The Thing About Sleet Thunderstorms

Welcome to this week’s post! There are 2 parts to this one. You’ve got your regular post first, then at the bottom is the relaunch of something called the Coffee Analysis Project! So keep scrolling and LET’S GO

The Thing

Earlier this week, we had a thunderstorm roll through. Which isn’t all that unusual, except it was January and it was also 19F. The thunderstorm produced sleet. Quite a bit of sleet. This made the streets really slippery! And made it hard for even the most experienced drivers to traverse the roads. In fact, you could say that it’s harder to drive in sleet if you are a good driver. You are careful, mindful of others. You turn slowly, you give yourself extra room to brake. But if you are a sh*tty driver, you don’t give a rat’s patootie about any of that, and just go for it. Easy peasy!

the ground outside our back door. frozen solid!

My boyfriend was worried about his 80-something year old dad, who had to drive across town to pick up a family member. My BF called his dad to tell him to be careful since the roads were bad. I listened to the call—it was approximately seven minutes of this: “You’ll need to go slow. The roads are bad! It will take you longer. Yes, they are bad! Yes, go look out the window. I know that pickup just sped by, you’ll still need to go slow. Because the roads are bad. It’s sleet. So be careful! Yes, the weather is bad.”

I was like, what is happening here? I’m sure the BF’s dad understood the concept of sleet and bad roads, so that wasn’t it. Then I thought about my experiences with my own dad. Maybe BF’s dad was insulted (consciously or unconsciously) that his grown son had called him and basically pulled the “you are old” card.

Toward the end of my dad’s life (2021-2022, during which I spent a large amount of time in Cali with him), we had to start telling him to flat-out stop doing some things. He went through a spell where he kept falling. He was unsteady on his feet, but wanted to keep doing things as if he wasn’t. Oh, do I have some stories…

My dad loved “adventure.” He traipsed around Europe in his 20s, also Central America, and the US. All his life he loved to travel and see things and “have adventures.” When he was almost 80, he rode his motorcycle from LA to Tulsa for my birthday. He slept on picnic tables in rest stops and when he got a flat tire in the middle of nowhere it was okay, because it was an adventure.

Well, the older he got, the less adventurous the adventures became, but he still had a fierce sense of independence and wanting to do things his way. Sure, fine. But maybe when you are 87 and failing a little more quickly due to cancer, taking a 5-hour bus trip across LA to the USC Dental School (it was cheap!) isn’t the best idea.

It became a philosophical point of contention as well as one of safety and concern by the family. Actually, one family member said “go for it!” The rest of us, including my dad’s wife, said “Um NO!” I was firmly in the NO camp, having spent a few afternoons in the ER with him, after various falls and such.

But all of this produced a lot of moral hand-wringing on my part. I didn’t want to be the one to make his life smaller, I didn’t want to be the one to take his freedoms away. But what about when things become unsafe? What about when we didn’t hear from him all afternoon about whether he needed someone to pick him up somewhere, or what about his wife, who asked every hour where he was? What about the stress it put on everyone else in the family?

How do you basically tell someone no, but in a way that doesn’t make them reactive or that also, you know, doesn’t ruin the rest of their life? How could I be the bad guy, gracefully? That kind of thing is not my strong suit, to put it lightly. Much of the subtleties of human interactions are lost on me, and now I at least know why (thank you, neurodivergent brain), but knowing that doesn’t make these hard things any easier. But with my dad, at least I had one semi-bright spot.

My dad and I had a unique way of communicating with each other, both of us being rather blunt and pragmatic (and on the spectrum). So several times I told him hey, if someone you love and who loves you tells you something, maybe just stop to consider the source for a minute. Stop to consider that they love you, maybe they have a different viewpoint of what’s going on, maybe they have your best interests in mind and aren’t just trying to crash your party. Maybe you stop railing against the fact that they’ve spoken up, and just consider what they’re saying? His favorite response was to shrug and say, “No one can escape one’s destiny.” I wanted to scream at that one, but I kept trying. Sometimes he thought about it. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes not.

But I really do get it. When will be the last time I drive a car, or walk up a hill to the store, or take a bus across LA? Will it be when someone tells me not to? If that happens, if someone says hey Andrea, maybe you should give up such-and-such, I’ve told myself I’ll keep an open mind, consider the source, and not get belligerent just because I am a grumpy old bat. But no promises.

My BF didn’t tell have to tell his dad no. And other than the trip taking 3 times as long as it normally would, everything worked out ok. So that is good.

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Coffee Analysis Project #1

Welcome (back) to the CAP! I first started analyzing people’s morning drink in 2015, and have decided to see if we can bring this thing back over here on the Sub. The CAP is where I take a photo someone submits of what they’re drinking in the morning, and analyze their personality based on what I see. It’s totally scientific and accurate and I am qualified to do this JUST KIDDING, NONE OF THAT IS TRUE. But let’s give it a shot anyway.

CAP #1 is sent to us by JP, in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. Let’s see what she’s sent in:

JP’s morning beverage

And here is my official analysis:

Thank you dear JP for volunteering to subject yourself to my expert insight into the human psyche by way of the coffee cup!

Here we go.

JP likes to drink her morning brew at a picnic table in a house run by robots (the wall is monitoring her mental state via that not-so-indiscreet light/camera/mic on the wall, courtesy of one of those Big Tech Companies.) It also automatically orders toilet paper for her before she runs out.

JP’s husband is a lumberjack, who chopped down a tree with his bare hands and presented his darlin’ with a disc cut from the throat of his prey. He intended for her to use it the next time they went to the park to play disc golf, but she prefers it as a giant trivet for her morning coffee and “evergreen” plant collection.

Now let’s take a look at that cup. Cute kittehs, malicious caption. JP clearly has a passive aggressive personality. She may be all cute and friendly at first, but then if you don’t compliment her kids enough, THE CLAWS COME OUT and she will cut you. Give her plenty of space.

As for the “coffee” in the cup? That is not coffee. That is hot water with the leftover wood shavings from when her husband chopped down that killer tree. Roughage.

JP is made of strong stuff, y’all. She is fierce when she needs to be, she is cute kittens and cheesecakes when she wants to be. Bottom line, smile nicely, give her some scritches behind the ears, and then run for the hills.

Want to submit a photo of your morning drink? Hit reply and send me a photo! Include the drink and a view of where you’ve set it down. Please tell me where you live. I won’t use your name, UNLESS YOU ARE THAT BRAVE, MUAHAHAHAHAHA…