West Portal — Blog

So so sad

It is supremely tragic what happened at West Portal this past Saturday. A Mercedes-Benz SUV plowed into a family of four waiting at a bus shelter. The mom, dad, and one-year old son is dead. The youngest three-month-old baby is still in critical condition as of this writing. The driver of the Benz - a 78-year old woman - remains in custody.

A sad situation all round. An infant - god bless that he survives - is without his family. The 78-year old woman will have to live with the steep consequences for the rest of her life. She will be utterly shunned by the community if it turns out she was speeding/road-raging deliberately. Destroying lives over ego; that warrants a one-way trip to the gulags, in my opinion.

This episode is a reminder for my friends who are with new babies: get your life insurance and will in order. I know it is icky and unsettling to discuss death, especially when biologically it is still so far away (god willing). But for the sake of the children, how they get taken care of in the event of an unfortunate accident is to be prepared for now. All it takes is a rogue driver in a speeding SUV (allegedly) to upend your entire reality.

Because your death may not garner any sympathy points from the public to have a GoFundMe for your orphaned baby.

If you’re in the old lady driving a Mercedes-Benz demographic, your insurance rates are going up! That 78-year old woman did so much damage to limb and property that I don’t think even a five million umbrella policy will cover it all. I sure hope the two adult victims have a life insurance policy for the orphaned infant. Because I bet there’s not nearly enough juice to be squeezed out of the Benz driver’s insurance.

Not on a school night

Amongst my friends, I jokingly refer to weekday evenings as “school nights”. Not only do I have a set schedule of studies and practice to attend to, I also have to go to bed early. Not entirely because of work the next day, but because I prefer to wake up early and type out a few words on this blog. I guess you can say it’s a bit neurotic to force myself to such a routine. All I can say, is that it feels weird when I have to deviate from the schedule.

Such as last evening. Instead of eating dinner at home then commencing piano practice, I went out with some friends to a burger place at the main drag of West Portal. It was a particularly warm day so the ambiance was quite nice to be sitting outside and taking in the small town atmosphere. They’ve chained Christmas lights between the light poles so it was rather festive for a random February evening. The burger place was right next to a record store that constantly played music, adding to atmospheric flavor.

See, I’m not so strict with my routine that I can’t break it for these random excursions. The lost time for piano practice and reading can be easily made up later. Quality time with friends, that’s something to grasp at the first opportunity. I even thanked them afterwards for coming out of a school night. One of them is doing his doctorate program, so it actually was a school night for him. There was homework waiting soon as he return home. NERD!

I guess that’s why people adore Fridays so much. They can go out and deviate from their regular work-life schedule without a care. Friday nights are their proverbial oyster. As for me? I also have a set routine on Fridays: I visit my friend’s kids and have dinner at their home. Not all that exciting from certain perspectives, but it’s quality time with people I cherish nonetheless.