I was thinking I would watch King Charles III’s coronation live, but I forgot all about the time difference. To watch it live, I would have had to get up and turn on the TV at 2 a.m. That is so excessive. I am not going to be that extreme of a morning person just for coronation hoots and giggles.
I get up every Friday at 4 a.m. to write these columns, but as soon as I meet my deadline I go back to sleep. I don’t ever celebrate dawn. As I’ve said in the past, I think it’s silly to get excited whenever the sun comes up. You’ve seen it once; you should be satisfied. Your bed is your friend: Use it. It’s not good to stare at the sun, anyway.
Speaking of times to be in bed, this morning, the New York Times has a kind of revolting story about the illegal dumping of 300 to 500 pounds of pasta along a creek in New Jersey. The story details a local resident’s quest to find the source of the pasta. Initially, she thought the pasta was cooked because it was soft. An investigation later found it started out uncooked and softened because of rain. Local Italian restaurants denied being the source of the 15 wheelbarrows worth of pasta. Since the pasta included alphabet shapes, and Italian restaurants don’t generally deal in those, the denials were believable.
The story ended with the revelation that the woman looking for the source found that it all came from one private residence. But the story didn’t get to the bottom of the dumping. Why did the home have all that pasta to dump? Were they hoarding bags of store-bought pasta? Was there an Italian grandmother living in the house with dementia who just kept buying more and more of it, without realizing they had enough already? The fundamental mystery remains.
Rosebud? Really?
Personally, if I found out someone had dumped that much pasta along a creek down the road from me, I would just go home and go to bed. Fifteen wheelbarrows of squishy pasta? Gross. I don’t want to think about that. I want to be unconscious, please.
Have you ever noticed that sleep is a great way to reset your mind and regain your composure after seeing something disturbing? I highly recommend it.
Here’s local news that’s long overdue: Washington state legalized right turns on red and even left turns to a one way street on red more than 60 years ago. When I was a Seattle cab driver in the 1980s, I always exploited the freedom to turn on red lights. But there’s been an alarming increase in vehicle collisions with pedestrians and bicyclists in recent years, so the Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) is starting to do away with free turns on red in the city. I think it’s going to make walking in the city a whole lot safer, as long as you look out for bicyclists who run red lights altogether and don’t respect one-way signs.
I’m a little skeptical that all the “No Turns on Red” signs will have the intended effect, because I see drivers making illegal left turns off Third Avenue and First Avenue South all the time. But the thinking at SDOT seems to be that all the signage will have a cumulative effect. I hope so.
It’s so nice to see that King County libraries are now following Seattle libraries and eliminating late fines for overdue books. I can’t remember why, but at one time I used to have a King County library card. Why the heck would I arrange for that?
Oh, now I remember. I just had a temporary bout of dementia. Let’s just call it temporary for now, please. I lived north of the city limits for a year in 1988-89, in the house of “Mikey, the Class Act.” (Call-back to a 1997 Real Change cover I painted, “He lights your cigarette before he lights his own.”) The nearest library to that house was a King County library. Duh. The next nearest library was probably in Snohomish County, but I never explored that option.
I was dreading having to talk about the Proud Boy Jan. 6 convictions, but hey, look! I’ve run out of space! Yay.
Speaking of callbacks, time to go to bed.
Dr. Wes is the Real Change Circulation Specialist, but, in addition to his skills with a spreadsheet, he writes this weekly column about whatever recent going-ons caught his attention. Dr. Wes has contributed to the paper since 1994. Curious about his process or have a response to one of his columns? Connect with him at [email protected].
Read more of the May 10-16, 2023 issue.