Scattershot

1. So sorry for the crabby post last night. I am really glad Lisa is going, and I'll be fine. :-) She is in the air right now (8:00 pm of the 30th) and won't land until 2 pm on their local time. She has been sick with a cold recently but it has proved to be a blessing. She felt too sick to worry!

2. Today's story #1
Equine Mayhem, or a story of mud, manure, and vicious animals.

If we were to compare each person's experiences between the hours of five and six this morning and judge them for the highest level of excitement I bet you all that I would win. Hands down. To begin with, probably most of you were still sleeping at that hour. :-) These days I'm up around five to take care of my horses and this morning was no different.

It all started when the culottes I normally wear were still in the laundry. I threw on one of my long Israel skirts and ran out the door.

I like being up so early in the morning, except that you can't see anything. I hate it especially after watching movies like The Fugitive or the Borne movies. Good thing Daddy taught me how to use my big Maglite flashlight as a weapon! I dare all Treadstone operatives or one-armed men to stand up to that!

The horses had decided not to come in from the pasture, which meant I had to go out to get them. In the dark. At least it's all wide open in the pasture- that way nobody can hide behinde trees and sneak up behind me.

I loaded my jacket pockets with carrots, grabbed a halter and lead and trudged out, flashlight in hand. Right where the pasture meets the barn area there is a mud hole. There must be 20 or 30 yards of it with no choice but to slog through. I slogged through and found the horses near the back end of the pasture.

Then the fun began. Mix muddy, wet weather, pitch blackness, four overly active horses, one nervous girl and several carrots and what do you have? Well...

All of them crowded around me- eager for carrots. As I passed them out one of the wretched animals bit me in a fit of ill-temper. I returned the favor with a hard wack to the head with just as much ill-temper. Then I put the halter on the pony and decided to ride him back. He is fairly short, so I can usually jump and slither onto him pretty quick. Only just as I performed the first half of this manuver and was drapped over his back the other horses took off. Naturally the pony took off too. And naturally he didn't want me to go along. So he bucked me off. Thankfully I wasn't too far off the ground to begin with and managed to keep my hand on the lead rope.

I decided to walk back.

Back through the mudhole we went. Slog, slog, slog... slop, slop slop. Now my skirt was six inches deep in mud, and suddenly my shoe came off. But with four jumpy horses in tow I was in no position to do anything about it. After I got the horses into the barn I shed my other shoe and headed back for the first in my stocking feet. In fact, though I did find it, I didn't bother to put them back on. Want to know one benefit of darkness? One can't see what one is stepping in, in one's stocking feet. :-) Now isn't that an edifying thought?

So, while you were all sleeping soundly in your warm beds (except Andrea of course) I was being bitten, bucked off, and generally attacked by mud and manure. Anybody want to trade jobs?

3. Story of the day #2
Nasty Lady at Work
I am loving this customer service thing. I love starting to recognize the regular customers- I even know a couple names, and will soon be able to match them with the items they always get. I enjoy bustling about doing a myriad little things, being cheerful with people, fixing hot chocolate on wet mornings, and endlessly ringing things up on the register. I might even eventually be able to decifer all the weird abbreviations on my register screen and have to stop whining for help from the nearest coworker. I am so happy!

But then, in the middle of my blissful existence steps the Nasty Lady. I've had some negative or slightly snobby input over the last few days, but thankfully no truly horrid 'scenes'. But today She came in. I rang up her order, and took her gift card to scan. Only it didn't scan. Run get the manager. Manager says O, just enter the number on the back. Said number is ninteen digits long. I enter it incorrectly two times before getting it the third. Then the customer looked at her receipt and informed me that I had given her the wrong coffee, merely pennies more in price. That was my fault, I admit, but now I was well and truly rattled. She compounded the problem by informing me in a nasty voice that she had told what she wanted four times. She wanted the different corrected. Guess what- can't do that after I ring up the order! Thankfully the manger was standing at my elbow.

Manager to Nasty Lady- Do you want me to give you back the extra eleven cents?

Yes she did (most emphatically) And look! Now my buzzer is going off and my soup is ICE COLD!

Manager- do you want the eleven cents in cash or back on your card.

YES I want it on my card! (DUH!)

Manager- do I still have your card? Nope, its in her wallet. She digs it out and continues talking about FREEZING soup. Meanwhile I had reliquished my position to the manager and stood in the corner, rattled to the core. The lady stormed off without her card to fetch her freezing soup and the manager procceded to re-type the ninteen digit code so she could add the eleven cents back on. Meanwhile she cussed the lady out under her breath, something I am sad to admit soothed my nerves more than it should have.

Sigh. The wonders of customer service. I suppose I'll learn to deal with them with more aplomb and less nerves, but you know what I really want? I want to learn to deal with them with more love. Maybe that lady had had a horrible morning or was depressed. Maybe her cat just died. Maybe she doesn't know if she's going to heaven or not. OR... maybe all excuses fail and it is just sheer carnal bad temper? Can I learn to love them even then? It is so easy to cuss people out under your breath or in your heart, but how do you get Christ's perspective on that individual soul- eternal, infinitely precious, loved by God?

Anyway, I am going to stop writing now. Tata.

Left Behind

Okay Guys, so if you hadn't already heard, Lisa is leaving on a jet plane tomorrow.
And you probably all noted the fact that I will not be on that flight.
So all along I have been pretty sure of my decision to stay on this side of the puddle. I mean, it wasn't all my decision anyway, but however it happened, here I am in the good ole US of A and happy to be here. I want to go back to Israel sometime, but I want to go when I'll enjoy it again. Right now if I went I would probably end up in multiple pieces and held together with a straight jacket.

Fine. So let Lisa fly away tomorrow. She's only one of my dearest and closest friends. She is only going to the spot in the world that I most love. She's only going for her third trip without me.

Houston, we have a problem.

As some great sage would say; "I HATE MY LIFE."

So you can all write nice goodbye notes to Lisa on her blog or e-mail. You can write me notes of condolence-kind of like the kind you would write to somebody who unexpectedly had to go in for open-heart surgery because half of it was ripped out and flown overseas.

Okay, okay. I am being a tad bit dramatic. But its been a long day full of new and interesting mistakes at work and very sore feet. I am tired and I really, really am dreading tomorrow.

I guess now I will have a chance to look at one of our Israel trips from everybody else's perspective. Sigh.

Praises Be!

Guess what Guys, I'm employed! At long last I have go me a job. Now you can all come visit me at the local friendly eating establishment where I work. Umm, not going to post the name here.

God was so good in working out what seems to be the perfect work situation for me. I am really looking forward to working with lots of people I don't know. I have met a few of them already and was favorably impressed. The hours are perfect- I am working part time but can do as many hours as I want. The weekly schedule is flexible, so if I need to take Grandma to an appointment I can notify them and switch days or something. They have plenty of college and high school students to work evenings and weekends, so I need never feel pressure to work on the Sabbath, or any other time I don't want to.

I am also starting work at slightly higher pay than normal because, get this, the manager was impressed with my volunteer experience. Hallelujah for Dining Hall Coordinating! :-)

I am so thankful and happy!

I start work on Monday morning around eight... hey!I might be in the running for earliest riser awards! I have to get up in time to take care of the horses for an hour, read my Bible, get ready for the day, and be at work at 8. What fun!
Anyway, come in sometime and I'll sell you yummy food. :-)

One More

Here is one more for you to guess... I think it should be fairly easy.

Hey, hey, it finally worked!

(I am not asking you to identifly the person, just the place)

NOT a New Photo

Okay, you were all right- the last photo was of the British Cemetery.

Here is Photo #2
Well, its taking forever to upload, so I'll talk while I'm waiting.

The local library has my been my home away from home these days. Every evening I take my laptop down to make use of their Wireless connection. I am working on a project (and hope to finish tonight) for my ESL certification. It involves hours of checking out ESL websites, sifting out the chaff, checking each one out, evaluating, categorizing, and labeling them. The end result should be a short listing of some of the best ESL websites. Not that I know much about it since I've taught a grand total of four hours in my entire existance.

Hmmm. something seems to have gone wrong with the uploading of that photo. Let me try again.

Taking forever again. Oh well, I can talk more...
Last week sometime I aquired a pair of boots at a consignment store. I had been eyeing them forever, trying to make up a good excuse to buy them. Mom came up from Georgia and we went thrift store shopping. I showed them to her, I recited my 'reasons' for needing them, she agreed, and now they are mine. I'll wear them down for the weekend get together so you can all see them. I call them my combat boots. :-)

Blast! WHY won't that silly picture upload? One more try.

Okay, so the reason I told you about the boots was because they led to an amusing situation in town today.
Background: Mom and Dad informed me recently that the clearest memories they have of my extreme youth had to do with my bumping into things and telling long boring stories liberally sprinkled with 'UMMMs' and 'ands'.

So as a result of thise early and uncorrected fault I still bump into everything. I can't go through a doorframe without hitting my watch on it, I sometimes trip on perfectly smooth surfaces or over my own feet, and I have cracked the back of my head on the ground because I was walking fast and flatfooted on ice.

I also pick up scuffs on the toes of my black combat boots for no apparent reason. These I actually have a hard time accounting for. Am I walking to close to the baseboards? Do I randomnly misplace my feet enough to kick white doors as I open them? Anyway, they don't come off. I can't come up with a preventative measure (stopping ingrained and unconscious habits of clutzy behavior is a major undertaking), so I need a good scuff remover.

I went to the Dexter shoe store in town to find one. A fairly normal individual told me they didn't have anything, but he thought lighter fluid should do the trick. Then his less than normal co-worker showed up. His voice was pitched rather high and had the most nasal sound I have ever heard! It was classic and I could hardly keep from laughing.

He agreed about the ligher fluid, grabbed a bottle of it and a paper towel and came around from behind the counter dumping some onto the towel as he went. He then procceded to kneel on the floor in front of me and spend a couple minutes scrubbing a white scuff off my shoe! He also continued to sing the praises of lighter fluid in his wonderful voice.

"Once I had paint on my car upholstery. Lighter fluid took it right out!" I mummur polite interest as he continues to scrub my shoe.

What an odd position to be in! What do you do? You can't really bend down to help, kick him to make him stop, or ignore him! His co-worker didn't seem to have anything better to do than hover around, peering at my shoe. That made three of us.

When he got done, I said thank you and walked out the door, barely containing my laughter until I got outside. But hey, the scuff mark is gone!

And the picture didn't upload. So all you get is a long, wandery story about essentially nothing. :-)