....can be found HERE.

For the past couple of months I've been stewing.

You see, one day my son called me from school and asked me to get him because he had the death plague and just couldn't make it through the day. I was working so I made him wait an hour before I was able to fetch him. I was in a hurry to get him home but as I made my way to our street, I made sure I was going at a reasonable speed. I turned left onto our street and saw flashing lights behind me.

Stupid OV police.

The little dude asked me for my license, registration and proof of insurance but didn't tell me why he stopped me. But I knew.

Several months ago, they repaved the street off of which we live and they forgot to put back up the 45 MPH speed limit sign. At the beginning of the street it says 35MPH, then just before my street there's a sign that says, "Reduced Speed Ahead" then immediately following, another 35 MPH sign. Clearly they forgot to put the 45MPH sign back up.

For months I've been saying to myself, and probably out loud that if I ever got pulled over, I'd point that out.  Well, I got my chance when little police dude handed me back my license, registration and proof of insurance and told me I was going 48MPH in a 35MPH zone. And there have been many complaints about people speeding. When I told him there was a sign missing, he said, "Well ma'am, there's nothing I can do. I already wrote out the ticket." Wha?! For reals?? No warning? The street has been 45MPH for as long as we've lived here. A ticket? Really??

Of course, I was ineligible for defensive driving school because it had been TWENTY THREE months since my last stupid ticket and you can only take the course once every 24 months. (And have I ever mentioned that I had only gotten 3 tickets in the TWENTY ONE YEARS I had been driving in Massachusetts and in less than 2 years, I'd gotten 2 tickets in the OV?!?!).  I had every intention of contesting the ticket and when the day came for my hearing, I couldn't go because I had to work. The one woman who could cover for me was out of the office because her elderly mother discovered an 8cm tumor on her kidney. There was absolutely no way I could take the day off for any reason.

So I paid the fine. And have been complaining every time I drive down that street. Going 35MPH. Because that's the stupid speed limit. Feeling like a victim of extortion.

Then a couple weeks ago I noticed that they put up a 45MPH on the street.  I made plans to call the mayor. And every member of the city council. And the stupid president of the United States. I became even more angry.

Until today.

In my mailbox was a notice from the Magistrate indicating that the tickets that were given out that day were dismissed due to "improper signage" and that I would get a refund within 4 weeks.  Apparently my neighbors were able to contest their tickets and got them all thrown out!

Oh happy day!

In this particular match - OV Police - ZERO.  Ordinary citizens - $175.

My friend Ann Handley was my best friend in 6th grade. We used to write notes to each other every night and exchange them the next day in school. Long, thoughtful notes about what we were doing and how we were feeling.  We were 11. We were doing and feeling lots of things.

She went to a different high school than me and we lost touch. Shortly after I moved to Tucson, I went back to MA for work and we reunited.  That night at her house she pulled out some of the notes that we'd written 30+ years ago. She'd kept them all these years.  It was weird and fun to read them again. I don't remember the events that we had written about, but it was true, I *did* have a crush on her cute older brother. I remember that.

Anyway, Ann never stopped writing and now has a blog so that she can write about all those things that don't fit into the professional blog she runs.  I highly recommend that you check it out, and enjoy.  She is smart, funny, and insightful and friendly, so don't hesitate to comment. She'd welcome it.

I've been on the White Stripes email list for, well, forever and the guy that runs it sent out an email telling everyone about this new community website called Shelfari where you base your friends around books that you read.  My page is here. Join. Friend me. Tell me about books you've read. When I'm done with the three books I'm reading now, I will go to your page to find something else to read. I will avoid sucky books if you tell me they are sucky.

I just spent about 20 minutes sitting on the floor in front of a couple of bookshelves inputting all my books. Maybe I will eventually add all the self-help books I own. But not yet. I don't feel comfortable letting everyone know about my neurosis.

Thanks to all who rocked the party at our house yesterday.  It went on until after midnight complete with many, many tequila shots.

We did acquire lots of goodies including a red towel and a cool, what benlinus calls, a Fidel hat (CB!?!).  We'll return your hat, CB, and would like to return the red towel to its rightful owner.  If it's yours, or if you know whose it is, speak up, friends!

Happy Memorial Day! 

Thanks, plug_in_tomato  for helping us make the OV rock.

Here are pix of Cam playing Fur Elise and The Entertainer (aka the theme from the movie, The Sting, aka the ice cream truck standard song). Notice the child molester art hanging on the wall in the first one.

One of my new fave bands.  Check 'em out here and don't forget to click on the link to see their performance of "Swallow the Razor."

Who knew indie rock dudes (most of them are/were in indie rock bands) could rock so hard?  I bet their necks hurt for days after their shows.

I officially have a crush on Bryn.

I'm not sure if any of you know this story.  Some of you may.


Enjoy and let me know what you think!  The official press release goes out to all my old contacts by the end of the week.

Every so often I get so hooked on a song that I could play it over and over (and sometimes do) for hours and days at a time.

This is the song I'm hooked on now

It's going to take forever to go through all the pix I took last night, but here are a few for now....

If anyone happened to be watching the Channel 4 News at 6, you inevitably saw Brian Field, Traffic Violator, which is funny because he was at the Traffic Court contesting a ticket.

Even though I didn't get credit , it's still cool that the Tucson Weekly used one of my photos of Courtney Robbins for "Nine Questions" this week.

Pick up a copy and put it on your fridge using your favorite magnet. 

I've been tagged, however, but I am too lazy to perpetuate the tag.

Here are six things about me as requested by one of my all time fave people -parilous

1. When I was 8 or 9 years old, after practicing and practicing, I believed I broke the world record for most pennies caught from my elbow.

2. When I was 10 years old, I was late to my school band concert because two small airplanes collided near my house (we lived near a small airport) and my mom wanted to check it out but didn't want to go alone so she brought me.  They fell to the ground in a field behind my friend Marianne's house and I remember seeing the wreckage and the sheet covered bodies.

3. When I worked for Calvin Klein from the mid 80's to the mid 90's, part of my responsibilities involved working with their public relations department in New York.  The PR department had celebrities and high society people coming into the showroom all the time and Calvin Klein would supply them with free clothing (one time, for some reason, I ended up having a pair of jeans returned to me instead of the warehouse because Tom Cruise didn't like the way they fit.)  Most of the PR people were stuck up snobs, but the one person that I loved working with was Carolyn Bessette.  I never met her in person, but talked to her on the phone all the time.  She started dating JFK, Jr. shortly after he broke up with Darryl Hannah and just before one of the infamous Calvin Klein Inc. holiday parties.  There was a buzz going around the company a few days before as to whether she would show up at the party with him.  She didn't.  The following week I asked her why she didn't bring him.  She said that some people high up in the company suggested she didn't so JFK, Jr. wouldn't upstage Calvin Klein himself.  Ugh.

4.  My dad's best friend growing up in Allston, MA (and into adulthood) was Joe Dugan, Jr. son of Jumpin' Joe Dugan who was Babe Ruth's roommate and friend. I still have an autograph picture of Jumpin' Joe in a box of treasures at my mom's house.
 
5.  Up until high school, my mom made most of my clothes and I loved it.  My favorite outfit was a pair of overalls made with fabric with the Dubble Bubble Bubble Gum logo and red white and blue hi heeled sneakers.

6. My maiden name is MacInnes and my generation of my family is the last to have that last name.  My dad had two sisters and one brother.  One sister never married and never had kids so the name stopped with her.  The other sister married and took her husband's last name (of course) so their kids' last name is Zaino, not MacInnes.  My dad had two daughters and both took their (ex) husbands' last names (my sister didn't have kids and my kids have my ex husband's and now my last name).  My dad's brother had two boys who, theoretically would have been the only ones to pass on the name to the next generation.  As luck would have it, they both married wonderful women who already had children and they never had children of their own.

EDIT....

I have to post one more thing because I was talking tobenlinus about this last week and he told me I should confess more things like this.....

7.  Before the age of 10 or so I thought that once girls grew up and had breasts, their nipples disappeared.  I based this on the fact that none of my Barbie dolls had nipples and they were the only naked adult bodies I had ever seen. Then I had a peek at a porn magazine and realized that my Barbies were not anatomically correct.

That is all.

I'm still trying to put together all the photos I took last night.  Out of the 225 that I took, I got about 50 decent shots.  As I was going through them and cropping some stuff, I came upon this one:

Who are those girls behind the skeletons???!?



Ha!  I didn't think I saw either of them at the event (though I coincidentally ran intohollsterhambone at the Red Garter afterward) but apparently I did and didn't realize it!

More photos coming up!!

.... benlinus and I hit the Tucson Innovative Home Tour and the Tucson Solar Tour.  Very cool stuff.  I like these tours because you get to go into other people's houses and check out how they've built and decorated their homes.  Last fall I did the Native Seeds Garden Tour which is similar in that people open up their homes to show off their gardens.  Cool shit. 

They're my new favorite band.  I have crushes on every single one of them.

Mariah did the Camel Walk on stage with Southern Culture on the Skids.  More info and more photos tomorrow.....