Hey, people!

Be safe & be careful!

As of today, Hawaii has the distinction of being the only state presently implementing a price cap on gasoline. Very bad timing. Prices will now be even higher than ever imagined since it's hinged on prices in the Gulf states, where refineries have been damaged by Hurricane Katrina. The gas station near my house was selling regular for $2.95. Surely will break $3.00 by tomorrow morning, tho nowhere near Georgia's $6.00.

Traffic has been worse than usual. Drivers seem to be taking out the stress they feel on their wallets on others on the road. This morning, in the light rain, we were all toodling along on the freeway at about 10 mph when I heard a screeech and three loud crunches. I watched in my rear view mirror as a large red pickup truck plowed his way across at three lanes of traffic at an angle, and came to rest a scant couple of feet before the median. It must've flown onto the freeway from an onramp, realized too late that it couldn't really go anywhere, then skidded in the rain and kind of just pushed the other vehicles out of the way.

The trip home was less eventful, but much longer. Took me just over an hour to travel 14 miles, and I left just before 6:00 pm! Thank goodness for my stash of mp3 CDs and the beeeautiful rainbows along the way. (At the speed we were traveling I could stick my head out and gaze at the rainbows.) I had the windows and sunroof open (no, I didn't stick my head out of there), music blasting, and didn't even mind the slight drizzle. When traffic finally opened up a few miles from my home, people started behaving badly: overtaking on shoulders, speeding up to cut others off, basically releasing their pent-up frustrations over the past hour or so.

After the ridiculously long drive, I decided to treat myself to a barbecue chicken plate (no rice, extra veggies) at the mall, but, wouldn't you know it, there was no parking. Didn't feel like walking from one end to the other, so just took my cute little car home. Which is what others should do. There are way too many of us on this island..