Monday, May 14, 2018

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) Ok, I'm going to say it.  I think I'm getting paranoid.  Yesterday, after church, I drove from Huntsville to my mom's house to see her on Mother's Day.  While still in Huntsville, just as I'd turned from an access road to a highway, a white car got behind me.  I don't know why I noticed it, but I did, and it stayed close behind me. I didn't think much of it at first, because traffic was kind of heavy and I was behind a slow moving truck, but when traffic thinned out and I passed the truck, the car passed it too and stayed right on my bumper. I thought, "OK, this isn't weird yet, but I have to turn up here and the car probably won't be going the same direction."  I was wrong, I turned, the white car turned.  I thought again "OK, this probably isn't weird yet, I have to get into this turn lane. That car probably won't turn here."  Again, I was wrong.  The car followed me into the turn lane and onto the new road.  I thought that was odd, but once again, people live out that way, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility that this person knew someone on the road we were on, but they didn't turn anywhere.  They stayed right behind me. 

Now, the road to my mom's place gets more and more rural and spread out the farther you go, and unless you know someone, or go to the high school, driving out that way doesn't make sense.  The white car was still behind me at what I realized was the last reasonable place that person could be going without actually going to my mom's house and the car didn't turn off.  I decided that if this person was actually following me, I wasn't going to go to my mom's house, I'd go someplace public. I actually floored it and squealed (accidentally, I wasn't channeling the Dukes of Hazzard on purpose) away from the white car and down the road as fast as I could.  The car was still behind me.  I did a no-signal "bat turn" onto the road that I used to live on, which literally no one drives down unless they live there or are visiting someone who lives there, and thank heaven, the car didn't turn.  I kept driving until I made it to a gas station where a lot of people were and got gas while scanning the street ahead of me, just in case.

I'm not completely unreasonable. I know that the person could very well have family out that way, but it seemed so strange to have the same car so doggedly behind me the whole freaking way, when that drive was so very specific to where I was going. I kept thinking I had pissed someone off in traffic and they were going to have a road rage incident or something.  I was unnerved, but ultimately unharmed.  Also, I was kind of embarrassed, because...I mean...I could have been someone I went to high school with going to visit their own mother.  Oy.

Oh, and this morning as I was leaving for work, a black car that didn't belong on our street parked in front of some houses just up from us and just sat there.  So I sat there and watched them.  The people inside eventually got out, but I didn't know them or what they were doing.  My best guess is they are garbage pickers or the like, but I don't know. I should have taken pictures of them just in case, but it felt rude to do that. I'm, like, a pair of binoculars away from becoming Gladys Kravits, aren't I?  :)

Seriously, though, I've got to get it together.  I don't want to be a paranoid person.  There's this man at our church who is a paranoid schizophrenic, and he drives me ape-poopy because he's constantly asking me if he's going to jail or thinking that people are wanting to steal from his family.  If I devolve into that kind of mess, I need someone to kill me.  Not even kidding. Poison me, shoot me, hit me with a car, I don't care.  That is not the kind of life I want to live.

2) Steve and I had a fun Saturday.  He got a wild hair and asked if I'd go to Six-Flags Over Georgia with him.  As you know, I do not enjoy theme parks, but I said I'd go because...well, you do that kind of thing for people you like, I guess.  Also, we had a new Doctor Who audio series that we needed a long drive to listen to and that sounded like a good opportunity to do that.

I unexpectedly enjoyed myself, though. I'm still not a huge fan of theme parks, but it wasn't that crowded. The longest we waited to ride anything was about 30 minutes, that was because the ride had closed for a bit and was reopened in the middle of the day, so everyone who wanted to ride it got there at the same time we did.  We didn't spend the whole day there, because Steve has a season pass and will inevitably go back with his buddy a couple of more times this summer, so he didn't feel it necessary to do everything.  We rode a few rollar coasters and such and left.  It was hot AF though, and I made the bad decision to wear jeans. I don't really have casual shorts that fit, and I didn't think linen ones would fare well at a dirty theme park (plus they would look terrible with my walking shoes.)  So I was sweaty, but not angry about it like I usually am! Haha!

Afterwards we drove down to Senoia, Georgia, which is this neat little place where movies and TV shows are filmed.  I mean, it's a legit town, but lots of stuff has been filmed there because it's quaint or something.  Currently, it's where the set of (and you'll have to forgive me if I misspeak, because I don't watch the show) the walled town in The Walking Dead is located. I assume they still film there, because the set is there and they sell TWD merch in the stores on main street.  It was a very cool place, though, even beyond the sets.  Where we were there was a main street lined with shops that you could wander down and go in and out of.  I love places like that.  We ate at a very good Irish pub and left there.  Steve wanted to show me Pinewood Studios, which is where a lot of movies have been shot, and so we drove forever until we found it.  It's out in the middle of nowhere, but I suppose if you're going to have a massive 18 or 20 sound stage complex, then you need lots of room. It was very cool though, and since I'm fairly sure Thor (my imaginary Marvel boyfriend) filmed some scenes there, I was practically hanging out with him.  :) 

It was a nice day.

3) We had some vandalism at church the other day, unfortunately.  During worship services, someone drove into the parking lot, busted the windows of a couple of vans and stole some stuff out of them.  The weird thing is that the people who's cars were vandalised were from the same family (who was here celebrating the dedication of their baby.)  It isn't clear if their cars were targeted or not, but we did get footage of the car and people (although you can't see the tag, and the people weren't clear) who were responsible, so hopefully the ass-hats who did this will get caught.  One of the things stolen was a wallet (and no, I don't know why the wallet was in the car to begin with) and the dumbest thing the theives did was to take one of the stolen debit or credit cards to a grocery store a mile away and try to spend $1000.00 on gift cards which triggered the protection on the card to tell where the money was being spent.  The police have seen the footage and hopefully will catch the jerks who would do a thing like that.

I spent that afternoon combing security footage so that we could make copies for the investigator, as I am one of the few people who know how it works.  Do you know how boring it is to watch security footage of a church parking lot?  No?  It's pretty darn boring.  Now I just hope they catch the people resposible and make them sorry they'd do a dickish thing like that.  I wish I could find out who they are and...make them feel very, very bad for their actions in a non-violent, certainly non-vigilante type of way. 

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