The Pond

I have a 40 minute commute to work and every day I pass this "pond". The water comes almost up to the road and it's really kind of an eerie looking body of water. It's very rustic and surrounded by brush and trees. There are trees that have fallen into the water and the water is muddy looking. I'm not sure if you can even get to it from the adjoining forest preserve park or not. I have never seen a person in the vicinity.

The area happens to be very attractive to the herons and egrets...the great big awesome birds. I can't even begin to tell you how much I LOVE those birds. I practically run my car off the road if I see one flying overhead because I want to watch it until it is out of sight. If I see one standing by any body of water I drive by, I just want to pull over and sit and stare.

I'm not sure where my love of these big birds came from, but it is probably just an extension of my love of animals.

If you have never seen a heron standing in it's nest it is quite a site. These gigantic birds have nests in the very top of the tree branches and I always wonder how the little branches can handle the nest and the bird standing in it. It's quite a site to see in the spring before the trees have leaves. There are dozens of nests in the trees, just like in the picture to the right. I wish I had a good camera so I could take pictures of them. Today's pictures are courtesy of Wikipedia.

Back to the "pond"....a couple of weeks ago I was driving past the pond and I really did almost drive off the road! There around the shore of the pond were at least six gorgeous herons and two beautiful egrets. It was as though they had convened for an important meeting or something. There are days when I might see one, maybe two along the shore, but eight amazing birds at one time was quite a sight to behold!

The wonderful birds took my breath away. I actually got choked up and almost cried. It was just the most amazing thing to see. I wanted so badly to pull over and just sit and watch them all, but there is no shoulder on that road and traffic is heavy in the morning....so I was forced to drive by.

I had to share my story with someone, but not many people I know would be moved by the things that move me. I e-mailed Irv as soon as I got to work to tell him because I knew he would at least say that it was cool, and then I e-mailed Matt because I knew he would understand...and he did. He told me there are times when he is walking home from work that he will see something that strikes him like that and will almost bring him to tears.

The picture is sketched into my brain and it is something I will never ever forget.

The Commute

I have a 20 mile commute to work each day. I leave at a very specific time in the morning. If I leave 5 minutes earlier than that time, I get to work way too early. If I leave even 5 minutes later than that time, I hit all kinds of traffic and have no idea what time I will get to work.

As you all know by now, I am obsessive compulsive about certain things and just plain anal about others. So, you can add "arrival time at work" to either of those lists.

My preferred arrival time at the office is 7:20 a.m. since I start at 7:30 a.m. On this fine morning, I pulled out of my driveway, got to the corner, turned left, made a quick right and I was on my merry little commuter way. I grabbed my plastic Zip Lock container with my two little hard boiled eggs in it (minus 3/4 of the yolks....the yummy little yellow nugget with all of the fat and cholesterol) and started to savor my first breakfast of the day. (I eat again later, but that's a story for another day) I got to the next corner at the same time as a nice white pick up truck. Being the very gracious and polite driver that I am, I let him go first...even though I really had the right of way, but I'm really nice like that.

BIG MISTAKE!!! REALLY BIG MISTAKE!!!

Now, I am not a speed demon nor do I crawl along like a certain man that I know whose name starts with I and ends in V. I usually do about 5 mph over the posted speed limit, but no more than 5 because the law might be lurking as they often do. On the expressway however, my mantra is, "Move over or I will run you over!" Just kidding...sort of.

Anyway, Mr. Pick Up Truck must have left his house really really early this morning, because he decided to drive 5 mph UNDER the speed limit!! Are you freaking kidding me?? I need to get to work by my preferred arrival time! To make it even worse, we are on a two lane road with no passing.

All I could hope was that when I turned right at the stop light, that Mr. Pick Up was going left or straight.....but oh no, of course not. There was his cute little blinker going blink, blink, blink as he crawled into the right turn lane. So I crawled in right behind him. The light changed and we made our turns onto the next two lane road with no passing. Putt, putt, putt, crawl, crawl, crawl....5 mph UNDER the speed limit for the next 5 miles! Maybe his speedometer was off....

Trust me, I don't suffer from road rage. I would never ever abuse another driver, so what did I do to deserve this? I'm sure it was some kind of test and I was failing miserably.

5 extremely slow miles later, there was his blasted blinker again signaling his right hand turn...just like me. Same thing at the next light only we went left this time. Now I'm thinking I am going to be late for work. Not that anyone there would care...just Kathy the control freak.

Finally, we were approaching the four lane highway. His blinker went on and he was still going my way, but it didn't matter now. We both made our turns and I immediately put on my left signal, changed lanes and flew past Mr. Pick Up Truck!

Now it was a race and I would need to catch every light green to get to work on time. If you commute, do you ever pray that the Green Light Goddess is there with you on your drive? You know the one that flips the switch and turns every light green just as you approach the intersection? Well that lovely Goddess was sitting on my shoulder this morning and I literally breezed the rest of the way to work....and after all of the moaning and groaning and fretting and stressing, I actually got to work at 7:15!!! HAHAHA!!!

In my effort this week to chill out a bit though...tomorrow I am going to try to slow down and just do the speed limit. I won't freak out if the guy in front of me is moving the speed of a three-toed sloth. This is the new me! Kathy the Calm......

Now just get the heck out of my way!