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The Sleazy Side of Small City Ride Sharing

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Reposted from my Medium page . Follow me  @kcudd .  My family and I travel quite a bit, which means we frequently find ourselves piled into a car with a ride share service of one kind or another. Lyft is our preferred provider but of course we have taken rides in Uber and tons of other local services in cities that restrict access to the major players.  Image by  carlos pereyra  from  Pixabay For the most part, ride share drivers care about their rider’s experience. They keep a clean car. They adjust the temperature to suit your comfort level. They engage in polite converstation, or not, depending on your preference. In bigger cities, we almost always have a great ride during which we feel safe and comfortable. That is not the case in the small city where we live. Many of the the drivers here don’t give a crap about rider experience.  We have had dangerous, disgusting, awkward and horribly smelling rides in and around South Bend, Indiana, where we currently reside. So awful have
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4 Years Today: 10 Things My Dad Would Totally Dig in 2019

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Today is the day that I mark the loss of the first most important man in my life. I know it's trite to say this but man, I can't believe it's been 4 years. I sure have come a long way in this journey we call grief. From barely being able to get out of bed, so heavy I was with sadness, to today, where for the most part I have smiled in his memory. Of course, I have shed a few tears. I always will. But above all, today I feel so completely full of gratitude. For having him as a dad, for all the time we did spend together, for having the fortune of taking care of him when he was preparing to go, and for being there by his side when he took his last breath. Gifts, each and all. But enough of that. I'm going in a different direction entirely this year as I gather us together to remember my Dad. I've been thinking lately about all the things we would be talking about if he were still here. There are so many things that he would be totally all about in the year 2019
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Three Years Today

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I knew this day was coming. It looms large in its approach each year. But this year, the third, was different. Even until yesterday I thought I would get through it more upbeat, more positive, more grateful than the two years before. Riding on a big emotional high will do that for you. We just got back from a long weekend celebrating the marriage of two people we hold so dear. It was, hands down, the most spectacular event I've ever had the pleasure of attending. Set on the stunning Amalfi coast. Surrounded by family. Forging new friendships with people who span the globe. Communicating without words when our languages didn't allow for conversation. Eating and drinking like royals. And, best and highest of all, witnessing the union of a couple whose love and appreciation of life and generosity to others knows no bounds. Simply put, magnifico! Prior to that I got to spend a little time with my mom and step dad, who came all the way up to our new home in Indiana to take
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How to Reduce Your Preschooler to Tears

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If you've already survived the "Terrible Twos" and the wrath of a typical "Threenager" than you know how charming it can be to experience impressively violent fits of utter frustration and melodrama more suited for Shakespeare than the stage of your life. Our youngest is one month shy of four years old and let's just say that he is going out of this particular phase with an Earth (and ear drum) shattering bang. It's become incredibly easy to reduce him to tears, shouts, tantrums, and stomps. Just when things seem to be coming to a calm and peaceful state, we are sidelined by an over the top reaction to a most mundane action. Such as: -Cutting his fried egg into bites before he sits down at the breakfast bar. This is, apparently, only acceptable after the back end hits the barstool. -Leaving the bed (the one he far too indiscreetly climbed into for the 8 millionth night in a row) before he wakes up and dare to attend to your older child who has
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Soft to Hard in Cycles

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I lay in bed with our youngest one recent lazy morning. As he smiled around his sucked soggy thumb I noticed how it remains pudgy, despite his all too quick escape from toddlerhood. All of his digits still a bit stumpy and soft in that delicious baby-like way. I cupped my own increasingly spindly fingers around his plump sweet cheek and wished for one satisfied moment that all could stay just this way for more than the usual little while. The elder, three years and a lifetime beyond the smaller, won't cuddle unless unconscious. His curves, in contrast, have stretched and lengthened leaving sharp points and broad expanses in their place. All elbows and knees and an inexplicable sharpness that pokes and prods. When you manage to wrap your arms around him for a brief and short lived hug, he wriggles and winds his way out, escaping with a prick and a stick. And then there's my own. My form, previously tight and poky in all the right places. Hip bones, once evident, lay well
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That's Why We Have to Move

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My first born, a first grader, had his last piano lesson yesterday with a teacher we were so very fortunate to find. This last lesson with his first piano teacher kicked off a series of "lasts" for him as we prepare to move very far away in two short weeks. This teacher, sweet as could be, showered him with stuffed animals and hugs and we said our goodbyes cheerfully enough. We would miss one another, but he would email her. They would keep in touch. A couple hours later, out of the clear blue, my baby boy dove into my lap head first bawling to beat the band. I figured he was tired and fighting with his brother. But no. He said he was going to miss SMU, the location of his lessons the last two semesters. What he meant was he was going to miss her. And the place. And everything else he was just realizing he was leaving behind. Once the valve was opened, he could scarcely keep his composure. He sniffled through teeth brushing and wiped his eyes while pulling on his p
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The Big Bathe

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My partner, my husband, my man. He's been living far away from us going on four weeks now. We're all still together, it's not like that. We're just physically apart temporarily. Until the rest of us move up there with him. This solo parenting gig has been hard, y'all. On all of us. Place a big ol' major remodeling cherry on top and naturally, things begin to give. I've definitely made some tweaks to the daily grind of our family life. I eat standing up most meals and the boys go to bed with dirty bottomed feet most nights. Balls are being dropped but we're keeping our heads afloat. And we're happy. Optimistic. But we aren't without new challenges and problems. Motherhood in general has readjusted my standards for personal hygiene. Long gone are the days of daily showers, much less luxuriously long ones. Lately with the all these extra duties i.e., things I'm doing that my partner would be doing if he were here, have seriously pushe
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