The ride home

I decided to take the back roads home today to ensure I went to the chiropractor - because when I'm on the highway I am less likely to turn off and just postpone till the elusive 'tommorow' - and as I was driving I tried to get a piece of gum out of it's package and it SHOT out of the package, hit my side window and bounced under my seat. I laughed pretty hard almost driving into the ditch trying to reach for it. However, it was not accessible so no gum for me. I also will never try to get gum out of the package while driving again. Who knows where it will shoot up next, maybe in my eye or up my nose. That could be serious! As my laughter died down I turned the corner and think I saw a Pileated Woodpecker. It's hard to be sure since I mainly just saw it's silouette but it certainly was shaped like one & was the right size but I couldn't see the tell-tale red tuft at the top. Anyways, I think I breaked & yelled "Pileated Woodpecker" so the person behind me probably thought I was a nut ball - but a Pileated Woodpecker is like the Grand Canyon of bird-watching, if you get my meaning. I've only ever seen 1 before and that was at Camp Arnes in Gimli, Manitoba. I did the same - the yelling I mean since I was walking, not driving - and the worker that was there said 'oh, yeah, we see those all the time' like she was talking about making toast. I have rarely been more unimpressed with someone's apathy than at that moment. Rarely, I said, not never.
When I got to the Chiropractor's office I had an interesting conversation with my Chiropractor about taking your husband's name vs. not. He's very traditional and believes a woman should take her husband's name, luckily for him & his wife she believed the same. And his brother & sister-in-law took each other's name, in order to be equal, so each kept their last name but added the other's so they had 3 names. I think that I would likely keep my last name but it's not a make-or break kind of thing. I just think my first name is common enough so if my partner's last name was really interesting I might agree, but if it's a "Smith" (no offense to my Smith friends) or "Johnson" (I would want to avoid alliteration) I probably would not. But this is kind of like planning your retirement before you even have a job so not much point in thinking about it.