My Latest Lucy Moment

           I just got back from my Book Club’s Christmas gathering. We always meet at someone’s home for a luncheon, and someone else does a book review. But for Christmas, we all share Christmas books and stories we love, and even gift ideas.

          This time we met at the lovely home of a new member, about 30 minutes away for most of the gals. Her pretty home has been in magazines. Here are a few pics, before I tell you what happened:

          Driving off, I noticed Tina was pulled over.  I pulled up beside her and rolled my window down. “Just stay on this street until you hit Sunset, then turn left,” I called.

          And then, as I drove off, I noticed she was following me in her car. I thought I'd continue to wave at each turn, to help her find the freeway. A friendly, helpful thing to do, right? 

          We actually made several turns, and I waited for her to catch up a couple of times. Everything was going great until we got to Sunset. I looked over and realized IT WASN'T EVEN HER! 

             Yes, I had been motioning to a total stranger in a similar car, who probably thought I was complete lunatic. Or a creeper. Or a combination of both (a creepatic?)  She certainly didn’t suspect that I was being friendly or helpful.

          I sighed. It was anyone’s guess where Tina actually was. Probably way ahead of me.  So… if you need help finding your way, just dial

                                                  1-800-LucyStrikesAgain.

          And you might want to order my books. Check ‘em out here.

Joni Ricardo Does Italy Part 3

         I’m pretty sure there’s no law in Italy that says you have to stop at every gelato shop, but I didn’t want to take any chances. 

          And gelato was not the only enticement—check out this sign:         

          Between the food, sculptures, fountains, paintings, and cathedrals, we kept Uber drivers very busy. Why did we not rent a car, you ask? Ah. You haven’t been to Italy if you have to ask that. The answer is: Because we value our lives.

          Before going to Italy I’ve always said, “I don’t speak Italian but I drive Italian.” This was just based on what I’d heard. But believe me, I was dead wrong. There is no way I drive like the Italians.

          The entire population has some kind of Reflex Gene that helps them avoid collisions (though we did see two). They drive a zillion miles an hour, cutting over any lane or line they like, and maintain a distance of approximately one inch of space from the next car.

          I’m thinking every driver in Italy has disabled the beeping noise many cars have, where it alerts you if your car is too close to another object. Otherwise you’d hear nothing but ding, ding, ding, ding on every street! Nicole snapped this photo:

          While eating at an outdoor café Richie was facing the traffic, and said there should have been at least five fatalities, just in the time it took us to have lunch.

          St. Bob thinks someone should check people’s blood pressure at the beginning of a ride and then at the end.

And yet, they zoom along with their Italian Reflex Genes. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if traffic cops here in the U.S. give a special pass to Italians.  I can just hear it—

“Wait—your last name is Rosetti? You Italian? Okay then, have a good day.”

Stay safely inside and buy my books! Christmas is coming and a perfect gift for anyone, young or old, is ALittle Christmas Prayer.

 

What Everybody Thinks

          You may have noticed a few divergent views in the world today. But I am here to remind you that there are four things EVERYBODY thinks.

Thing #1: Everyone thinks they know what’s funny.  It’s been said that if you want to compliment people, you can’t go wrong telling them they have a great sense of humor.  Because, even if someone is not personally funny, they truly believe that they know what is. 

We all know this isn’t actually true; we see people guffaw at truly unfunny things, predictable lines in movies, low-brow humor, even immature outbursts.  And we pity them.  But it’s because we really do know what’s funny.

Thing #2: Everyone thinks they have plenty of common sense.  Even the most badly behaving person you know will confess that they were blessed with good common sense.  It’s everyone else who’s a dope.

Voltaire reminded us that common sense is not so common, and while this is true, no one seems to believe it.  Everyone thinks they, in particular, have an abundance of this virtue.

Thing #3: Everyone thinks they know how to drive well.  They see other people making horrendous mistakes on the road, cutting folks off, running stop signs, and changing lanes without signaling.  But they, personally, are skilled drivers. 

No one ever goes into the Department of Motor Vehicles, turns in their license, and says, “I just can’t seem to get the hang of this.”

Thing #4: Everyone thinks they know best how to run the country. Mark Twain once said it’s too bad that the people who really know how to run the country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair.  

I presume these same people think they have sharp senses of humor, loads of common sense, and can out-drive anyone else on the road.

And so you see that our nation is not so fractured, after all.  We will always agree on at least four things.

And I might add a fifth thing: That my books are a wonderful bargain!  Find them all right here.

NOT Our New Motto

          I have admitted to many a flaw in this blog (not all of them—I’m not crazy), and one of them is my, shall we say, tendency to drive a tad fast.  You can read about my racing the family mini-van here.

          I try to slow down when I have passengers, but apparently I am still scaring the daylights out of them because

1.   My closest friends refuse to drive with me.

2.   I gave these same friends crash helmets, as a joke, and they thought I was serious.

3.   People stare at me when I say a place is 20 minutes away and they all think it’s 30.

4.   When Nicole and a junior high friend were in the back seat a few years ago, the friend said, “Doesn’t this scare you?” and Nicole said, “Nah, I’m used to it.”

5.   This same daughter has told me I drive like Cruella DeVil.

I tried to find an outlet for my problem.  Let me rephrase that.  I tried to find a venue for my talents, but it turns out ambulance drivers have to be trained medical people as well.  Why they have to multi-task like that is beyond me. 

The other day St. Bob and I went out to lunch.  I pulled brilliantly into a parking spot (hey, if you don’t like screeching, don’t buy screechy tires) and Bob said, “I should drive so we stay alive.  Hey, that rhymes.  That’s our new motto.”

“That is not our new motto,” I said.

“Yes it is.  I should drive so we stay alive.”

“Repeating it does not make it our new motto.”

“Rhyming does.”  He was grinning, now.

“I should drive so we get there on time.  It doesn’t matter if this doesn’t rhyme.  There.”

We both ordered coconut cream pie, and believe me: We got it at least ten minutes sooner than we would have, had I not been driving.

Even my Youtube Mom videos are time efficient, folks—most of them run less than a minute.  Check ‘em out here.

Just Driving Around

I don’t understand boredom.  All one need do is to hop in the car and drive around.  At least where I live, you can be infinitely entertained.  Here are four vehicles I saw this week, just tooling around town:

          Yes, that says, “Placer Snake Removal.”  I live in Placer County, and I am happy to see an enterprising soul who is attempting to compete with my cat, Simon.  I don’t know how many reptiles this fellow has captured lately, but something tells me my cat could be his employee-of-the-week.

          Here’s a guy at the other end of the spectrum.  He loves animals so much that he cannot even take his motorcycle on the freeway without carrying his pooch along.  I have no idea how the pooch feels about this, but I do have an inkling how the highway patrol feels about it. 

          This one I’ll admit is the blurriest photo I will ever post.  I had to snap it from a distance, so you’ll have to trust me that this car is filled to bursting with hats.  That’s right, hats.  As if this car is the answer to the question, “What do you do when your hat collection overflows your house?”

          And, finally, I saw a truck that says, "Hannibal's Catering."  With a name that-- well, I’ll just let you draw your own conclusions.  But you and I are thinking the same thing.

          Help your friends ward off boredom, as well.  Tell them to subscribe in the little box at the top left of this home page—easy, peasy, boredom no moredom.

Joni's Rules of the Road

            My daughter says I drive like Cruella DeVil.

 

            My best friends refuse to get into my car.  And I hung onto the family mini-van long after the kids were grown so it could be my stealth vehicle, a car virtually immune to the attention of cops.  So I would never write a blog criticizing other drivers.

            Okay, just this once.  Can someone please tell me why they let people drive 40 mph on the speedway?  I mean the freeway?  How is forcing other drivers to swerve around you not a hazard worth a $200 ticket at the very least?   I seriously doubt that these people are paying one fraction of the attention to their task that I am.  In fact, in Joniopolis, you would have to qualify to get on there, the same as you qualify to be in a race.

            And why aren’t we testing people’s reflexes when they renew their licenses?  If you lack the skill to avoid accidents, aren’t you now in the category of causing them?  Driving is not something everyone should do, despite the outcry that even the sleepiest among us should be able to steer tons of metal at high speed so they can get themselves to work.  Let’s face it: Not everyone is qualified to perform surgery, not everyone is licensed to practice law, and not everyone should be hurtling down the highways without a brain in their head.

            I admit I go a wee bit faster than I should.  I once raced the family mini-van at the local speedway, and sold an article about it to Woman’s Day magazine.  It was the Fourth of July (hence free admission—I am nothing if not a tightwad), and we had just come from the annual church pancake breakfast in the park.  I had heavy wrought iron griddles in the back, a carload of family members, and a Jack-in-the-Box ball on my antennae.

            When I got in line for a white number to be painted on my windshield, I discovered that 9009 looks great from outside, but spells “Poop”  for those of us sitting inside.    I noticed the other drivers (all the ages of my children) had their hoods popped up with ice packs on their engines to cool them.  They were wandering around looking at each other’s engines.   I popped my hood open as well.  Nobody came by to look at mine, so I busied myself by reading a Bon Appetit magazine as I waited for my turn.

            And finally it was time to screech my silver van through the bleach troughs and out onto the quarter-mile straightaway.   It was glorious!  I think I beat a Mustang next to me.  Then I was told the idea is to duplicate your speed a second time, so I hurried around to do it again.  Only this time the meanest woman in the known universe came up and demanded that I empty my car of passengers.  Apparently this is an un-posted rule (where was she earlier?) and unless I complied, I couldn’t race.

            It was all about safety, she said.  Aha.  Forcing my husband and two of my kids out into the middle of the race track, to run for their lives towards the bleachers, was obviously safer than letting them stay in the car.  Incredibly, they made it to their seats before getting run down.

            But now the weight of my car was thrown off; how could I possibly duplicate my score?  Well, I’d simply have to try my best.  Once again I watched for the green light and went zooming out ahead of the car next to me.   And again I was given a slip of paper with my time on it.  At this point my 19-year-old son, who raced there all the time, came jogging up to see how I had done.  I, of course, had no idea what any of the numbers meant, but I knew victory was mine when his eyes narrowed with jealousy and he said, “Let’s see you do that again.”

            But no further demonstration was needed.  I had raced once, then twice, and had a nearly perfect performance.  No need to dilute the waters of success; my score was as good as a trophy.  Even the teenagers were giving this mini-van mom a thumbs up.

            So I’m just saying it might be a good idea to include a similar exercise before licensing people to get on the freeway.  Those who fail can take surface streets, enjoy public transportation, or ride their bicycles to work.  The world—and the freeways-- would be a safer place.