Mon the 15th of Mar – Road Rage

(TomTom)Tim’s becoming an old fart. Just because I programmed him to warn me when I exceed the speed limit does not give him the right to tell me off every 5 minutes. Back off Tim! So what if I like putting the pedal to the metal a little harder than usual? He even has Dad siding with him. Yep, my honeymoon period with Tim’s definitely over…Thankfully I don’t suffer from road rage but surprisingly (Yes. Really!) I do spark it in fellow drivers. Not many but enough to wonder how “little polite me” can ignite such fury in others. Today, I was minding my own business or at least thought I was, when the guy behind me, who just suddenly (Yes. Honestly!) appeared out of nowhere, started shouting muted profanities at me through his window as he overtook me. He looked really mad and menacingly raised his hand at me. Fortunately Italians don’t give you the middle finger (now that would be totally unacceptable) so I just felt like a really naughty kid about to get a good spanking.

I stay pretty relaxed when others go crazy but since I am open to feedback (I am after all a new driver) it’s a real shame we couldn’t pull over and have a constructive conversation on how to improve my and/or his driving skills…I can’t say Dad agrees. As soon as others start yelling, he seems to take it as a personal affront on my behalf and vociferates just as animatedly in response. It’s a pity only Mom and I have the privilege of hearing his infallible argumentation.

Mar’s condition is stable but it’s not improving yet. The doctors are again discussing a different treatment. There doesn’t seem to be a standard protocol so it’s still trial and error. In the meantime, she now also suffers from high blood pressure and her legs are so swollen that they’re painful to the touch. She says her feet look like elephant stumps and she hobbles instead of walks. She was allowed to leave the hospital yesterday and today for a few hours. Since she can’t walk for very long, we picked her up in the wheel chair again. Even though we’ve been through worse, it was still a harsh deja-vu. Mara has many moments of depression but there’s still a lot of fire in that girl and that will pull her through this.

This afternoon, she was pretty chatty and yapping away about one thing and another. In mid-sentence she just stopped and was suddenly distracted by the headlines of the newspaper Dad purposely shoved in her face. They weren’t at all riveting but serve as an example to illustrate where her interests clearly still lie. Lesson number one in an effective “Mara diversion tactic”. When in conflict, always keep a current affair up your sleeve ready to be quoted. It is guaranteed to get you out of any original argument you had with her. The only flaw in this almost perfect plan is that it is sure to catapult you into a whole different sea of political, socio-economic trouble.