REFLECTING ON A TRAGEDY HERE IN VERO BEACH

On 1/15/20 a young woman, Grace Rett a member of a Massachusetts rowing team was killed in a traffic accident right here in my hometown. She died instantly. Others on the team were injured, some seriously; the horrific scene was described as looking like a war zone. The team's van pulled in front of a pick-up truck while making a turn, both had the green light!

Grace was a standout who set a world record for indoor rowing just last month. In other words, someone with a bright future ahead now cheated of it by death; even more tragic she had turned 20 years old just the day before!

Reading this, I felt sick. I had just turned 69 only a week to the day before this accident.

In 2000 when my father was handed a death sentence at age 85 after his cancer had spread. I asked, if 10 years ago someone had told him that he'd outlive both Princess Diana and JFK Junior would he have believed them?"

Why and when we are taken seems way too arbitrary. And many of the most promising ones seem to be taken the earliest.

I am quite familiar with the spot where the accident occurred. I've almost been whacked there myself a few times! For that reason I refuse to make the turn from that direction even if it means driving out of my way. Of course a driver from another state would be unfamiliar with this intersection.

I'm just guessing, but I suspect the driver of the van carrying the team expected the truck to stop or at least slow down instead of plowing right ahead. But everything is still under investigation, perhaps no one was fault!

From my own experience I've made left-hand turns immediately after the light turned green while seeing another car in the distance thinking we both had time to make it thru the intersection safely. However, instead of slowing down the oncoming car shoots straight towards me at full speed blowing its horn! It always astounds me why someone would risk my life and theirs just to save a few minutes! Yet these fools are out there and they are legion!

And people wonder why I have anxiety attacks on the road and freak out whenever I must drive to an unknown location! I know we all have a death date tattooed on our souls, it's inevitable. But I don't want some paramedic scraping me off the dashboard. So I continue to be cautious and drive like the old lady I am. Unfortunately, sometimes you can do everything right and still go wrong.

THIS WEEK LAST YEAR

That week was a special one, but memorable for all the wrong reasons. I should be titling this post: The Brazilian Blow-Out Blows!

My birthday was the week before, but unfortunately I'd been suffering a miserable cold and all my celebrating had to be postponed. Now I had 2 lunches with 2 different friends back-to-back, one on Tuesday the other Wednesday. I wanted my hair to look especially nice! So on Monday I decided to splurge at a Beauty Salon. -- Big mistake!

First, I went to Super Cuts. I was turned away along with another customer because they were holding a staff meeting in the back. -- Staff meetings are supposed to be held AFTER business hours and you NEVER turn away paying customers!

I drove to another plaza where a new place, Classy Cuts had recently opened, only to find them closed. At the far end of the plaza was another salon I call "Hair Iffy". I'd been there before and really didn't want to return. They were expensive and I left with a style that made me look like a MAGA member of the PTA. But at least I was able to restyle it to something I could live with, so I decided to walk over.

The salon was deserted except for 2 stylists. I guess Mondays were slow and that's why the other place was closed.

My hair was long again, but after I ceased coloring it refused to hold a curl. Also that wondrous natural wave when short had now turned to frizz. It wasn't growing out pretty so I was forced to wear my hair up most of the time.

"Oh the Brazilian Blow-Out will fix that!" the stylist in charge assured me.

The procedure was obscenely expensive taking long, tedious hours, plus it required a special shampoo. But I was promised the result would be worth it. Never was it mentioned that every hair shaft would be flat against the bone with a glued down appearance. I ended up looking like a chemotherapy patient who had lost half her locks! I didn't want to go out in public like that and complained!

"It will look fuller after you curl it," I was told. "And the frizz will have disappeared."

At home, I dampened my hair and rolled it into 4 gigantic pin curls and put a wig over it. Now I could go out with confidence. Returning home later, my hair was dry and I combed it out. -- It was nothing but FRIZZES! 

Furious, the following day I returned to the salon and demanded my money back for everything including the tip! The woman in charge told me to quiet down; I was upsetting her customers and staff. One customer told me I looked fine and that I was a beautiful woman. I replied that if she thought that, she needed cataract surgery worse than I did the year before!

Plus I had been lied to! This was not the promised result!

The stylist who did my hair ran crying into a back room. Everyone thought I was a terrible and just plain mean person. -- However I'd paid all that money and was ripped-off!

The woman in charge complained that 3 hours had been spent on me when the stylist could have been working on other customers. -- What others? I was the only one there the entire morning! That's probably the reason they suckered me into an expensive procedure totally unsuited for me.

Anyway, I got half my money back which was better than nothing. Later, I had my hair slashed short to an extreme at another salon.

This was the kick-off to another really bad year.

A WISH FOR 2020

If wishes were fishes I'd swim fast away to far off exotic isles and frolic with mermaids under the sea! Diving into waters unknown and discovering wonders to behold and exploring secret hidden caverns filled with pirate booty and vast other treasures! Every day would feel glorious. -- But that's not reality! Our seas are being polluted with plastics. The planet is dying from over-population. And let's not forget the fools in power who continue to deny climate change.

Tomorrow Jan. 2, the tree comes down, the cards are tossed and it's back to reality, real problems, and big continuing expenses; medical, dental, home maintenance etc...Wishing is as pointless as fishing in toxic algae-ridden waters.

Fortunately, one great and long overdue wish was fulfilled in 2019: An IMPEACHMENT!

There are no good guys in politics; all are dirty to a degree, but some more so than others. The current White House occupant is one of the filthiest, vilest, and most corrupt things ever to ooze out from a cesspool!

Those Republicans in Washington need to grow a spine and some balls -- which is doubtful! The way they grovel on their knees crawling behind Trump and licking his ass kowtowing makes me ashamed of my country! For someone who is supposedly innocent Trump sure acts guilty!!! -- Yet many would sell their souls to protect this piece of human excrement. 

Whomever the Democrats choose, that person will be my choice as well!

My wish for 2020 is that Don the con-artist, and wife Malaria, his former mistress and ex-porn actress along with the entire sleazy Trump family are thrown onto the dung heap of history and left to putrefy in their own slime. A fate well earned and deserved.

Unfortunately the noxious stench they leave behind will last forever.