Said loudly to a co-worker:
"Those antibiotics are really making my stomach hurt."
*Today is Sophie's 1st birthday. (I wish I had a picture of her I cold post.) It's hard to believe it's been a year. She's such a delight to have around. Who knew having a niece could be so great? (And now, only 2 birthdays left until birthday season is over in my family.)
*My sister is graduating from Louisiana Tech tomorrow. Congratulations, Rachel. Believe it or not, you'll probably miss school next fall.
*After writing about my neighbors (who moved the crashed truck yesterday), it looks like I'll be moving (again!) soon.
*It is incredibly rude to go into someone else's office to do business with them, then answer your cell phone every 10 minutes and take care of other business.
*No matter how I tried to convince myself that Mondays and Fridays are just like all the other days, I still really dislike Mondays and love Fridays.
The entrance into my apartment complex is located in one of the most traffic-congested areas in town. Coming and going has to be planned around the time of day and how long it will take to exit the parking lot. I'm trying to work on my roadrage. Many times, as I come home from work, I have to sit through seven or eight traffic light cycles as I inch towards the entrance. "This is it," I think. "I'm going to be able to turn in this time." But no. "Please pull up just a bit! That's all it would take!" I say aloud to the person in the car ahead of me, knowing they are oblivious to my pleading. "Oh well, this is good" - I go back to conversing with myself inaudibly - "I can work on my patience." "Don't call them names. They're not doing this to irritate me...it sure seems like they are though."
I finally reach the entrance. Another driver cuts the corner, almost running into me. "Pay attention!" I tell them (out loud again). Then I see that truck. It's been sitting there for months: a red Ford that has obviously been in a terrible accident. The natural first reaction to seeing the truck is hope that whoever was in it survived - it's that bad. It's absolutely crushed. Though the first reaction is kind and sympathetic, months of seeing it everytime I turn in, has made me hate it. "It's so ugly," I think. "Please take it to the dump! What will people think of me when they see what kind of trash I live around?"
I continue driving. Small, unsupervised children are playing in the middle of the traffic areas. Older kids are teasing younger ones as their mothers are preoccupied with telephones and cigarrettes.
I pull into my parking space. The 15 men who live a few doors down (and apparently have no jobs, since they always seem to be standing outside by the door) watch me unlock my door and go in.
Ahh. Peace and quiet.
For a minute.
From inside my apartment, the noise seeps in: screaming children; someone honking the horn rather than knocking on a door; someone either assuming that everyone else wants to hear his music or is trying to impress us with his bad speakers; What? Is that an accordian? Yes. Someone is learning to play the accordian. Who knew people did that? Across the parking lot, a car alarm is going off, a competing stereo is blaring, and someone is working on his car which has a squealing belt. So much for peace.
Loving my neighbors is not an easy task. So many times it seems like people are blocking the entrance, leaving their crashed vehicles in plain sight, making noise and learning to play the according as a personal affront to me. Loving neighbors seems so easy in a Platonic way - we borrow a cup of sugar, maybe an egg, smile and wave as we head off to work - these people are supposed to be mere accessories to my life, right?
So many times, I've told myself that "love your neighbor as yourself" has not my physical neighbors as the object of my love, but my rommate and co-workers and my fellow church members and other people I encounter daily. Of course, that's part of it (and it's not easy, either), but I've failed to realize that by "neighbors," my actual neighbors are included. No one is learning to play the accordian to pester me (though he may be doing it to bother someone else). That truck is not parked there for the purpose of annoying me. Children aren't screaming to make my headache worse. God knows I need to learn to be kind. And patient. And humble. And charitable.
These neighbors have made an impression on me - for better or for worse. I never thought about the fact that I make an impression on them too. Rather than being the kind, Christian girl a few doors down, I'm probably the snobby, selfish girl who never speaks to anyone. I really need to work on loving my neighbors. I guess that's why God put me in this place that I never would have moved into if I had known how loud the neighbors are.
I had to rent a particular movie yesterday for a project I'm working on, so I went to my friendly neighborhood blockbuster. I've always wondered what kind of jobs were available to heavily tattoed and pierced people with black fingernails other than the obvious jobs: convenient stores, tattoo parlors, roadcrews (no offense to people with excessive tattoes - I'm just calling it like I see it) - anyway, there are some pretty scary people working at the blockbuster. But that's not my complaint...
Why must I pay nearly 5 bucks for a 5 year old movie? I know, I know: I get to keep it for a week. I don't want it for a week!! I'd like to have the choice of paying less money and keeping it for a shorter time. I can't think of many circumstances where I'd need to rent a video for a week. If I liked it that much, I'd just buy it (which, if I was going to rent it more than twice, I'd be better off just buying it anyway).
You may say I should just go to a different video store, but my only other options are the Movie Gallery inside Walmart and that would require going into Walmart - twice - once to rent it, once to return it. Plus they only have about 12 movies to chose from. There's also National Video, but I don't have an account there and whenever I think about renting a movie, I don't want to spend the time to get an account. I guess I'm lazy...but I still hate blockbuster.
*People keep asking me why I don't blog much anymore - well it's either because I'm too busy or I don't care enough.
*I've nixed the idea of a party this weekend. Sorry. Good times to come later.
*Friends is finally over. Could I be any happier?
*More AAPC softball tonight! I'm happy the season has started. I love going out for the games.
Last year, when Emily and I had our huge Cinco de Mayo fiesta, we made all sorts of signs en español using babelfish. Of course when Micah started posting comments on my blog in spanish, I was reminded of the babelfish, since my year of highschool spanish is long-gone from my brain and I could only pick up a bit here and there. The really fun thing about babelfish is that you can type something in, translate it into spanish, then translate the spanish back into english and it totally changes the meaning. For example, in my comment to Micah, I wrote, "just what I was thinking," but after translating and un-translating, it came out, "hardly what I was thinking." Makes you sympathetic towards the people who end up on engrish.com.