thought I still could. She gently suggested that I not. I still thought maybe I would get away with it. She nicely said hell no. So maybe a sheath, I said? Depends on the fabric, she replied. Cotton? I offered. Probably not, she countered. And on and on we went. She even sent me links to stuff and offered to shop online for me and overnight something.

So forget J. His wife is where it’s at.

Thanks for the memories, J! Now tell your wife to call me.

*I would love to tell you more Mezzaluna stories some time.

And they don’t even know me well yet. We have kids in the same elementary school, but to them, I’m just a naturally beautiful fashionista with peaches and cream skin that they can’t believe has had two children, what with my svelte frame and all. So how do I explain my “other” life? The one I live almost entirely online? I felt like I should rip my blouse off and show my “SDM” t-shirt underneath.

Turns out I mumbled something along the lines of “aimless,” and “just this thing I do,” and “hey! free food!” I don’t know why, I mean I blog publicly for goodness gracious sake, but there’s something about having people I see every day know that I suffer from subarachnoid hematomas and pragmatically inappropriate syndrome and possibly Epstein Barr (girls! I’m a hypochondriac) and am bombarded with hot flashes and uncomfortable moisture in my secret places (and I’m perimenopausal!) and I like poo humor (I have Bobby Brady brain!) that makes me self conscious.

I mean I have enough trouble keeping people who know and love me around, what’s going to happen when women I’ve known for all of three months read my deepest darkest? Not helping matters was that last night I was an absent-minded maniac who kept starting sentences and not finishing them, who misplaced four 1′ x 1′ serving platters and spent the whole party blaming a ghost (that story in Part 2 of my insightful essential oil party coverage), and stared meaningfully into one guest’s eyes and said “I SO appreciate you being here.” Which I did, but over-emote much?

I’m used to being odd in person. It happens all the time. But odd online?

Well, I guess I’m no stranger to that either.

Did anyone else out there get outed recently?