Going Around in Circles

I imagine many commuters in this area who go to and from Providence have a Christmas wish this year for an easier drive home. Part of the new Henderson (aka Red) Bridge remodel opened with a new bridge heading into the East Side. The whole thing won’t be complete until 2025, they say. Opening night in November caused major headaches as drivers heading to the East Providence side tried to figure out the new rotary on that side of the bridge, made worse by the poor signage. There were too many people in the dark literally and figuratively trying to drive around a new roadway design with “no direction home” to quote Bob Dylan. Supposedly the signage is better now.

Rotaries make me nervous too, though I do OK on the one in Taunton. I hope that the new Rehoboth rotary they are working on at the intersection of Rt. 44 and 118 goes smoothly too. I’m sure we’ll all get used to it. That has always been a bad corner. But then so many intersections in New England are nerve-wracking. 

Whether you call them roundabouts, rotaries, or traffic circles, they do require special driving skills. I could never drive in England anyway (“wrong” side of road, roads are too narrow, I can’t drive a stick shift) but the endless series of roundabouts over there really settles the question. My favorite hair-raising examples are the double roundabouts where you get off one traffic circle and enter another one immediately.

Let’s hope things get straightened out soon with the new East Providence rotary. As far as rush hour goes, I hear the Washington Bridge is just as bad as far as traffic back-ups are concerned. Yet something needs to be done about the Henderson Bridge. It was apparently declared structurally unsound as early as 1996. That’s almost three decades of 20,000 cars a day driving over it!

Now imagine the traffic backups on bridges and add to that a certain four-letter word: snow.             I’ve never understood this yearning for snow at Christmas. The meteorologists on TV are constantly going on about it as if a snow-free Christmas will ruin the holiday. Yes, a couple of inches of snow (at the max) makes for a picturesque holiday scene but heavy snow only makes travel a misery, whether you’re flying or driving.

Another thing still going around in circles is Covid, which finally caught up with us at our house in November. I had a fairly mild case while my husband’s case was quite a bit more severe, requiring infusions of an antiviral drug. I believe that I had managed to get the latest booster shot at the right time (just dumb luck on my part). Though I was not terribly sick, I felt shaky, woozy, and exhausted, with the certain knowledge that something was wrong.

So glad this didn’t happen to us three years ago at this time of year. This particular variant is apparently even more contagious (oh joy!) but doesn’t target the lungs so much. I would encourage everyone who is at higher risk of serious illness to take precautions and get the latest Covid booster, especially as the holidays approach. If only getting the virus once guaranteed lifetime immunity!

Now that it’s December, it seems that it gets dark earlier every year, which is impossible. I don’t think I have a real case of SAD because I only start to get anxious around the early dark; the rest of the day seems all right to me. It’s always good to get outside mid-day this time of year especially when the sun is shining. There is actually no one “earliest sunset” day this month. There is a week or so when the sun sets at 4:14 and this year that week is Dec. 4-12, according to a sunrise/sunset table for this location.

So, by the time the winter solstice arrives on Dec. 21, the afternoon light is getting longer already, however gradually. The latest sunrise isn’t until the first week of January, but that doesn’t concern me so much. The reason for this is that Earth has an elliptical orbit, speaking of going around in circles. I don’t know why I find this information so uplifting, but just knowing that we’re already at the darkest evenings of the year means more light is already on the way. Happy Holidays!