The total incompetence of Rhode Island

From a call placed to the Rhode Island Department of Transportation this morning:

"Hi, I was wondering why 95 South was shut down completely last night, and there weren't any signs up warning people that 95 would be shut down."

"Um...what?"

"95 South was completely shut down last night. All traffic was rerouted through a ramp WITH A TRAFFIC LIGHT. I was sitting in traffic, in a dead standstill, for half an hour at 12:30 am. Why wasn't there a sign up, letting people know that 95 was going to be shut down, so that we could detour around? Also, maybe you could have disabled that traffic light."

"I don't show any record of 95 South being shut down last night. Maybe it was an accident."

"No, it was scheduled construction. I saw the construction vehicles. Why wasn't there a sign put up, a few miles ahead?"

"Maybe it was a sinkhole."

"No, it was scheduled construction."

"Our website has a list of lane closures, maybe you should check that."

"I did. There's nothing on there about 95 South being completely closed down. For that matter, there's nothing about 95 North being completely closed down in that same location, either."

"Um, then there shouldn't be any closures tonight, you should be fine."

"Great. Still doesn't answer my question about why there wasn't a sign up."

"Uh, let me check with someone on that."

(Long pause while I am placed on hold.)

"No one here knows anything about that. We don't have any records of 95 South being shut down. Are you sure it was last night?"

This is what your tax dollars are paying for, folks. 1. Total incompetence, 2. Total lack of appropriate record keeping, 3. Total lack of common sense.

How much you wanna bet I'll be stuck in that same no-sign traffic jam tonight?

The Hair Chronicles

I've had two full days off--in a row!--and I feel like a regular person again. I've almost recovered from last week's trauma, in which there were multiple highway accidents/construction incidents. On one memorable occasion, it took me two hours and ten minutes to get to work. It took me an hour and a half to get home, even in the middle of the night, thanks to lane closures/repaving on 95. By Sunday, I was ready to have a nervous breakdown.

But two days off goes a long way toward recovery.

In other news, I may have found a cure for frizzy hair.

Stay with me here.

I've stopped washing my hair.

My hair was getting super-frizzy lately. I'm not sure why; old age maybe? I noticed that when I got lazy and didn't shower for a couple of days, my hair got noticeably less frizzy, curlier, bouncier, and generally more attractive.

So I'm in the middle of an experiment, to see exactly how long I can go without washing it.

I'm still getting it wet every time I shower, and I'll usually get a good lather going on my bar of soap and then apply that to the roots. I brush it all the time, to move the oil from the roots to the ends, and once a week or so I give it a vinegar rinse.

But no shampoo and no conditioner.

It's smooth, glossy, insanely wavy, and has the most awesome bounce to it. I haven't noticed any downsides yet--no dandruff, no visible greasiness, and my husband swears my hair still smells normal.

Bonus: maybe I can stop buying shampoo and conditioner?

It's hot

Life continues apace. It's boiling hot and we don't have air conditioning. Which doesn't bother me so much, as I'm famously in love with heat, and also because I spend most of my days either in an air-conditioned car or an air-conditioned restaurant, but it does bother my hubby immensely. I don't like watching him turn white and clammy by the end of each day, and the physical misery isn't helping his mental misery at the moment.

Still unemployed, and another game studio in Austin is laying off a bunch of people. More people in the game industry unemployment line. It's getting to the point where I'm considering some sort of big radical change. I'd love to be able to say, "Fuck it," and just move someplace new and start all over, but DH will still be unemployed. Even just moving closer to my work, in Boston, would probably make him ineligible for Rhode Island unemployment any more. If this is going to be an extended bout of unemployment, I'd rather ride it out in a place I actually want to live, but I'd hate to move somewhere, have him get a job offer, and move all over again. More importantly, we're staying afloat right now only because I'm making so much, combined with his unemployment checks. Remove any of that, and the whole house of cards comes crashing down. And any attempts on my part to suggest that he get another sort of job in the meantime, any job, usually just earn me a sour look.

So he's hot and miserable, and I'm hot (and usually cranky). In better news, my container-garden cherry tomatoes are taking off, we've only spent $30 on food this month, and I'm all caught up on "Breaking Bad."

Home again, home again

The great thing about having an unemployed husband, and working in the restaurant industry, is that you can basically take a vacation whenever you want.

Granted, I'm not getting paid for that time off. But we no longer have to worry about parceling out a measly two weeks of vacation every year, or planning way in advance.

So we spent last week in Virginia with my family and friends (since the restaurant was going to be closed three days for the July 4th holiday anyway). I slept ten hours a night, I ate three meals a day--at normal times--and most importantly, I sat. A lot. I was almost completely off-grid, since I can't get a cell signal or internet at my parents' house, and the most strenuous thing I did all week was wander through the garden in triple-digit heat.

Have I mentioned lately how much I enjoy sitting?

I may have to take a week off again in a couple of months. I like not being tethered to the corporate teat.

Anyway, while I was there, I cooked a big meal for dear friends, and I caught up with another childhood friend that I hadn't seen in the better part of 20 years. I hung out with my niece, now 18 months old, read a few books, and finally got the dent banged out of the back of my car. (There's one thing to be said for country living--it's cheap. An oil change, fluid check, and dent repair for the Prius cost me all of $32. Total.)

I brought back a fair amount of my mom's garden, to feed us for the next week or so. It's back to the grindstone now--I'm working all week, and hubs is redoubling his job search efforts and applying for a lot more stuff. It may be a while before anything definitive happens on that front, so we both may have to get used to this new normal.