Bread and Circuses

     It's been a bad week to be in my general vicinity, y'all. I have been in all of the moods (none of them particularly pleasant), and my patience has been non-existent. Old me probably would have apologized profusely to everyone for this, but perimenopausal me? The best I can do is an impression of my narcissistic ex (R.I.P.):      I'm sorry if your feelings were hurt.       Yeah, I'm not too sorry about that, either. Because honestly, I really, really need everyone to step up and do better. By everyone I mean: The woman in the parking garage at work who never looks in any direction before attempting to back into a parking spot. That's cool. I love that I got to have a near-death experience on my way into the office on Wednesday morning.  Every dude in a white damn pickup truck who doesn't feel like the rules of the road apply to them. Y'all can't act right, which just means I need to slow down even more as you ride my bumper in ...

      The elder generations of my family love a remote location. My grandparents Tierney relocated from Denver to North Platte, Nebraska when I was in junior high school. My aunt and uncle followed them out there, as did my mother, some years later. My dad bought a house on some land in tiny Weldona, Colorado a few years back. Apparently, something in our DNA clicks over at some point, and we all decide that we need to move somewhere that has absolutely dire winters, and also takes forever to get to. The winters last eight months and there's nothing to keep the snow from drifting into seven foot piles? Awesome! It's at least two hours to a major airport? Perfect!      All of this is to say I went to visit my family in their new digs (southeastern Iowa) last weekend. And from the moment I landed, I could not figure out my cardinal directions, and therefore spent three days basically lost amongst the rivers, streams, and corn fields of Iowa. My people did wel...