Look Out for UFD's (Unstrapped-Flying-Dressers)

I decided yesterday was a great day to use my hour and a half of comp time so I left work in the late afternoon. My buggy puppy required a new bag of food, and we get a discount after spending a trillion dollars at this animal feed store, so I set off on the highway in pursuit. I am safely cruising within reasonable speeds, and this pick up with random bedroom items almost side-swipes my driver's side. Why he had difficulty staying out of two feet of my lane, I have no idea. Perhaps it was the desk chair with the frantic wheel/windmill-action that distracted them.

I slow down to avoid said pick up truck. A minute later, a drawer comes flying through the air and I have to swerve into the lane on my left to avoid it. Sorry old crummy van coming up behind me! Seriously dangerous. I see the truck weave back into my lane ahead. I am anticipating my exit, so I move all the way to the right. Just before the exit, traffic slows. This is normal, considering it is almost rush hour and it is Chicagoland on a weekday. Another few hundred feet and I see masses of reds and yellows, and whites splayed all over the four lane highway. Splintered wood and shattered fragments of dresser being avoided as cautiously as possible by all highway drivers. I couldn't help but laugh because it was just a ridiculous sight to see, but noting my drawer near-miss, I couldn't help but wonder how the drivers who almost got crushed by a flying dresser avoided major crashes. I didn't see an accident, so I assume things were alright for most. It was just nuts.

I had to swing by my husband's work afterward to do yet another errand. In regaling him with this tale, much arm flailing and face scrunching occured along with a whine about how I wanted to kill everyone on the road. Outside of his office it must have looked like we were fighting between hugs. I already apologized for yelling about his whistling the NCAA tournament song repeatedly, but that is another story.

I finished The Nine: The Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin. I started it last year and never made it through before I renewed it and still didn't read it. I am so glad I picked it back up. I concede, I was a bit of a constitutional law geek in college, but that doesn't mean this reads like a textbook. Personal details about each Supreme Court Justice from the Rehnquist Court & new justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts were shared. Some of the personal stories were hilarious to me, and I had to recite them to my (mostly but politely) un-interested co-workers. The history of the court appointments by the recent presidents and the case history came with the story and flowed through. It is inconceivable how anyone can sit by and not realize how important many of the decisions made by the judicial system are to us and our daily lives. Granted, some people don't even realize that we have a judicial branch in government, but I digress. This is my glowing review for a book that wraps up human nature, American history, and lots of true drama into one little convenient package. Read it and be informed.

I am one-half a book away from claiming my fifth-place victory in the Winter Book Challenge. I had to re-read a book with "Love" in the title, because I didn't find a book with a place in the title. (I've abandoned A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, sadly. It was too dull for me to get through.) My choice is Random Acts of Heroic Love - by Danny Scheinmann. It's relatively sad but beautifully written and my head is constantly full of pictures. Without giving anything away, one character wakes up in Ecuador to find his girlfriend died in a crash they were in. He is struggling to become whole again but remembers her constantly. The other character is re-telling his past experience fighting in WWI. There is supposed to be a connection between the two men and the very different time periods but I have no idea what it is yet. Like I said- the language envelopes and wraps you up in the story. I'm going out on a limb and saying, I like this.

Off to make a police report about our stolen mail. Again, another story. I secretly hope that whichever kid is stealing our movies shows up with our stolen baseball tickets at the game. Surprise! We are notifying the police when we get home and you're going to jail for a felony crime! Sorry about your high school graduation- you probably weren't going to make it anyway...