I’m becoming more curmudgeonly in my old age. Or maybe there’s just more stupid people out there.

What’s with the van that’s been taking up two places (the same two places) in the parking lot by work for the last 6 weeks? Assuming, after a month or so, that it had been abandoned, I pointed it out to TPTB. Oh, no… they knew all about it, and it was “OK.” Well… can it be OK in only one space? The lot isn’t all that big that there are tons of parking slot choices for the people who work around here. Move the damn thing.

And speaking of moving, what is with people that are not really in line (any line), but they are accompanying someone who is in line. And they want to chat, so they block the way of everyone who wants to get by. And by chatting they distract the person they are with who is in line, and that person never moves forward because they are oh so interested in what whoozies did with whatchamacallit last Tuesday in the rain.

And the single-threaded barrista drives me nuts. I don’t need a coffee drink. I just want to pay for my bagel. I can do that while the coffee drips and the milk steams, eh? Let’s be daring and do two things at once!

Then there are drivers who decide at the last minute that they’re in the wrong lane. Or use the shoulder to drive around a hold up because they’re too important to wait like the rest of us. Or start through a backed-up intersection without enough room to go completely through so that traffic going the perpendicular way cannot move when they get the green light.

My neighbor’s two 100′ douglas firs that are DEAD. Dead, I tell you! Although he is two houses down from me, those trees are tall enough to hit my house. And they will fall. It’s just a matter of time. A couple of months ago I pointed out to him that his trees were dead and needed to come down. “I’ll have to get a guy out to look at them,” he said. But I happen to know that a guy already looked at them, and pronounced them DEAD. If you’re reading this, cut them down already because somebody is going to get hurt — and it might be your kids.

OK… I’m feeling better now.

Now I’m off to the grocery store to buy (1) cat litter so that Phoebe, Captain Kidd and Moo Cow will remain happy and (2) stuff to make red beans and rice for my newly vegetarian son to take to school for lunch.

Am I the only one who finds this strange?

Here’s this country. It’s been invaded and overrun. Its leaders have been disposed and replaced by invader-controlled puppets. Rebels continue to fight the invaders from a base in one city. Because the local army and police force have been disbanded and not sufficiently replaced, the invaders fill that roll. Although “planned,” the odds that fair election will be held any time soon seem slim.

This isn’t already a state of emergency?

This isn’t already martial law?